The Impossible Theft
The "Super-Duper Component Vault" was, in Holt's professional opinion, a joke. The door was a garish chrome affair with a spinning, multi-colored laser grid that served no purpose other than to look impressive on camera. It was security through obscene theatrics.
He was about to input Orion's illegally borrowed access code when the blaring alarm cut through the hallway. Red lights strobed. The vault door was already wide open.
Inside, HRA security and a very angry man in form-fitting silver armor—Apex, Holt recalled—were staring at an empty pedestal. The Chroniton Crystal was gone.
"Impossible!" a technician wailed. "The quantum lock registered zero tampering! The laser grid was undisturbed! It's a ghost!"
Apex turned, his gaze sweeping the room like a targeting laser. It landed on Orion, who had just arrived, trying to look stoic but mostly looking like he needed a bathroom.
"Castor," Apex sneered. "Here to bask in the failure of a system you so effortlessly mock with your mere existence?"
Orion opened his mouth, but Holt cut him off, his voice a reedy pipe in the chaos. "The lock wasn't tampered with. It was obeyed."
Everyone looked down at the child. Apex's eyebrow twitched. "And who is this? Your… angrier son?"
"I'm his logistical consultant," Holt deadpanned, ignoring the vein throbbing in his own forehead. He pointed to the vault's control panel. "See the log? Not an 'access denied.' A 'requisition approved.' Code 7-B."
"That's a Catastrophe-Level Resource Reallocation form!" the technician sputtered. "It requires a Gold Badge biometric and a director's signature!"
Holt held up a datapad he'd already hacked. On it was a scanned Form 7-B. The requester's badge was Orion's. The signature was a lopsided, digitally-scrawled smiley face.
Apex snatched the pad. "This is an insult. A child's drawing."
"Precisely," Holt said, a grim smile on his lips. "The culprit didn't need to break the rules. They just needed to understand that nobody in this building actually reads them. They treated your highest security protocol like a permission slip for a field trip. And your system…" he kicked a stray, sentient-looking paperclip that was trying to climb his shoe, "...just signed it."
He looked at Apex, whose face was a thundercloud of dawning, humiliating understanding.
"The culprit," Holt concluded, "is someone who knows this bureaucracy better than you do. And they're building an army."