Cassie was told the run down by Larson and they were waiting to enact their plan. They watched as the last of the workers left out of the building.

“Okay, there should only be a few janitors left inside, one of them always comes out before their shift start and smokes for five minutes. When he shows up we bolt inside so we don’t have to touch anything.”

“Wow, you got this all thought out don’t you?” Larson said nothing to Cassie's comment and just kept looking at the door and after ten minutes went by they saw the door open.

They waited for the man to come out and once he was out of the way, they went inside right behind him and found themselves pressed behind a column as they waited to be sure they weren’t heard. Once they didn’t hear anything, they decided to go out and see where they needed to go.

“Alright, now from here I’m not sure what we should do.” Larson admitted.

“Well we can always just wing it.”

“Sounds like a long shot for you.”

“Come on, let’s just start looking around.” Cassie went off and found an escalator that was turned off, they went up it and found a map of the building at the top. “So if we’re looking for the research center… where do you think that would be?”

Larson stared at the map for a while, he looked it over several times before he marked off a few places.

“I’m not sure, but let’s try near the launch pad down here, then we should split up and take the two data rooms on the third floor.”

“Okay!” Cassie moved to find the launch pad room.

Larson turned and watched as she went around several times but wound up turning right back at the map. She looked to Larson after a bit.

“Are you lost?” He said, she gave him a small smile. He rolled his eyes and took her wrist dragging her in the right direction. “Hopefully you can find the data room better than this one.”

“Maps confuse me!” Larson let her wrist go as they stood in front of the room.

“Yeah, because turning one hallway was so hard to do.” Cassie mocked him before looking to the door as he did. It was locked and the only way was through a key system. “Since you said you don’t know how to do that, I’ll just do it.”

“Do what?” She asked.

Larson touched the back of his hand to the lower part of the device, Cassie watched as small electrical shocks touched the metal. Eventually, there was so much the machine malfunctioned and the door moved to open. “Woah…” Cassie said as Larson got up. “What’d you do?”

“I told you we can manipulate waves and as Jax said, electrical waves are one of them. We are still human so we have small electrical pulses in our brain. I just move them to my hand, or wherever I want them, and they come out if it’s strong enough.”

“That’s so cool! I wanna try that!” Cassie held her hand out, Larson forced her hand down.

“Do that shit some other time, and stop talking so loudly!”

She puffed her cheeks and crossed her arms as they went inside and found a large room with six rows of computers. They went to the main one and found that it was off and once again needed a key in order to turn on.

“This thing has to be protected by a password. Even if we get whatever we need to turn it on I bet it’ll have a password blocking us.” Larson nodded to her reasoning.

“Then we’ll split the job, you try and look for anything that could resemble a password and I’ll look around for the key.” Cassie nodded and they both left out to do their part.

Cassie looked all over the office she had found, in hopes that the office belonged to someone important. She opened the drawers with a pen and dug through all of it, but tried to be sure she didn’t leave it disturbed. After checking all of them, she wound up sighing as she couldn’t find anything. Besides, my eyes hurt reading all this small text. Cassie suddenly stopped when she heard the door opening, the keys stopped moving and the door opened to an empty room.

The janitor was humming something as she went through and mopped the floor. Cassie thought to get out before she was spotted, but she opted to stay and instead just decided to hide out and stay as quiet as she could. Cassie watched as the janitor cleaned around her backing up to the door. She walked right back to where Cassie was and she could hear what the janitor was listening to, Crazy on emotion? Eventually the woman got to the door and put the mop back into the bucket leaving Cassie in the room alone once more. She got out slowly and returned to the desk.

“I did see something, but I didn’t think to read it fully.” Cassie said while she found the papers and scanned them over. None of it made sense, but she figured that meant it must have been a password. Cassie smiled and approached the door trying to hear if the woman was still out there. When she didn’t hear her, she went out and tried to find the computer room again.

Larson looked everywhere and found several keys that all didn’t match the lock they found at the desk. He was beginning to get tired and figured to just destroy the lock, he sighed knowing that wasn’t smart.

“Where would I hide a key if I knew how important it was… and I was a human?” Larson then turned around and saw the clear case beside him. It was a model of the universe, he touched it before rolling his eyes. He went back into the room he was in and found the large mouse pad that was decorated with the same universe model. He lifted it up and found a small piece of paper with a phrase written on it. Is this the password? He shrugged and decided to take it before he looked inside the desk and found the key he was looking for.

Larson then left the room and ran into Cassie as she had returned the same time he did.

“Hey, I think I found the password.” She said.

“No I did.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was actually in that room,” He held up the sticky note.

“There’s no way. I almost got caught for nothing?”

“I’m not even going to ask, but just keep whatever you found in case this doesn’t work.”

“It’s gonna work, I always wind up doing more than I needed to.”

Larson chuckled, “Maybe it’s the world’s way of compensating for how naturally talented you are.”

“Aw, you think I’m naturally talented?”

“Well I found the key too, let’s see if there’s anything on that computer.”

“Hey answer me!”

Larson continued to ignored her and went back to going inside of the computer room. He went to the main computer and put the key inside, before he turned it Cassie stopped him.

“What?”

“What if it sends a record of it being turned on now?”

He shrugged to her concern, “Even if they do they won’t know who did it.” Cassie was a bit worried, but she let Larson do what he wanted and the computer booted on. The screen read that they needed a password. “Okay, let’s try this one.” Larson typed the password on the sticky note. “Incorrect?”

“Ha, move aside, let me use my deduction skills and try this password!” Cassie went over the keyboard and typed the password she found only for it to say it was incorrect. “Maybe I’m just typing too fast and put it in wrong.” Cassie assured herself and continued to type the incorrect password. Meanwhile, Larson took the papers she had.

“What do you think it is?”

“Oh, well those records are pretty pointless, it’s just a string of numbers that I don’t think mean anything-- fuck that’s wrong too?-- but uh, you’ll notice that the string of numbers at every new line it goes one, two, three and so on-- come on, that was right that time!” Cassie was typing each key while saying whatever she was typing aloud.

Larson followed what she was saying until he noticed another pattern, “Oh,” He went beside Cassie, “Stop trying,” She looked to him, “You’re right, but if you look at the middle numbers you’ll notice that it goes one, one, two, two, so try every other letter.” Cassie nodded and did as he said, she hit enter and the password was accepted.

“Seriously?" She looked to Larson, "I’m still taking credit for that.”

“This isn’t a competition.” Larson went to the computer and began to type what he thought he was looking for. They looked at the screen and took in the information on the screen.

“So… does this mean they have seen things like us?”

Larson smirked, “Seems so.” The screen showed pictures of unidentifiable figures as well as records that told when they were shot. “This means that the research of Jax’s grandfather is creditable.”

“What do you mean?” Larson stood normally.

“In one chapter he talks about how we’ve been spotted way before his time, but obviously after his as well. One thing in particular he noted was that fifty years before we were born someone like us was spotted by some kind of organization, he cited that he couldn’t name the cooperation, but he could talk about what they saw.” Larson moved and showed her the picture of a blurry figure, “The date on this picture is from fifty years ago.”

“So that means we gotta get Jax’s stuff.”

“Damn right, we’ll be that much closer to understanding what we are.”

Cassie giggled and moved to go up the stairs, “I’d say this was a mission gone good!”

“I would like to explore those data centers, but we’ll get locked in here if we don’t leave soon. We took too long just trying to get in here, but it was still good either way.”

“So me being here is a good idea?”

“Shut up,”

Cassie pouted to him, Larson grabbed her face and pinched her cheeks hard, “Ow!”

He let go, “You’re always looking for some kind of approval from me. Accept that fact that you didn’t screw us almost getting caught and move on.”

She rubbed her face, “fine.”

“Okay, let’s get out of here. We only have twenty minutes so be sure you didn’t leave anything and be sure things don’t look disturbed.” Cassie nodded and soon they were heading back out into the hallway and just as Larson planned, the last janitor was about to leave and lock the door. Larson quickly went over and knocked something over, alerting the Janitor to look there.

“What the hell was that?" The janitor took out his flashlight and went over to check out what was knocked over. Larson and Cassie squeezed out and went back behind the building where they recouped.

“Alright, so now we’ll just be waiting for Jax!” Larson said nothing, “Oh, wait what planet was that on?”

“It actually said Pluto.”

“Yes!” Larson narrowed his eyes at her, “Don’t look at me like that. I liked the planet Pluto as a kid. So I’m excited to get to go on it.”

“Yeah, but first we gotta see if we’re even able to do so.” She nods, “But let’s go home for now.” Cassie nodded and they took off back to Larson’s place.

...

Once they got back, they just calmly walked down the street to his place when that same dog from the day before began to bark at them. Cassie smiled at it.

“Who’s dog is that?”

“Don’t know and don’t care. The thing pisses just me off as it keeps barking whenever I come home.

“Oh, I think it’s because dogs are really intune with the spiritual world and stuff, so maybe he thinks we're like invaders or something.”

“Whatever it thinks it needs to do so elsewhere.”

“Maybe we should take it in.”

“Why?”

“It’s so cute, why not?”

“I’m not taking care of it and I bet your parents won’t take that thing so no.” Cassie pressed her lips together before getting the dog and bringing it into Larson’s place. “You piece of shit! Get that thing out of my house!”

“See he-” Cassie lifted it up and checked between its legs, “Yeah, he likes you!” The dog looked around for a bit before looking to Cassie and biting her arm. “Oh, he must be pretty young. See, he’ll be easier to take care of!”

“I don’t care, get rid of it!”

“I’m not going to, since I have to stay over I want him here.”

Larson sighed loudly, “You seriously can’t be anymore annoying.”

Cassie brought the dog to cover her face and spoke in a mocking voice, “You seriously can’t be anymore annoying.” Larson growled at her, the dog began to whine. Cassie brought it into her lap and she rubbed his back. “I’m sorry, he’s kind of scary but you’ll get used to him soon enough.”

“Yeah once I kill it and tell you he ran away.” Cassie covered the dog’s ears before speaking to Larson.

“I do have a reason why we should have him.”

“To piss me off most likely.”

She laughed, “That’s a bonus.” Larson sat down, “No, he was barking at this place and us, but the other day he wasn’t barking when I saw him so that must mean he can tell beings like us as well as rifts. We should keep him so we can know where rifts are easier.”

“We still have to take care of it.”

“He's a stray, he was pretty much taking care of himself. All we have to do is feed him and be sure he’s clean and that’ll be that!” Larson stared at Cassie and the dog as she played with his paws.

“Fine, we’ll keep the damn dog.” Cassie smiled, “But only if you walk it. That way I’ll be able to get you over here easier.”

Cassie nodded, “I’m fine with that.” Cassie nuzzled the dog, “I think his name should be Roman!”

“I don’t really care. He has fleas and shit so I’ll go out and get some dog soap and you’re cleaning that thing tonight.”

“See? He really cares about you. He just doesn’t know how to show it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Don’t repeat that, it’s a bad word!” The dog barked at Cassie and resumed biting her arm.

…

Larson eventually came back with the dog soap as well as a small bed for the dog, though when he did his ears were filled with music that sounded dated. Cassie was bumping her head to it while she petted the dog in her lap.

“What are you listening to?” Larson asked dropping what he brought on the table.

Cassie turned and paused the song, “Oh, it’s called Eurobeat. The janitor who almost caught me was listening to something and I wanted to hear it. This stuff is actually pretty good.”

Larson just stared at her, “You have me at a loss for words.”

“Whatever, did you get the soap?” He threw it to her, Cassie caught it and got up along with the dog, “He should be pretty easy to clean since he’s tired, but once we're done it's bed for us both.” She said to the dog.

Larson sat on the couch, “You better clean up that water once you’re done.”

“I will!” He then heard the door close and was finally given the chance to breathe.

“So I guess our next plan is to find some place to see how far we can jump… it’ll only go from here.”