128 (Operation Armageddon: Book 1)

Chapter Nine: The Rescue Operation | Part 3

"Don't forget that the creatures aren't far from us," Matthew said before he pulled the safe open.

"By the way, what was the code you entered?" Daniel asked curiously, wondering why she would be able to guess the passcode correctly in spite of the 10,000 possibilities.

"1-2-8-0," Emma revealed.

"1-2-8-0.... So it was like a reference to that AES-128 substance?" Daniel questioned further.

"Yeah. It was a random guess, but apparently, it happened to be it," Emma nodded, still rejoicing.

Meanwhile, the safe door moved outwards to reveal a single key sitting inside, which puzzled the detectives.

"A key? What is with this thing about keys?" Daniel questioned himself, wondering why keys kept appearing to them in the past few days.

"It's Yael," Emma declared vaguely.

"What's Yael?" Liam questioned, who was just as confused as Ben and Jane were.

"Yael Technologies Corporation. It's a large organisation. It comprises smaller subsidiaries—Yael Agriculture, Yael Biology, Yael Construction, Yael Digital, and Yael Environment. As the name suggests, the company originated in Israel but is based here in America," Matthew explained.

"But what do you mean by 'It's Yael", Emma?' Daniel questioned, turning to look at her.

"It's a classic Yael technique. It's not uncommon for them to lock people in and hide the keys somewhere...." Emma explained, guilty of doing what she had just said back at the manor.

"But why would they do that? Why would they leave keys for you guys to find? Keys that lead to places that they don't want you to access?" Jane questioned.

"Well, their motives can be pretty hard to understand," Emma answered. "But if I'm being honest, I think they're taking advantage of our common weakness as police officers. And that is that we will always try to save everyone. In this case, they intentionally let us know that we can find the key, this key, to the locked room that Mr. Palmer is in, which will deter us from leaving. Thus, it will prolong our time here, increasing our chance of getting killed by the creatures here whilst attempting to rescue Palmer."

"That makes sense now," Daniel nodded in agreement. "It's always been like that. Letting everyone search for escape materials in the Allentown precinct allowed people to die more quickly by running into danger. Making us turn against each other and creating our own demise by shooting our captain eventually caused us to form the very creature that would hunt us down. And inserting an insider to attack during our weak spots while we searched for the keys to get us out—," he explained before stopping abruptly at the end.

Emma looked down for a moment. She relived the guilt once more the moment that Daniel mentioned her work as an "insider". To her, it was a reminder that the detectives might have forgiven her, but they would never forget what she had done. And her actions were things that none of them wanted to remember.

"I-I'm sorry, Emma. I didn't mean to—," Daniel apologised, although he got cut short.

"Don't be," Emma interrupted, although she seemed clearly upset. "After all, I'm the one who owes everyone an apology for the rest of my life, aren't I?"

"Let's not get caught up with the past. I'll keep the key for now," Matthew said as he grabbed it from the safe and slipped it into his pocket. "I think we can leave this place now and go back to the back exit to get Palmer out."

The detectives and students nodded their heads as Matthew pushed the door open slowly again. "We'll have to be very quiet again," he warned, whispering.