14. Diamond Relieved (1/2)
highway to the danger zone -- chapter fourteen
diamond relieved
squall waited nervously, the girl on the desk was still talking, luckily she seemed to be one of those people that found talking easy, and liked filling the silence. squall nodded along with her words, agreeing whenever she paused, but his attention was all on the earpiece, and it's worrying silence.
"would you excuse me for a moment," squall said thinking fast. "i need to use the bathroom."
the girl stopped talking and switched back into helpdesk mode. she pointed him in the right direction and then returned to her work.
meanwhile quistis' computer was freezing on her, the combination decoder was spinning the same numbers over and over. desperately she tried all sorts of key combinations until she seriously considered pulling the plug out the socket, and starting again.
her phone was ringing on the desk beside her, reminding her with every shrill bleep that her friends were depending upon her. quistis didn't answer them, she had nothing to tell them, nothing that they wouldn't have already guessed. it wasn't until squall's name flashed up on the front of the phone screen that she answered.
once she saw his name she knew their plans were all failing, he was supposed to be at the desk now, he shouldn't have time to call her.
"what the hell is going on?" squall asked over the loud speaker, he could hear quistis tapping away on the keyboard.
"squall, i'll sort it ok, the computer froze, it's never happened before, but i'll sort it."
squall paced the floor, thinking hard.
"just restart it, begin again!"
"i can't, it'll take ages…" qusitis said, but knowing that if something didn't happen soon she would have to restart, or call the whole thing off.
nothing happened, the numbers kept spinning the same, holding her
eath, quistis hit restart. suddenly everything went blank, then the program came back to life.
"what's going on?" squall asked again. "i can't stall any longer."
qusitis shook her head, she had no idea, it should have gone back to the beginning, and yet the computer had remembered all the previous entries.
quistis smiled.
"someone up there must like us squall, because the code is 07835."
"contact everyone, tell them i'm continuing," squall said before hanging up.
he checked his watch, they could still make it, if they hurried. he walked down the corridor with purpose, past the woman on the desk who gave him a
ight smile, and punched the number into the door keypad.
squall shut the door behind him and heard quistis speaking in his ear again.
"selphie, execute plan," quistis said, and squall heard a scratching noise above him, as selphie started moving. "squall the next combination is 7724, that will open the safe."
with selphie up in the ceiling, they had decided that that was the fastest way of getting into the room holding the diamond, rather than squall being in the building all by himself. there was more chance of causing distractions and getting away with two, if it all happened to go wrong.