Free Yesterday's Cat: Episode 1: Before the Storm by Naomi Kramer Page B

if she logged in to open it. Either way, she’d be
alerting the goons that something was going on. They clearly had access to
secure areas, so she wouldn’t be safe in a locked room. However, there was the
smallest chance that the ‘automatic alarm’ on the fire exit had been
disconnected – or never connected in the first place. And if it did go off, it
would cause a building-wide alarm, and the goons wouldn’t know for sure where it
came from. Or probably even what caused it.
    Maybe they were friendlies. No, not likely. Who dressed in
balaclavas to go visiting?
    She could try taking them out – if time agents were issued
anything more than a knife to protect themselves with. Which they weren’t, of
course, because otherwise they’d be causing paradoxes all over the place.
    So, running it was. Of course, she could just try sneaking
out of the liftwell… but the ‘down’ liftwell was right in their line of sight.
She’d been damn lucky just to get in without being seen. Or she could… shit, sit
here all day debating while her chances of being discovered rose ever higher!
She slid over to the fire exit door and examined the sign. Screws held it onto
the door. Hrmm… if the sign wasn’t there, maybe they wouldn’t even realise what
it was. She swung her backpack onto the ground and pulled out the toolkit,
patting Random in passing. She stayed still and quiet, ears flattened. The cat
had better instincts than Angie did. As quickly as she could, she unscrewed the
fire exit sign and stuffed it in her bag, along with the toolkit. Random shifted
and shot her a dirty look. She put a finger to her lips, and received a dirtier
look in response. I know what I’m doing ,
she seemed to be thinking, so just focus
on your part, eh?
    Angie slid the backpack onto her back.
    “Showtime,” she whispered to Random, and opened the door.
    Silence.
    She slipped through the gap and closed the door behind her.
Wow. She’d been right, they’d disconnected the thing. What a relief.
    Then the wailing of a fire alarm started.
    Claws pricked her neck.
    “Mrrrrow!” said Random.
    “Yeah yeah, I know,” Angie said.
    She ran up two flights of stairs, and paused on the ninth
level. That should give her enough leeway if they decided to use the fire stairs
– as they technically should. And hopefully she’d hear them coming if they
decided to come up and check for snoopers. Hopefully. The alarm was so loud and
obtrusive that she wasn’t sure she’d hear a T. Rex thumping toward her.
    A couple of minutes later, nothing at all had happened. The
alarm was still blaring. No one had come anywhere near her.
    “Random, would you go scout for me?” she asked.
    Random grumbled and jumped out of the backpack, padding
downstairs. She returned, ears pricked forward, tail high, and jumped back into
the backpack.
    “Mrrrow!”
    Angie took that as a ‘coast clear’ and headed back
downstairs to the seventh floor. She pulled it open very slowly and peered out.
No one in sight. The lab door was closed, as it should have been earlier. Trap,
or had they just cleaned up after themselves? Only one way to find out. She
slipped over to the door, logged in, and it chirped and opened for her. She
flattened herself against the other side of the wall. No one fired. She looked
in – empty. Phew.
    Random jumped over her shoulder to the floor, and ran in a
low crouch toward the nearest lab bench. Angie stifled a laugh. She’d never get
delusions of being in charge of the operation while Random was around. She
returned at a run, leapt into her arms, and purred. Well, that was an
adrenaline-inducing way to tell her they’d gone, but at least they should be
safe to check things out for a minute or two before the fire brigade got here.
If they got here, of course. They might not bother, what with the lack of
buildings surrounding this one, and the fact that none of the smoke detectors
had reported any