Chapter 72 "Through The Polaroid"

Stevenson and Iris watched as the Marshal, Carter, and Dark went on with their show after another auction ended without understanding that they had already entered their safe room to steal their target.

According to the knowledge they possess, SCP-3934 had just been sold to one of the guests and was already inside the safe room they had just entered. The most straightforward part of the mission would be to extract it.

William arrived in the lounge, and he went to the men's toilet before to change his face back without anyone noticing it. Not a single problem they've encountered, and everything has gone smoothly on their part.

"Everything good down there?" asked Stevenson.

William sat down at the table and replied, "Yeah, nothing bad happened. Though we encountered some guards on our way back from the vault, it was a breeze. They didn't suspect anything."

"That's good to hear." Stevenson replied.

Iris looked at her pocket mirror and said, "I'm a bit surprised that we managed to get through the scanner that they have for security using his own anomalous ability. Pretty handy, I'd say. I couldn't have thought of another way of doing it."

Hearing this, Stevenson looked at him as William was about to take a sip from his glass, "Is that so? Did your fake form work against their scanner?"

"Well, I have some doubts as to whether it would work or not. Turns out it worked, and we went along with it. I shouldn't have gambled on things like that." William replied.

Stevenson narrowed his eyes and explained, "That was a bit reckless of you to do such a thing. It could ruin the whole operation and put all of us in danger. But, I can't complain about how it resulted. So with that, I'm going to let you off this time."

"Yeah, I should've asked you guys first. We were also in a hurry, so we'll have to make a choice."

The three of them went silent for a moment, as they were watching the auction from a distance through the lounge's window. They were passing through time for a moment before they could continue on.

"So, we just wait until the auction is over, and we're out of here?" asked Iris.

"Exactly, we should wait until everything is over in here, ask Commander Blake to come and pick us up, then we'll finally steal SCP-3934 from the Marshal, Carter, and Dark."

She thought about something for a moment and asked, "Why didn't we just steal it from them, like now? Shouldn't there be nothing to be in our way from getting SCP-3934 now?"

Stevenson then explained, "You are correct. There is nobody who could stop us from stealing SCP-3934 from them. But there is one other aspect that they could know who might have stolen their asset once we've acquired it."

"What is it?" said William as he was curious about it.

"Think about this. If we left now and then, suddenly they found out that one of their listed items was gone. What is their first reaction?" Stevenson asked.

Both of them were thinking about the possibilities for a moment. From the perspective of Marshal, Carter, and Dark, what would they do if they knew something was missing?

A thought crossed William's mind, "They would need to do a whole assessment regarding the whole guests in this auction to see who is the culprit?"

"Correct. They would do that because, one thing for sure, they don't publicly announce their auction to the public. Only a handful of people knew it, which was the guests." Stevenson continued.

"With that information in mind, they would probably guess that someone who had done the job must be someone in here or related to their henchmen that steals the items, and that's not the worst part of it." Stevenson took a sip of water.

Iris was confused, "What's the worst part of it?"

"Given what they could do with their current power at the moment, they'll be using things that are unknown to us and find out the culprit. Which would've been really bad if I said so." replied Stevenson.

"But aren't we at that point will be gone from this place? Like, they wouldn't have known that we did it since we're not going to be here once they do a lockdown like that?" Iris questioned.

"That's where you were wrong. It's probably the worst thing you could have done. Because if we leave this place after we do that, they'll instantly suspect us as we're the few people that left the building before the auction is over."

Stevenson looked out the window, "They'll be on our tail once we do that. It's like leaving the trails of breadcrumbs like Hansel and Gretel. That's why we should wait until the auction is over so that we can blend with the others."

Iris understood the situation by humming and nodding. They had nothing to do but watch the auction end and go on to the next one for the rest of the evening in the lounge.

William was wondering how Grace and the other Pandora's Box personnel were doing at this time since they hadn't met each other for the whole time, and only Iris had seen them in the women's bathroom.

He pressed the earpiece on his ear and asked, "How are things doing in there? Finding anything that caught your guys' eyes once we left the area?"

"Kinda busy here. Do you remember that we have to be a staff here once we get in? Yeah, that." replied Grace as she was carrying a tray of champagne glasses on the building.

William just remembered about that part, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Why does it have to be a staff, though? Why can't it be just a normal guest like us and the others?"

"Because someone needs to watch on Kurt's back watching the camera through the backdoor of this building's surveillance system, " Grace said with a heavy tone.

He chuckled for a moment, "Well, good luck serving the guests. We're just gonna enjoy the auction for the rest of the night."

As they were talking to each other, Iris looked at the polaroid images that she had taken before, one by one, to spot SCP-3934, that they were going to steal later. She looked through it carefully since they said it was already inside.

But then, she saw something. Four people are entering the vault. One of them looked like the guard that she saw earlier that was guarding the door leading toward the hallway where the vault was located.

As for the three other people, she didn't recognize any of them. Only a tall man, a short white-haired lady, and a black long-haired lady entered the vault. Iris then saw one tall man pull out a gun and start shooting the guard in the head.

She gasped as she saw the scene through her polaroid. William and Stevenson were quick to notice her weird behavior. Both of them looked confused as to why she did that.

"What's wrong?" Stevenson asked.

Iris looked in horror at what she just saw, something that she couldn't believe happened right before her eyes through the polaroid that she intended to use for their mission.

"Someone… someone just shot a staff member in the head inside the vault we had just entered before!"