Chapter 76 "Meeting Point"

"What did you say?" Stevenson asked as he was confused about what Iris had said.

Iris holds the polaroid that has the whole view of the safe room where all the auctioned items were stored. But there was no doubt what she saw was something that shouldn't be happening at times like this.

She gulped and said, "I don't know… but someone just shot a person through their head… This wasn't supposed to be happening, right?"

The comment that she made surprised both William and Stevenson; it was odd for someone to kill another person at the auction, which was attended by many influential individuals in the city secretly without the public's knowledge.

They leaned up close to Iris to view the scene in the secure room where she had just witnessed the murder. There were three people in the safe room—Iris was right—another person was shot in the head from all the blood that was all over the place.

This raised the question, who are the three people in the room? Why are they there? What could possibly happen between that person who got shot and the group?

Many questions coursed through Stevenson's mind as he tried to assess and observe what could possibly happen. Something like this was out of their expected calculation, and it would ruin their whole operation.

"What are they even doing?" Stevenson said, narrowing his eyes as he looked at the polaroid.

"I don't know either… I just wanted to take a quick glance at our target in the safe room. Only to find out someone was in the middle of something and killing that person…." Iris as she was puzzled.

William looked at it thoroughly and was as confused as the others. It was weird to see someone do something like this. One thing is for sure from what he observed, and it seemed like a third party who was going for something.

He hummed, "Any idea who that group might be?"

Stevenson shrugged his hands, "No idea. It could be another group of interest that showed up in this place. They must've been really confident to be able to pull that kind of thing in a place like this."

"Why hasn't anything happened? Someone was killed, and the auction is still going?" William asked.

"I don't have all the answers right now. One thing we know is that this group could ruin our entire plan if they choose to cause a commotion that could stop the entire auction at once."

Stevenson was right, regardless of their motive and operation. Anything that they've set up and prepared could easily be all in vain.

"Look! They are moving!" Iris said to the two of them who were talking to each other.

The room where the intruder group was continuously illuminated in red as if an alarm had gone off. However, nothing appeared to be happening when they peered out the window, and the auction was still going on.

One of the intruders picked up a spear from one of the boxes. William recognized that spear as it was the same spear that Elena had bought from it a few moments ago in an auction.

He recalled what she had said when they were seated next to each other. She only wanted to secure the spear by purchasing it since she knew terrible things could happen if it fell into the wrong hands.

Given that they had previously murdered a member of the Marshal, Carter, and Dark's staff, this group appeared to be acting maliciously, based on the previous scenario. As a result, William became very contemplative and began to wonder what might happen next.

Stevenson put one of his hands on his chin, "What are they doing? Are they trying to pull off a whole heist against the Marshal, Carter, and Dark? How are they going to do it?"

The short-haired person brought out the spear out of the room, as the other two seemed to be talking to each other. Followed by the tall person preparing something to carry out all of the items in the safe room.

"Wait, are they trying to steal all of the items in the auction? This is kind of bad." said William.

Iris then looked at Stevenson, "What should we do, SCP-3934 are going to be stolen by them, and we're going to lose it once they manage to do so."

For a brief period, Stevenson was silent as he considered every action they could take to carry out their mission to secure SCP-3934. The fact that there were no decent options left to put them in a difficult situation.

He looked out the window and saw several guards were stationed outside the room where the safe room was located. It seemed that the Marshal, Carter, and Dark had already made a move.

"What's going on? Did any of you guys do something that caught their attention?" Grace asked through the comms that they had set up.

Stevenson replied, "No, not us. Someone or some group decided to make a mess and would ruin our entire plan."

"A mess? Like what?" asked Grace in a confused tone.

"Some intruders consisted of three people who broke into the vault, killed a staff member, and were trying to steal all of the assets that they have." explained Stevenson.

"Wait, all of them? What about SCP-3934?"

"That's exactly what we thought. If they are there to steal everything, including SCP-3934, then we need to make a move regarding their actions."

A thought crossed her mind, "Wait, couldn't Iris just steal the SCP like now that their attention was diverted to those guys?"

Iris answered, "I could, but they'll stop my hands once it appears in their field of vision. Not worth taking the risk, I'd say."

Grace turned to survey the surroundings as several security personnel passed her and appeared to be rushing the current scenario. A staff member approached the stage and spoke in a whisper to the host.

"No wonder that they are in a hurry doing something. What should we do now?"

He looked at the polaroid once again, and the tall man in the room started to collect the auctioned items to be moved. At the same time, several guards raised their weapons in front of the door.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I must inform you that tonight's auction shall be postponed until further notice due to there being a bit of disturbance from uninvited guests. Please head toward the exit accordingly to our staff's direction. I apologize for the inconvenience."

Several Marshal, Carter, and Dark staff members started to lead the guests who were present in the building to get them out safely—knowing that there was a danger that could threaten their life.

While some of the guests complied and followed the notice, others were disturbed by the information. They weren't told what might be causing the commotion because doing so would just spread panic.

"We should meet up right now and assemble with the others. Get Kurt to be with you, and we shall meet in a moment." said Stevenson in a serious tone through the comms.

William asked, "What are we going to do?"

Stevenson looked at him, "We have no other choice, right? We should take care of them head-on if we want to secure SCP-3934."