Chapter #8: Ingrained In Your Head

After starting their jobs at Shibuya, Modoru and Nokosu both looked for the prominent areas of Xenophite storage in the company. A month passed, and Modoru slowly got promoted to first officer and Nokosu archaeological technician. Nokosu would be working with Xenophite for most of day, however it was minute amount. What they both needed was the company's main storage of Xenophite. Which was where Modoru came along. He would ask questions as to its location, but keep getting vague answers – the real answer being above his paygrade. As he went through his daily routine at the job, Modoru would take note of all camera's and number of security officers on each floor. He finally surmised that the easiest time to steal anything would be at night – as there would be only 1 officer per floor; the building having 3 floors.

Nokosu himself tried his best to infiltrate areas of the company but was caught up in the lab's work. He ended up becoming known as a Xenophite expert during the month he was working – all stemming from his previous knowledge of Xenophite. During this time the work helped Nokosu with his drive even further and despite himself, he ended up enjoying the work the company provided him. It was not until being promoted for a second time that Nokosu was able contribute to the heist. After a venture to the basement floor for supplies, Nokosu found out that the Shibuya Corporation mostly keeps its spare resources on the basement level. If the Xenophite would be anywhere, it would be there.

As the nights passed and Modoru wove a plan to infiltrate the company, Nokosu during the night, would practice teleporting. They had outfitted his hands with wrist mounted lighters as suggested by Agatha. During this time, Nokosu's level with movement and teleporting skyrocketed as it was much easier for him to concentrate on moving and fighting with just a simple hand motion to trigger it. Nokosu became almost as adept at it as Modoru – him needing to be at Modoru's beckoning. 3 nights before heist, they went through the plan again.

"Ok run me through it again," Modoru said.

"So, each floor has one security officer who's holed up in the security office for that level. The main threat is the camera's in each hallway. The hallway's themselves have a linear layout of 100 paces to the south, then west, and finally north. The cameras can see for the entire linear route of each stretch of the hallway, but have a blind spot of about 10 seconds when moving from one stretch to the next. We will have to port 50 paces forward, our max porting distance, then once again to right under the camera once it switches its view of each stretch of hallway. We will have to do this twice as we clear the southern stretch and the western stretch. As we approach the northern stretch, we only need to port 30 paces max to reach the door leading to the stairs..." Nokosu explained with confidence.

"And from there we all we do head down one level and do the same thing," finished Modoru.

"…..Once we get to below ground level, my knowledge of the area takes over. I can take us to the main storage room of resources, then you're going to have to search for the Xenophite. There are no camera's in the basement so we can take our time, however, more security guards. If any one of them approach the main storage area I'll radio you to come put them to sleep." Nokosu continued.

"That's the entire plan, in a nutshell…. you're going to have a to be a good lookout. Only call me when they are actually on my tail, not when they are just approaching the storage room."

"Yup, got it," Nokosu said. "We also access most of the doors with your security clearance as all of them are locked. You said there's no record of people who access the doors right?"

"This I am pretty sure of, I hounded them on this one day and they got suspicious. So, I had to stop. But for the most part, yes, they don't keep a record. We don't have the luxury of erasing our trail though anyway, there are too many guards inside that security office."Modoru said. "It should be smooth sailing…until we hit below ground level, and then things might get dicey. Again, be a good lookout please."

"Will do my friend," Nokosu assured him.

"Ok, we have 3 more nights to review this before we enact it. Keep reviewing so it's ingrained into your head. I'll set up the practice dummies to simulate the teleporting route." Modoru said.

"…..Hey, Modoru?" asked Nokosu.

"What's up?" Modoru said.

"I'm a tad nervous, and I know its not like me to be like this. But its my first heist.." Nokosu revealed.

"Don't worry. The key to a good heist is knowing the plan and practice. Just hope things don't go off the rails." Modoru said.

"…That's what I'm hoping doesn't happen. Maybe we could scrap this whole thing and try something else…." Nokosu said.

"Don't worry, follow my lead and we'll be fine. You said this is the only way to get Xenophite before the battery dies in the C.S device, right? Then its do or die. Figuratively speaking of course." Modoru said.

"Alright then….I'll review one more time." Nokosu said.

"Good, remember…ingrained in your head." Modoru said as he walked away and prepared the practice dummies.