Special Item

He approached his ID tag to the sensor and the warehouse door opened, showing the contents of the room.

"We're going to get something from each warehouse, so if we can't get everything back before tomorrow morning, no one will notice the missing items" he continued, explaining his plan to his accomplice.

"Why do you say that? Do you think we're not coming back tomorrow morning?!" Faith asked, slightly alarmed, thinking back to the plan.

"That's not what I said... what is it? Are you reconsidering it?" Layton answered, turning to her while rummaging through the last levels of the tool shelf.

"No, no... obviously not... I think it's a good idea... you take two or three cleaning cloths, I choose a broom" she replied, according to the game.

After getting the first tools, the two friends closed the warehouse and headed for the next one, crossing a group of people in the hallways, who looked at them wondering why two janitors were working at that time of night.

Making a false smile and pretending to be acting in the interest of his community, Layton continued to walk disinterestedly in the eyes of the curious, proceeding with some haste.

Faith did the same, though she did not have the same promptness in acting.

After taking detergents in the second and third warehouses, they headed to the last, even though their 'equipment' was now complete.

"Layton, what do you think we still need? We have a broom, four cleaning cloths, three surface detergents, two for floors, one disinfectant... that's enough, isn't it?" the young girl asked, taking stock.

"Mmmh, I don't know... I feel like something's still missing. The next warehouse is the most stocked on our ship. I'm sure something would come up in mind. If they stopped us, we would still have to justify our night cleaning intervention" Layton said, who looked back into his hands and the girl's hands to figure out what the secret ingredient was for their spy recipe.

Without further interruption, with most of the crew now locked in the dorms, Layton and Faith arrived at the fourth and final warehouse, taking care not to give too much in the eye under the watchful eye of cameras scattered everywhere, which by turning, perceived all forms of movement.

"Fuck, I hadn't thought about it, Lay! The cameras! What if the video security officer reported us?!" Faith whispered, who as soon as she noticed the camera clearly visible in front of them, began to sweat cold, believing that, stupidly, they had not thought of that relevant detail.

"Denounce? And for what? We're just taking brooms and detergents, it's nothing illegal! Stop whining like a little girl and give me a hand, hold all this stuff!" the young janitor replied, entrusting the cleaning cloths and detergents he had collected up to that point to Faith's flickering hands.

She swallowed empty and, taking courage with a deep sigh, entered the last warehouse as soon as its door opened.

As predicted by Layton, who knew by heart almost every corner of the sector he cleaned every day, that warehouse was exactly twice as large as the others and despite being a very small room, compared to the other three, it looked like a palace.

The two janitors began digging through the stuff on those shelves, noting that many of the things in that room were still packed and never used.

"There are a lot of supplies here... I think Sector C also has a warehouse like this, but I've never been there, they never let me do that. Lay, there's nothing special in here, we already have everything we need... let's go away, I'm getting anxious to stand still here, under that mechanical eye!" Faith whispered again, referring to the camera that kept staring at them.

Before he gave his colleague reason and closed the door of the fourth warehouse in Sector A, Layton's eyes accidentally fell on the last shelf at the bottom, full of junk of all kinds.

"Faith, get in front of me, make sure the camera can't pick up my movements" he said, unexpectedly.

"What? What are you going to do? Explain it to me, please!" she replied, who was not understanding what her friend had seen so interestingly.

"Uff, just leave it to me! I don't need your help!" he exclaimed, who was already tired of collaborating with a stranger and slowly began to think that perhaps, taking Faith with him had been a mistake.

Layton lowered himself to the last shelf and moved all the surface junk, digging between it, as if looking for something specific.

"Fuck, Lay! What are you doing?! You're making me incredibly uncomfortable!" Faith replied, who as Layton told her to do, positioned herself in front of him, knowing that he was going to do something dodgy that absolutely shouldn't have been caught on camera.

"Where did it go... I was sure it was here... there must have been about ten of them... where did you put them, old decrepit?" Layton thought aloud, referring to Sam, who as head of the janitors also decided on the position of the instrumentation, so as to distribute it homogeneously among the various warehouses in the sectors.

The search lasted several tens of seconds, and the noise of metal objects moved from Layton echoed through the hallways, forcing Faith to remain alert and keep a close eye on possible passers-by.

"There it is! I finally found it! Now we can go!" he said suddenly, rising from the ground, grabbing things from Faith's hands and locking the door quickly.

"Hey, wait! Where are you going?"

Layton did not answer, merely walking down the corridor, in the direction of their next target, carefully looking at the new object in his hands.

"Layton! Layton! What were you looking for so hard? Don't you think I should know?" Faith asked, slowing down her walk until she stopped, sulky at her colleague's rude behavior.

He, who initially didn't notice Faith's action, turned to her and looked at her expression, softening by the grudge drawn on her face.

After sneering, he turned and walked towards her, retracing her steps and showing her what he had in his hands.

Faith opened her eyes well and turned her head, trying to figure out what was special about that seemingly trivial object.

"A torch? All this mess for a simple flashlight?" the girl asked.

"Uff... I can see from miles away that you are inexperienced compared to me! It's not just a flashlight... it's an 8-watt flashlight with UV-A blacklight" he replied, with a satisfied expression, as if announcing he had a superpower.

After those words, she continued to look at the item: it consisted of a normal black metal tube and a weird pointed light bulb at its end, protected by a kind of coating of the same material as the main body.

"UV-what?! It still seems to me like a simple torch" she replied, making her interlocutor nervous, who always did everything on his own and was not used to having all that patience.

Before continuing to speak, Layton grabbed the sleeve of the girl's jacket and pulled it towards him, causing her to move from the camera beam of that hallway.

She did not have time to keep talking, which he pointed the flashlight on a shelf next to a door.

A cone of greenish light illuminated the horizontal surface and many small phosphorescent green spots that were not visible before, popped up on it, leaving Faith amazed.

"How cool! How did you do that? What are those things, fingertips?" she asked, looking at her friend with her mouth open.

Layton, not happy with his demonstration, took one of the cleaning cloths he had brought with him, sprayed some diluted detergent on it, and rubbed the surface illuminated by the UV-A torch, showing his colleague that that way, phosphorescent stains were washed off.

"As I was trying to explain to you before your stupid questions, this is a flashlight with UV-A blacklight and it's used to make the biological traces left on the surfaces visible, thus allowing us janitors to clean even the most stubborn dirt, the invisible one, thus ensuring maximum hygiene. At first, I had my own, but a rule established by Voyager's high charges decreed that the liquid contained in the battery of this special torch and other particular materials in its bulb, were toxic if disposed of incorrectly and limited its distribution until old Sam decided to remove them from our basic equipment" Layton explained, making his interlocutor understand the whole history of that object.

"Wow! So if there hadn't been that new rule, would I have received a flashlight like this too?" she continued, astonished.

"Yes, correct."

"And what do you think we need a similar object in our secret mission?"

"If guards will somehow stop us, we could say that we were allowed to work during a night shift and with the torchlight we could justify our presence, saying that its operation is restricted to the night hours when the main lights of the corridors are turned off" Layton continued, turning off the special item and putting it in his pocket.