Chapter 71.

Chapter 71. Executing Operation, Codename: Date, Evening. (3/4)

Seeing the bill presented before me, my hands trembled and my heart shook. Alicia had a similar reaction, she hadn’t paid very much attention and had lost control because of how good the food was. She’d also been starving too after the workout she had earlier.

“This bill… we really got burnt. The food is too good at such a cheap price that you just want to keep ordering more thinking it would be a waste not to.” Alicia said pained while thinking about her wallet.

“Yeah.” I feel your pain, girl. Trust me, I do.

“How about I cover two-thirds and you guys cover the rest?” Rosa suddenly asked.

“What? There’s no way, I can at the very least cover my third.”

“No it’s fine, my hobby is cooking and I wanted to see everything else they had to offer. It was a good chance for me to learn a bit. I consider these expenses for the knowledge I acquired through eating the different foods they offer here.”

“Sure.” I had no qualms about passing the bulk of the bill off to my girlfriend.

“You… Alicia, forget what I said. You don’t need to pay anything, he’s paying the rest. Just consider it me treating you for agreeing to all my selfish requests today and also an apology for my earlier scheme.”

“What? No fair, treat me too then.” I complained.

I cut in before Alicia could try to refuse Rosa’s offer.

Rosa seemingly understood my intent and started to bicker with me about how much of a cheapskate I was.

“This cheap guy. Alicia, you don’t need to feel guilty at all for not paying. Guys usually pay for the date anyway. You shouldn’t have any mercy for him. He needs to be put in his place for once, he’s always getting too cocky.”

As I put forth an overly depressed act, I forked out my portion of the bill, resigned to the unfortunate fate of being a man. Why couldn’t guys have girls foot the entire bill? What was this injustice?

Rosa quickly followed up and paid the rest while also leaving a small tip. Was this the disparity that came with having parents who wired you money from overseas?

Alicia wasn’t even given the opportunity to pay. Rosa rushed out pulling the two of us along. She really just did whatever she wanted. Coming and going as she pleased.

“Where exactly are we going now?” Alicia asked curiously.

“Just wait and see. It’ll be fun.” Rosa had an excited look on her face. It was the event she’d looked forward to the most.

We walked for a while until we arrived on campus.

“The university? Why are we here?”

Rosa didn’t answer. She led the way forward through the snow until we arrived outside the library I’d told her about.

She had her hood up and a black mask to cover her face. She pulled me off to the side, put down her bag, and pulled out her laptop along with the controller I’d seen in her room. 

When booted up her laptop, there was a map of the top-down view of the library layout.

“Can you mark down where all the cameras are with circles in the library and the approximate area they can see with lines?”

I nodded. It was a simple enough task.

After doing so, she told me to stay with Alicia out here and keep her company. She said she’d be right back while taking her bag with her.

I’d caught a glimpse inside the bag and confirmed there were a few more things inside. I couldn’t identify them though. 

She entered a building connected to the library. It would lead to the door that used the turn knob on the other side.

I stood outside waiting with Alicia for a while.

It was a bit cold so her cheeks were red. She placed her palms against them to keep them warm.

“Where’d Rosa go?” She asked, curious where her friend had suddenly disappeared to.

“She’s meeting someone really quick. She’ll be right back.”

After twenty minutes Rosa returned with a cocky smile on her face. It seems whatever she’d done had gone without a hitch.

Honestly, I really wanted to know how she dealt with the security cameras, but I’d ask her about it later when Alicia wasn’t around. Unless it was one of those trade secrets she didn’t want me to know about.

The controller had really piqued my interest though. It was obviously not for her to play video games. Since that was the case I started to consider other possibilities. The best solution I came up with was, it had been used to remotely control a device rather than play a video game on her laptop. The controller was actually a big hint. She didn’t need to take it out at that time, but she might have done it on purpose, just to see if I’d figure out what she’d done with that tiny tidbit of information.

The creative juices in my head began to flow as I tried to enter her head and figure out exactly what she’d done.

It was a puzzle.

A controller, a laptop, and obviously a device that she could control remotely. It could be something used to discreetly move around easier outside the line of sight of those cameras. Simply sticking low to the ground wouldn’t be enough though, it was best if it could approach from a high angle.

It became pretty obvious by that point, it was a drone.

But even with a drone, what would you be able to do with a simple drone?

The laptop obviously must have been her eyes for the drone. What could she do with these two to bypass the cameras?

Was it possible the drone could do more than just fly? Maybe it had pieces that could extend out from beneath it to interfere with the cameras. But even then, so what?

I’m missing something. There’s a crucial piece of information I don’t have that Rosa has. I felt like I was so close to solving the mystery. Just a bit more and I’d have it. One more clue was enough.

That clue was definitely related to something else she had in her bag. I just didn’t know what else it could be.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” Rosa said that as she led the way into the building she’d previously entered.

We arrived in front of the library door with the turn knob, but I was a bit confused. The door was locked, it wasn’t open.

“Rosa, what are we doing here?”

“It’s a library, isn’t it only obvious that we’d come here to read?”

“Read? You mean the books we bought at the bookstore?”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s Sunday, the library is closed, plus it’s also so late already.”

“Don’t worry about that. I have an acquaintance who works at this library. When I asked him if I could borrow the keys, he gave them to me, no questions asked.”

When she said that, I raised a brow. That had definitely been a lie. This girl had already picked the lock and entered the library. They likely had a spare set of keys stored inside somewhere in the event the person with the keys lost them. University security would also have a spare set though. Did she sneak into the security room rather than the library then?

No… she wouldn’t have asked me about this door or the locations of the cameras and where they could see if she did. She’d definitely gotten them from inside the library. But the cameras that keep an eye on this door from the outside… what about them? How did she deal with them?

I looked to the right discreetly to check on the camera and my eyes lit up. So that was it!

That’s how she’d done it!

It was the final piece of the puzzle I’d been missing.