Chapter 21: Room
Sure to have tried every possible combination, Layton put Sam's key card in his pocket and extracted his own, the one that contained his personal code.
"I understand they can't work, but the sensor doesn't even react to their presence! It doesn't make any sound, it doesn't change color! Quick, give me your ID tag, I want to give it another try!" he exclaimed again, raising his gas mask and handing Faith a hand, waiting for her to hand over the newly requested item.
Without responding to Layton, the girl, on her own initiative, placed her hand at the room's electronic door and slipped her fingers into the vertical metal recess that all the doors had.
Under the astonished eyes of her friend, who was struggling hard to find a solution and open the door, Faith, after moving her hand up and down, pulled a hidden lever and unlocked the door, which opened slightly as if it was a normal one.
"What?! What... how did you get it?!" Layton asked stunnedly, looking at Faith with admiration.
"Dr. Klein made his private studio a work of antiques, it was impossible that even his room had not undergone some small modifications! I wasn't sure, but I figured the door would work like the doors of the past! I just had a lot of luck..."Faith answered humbly.
"Luck? Luck has nothing to do with it! I would never get there, I had already panicked! You were great! But now we have to go in..."
After the young janitor's words, Faith felt praised by him and a sudden charge passed through her body, followed by a rush of adrenaline.
The eyes of the two fellow adventures remained focused on the small vertical space between the door and the wall, shrouded in darkness.
"But... but don't you feel an incredible heat?" Faith asked again, touching her clothes and detaching them from her sweaty skin.
"Yes... I thought it was agitation, instead, the temperature in this area is much higher... Tyler came out of there all sweaty, who knows why..." Layton continued, resting his hand wrapped in a rag to clean on the surface of the door and ready to open it.
From the small space of the door, a wave of hot air hit the two young janitors, who felt like inside an oven.
Luckily, the protective mask did its job and, without much difficulty, he took courage and finally opened the door to Klein's room.
Pointing the torch forward, its light made visible the grains of dust floating in the air: not allowing access to janitors and those who took care of cleaning the spaces of personal rooms, that place had been dirty for weeks.
Being two janitors, accustomed to dealing with dirt every day, Layton and Faith noticed every detail of the filth in that place, walking slowly and still failing to figure out where Dr. Klein was.
The room had an L-shape and as soon as they walked through the door, there was another one on the left, through which they could access the bathroom, accidentally left open.
In addition to the dirt and footprints of the many security men who had entered the room in the previous hours, the trail of blood continued its path on the floor, keeping on forward.
While to the left of the door was the bathroom, consisting of a small square room with thin metal walls, to the right was a wooden desk very similar to that found in the doctor's office.
"These pieces of shit of the élite have a bathroom all to themselves, not like us poor people in Sector A!" Layton thought, realizing that while he and the other workers in his industry were forced to use shared bathrooms and sleep in large dormitories, the most important crew members had all the comforts of a real apartment at their disposal.
Above the desk, the flashlight framed a large touchscreen monitor, devoid of mouse and keyboard, and next to it, a printer with some magazines in front of it.
Layton walked to the table, noting that the newspapers on his mahogany surface were old scientific journals of medicine, probably from the distant 21st century.
Raising the light forward, the torch enlightened a large wardrobe that occupied almost the entire wall next to the desk and, to its left, the L-shaped room curved, forming a corner with the bathroom wall, which did not make the hidden part visible.
*anf*anf*
Layton and Faith's breaths became heavier and heavier when they realized that Dr. Klein had to be behind that wall, having not yet been able to identify a bed.
"Lay..." Faith whispered, grabbing his arm and implicitly asking for moral support, trembling like a leaf.
Incredibly, Layton vented her hand with a caress, making her realize that he would never walk away from her and that what they were about to do would not be dangerous.
Despite the empathy between the two of them was sharply diminished due to the bulky gas masks that prevented them from looking each other in the face, somehow the two neo companions gave courage to each other, and together, one after the other, they walked towards the corner of the wall.
The white LED torchlight illuminated the wall and part of the ceiling, and the temperature around them continued to rise, forcing them to lightly unbutton the hinge of their jackets, buttoned up to the chin.
The panting breaths were abruptly interrupted and due to fear, both of the janitors remained breath-hold, ready to run away in the event of a sudden attack.
The two rigid metal supports of a bed sprang out of the darkness and heavy fleece blankets hung from above it, touching the floor in a disorderly manner.
The faint sound of a breath broke the silence that had just been created and made Layton and Faith even more restless.
The rarefied air of that corner of the room, due to the sharp temperature difference between the inside and outside of the mask, somehow contributed tarnish the glass in front of their eyes.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone