Previously, Zack heads back to work with Sydney, trying his best to stay cool. Until the audit team arrives and threatens to expose the crime that he and Sydney are desperate to cover up.
This chapter is dedicated to my Dad, going in for a surgery this week. Heal quick! Love you.
Zack jogged down the hallway towards the foreign currency room and skidded inside. The auditors hardly looked up as their fingers tapped furiously on their laptop keyboards. Alan, or Kevin, glanced up and spotted him standing there.
“Morgan! Our errand boy has returned. Didn’t you need something?” The auditor called, his eyes transfixed on the screen. Something like computer code reflected in his glasses.
Zack thought about correcting him, he was Supervisor in Training after all, but Morgan came up behind him, causing him to jump. “Ah! Yes,” she said, “Where are those physical records from the main vault you were collecting?”
Zack paled. “Uh…right. I forgot. I’m sorry. I’ll be right back!” he called, making a brisk pace to the main vault. He smiled at Roger and Jamie who stood at their stations waiting for customers to come in. Roger folded his arms and Jamie twirled her hair.
“You guys have any jobs lined up? You know, for after?” Zack asked.
Roger walked away and Jamie kept on twirling her hair and staring at him.
It seemed as though he wasn’t the most popular guy at work with anyone these days.
“This shit isn’t my fault, you know. It sucks for everyone.”
“Whatever,” Jamie spat. She flipped her hair and pulled out her phone. Probably scrolling on some social media app.
Zack peered across the foyer towards Sydney’s office, wondering how she was making out with erasing the log data. Cory’s office door was propped open and there were a few True North Canadian banker’s boxes stacked outside. Soft rock, Zack thought it might have been Sugar Ray, emanated from within, and he could see Cory singing along inside.
Zack ignored them and swiped his fob and entered the main vault. The vault was nothing more than a fireproof door with an extensive locking system with steel cabinets along one wall, a money counting machine, and a few big lockers. A tall filing cabinet fit snugly in the corner. Zack had seen Cory put logs into the filing cabinet, though it wasn’t anything that he had to do in the brief stint of his time as branch manager.
Zack yanked a few flattened banker’s boxes from a stack underneath the money counter. They were True North Canadian branded banker’s boxes, just like the ones outside of Cory’s office. Zack grinned and began to put the boxes together and then he unlocked the filing cabinet and started emptying it out. They had been audited by a general auditing team a couple of years ago, so Zack just focused on the last two years. He swiftly slapped the files together and then stuffed them into the boxes. He crammed each year into a box.
Zack stacked the boxes, locked up the cabinet, and then left the vault. Instead of turning back down the hall towards the audit team, Kevin and his stupid Flintstones lunchbox, Zack meandered across the foyer. He put the boxes down next to the ones Cory had stacked up.
“All the things that she used to say, all the words that got in the wa-y. All my favourite TV shows have gone out the window,” Cory sang.
“Packing up, eh?” Zack called.
The volume of the music decreased and Cory’s face appeared in the doorway. “Yeah. Uh. Sorry. I didn’t think anyone was around. I’ll turn off the music.”
Zack smiled and leaned against the wall. “That’s fine. I actually like that song. You have something lined up for after?”
Cory’s face reddened. “I, uh, actually am going to be managing another bank. You know Ootischenia? It’s not that far from here.”
Zack nodded. Of course dipshit Cory would be protected by True North. Wasn’t it always that they fired the best workers and then promoted the idiots?
“Good for you, man.” Zack said.
“I…better get back to it.”
Zack gave him a thumbs up as Cory closed the door. The music got louder. Zack glanced over his shoulder at the security camera pointed at him. He sidestepped the boxes he put down and lifted two of Cory’s boxes. They were lighter than the main vault’s records, but Zack moseyed across the foyer and down the hall.
Zack came into the foreign currency room to find Alan, or Kevin, chomping at a peanut butter and jam sandwich, the lid of the Flintstones lunchbox wide open. Morgan still tapped away at her keyboard.
“Lunch already?” Zack asked, placing the boxes down next to the table.
The sandwich eater put up a finger, indicating he’d respond after he’d swallowed his bite, but the other Alan or Kevin responded for him, “Yeah. We’ve been waiting for the documents that you are responsible for providing. Typically, we would be finished the main vault by now, moving on to the server. We even once finished both tasks by this time. Remember that time in Coldstream, Kev?”
Kevin, mouth full of sandwich, nodded his head enthusiastically.
“Right.” Zack replied.
Morgan peeled her eyes away from her screen to notice Zack and the boxes he’d brought. “Ah! The main vault records. Perfect.” She sat up from her seat and her heels clicked as she marched over to them. She flipped the lid of the top box open, then straightened, giving Zack a confused look.
“What is the meaning of this? Some kind of practical joke?” She asked. She stuck her hands into the box and drew out golf scorecards, a Taylor Made flag that used to be pinned to the wall behind Cory’s desk, and a large stuffed golf ball.
Alan leaned over and pulled out a green sport coat. Zack remembered the day that Cory came to work wearing the replica Master’s jacket. He looked like an idiot, but wouldn’t take it off. “What the hell?”
Zack shrugged. “Sorry. I must have picked up the wrong boxes. Honest mistake.”
Morgan straightened and came face to face with him. “I do not tolerate ‘honest mistakes.’ Rectify this. Now. I’ll be watching you. Boys, while we wait, get started on the security logs.”
Zack’s heart thudded in his chest at the mention of the security logs and he fought to keep from panicking. “I’ll get that fixed up right away. The other boxes must be in Cory’s pile. They are the same colour and everything, so…”
“Chop, chop!” Kevin chimed, finally finished the mouthful of peanut butter and jam. He had a little bit of jam on his cheek. Zack hoped nobody told him about it.
As Zack hurried back towards Cory’s office to grab the right boxes, he pulled out his phone and sent a quick message to Sydney: How’s it going?
His phone chimed right away: Not too good. Do we still have time?
I think they are starting the security audit really soon. I’ll keep trying. Whatever you are trying to do, do it now. Zack typed back.
His phone chimed again, but Morgan’s heels clicked down the hall, her presence pushing Zack to get a move on. He picked up his pace and came to Cory’s office.
The boxes were gone. Zack turned and looked at Morgan, who took up a disappointed stance and crossed her arms. “Go on,” she said.
Zack sighed and knocked on Cory’s office door.
“Yeah?” Cory called through the door.
“Where did the boxes out here go?”
“By the back door. I was about to load them into my car!” Cory called.
Zack turned around and gave a sheepish look to Morgan, who turned and followed him back towards the break room. The boxes were stacked just past the foreign currency room. Zack opened each one until he found the records for the main vault. He lugged them into the foreign currency room and put them by the table.
“These better be the right ones,” Kevin said, the jam still staining his cheek.
“How far are you in the security audit?” Zack asked.
Alan furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh yeah, sure. I just wanted to tell our security specialist to make sure she can get you access.”
Kevin scoffed. “We don’t need your access codes. We have corporate override, we’ve already—”
Morgan was already looking through the first box filled with the main vault’s records. She interrupted with a wave of a hand, “Information our colleague here doesn’t require. Stay on task.”
Zack slowly stepped around Morgan’s hunched body, giving him a view of Kevin’s computer. He had to stand as tall as he could to get a full view over the stupid Flintstones lunchbox.
His breath caught and his blood ran cold. There was a progress bar that kept slowly moving up and a percentage underneath.
62%.
Zack’s phone chimed again and he pulled it out. It was Sydney: Okay. How ‘bout you DO SOMETHING.
He glanced back up. The bar had jumped to 64%.
“I’ll be right back,” Zack said, shoving the phone back into his pocket. Nobody even looked up.
Zack rushed out of the room and whipped around, searching desperately for anything he could do to delay their security audit.
His eye caught the break room door. There was the electrical panel next to the fridge that he had stared at during his lunch breaks. Someone had put a sticker on it once that someone else had half-removed.
Zack sprinted into the break room. Luckily, it was empty. He hurried over to the panel and flung it open. This had better work.
The various breakers stared back at him and he ran through all of them until he reached the bottom. The longer bar there was the main circuit breaker.
Zack’s shaking hand hovered over it for a moment. If the audit team found Sydney’s access log, he wouldn’t be suspected. But Sydney would be in massive trouble.
He flipped the switch.
Instantly, the room fell into darkness. There were a few beeps and whirs and then the weak floodlights of the emergency lights illuminated the hallway beyond.
Shit. Zack forgot about the backup power.
Morgan and the audit team hurried into the break room, Alan and Kevin jostling as they squeezed through the doorframe. “Zack? What is the meaning of this?”
Zack stood in the dark and stared back at them. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to lose my job,” he lied.
Morgan’s expression softened for a moment, but her cold stare bore into Zack. “I understand. But this behaviour is highly suspicious.”
Cory came barging into the break room. “What is going on?” He cried.
Morgan turned and pinned him with a stare. “It seems your employee is not looking forward to the upcoming closure.”
Her hard eyes shifted back to Zack. “We are going to have a chat, you and I.”