Ch.126Over there! (6)

#126

“What are you looking at? Do your job.”

“…Yes.”

It was a situation that made his fists itch.

Being undercover, it was killing him that he couldn’t plant his fist right in the middle of that face.

‘Whether I get the information or fail, I’m going to crush that bastard one way or another.’

While Dexter was dreaming of bloody revenge and searching for Ruben’s desk, Himena, who was walking around the factory perimeter with Sophia, was shaking her head with a pen in her mouth.

“How many years did you say this was built?”

“It should be about 4 years now.”

“4 years… that’s not very good.”

Himena pointed at the steel pillars inside the factory as she spoke.

Of course, Himena had never majored in architecture or conducted safety inspections on buildings.

She was just looking at the exterior of the factory, shaking her head, and making negative comments.

“In what way is it not good?”

“I’ll tell you about that in a bit. I’m concentrating right now.”

Whenever Sophia seemed to need a detailed explanation, Himena would just brush it off.

This was frustrating for Sophia who was accompanying her.

Himena questioned everything, never gave a positive response, and didn’t even have a pleasant attitude.

As Sophia’s irritation was bubbling up, Himena casually remarked:

“But there is one good thing among everything I’ve seen so far.”

“One thing?”

“The hygiene standards.”

Himena wiped the window frame with her finger as she spoke.

Her finger remained perfectly clean without a speck of dust.

“That’s impressive.”

“Thank you… But is hygiene included in the safety inspection?”

“Of course. It’s actually worth quite a high score.”

For a factory, being clean wasn’t necessarily something to be overly pleased about.

Sophia became curious about the contents of the folder Himena was carrying.

‘What could be written in that inspection report that requires checking such trivial details?’

“Since we’ve more or less finished with the exterior, shall we start the internal safety inspection?”

“…Isn’t the exterior inspection enough?”

“Safety inspections must include the interior as well. Oh, by the way, is there an employee break room? My throat is a bit dry.”

“…I’ll show you.”

Realizing there was nothing to gain from being rude to an inspection employee, Sophia’s face reddened and a vein bulged on her forehead.

Upon arriving at the employee break room, Himena looked at Sophia and said:

“Please sit down.”

Himena’s gaze was directed at the break room table.

Sophia sat down in a chair at the table as instructed, and Himena, who had only brought coffee for herself, took a sip and said:

“Ms. Fontaine, you said you’re the support team leader, right?”

“That’s right.”

“In your opinion, what do you think is the most dangerous element of Pink Industries?”

It sounded like an important question directed at a factory executive, but Himena was just asking to kill time.

While Sophia’s expression didn’t change, she was quite flustered internally.

‘What’s her intention in asking something like this?’

Thinking that a delayed response might seem suspicious, Sophia decided to defer her answer.

“Well… what could there be? I don’t think I’ve seen anything dangerous while walking around this factory.”

“Is that so? Hmm… Pink Industries is quite far from the typical industrial zone, don’t you think there might be any issues related to that?”

While Himena thought it was a meaningless question, Sophia answered quite seriously.

“It’s fine except that commuting takes a bit longer. When there’s important business, we usually stay at a small hotel in Nipton.”

“Nipton… How many years have you worked at this factory, Ms. Fontaine?”

“I’ve been here since this factory was built.”

“And before that?”

“Before that, I worked at a small company called Ryan Industries.”

“Ryan Industries… I see.”

Himena nodded, gathered her documents, and stood up, saying:

“Please wait for five minutes. I need to touch up my makeup.”

“Makeup? There’s no need to… Oh. I’ll wait here.”

Understanding what she meant, Sophia nodded, and Himena headed to the bathroom.

However, Sophia stared intently at Himena’s back before taking out her mobile phone.

Unaware of this, Himena took out a wireless earpiece from her pocket in front of the bathroom.

It was smaller than typical wireless earbuds, making it less noticeable when worn.

“Mr. Dexter, can you hear me?”

-Ahem.

When Dexter cleared his throat instead of answering, Himena nodded and asked a question.

“You can’t answer properly, right? Clear your throat once if you’ve made progress finding the documents, twice if not.”

-Ahem, ahem.

“…Is it going to take a long time? I’m running out of excuses.”

-Ahem, what’s wrong with this computer? It’s taking 10 minutes just to transfer one file.

Himena nodded at Dexter’s words, which sounded like he was talking to himself, and smiled as she said:

“See you in a bit. I’ll keep the earpiece in from now on, so let me know if anything happens.”

-Ahem.

After briefly washing her hands in the bathroom, Himena returned to the break room to find Sophia casually sipping her coffee.

‘I need to push her as hard as possible to keep her off balance.’

Determined to complete her mission, Himena said:

“Shall we get going then?”

“…Where is your assistant, Ms. Joaquina?”

Unlike before, Sophia looked at Himena with a distrustful expression.

“Oh, he has things to inspect too. He’s also an expert from our company.”

“I see…”

Sophia was eyeing Himena with suspicion.

“Still, I think you should call your assistant. After all, we’re not an ordinary factory—we’re making gaming consoles that aim to lead the market. Especially these days, there are many people trying to breach security to obtain information about our games.”

Sophia stood up and spoke curtly, as if signaling she wouldn’t continue the conversation with Himena.

“We can’t call staff arbitrarily during working hours. Especially during a precise safety inspection, interrupting the flow could cause problems. Particularly when it’s something our assistant is handling.”

Until just moments ago, Sophia hadn’t been concerned about Dexter.

The cold response toward her, combined with the sudden interest in Dexter’s whereabouts, made her suspect something had happened during her absence.

“Ha, is that so? Our security team will look for him.”

“No, that’s not necessary. He’ll return to the first floor when it’s time.”

“…Are you suggesting that an outsider is wandering around the factory without a guide?”

In response to Sophia’s sharp tone, Himena raised one corner of her mouth and said:

“Not at all. He’s probably waiting on the first floor. As my assistant, he wouldn’t wander around aimlessly.”

“Didn’t you just say your assistant was conducting a precise safety inspection?”

“That was an example. How could you take that literally?”

It was clear to anyone that Sophia was being aggressive toward Himena.

Himena responded without backing down.

“An example, huh? So if Mr. Dewitt isn’t on the first floor, should we consider him an intruder?”

“How rude. Calling a safety inspection employee an intruder. There’s a limit to rudeness, Ms. Fontaine.”

At Himena’s words, Sophia raised her voice.

“You’ve been the rude one from the beginning! And is this really a safety inspection?”

“If it’s not a safety inspection, why would I be carrying this folder?”

“Hand over that folder.”

As Sophia reached for Himena’s documents, Himena stepped back and said:

“For someone who values security, you seem awfully interested in other people’s documents.”

Sophia’s eyes began to blaze with anger at Himena’s sarcastic tone.

“Are you really from Columbia Safety Technology?”

“Of course. Didn’t you verify my credentials?”

Himena sensed things were going wrong, but she couldn’t admit anything yet.

“Ms. Fontaine, if you make any more mistakes here, the inspection results might not be very favorable. Can you handle that?”

“Then explain yourself.”

“Explain what?”

Himena pretended to be angry, crossing her arms and looking at Sophia with a defiant posture.

Sophia responded with an equally angry face.

“Five minutes ago, while you were away, I contacted the security team.”

-Clank.

“Team leader, you called for us?”

Two security guards entered the break room.

“I found you suspicious, so I contacted security again. When we called Columbia Safety Technology again, they said there was no unscheduled inspection today.”

“There must have been a mistake. Our company is so large that information might not have been properly communicated…”

“No, that’s impossible.”

Sophia approached Himena slowly and said:

“Your company told us that Ms. Joaquina is on vacation today.”

“Obviously, there must have been a misunderstanding.”

Himena’s eyes were starting to waver.

Normally, arrangements would be made with the company to handle such situations smoothly, even if the target company or individual made a verification call.

But Himena’s excessive caution and the lack of personnel were the problems.

Fearing that the infiltration operation might leak, she hadn’t properly communicated with Columbia Safety Technology for security reasons, so they couldn’t provide false information through their employees.

And there was no one to intercept phone calls from the factory to the outside and pretend to be a Columbia Safety Technology employee.

Himena regretted it.

‘I should have increased personnel and double-checked everything.’

The only fortunate thing was that Dexter could hear this conversation.

“Security team, detain this woman.”

“…Detain? You’re making a mistake!”

“Take her away quickly. I don’t want to hear her speak anymore.”

The two security guards grabbed Himena’s arms and said:

“Come with us quietly.”

Seeing that the two guards, though not as strong as Dexter, were still too big for her to handle, Himena didn’t resist further.

Himena looked at Sophia and said:

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Am I really?”

Sophia just looked at Himena with a twisted smile.

Dexter, who had been listening to all this, was in the middle of transferring all the data from Ruben’s hard drive to a USB after finding his desk.

‘Damn it. Did she get caught by the guards?’

With Himena’s earpiece, it wouldn’t be difficult to locate her.

The problem was finding a way to get Himena out of the factory, past numerous employees and external security guards.

‘Is calling for outside help the only option?’

Requesting support from OSA would likely resolve the situation quickly and easily.

However, the moment Dexter called OSA, Orbis would learn that OSA had infiltrated their factory, and all the data at Orbis might disappear.

‘I guess I’ll have to handle this myself.’

Dexter was about to leave the R&D room to rescue Himena.

“Hey, big guy. Where do you think you’re going?”

“Huh?”

When Dexter turned his head, the researcher who had cursed at him earlier was looking at him with a displeased expression, holding a pipette.

“Weren’t you just in the break room? Going there again?”

“No, it’s just… I need to use the bathroom…”

“What bathroom? You were sitting at Ruben’s desk. Aren’t you here to research in Ruben’s place? Get back to work right now.”

As the researcher kept berating him, Dexter, who needed to rescue Himena, put on a submissive expression as if asking for just one favor.

“I’m kind of busy right now…”

“Can’t you see everyone here is busy? I said go back to your seat right now!”

“But…”

That was Dexter’s last plea.

But the researcher, unaware of this, pushed Dexter’s chest with his finger with each word:

“Go. Back. To. Your. Seat.”

“……”

From that moment, Dexter lost his grip on reason.

“Hey.”

Dexter sighed and took off his glasses.

“Hey?”

The researcher, still unaware of the situation, took one step closer to Dexter with the same expression.

“What did you just call me…”

“You fucking bastard, you’ve pushed me too far.”

-Grab!

Dexter grabbed the researcher’s collar with one hand.

“Hey, hey! What are you doing?!”

The researcher was visibly panicking.

No one in this R&D room had ever treated him like this.

Whether the researcher was panicking or not, Dexter had no intention of stopping here.

Still holding the researcher’s collar, Dexter lifted him up.

“Gack, w-wait! How about we talk this out? Huh?”

Even though the researcher was thin, lifting an adult male with one hand is not easy for just anyone.

Realizing this, the researcher tried to calm Dexter down, but Dexter, who had already lost his temper, was in no mood to be reasonable.

When the researcher’s head was about to touch the ceiling, Dexter forcefully brought down the arm holding his collar.

With a loud noise, the researcher was slammed to the ground.

-Crash!

It was a sensation he had never felt before.

His breath was cut off, and the sky turned bright yellow.

The researcher, suffering from the intense pain radiating from his back and unable to breathe properly, finally managed to speak:

“Ugh… you, you bastard… d-do you want to get fired…?”

“Go ahead and fire me, you piece of shit.”

Dexter stepped on the fallen researcher’s chest and began applying pressure.

“Hick!”

The researcher made a sound like air escaping from his lungs.

“What business is it of yours what others do? Huh?”

As Dexter looked up after saying this, he saw the surrounding researchers staring at him.

‘Ah, shit. I was supposed to be undercover.’