Tomorrow

'How on earth did you do that?’ Joe was bewildered.

‘A little telepathy, coupled with Ericksonian hypnotherapy. With people like that,’ he indicated the guards with a casual wave of his hand, ‘it is relatively easy.’

Joe’s scrunched eyebrows telegraphed his incomprehension. ‘Huh?’

‘I mean people who follow the rules, have clearly defined tasks and not a great deal of autonomy. Qualities of the perfect security guard, in fact. This is not the right time to explain further, but we could talk about it tomorrow, if you would like? For now, we should find the others.’

As they hastened on towards the huge entrance doors, Jean-Claude was worried. How had Xavier learned to do that? He knew he could read, and had picked it up with unbelievable speed, but a skill like hypnosis takes time and practise to be effective, doesn’t it? Or was it something to do with that other line of code he didn’t recognise? 

Alarm bells were going off… and not just in his head. As soon as Xavier pushed the doors open - the noise was overwhelming. A siren shrieked while some sort of percussion drilled frantically into the air. Hands went uselessly to ears to try to block out the cacophony. Xavier quickly moved towards a small control box at head height along the wall behind them and did something to it.  Joe couldn’t see exactly what he was doing but abruptly the noise stopped.

Ahead of them, a waist height metal barrier enclosed an empty square. Joe realised they were on a sort of gallery above the main warehouse. They looked down on a deep void crammed with multiple aisles of high racking. Robot pickers were trundling up and down, lifting and placing items seemingly at random.

‘This way.’ Xavier turned down a corridor, away from the centre. Pulling open the first door he came to, he slipped inside, shutting the door quickly after ushering in Jean-Claude and Joe. They heard footsteps pounding past, it sounded like five or six people, to Joe.