The beam of light cut through the darkness, illuminating the clean metal counters and the stacked plates.

“This way,” I said, leading them past the kitchen toward the back hallway.

We reached the door of the manager’s office.

The wood around the lock was splintered, and the door hung open at an angle.

Inside, the scene matched the photo perfectly.

Paper files were scattered across the floor like dead leaves.

The desk drawer was in pieces, and a tangle of severed black cables hung from the empty space under the desk.

“They were in a hurry,” Charles observed, stepping over a broken stapler.

“They missed the real prize,” Marcus said, pointing his flashlight toward a small metal grate near the floor in the corner.

He knelt down, pulled a screwdriver from his pocket, and quickly removed the four screws holding the grate.

Behind the metal cover was a small, dusty blue box with three green lights blinking slowly.

“The local storage node,” Marcus said, smiling faintly. “It’s running on an independent battery backup.”

He connected a thick grey cable from his laptop to the blue box.