No

Ming Zhao's expression softens as she sees my desperation. "I'm sorry. You're right. I won't do that to you, Ahab."

She takes my hand and leads me to the docking area. A large truck is parked in front of the closed loading door. Fortunately, there are no workers present. Ming Zhao and I sneak around the truck to the loading door keypad.

"Could you break this open for me?" She asks.

Normally I wouldn't destroy company property, but we need to get inside. I slam my elbow into the keypad, breaking it open. Ming Zhao crosses a few wires, and in seconds the door opens up for us.

We walk down the long, twisting corridor through the receiving area, alert for any postal workers or co-workers coming through.

"I'm glad this place is empty," I say.

"Me too," Ming Zhao says. "Though this explains why I never get my packages on time."

I snicker, partly from her joke and partly from how we can somehow have a normal conversation in our present situation.

We stop as we hear footsteps approaching. Someone is coming towards us from down the hall, but has not seen us yet! Ming Zhao suddenly kicks at the nearest keypad and hacks through it, pulling me through the door into another corridor.

"Fuck, that was close!" She whispers.

We hear the footsteps stop just outside the door. Sparks begin to fly, indicating they are playing with the broken keypad.

"Great, now we're stuck here," I moan.

"They'll be here soon," Ming Zhao says. "We just have to explain to them what happened."

"Yeah, right!" I say. "Why don't we just go down this hallway?"

"Because that leads to the weather simulator!" Ming Zhao explains. "They could be testing it."

Shit. We were between a rock and a hard place. Either way, we risk discovery.