The white table was refreshingly peaceful after months of staring at monitors and keyboards. Sue and Roger sat opposite, as usual. Both broke out in relieved smiles this time.
"Did you get it all?" Roger asked.
"Every bit of it. All locked away and double-encrypted, where anyone who found it would consider it useless back-ups of old experiments from the mainframe days." Sue smiled even broader.
"And the report was emailed. His code gave us the data we needed. And now the prosecutor has all he needs." Joe made a small figure on the table with his finger. "Tangled web and all that."
Sue then went more solemn. "What next, then?" she asked. "I mean, we have our papers set now, real breakthrough research which disproves the whole theorem, and all the test cases have already been done, thanks to the Precept and his failed experiments."
"Well, we aren't out of the woods, yet." Roger frowned slightly. "I don't know how we are supposed to get back. Do you see a door? Anything?"
As they both looked around, they only saw each other, the table, and white everywhere else.