Porter Buchanan
SIGNET FIELD OFFICE BUILDING, NYC
8:43
SIGNET FIELD OFFICE BUILDING, NYC
8:43
"Please remain calm," said a soothing, clinical voice from the server room intercom as a warning klaxon blared overhead. "An emergency situation has occurred. The building is currently on lockdown. Our security personnel is currently working to ensure your safety. Do not leave your workstations and follow lockdown procedures. The situation will be resolved shortly. Please remain calm. An emergency...."
Porter frowned. Complications. He tapped the small red X on his current Terminal window and accessed the Signet security system. Outside the server room, a security nodule hidden in the ceiling popped out and began tracing the hallway. Just outside, Operative Cell eyed the now roused guards at the far end of the hallway and made for the door. Porter glanced quickly over his shoulder as she crept inside with him. He could see panic beginning to worm its way into the operative. Her gaze darted quickly from him to the door, wide-eyed with fear. She seemed to vibrate with tense energy and she leaned against a server tower by the left side of the doors, just out of the doorway line of sight. Porter crouched low and moved behind the server tower opposite to Cell. He looked back at the holographic video feed.
On the first floor, Felix Grelen was floating in a chair. Porter pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to three before releasing a heavy sigh. Stealth mission. Of course. The leader of the Network floated past a few stunned guards (who should have been filling him with holes instead of watching him in disbelief) and landed behind an overturned office desk after incapacitating a guard with a psionic projectile. His security armor registered his quickly dwindling vital statistics, noting a single puncture through the right ventricle of his heart. He was flatlining as he fell. He was unconscious in four seconds. In seven seconds he was listed as KIA. Terrorist Response Team Officer, Naseer Ayad, 32, bomb disposal experience and current American Lev-Trans Association member in good standing. Survived by sister, Hafsah Ayad, 34, risk management.
He switched his monitor to his current floor. The three security guards stood at attention with weapons drawn. Securitas brand name kinetics, a reliable if aesthetically unappealing manufacturer in Porter's honest opinion. The woman by the door hefted drew a Viktor series semi-automatic rifle and kept watch of the elevator. Two of them equipped with wide-spread kinetic firearms (the archaic shotgun had survived through the centuries in everything but name) moved down the hallway, checking side rooms and guiding frightened staff to a safe room just beside the elevator.
"What's the plan," Cell mouthed to Porter from across the doorway. "Do we hide or do we fight?" Porter turned the options over in his head. Hallway, three guards between current location and elevator. Side rooms full of staff. Alarm raised. Alarm is sound system controlled. Porter nodded once before looking up at Cell.
"Follow my lead." He slowly reached into the waistband of his service uniform and pulled out his telescoping stun baton. On the holographic video feed, the two searching guards positioned themselves just outside the server room door, one giving the other a countdown. In a flash of fingers, Porter pulled up an audio file on his Terminal. He set it to play over the speakers in the room to the right of the server room. A series of loud thump came from behind the closed door of a Mr. Carson Mikado. The two guards instantly wheeled around on the noise. They slowly approached the door and kicked it down, guns drawn. Inside they found Mr. Mikado who was busy trying to send a SigTweet regarding the emergency situation in his office building and the two personnel who were currently telling him to stand up with his hands on his head while they patted him down.
They did not see nor hear the the service technician or the secretary slipping out of the server room past Mr. Mikado's door. They were unaware of the service technician quickly typing up false security ping, ordering the third security guard at the elevator to abandon post and proceed to the fourth floor through the elevator to take care of the security threat endangering property and civilian life. The security guards also returned too late to see the service technician quickly reopen the elevator doors. They certainly did not see the service technician and secretary jump on top of the elevator roof as it descended, with the secretary dampening the sound of their landing to soft tap. Nor did she realize that the security cameras in the elevator were aimed squarely at the wall. As the elevator doors closed behind her, the guard arriving on the fourth floor didn't notice the air-elemental secretary opening the elevator roof hatch with a sound-muffled click. No one saw the service technician and the secretary go through the hatch into the elevator as it opened up to the first floor.
No one saw aynything at all.