1 September 29478
22:57 RKST
Omni-Administration Building, Omni-1
Suite 5810
An obnoxious beeping ruthlessly forced Daniel Oberman back to the world of consciousness. With a groan he shut off the alarm on his NCU and tried to regain his bearings. The first thing to dawn on him was that he wasn't waking up in his apartment. The glaring fluorescent lights, the scent of cold coffee and old doughnuts... and something else, the stench of something revoltingly synthetic and artificial, something plastic. There was only one place in the known universe with that awful smell...
Omni-Administration Special Operations Subdepartment K-62's Employee Break Room.
'Oh god, why do you torment me so?' he thought. What a horrible, horrible day this was. Danny went through the mental checklist. 'First, I sleep in too late. Second, I burnt the omelette I was making for breakfast. Then, my girlfriend dumps me, over the comm no less. Oh yeah, and finally THE ALIENS INVADED AND OMFG IT'S THE END OF THE FREAKING WORLD BUT I STILL HAVE TO WORK OVERTIME AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!'
Danny had been sleeping on four of the break room chairs he had lined up into a makeshift bed. Sitting up, he looked around to see who else was napping on the job. Daisuke Sekiya was slumped over in a chair in the corner, while Johnny Schmidt was passed out on top of the table with a half eaten doughnut in his mouth. Johnny was a wierd, yet oddly charming little dude. Short and kinda hairy, Johnny was the subdepartment's Master InfoTech guy, and the newest member of the K-62 team. He had a strange accent that marked him as an immigrant from offworld; Danny would have to ask him what planet he came from someday. Danny walked up and gently poked him him in the ribs. "Wakey, wakey, eggs and bacey!"
"OMG dwed WTF...," Johnny replied while shaking off his own slumber. "I w@s h4v1ng a g66d dr3am, lot$a pr0n!"
Dais slowly yawned and stretched. "Aw man, how long were we asleep?" he asked.
"Dunno, it's 23:00 now. Do you now what time the boss is supposed to be back?"
"Uh, yeah. He's supposed to be back at 23:00..."
The three young bureaucrats looked at each other, the tension and horror suddenly reflected in each other's eyes as they turned, in unison, towards a wall clock that read 22:59:34. Their eyes turned back to each other and then, in a flurry of gray suits they charged out of the break room and into the hall.
22:59:39
With adrenaline and panic rushing though their viens they sprinted down the hall, passing door after door leading to rooms packed with cubicles. The master control office never seemed so impossibly far from the break room before. Each step seemed to take an eternity.
22:59:44
Danny made it there first. Barrelling through the door and around the corner, he tensed his legs preparing to make the final vault over to his work area. The next thing he knew he was dazed, lying on the floor, and wondering just who it was he ran into. For one brief moment of terror he thought he ran into the boss himself. But it was only George. George?
22:59:46
"GEORGE! GEORGE! WHY AREN'T YOU AT YOUR DESK?!?"
"Hmph, speak for yourself," George replied. George was a quiet gentleman in his mid-fifties, very intelligent and very dedicated to his work as K62's Special Information Officer, making him the third man on the totem pole for the whole subdepartment. He was so dedicated to his work that he rarely left his desk. In fact, Danny could only recall seeing George leave his desk on his regularly scheduled breaks. OK, that wasn't exactly true, but still WHY HERE? WHY NOW? Of all the times for George to be standing in the middle of the damned walkway...
22:59:53
With mere seconds left on the clock, Danny lept to his feet and started running the last few meters to the relative safety his desk. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a large cart filled with boxes sitting in the middle of the room. 'Where the hell did those come from, those aren't supposed to be there!' There was no time to dwell on it now as he had to save his own bacon first. A quick glance at the small elevator on the other end of the room showed it was already at the 56th floor and climbing.
22:59:56
Danny slammed his butt into the chair so hard that the hoversprings nearly bounced him back out again. Momentarily off-balance he flailed his arms around, accidentally knocking a stack of folders off the desk. 'OH DAMN THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING NOW DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!' The elevator was at the 57th floor.
22:59:58 1/2
It was as if time was standing still. All of his awareness was focused on those folders as they seemed to hang there in mid-air, timeless, a moment that lasted an eternity. Without even thinking, Danny's hands reflexively shot out and caught the entire stack before it hit the floor...
23:00:00
*DING*
The elevator door opened and Administrator Jacob Stroud, Manager of Subdepartment K-62, entered Suite 5810 with his usual sternness and almost rediculous precision. 'Man, doesn't that guy ever get tired?' Danny thought to himself while trying to act like he was casually working the whole time. His heart was still pounding and it was all he could do to keep breathing normally and stop his hands from shaking from the adrenaline. Still, you didn't want a tightass prick of a boss like Stroud to catch you slacking off on the job. Stroud began the usual, almost clockwork routine that happened every time he walked from the elevator to his office.
"Good evening, Mr. Stroud," George started.
"Good evening, Smith," Stroud replied, without bothering to make eye contact. Normally George would be one of the last to go as he would be at his desk in the back, not STANDING IN THE DAMN WALKWAY! Danny was still kinda pissed about that, even though George probably had a good reason to be there.
"Good evening, Mr. Stroud," Abe said as the boss walked passed his desk. Abe was the Assistant Interoffice Communications Officer, with the main ICO being Danny. It was good to have an assistant for those times when it got really busy, or those times you were taking a nap in the break room while the boss was away in a meeting.
"Good evening, Wilson." Would it be better or worse if he addressed them by their first names? Just using the surname sounded really cold and dehumanizing, but when Stroud addresseed people by their first name it was usually meant in a patronizing fashion.
"Good evening, Mr. Stroud," Danny said calmly. He surprised himself by how cool and composed he sounded considering the near panic he was in just a minute before. Still, something wasn't quite right, he felt like he was forgetting some little detail he couldn't quite put his finger on...
"Good evening, Oberman." Suddenly, Danny put his finger on it. 'Oh crap, the BOXES!' He remembered seeing the boxes on that cart when he ran past George, but he didn't know what they were doing here. It was his job to know what they were doing here. Stroud was going to ask him about the boxes, and he wouldn't know the answer, and then his goose was going to get cooked. 'OK, don't panic Dan, just think fast. Very fast...'
However, Mr. Stroud's attention was elsewhere. He headed towards the General Assignment Station where work was divided up for the whole office.
"Good evening, Mr. Stroud." This time it was Daisuke's turn.
"Good evening, Sekiya... is there a problem here Schmidt?" Danny looked over towards the GAS. Dais hadn't been in the break room as long as Danny had but the place was clearly a mess, with work backing up all over the place. Worse, it looked like Johnny had just followed Dais over to his workstation instead of going to his own.
"Uuuuummmmmmmmmm...," was Johnny's reply. Bad answer.
Stroud raised an eybrow.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmm...."
Stroud crossed his arms. This was about to get ugly.
"FixXor?"
The look of growing annoyance on Stroud's face softened somewhat. It WAS Johnny's job to fix the computers around here when they broke. "Everything looks fine to me," Stroud replied.
"jepp it wuz jUs teh s3rvr l4agx0r tho."
"I see," Stroud's eyes narrowed, "If it's a problem with server side lag, why are you inspecting Mr. Sekiya's terminal?"
"Uuuuuuuuummmmmmm, cuz I had 2 chex 2 b sur3?"
Stroud considered the answer carefully, as if measuring its weight. "Very well, continue on with your work and try to get this mess cleaned up. I wouldn't expect..." His voice trailed off as he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. "Mr. Oberman, what in the hell are these boxes doing in the middle of the room?"
Fortunately, the distraction over at the GAS had given Danny the opportunity he needed. Somewhere in the middle of the "Umms", he had grabbed a scanning wand, set his chair into 'hover' mode, and kicked off from his desk, sending him gliding across the room. He quickly ran the wand over the boxes ID chip, then with another kick sent himself back to his desk. A few quick keystrokes and he uploaded the data into his terminal and from there into his NCU. He had no idea what was in the boxes, but if he just read the data from his NCU aloud he should be fine. Right?
"Sir, those boxes contain the yearly special budget reports as well as construction permits for Black Rose." 'Oh damn I'm so smooth,' Danny though to himself.
Stroud's face turned into a scowl. "What? We don't process those kinds of reports from Black Rose! Those were supposed to go to K-47. Why the hell didn't you take care of that?"
'Ooops.'
George cleared his throat. "K-47 has been temporarily closed down for maintenance. All of their processing is to be handled by us until they are back online."
"Closed for maintenance? Now? They just had maintenance work done six months ago."
George leaned closer the Stroud for the response. Danny couldn't quite hear what George muttered, except for the words "Ross' farewell party". Everyone knew better then to ask questions about that...
"I see," Stroud replied, "Is there anything else I need to know about?"
"Yes Sir." Danny was pretending to look at his work terminal but was actually reading IM's that Abe was sending straight to his NCU. "Commissioner Stormseeker wishes to speak with you and also... Agent JadeDragon from InternOps is waiting for you in your office."
Stroud scowled again. Danny should have given him that last bit of information sooner. If Jade was here then he had more important matters to deal with than scolding Mr. Oberman. Without another word he turned and walked into his office.
