Amongst the heightened emotions and widespread confusion, the Counter Terrorism Unit – Arcelis Division office remained relatively calm. The insulated, structurally reinforced walls allowed its employees to work without being disturbed by the tumultuous uproar of the citizens living within the building. The employees nestled inside were fully aware of the situation at hand, but had no time for panic – no time for phoning one's family. It was crunch time.
There was no mistaking the entrance to the CTU office. Armed guards patrolled the surrounding hallways and cameras littered every surface, making it virtually impossible to approach the main doors without alerting someone. The heavy, plated glass doors that lead to the interior of the office were protected by another two guards, along with numerous identification verification mechanisms that would make airport security from fifty years ago seem like a joke.
“Hey Joe, are you watching this shit?” One of the two guards at the entrance pointed to the screen sitting on the desk in front of them inquisitively. The screen, like almost every other display in the facility, was tuned into the live broadcast from Japan. Of course, their screen was supposed to be displaying video feeds from the hallways, but one of their many lines of defense was made useless by a certain guard's fascination with the news feed.
“No, I'm looking at those tig-o-bitties walking this way!” Joe grunted in approval, nodding his head up and down slightly.
The other guard remained glued to the screen, ignoring the gestures of his comrade. “As if some hot chick would just magically waltz past the crew and make it all the way here without me noticing. Rather than fantasizing about your imaginary girlfriend, you should be trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with this damned screen.” He shook the screen in vain, hoping the jostling motion would somehow remedy the problem. “And if there was a chick, I seriously doubt she'd have any interest in talking to your fat a--.” He stopped mid-phrase as he felt the presence of someone hovering over him. The sickeningly-sweet smell of cherry blossoms overwhelmed his nostrils and brought him to full attention, almost bumping heads with a young female in front of him. “I... I...”
Joe walked around to the side of the desk, motioning for the young woman to follow suit. “Welcome to the CTU. Badge please.” Anyone wishing to enter the facility had to have an identification badge as well as undergo a number of identity tests, such as a retina scan, hand scan, full body scan, or several other wonderfully annoying tests. The exact tests were pseudo-randomly selected to ensure a fair balance of hits and misses. Every person must walk through a localized EMP field which neutralized any electronic device, removing the possibility of any data being transferred in or out and disabling any explosives.
The young woman nonchalantly walked over to the guard, her black, three-inch heels clacking with each step. She was dressed professionally, wearing a well-made royal azure woman's suit that went down to just above her knees. Her blonde hair was tied neatly behind the nape of her neck with a scarlet ribbon, forming a pony-tail that draped down her back. She grinned roguishly at Joe, looking deep into his eyes and said, “What's up big sexy?”
“Not much Agent Alexandrescy. Just keeping an eye on the situation.”
She gently cooed at him, removing her badge from underneath the corner of her jacket and handing it to Joe. “Aww what did I tell you about using the phrase 'the situation'? And that's 'special' agent.”
Joe was taken aback by the later statement, sliding her card through the reader. “Special Agent? Damn girl, you're moving up the ranks.”
“I've been a special agent for years Joe. Don't tell me you forgot already,” she sighed, grabbing her badge back from the guard and hiding it in her jacket.
The other guard finally snapped back into reality and approached the two, saying, “Ma'am I'm going to have to ask you to keep your badge visible at all times. It's policy.”
Joe glanced back at his partner and groaned, “Man... shut up. She's cool. Go back to watching your soap opera or whatever. I got this.”
“Look we're in a crisis here and the last thing we need is people slipping on the rules. What's next, violating code of ethics? Sending data to the enemy? Spying on our fellow workers? Huh?”
“Look white boy, stop trippin' before you end up hurting yourself.” Joe's temper was clearly becoming inflamed at the other guard. The man had recently been transferred from another branch and was quickly alienating himself from the others with his behavior.
“Bah, don't get all worked up over it. Do you have a spare badge clip? Mine broke this morning, hence the pocket. If you give me one I'll be more than happy to wear my badge on the outside.”
Just then the double-doors opened and a man poked his head out to look around. He focused his gaze on Special Agent Alexandrescy and rolled his eyes. “What are you doing dawdling out here? We've been waiting on you! Come on!” He paused and turned his attention to the guard that was giving her a hard time. “Oh and Harry, you're fired. Please leave your badge with Joe and get out of here.”
As the man returned inside, the young woman stuck her tongue out at Harry and proceeded through the doors to CTU with no further issue. Upon entering the establishment, she was greeted by the sound of people furiously typing on keyboards and hurriedly clicking buttons on their screens. The noise dampened momentarily as curious onlookers noticed her arrival. The bland, nondescript hallway was a stark contrast to the internal walls of the room, heavily adorned with FlexiScreens of various sizes, each showing unique data. Not a single display had the SkyNet overlay on it, a sharp reminder that their systems were isolated from the rest of the network. The SkyNet broadcast had no control over any of the computers. In fact, the CTU ran on a dedicated server cluster designed by none other than Special Agent Alexandrescy. It only took one day working in the Archelis facility before she had literally smashed the original system designed by the building engineers with a sledgehammer. She couldn't care less how much time and effort they put into it. The system randomly crashed throughout the day, usually at critical points, causing all data to be lost – even data that was backed up on the multi-disk RAID controller. Normally, such an atrocious act would land a person in jail, but Alexandrescy was no ordinary person. Her claim to fame was cracking one of the most secure network systems ever conceived in less than a minute. Since then she worked for the US government, creating advanced encryption algorithms and assisting various agencies with high priority computer-related cases. Her latest stint was working at CTU – Archelis, ensuring that the massive skyscraper didn't turn into a smoldering pile of rubble from terrorists.
Special Agent Alexandrescy quickly caught up to her doorway savior, and stopped him. “Thanks for helping out back there, Director Mason.”
Director Mason, the head of CTU – Archelis, turned around and closed the gap between them. He got in her face and with a stern voice said, “Helped you? Is that what you think --- that 'I' helped 'you' back there?” He took a step back and laughed in a condescending manner. “Ha hah haa! Who the **** you think you are coming in here acting like you own the place. I'm the ****ing Director of CTU. I run shit here, while you just work here!”
The typical response to such an attack would be to become upset, angry, or perhaps even cry. Instead, the agent thought to herself, pondering over what he just said. She knew it was familiar but she couldn't quite place it. Her face started glowing with excitement. “Oh! Oh! I know! You sound just like him! Gimme a sec... um”
The director became calm and content, his body posture more neutral. “Ok. That's alright. That's alright. I don't give a ****, I'm winning anyway. I can't lose.”
She grabbed him by the shoulders and embraced him tightly for only a moment. “Denzel Washington!”
Mason sighed and started heading towards his office, which was up a flight of stairs in the distance. “You know how much time it took me to come up with that? You figure out my impressions of old movies as fast as you hack a computer. How do you do it?”
“Well if I told you that ---” she said, shaking her finger at him, “I'd have to kill you.”
“Seriously, that phrase died out like forty years ago. You need some new material,” he jokingly said as he continued forward. She followed suit, following him to his office.
“So what's going on anyway?”
“That's why I brought you here. I've already got calls from the Chief of Staff, District, and even the Japanese ambassador asking the same thing. All we know for sure is that there is an attack of some sort taking place and that the news feeds are fake.”
“Fake news feeds?”
Mason directed her to a screen on the wall behind his spacious office. “Take a look at this.” The walls were made of thick glass, capable of becoming as opaque as a true wall should the need arise. It allowed the director to view his people hard at work below while still maintaining privacy. It almost seemed archaic, like a king looking down on his peasants. This was not the intent, but such a thought could come to some people's minds. On the screen was the video from the SkyNet news feed. “Computer, pause on frame three minutes forty-two seconds.”
The video froze in place, stopped at the moment right before the camera drone nosedived out of view. The agent examined the screen in detail, taking in the whole scene. “Computer, zoom in on sector four-five and enhance.” The image zoomed in on the drone. There was a slight difference between the area just around the drone and the backdrop of the tower. “Computer, run a level three optical analysis on this section and cross reference it with all known drone footage.”
“Processing. There is a 99.9123% match with the Consinskie Massacre two years, thirty-one days and five hours ago.”
“Display the image.”
Director Mason was taken aback by the image that had suddenly appeared on the screen. “So we were right. It 'is' a fake!”
“Someone went to a lot of trouble to cover up whatever is going on over there. And people wonder why there's no sound.”
“But what does the Consinskie Massacre have to do with this?” Mason asked.
Special Agent Alexandrescy shrugged her shoulders and responded, “Probably nothing, but we should look into it nonetheless.”
“Very well. Assemble your team and let's figure this mess out. I'll inform District of our situation.”
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks