The two workers were taking their times. As far as Alex could tell, they were planning on taking all day to move the cameras into the hover.

“Any chance you can pick up the pace? I have other places to be.”

“You don’t want them to fall over as you fly, do you?” one of them said, a well dress kid in his early twenties with messy black hair.

“I’ve brought anchors, I’ll tie them in place. How about if I help you bring them in?”

“Can’t do that. It’d be our job if you damaged one.”

“How can it be your job? I’ve already paid for them.” He checked the chronometer on the control board. He’d given himself leeway because things always went wrong on jobs, but he hadn’t given himself that much.

“You know what, I don’t care if you lose your job. I’m going to help.”

The other guy, a shorter one, but more muscular, stood in the doorway. “Can’t let you in. No customer’s allowed inside the back. Company policy.”

“Then pick up the pace. I’ve got a meeting after this that I can’t be late for.”

“We’re going as fast as we can already. You’re not helping by interrupting us like that.”

Alex stepped away. “Fine. Just hurry up.” He sat at the hover’s control and kept watching the chronometer as they continued bringing the cameras in.

“All done,” the well dressed kid said. “Thank you for shopping with—”

Alex pushed him out. “Yeah yeah. You’re welcome, bye.” He closed the ramp. A glace at the chronometer made him want to just take off, but he had to secure the cameras in place. Tristan would kill him if he damaged them because he was in a hurry.

By the time he was done, his leeway was all gone. If he had any kind of delays he’d lose his assigned dock, the woman had been clear on that, he either showed up on time, or he made another appointment. And he wasn’t sure Tristan would care to wait many more days.

He cursed anytime traffic slowed down, and more than once he considered doing what a few others did, take to the air, and risk a fine. Only it wouldn’t be just a fine for him. The hover would be tagged, and the police would start paying attention, and they might notice things like the panels on the side changing.

Alex prepared himself as traffic picked up speed again and the tunnel came in view. As soon as he was in he sent the command and the panels changed. Gone was the movie production company, and in was the city’s high value waste pickup hover.

The predictive program he had analyzing the traffic told him everything would be clear for the rest of the trip and Alex set the hover on automatic while he put on the waste company’s uniform over what he was wearing.

He never took his eyes off the road while changing, the program wasn’t perfect, after all it had never warned him about the slowdown.

He made it to the broadcasting company with no time to spare. He send the identifier codes, proving he worked for the city and had an appointment for a pickup and then fidgeted while the guard in the booth checked things.

A guard, a living guard. What were they doing employing people to check entries and exits? Computers were much better for that.

“Can you hurry, I’m almost late.”

“Relax. There’s no one at the door. You’ll be fine, but I need to make sure everything’s okay. There you go. Door one hundred twelve is where you’re going.”

The gate opened. As Alex headed in he looked at the other hovers as he went to the assigned door. It had to be here. He hoped it was. The programs he had tracking it had been green the entire time, but it couldn’t follow it once it entered the company grounds.

He found his assigned door, and backed the hover to it. It locked in place and he lowered the ramp. The noise of machines filled the hover as he exited. He had to dodge automated loaders that went about taking equipment on and off hovers as he looked for the exit to the storage part of the building.

He checked his datapad as he walked. All the programs he had floating around the city indicated they were operational and ready. 

This wasn’t how he preferred doing things. He hadn’t been able to test how the company’s security forces responded to threats. All he could do was aggregate statistics on previous incidents and with other broadcasting companies and hope they gave a reasonably accurate picture of what would happen.

The door came into view, and he headed for it. He sent the command that would get everything moving and put the datapad away in the pocked of his jacket, under the uniform. He counted down in his head, adjusting his walk to reach the door just ahead of zero.

He pushed the door, and the lights went out. He was out of the waste company’s uniform in seconds, making it into a ball of cloth he threw in the disposal the moment the lights came back.

Now he looked like just one more cubicle worker, in pants and a shirt. He looked around like the others, who were wondering what had happened, but quickly put it out of their minds and went back to what they needed to do.

One group in the building wouldn’t be relaxing. Security was sending out programs to inquire what had happened. Was this localized, or an actual power drop. They were rare, but did still happen. This would be localize. Alex needed them on alert. He needed them looking outside, fortifying the network walls to prevent an attack.

He entered the lift with a dozen other workers. They didn’t even look at him. Lost in their own thoughts. People got off and on as it went up. On the fifteenth floor, Alex stepped off the lift, and a moment later an alarm sounded.

Everyone on the floor moved. Cubicle workers went back in their cubicles, technician headed purposefully for a restricted door. Alex joined them, presenting his ID to the scanner as he entered the room.

“We’re under attack,” someone said. “Security doesn’t know how they got through the walls, but they shut down the mainframe. We need to bring it up before they have accomplished whatever it is they are after. Everyone, pick a station, and start working.”

Alex grabbed the closest station and put his earpiece in. Security didn’t know how the attack had made it through because he’d inserted the programs days ago, in separate pieces, over his visits.

The mainframe lit up, it went dark again. It came back up and a voice sounded in his earpiece. It was distant, garbled, the voice of someone regaining consciousness.

The others began talking to it, each technician using his or her earpiece to speak to a different part of the mainframe, to help it get back up.

Alex spoke to it too, but he used its confused state to get in deeper, to bypass security that would keep even technicians out under normal circumstances. He soothed its worries, reminding it he was there to help, and continued his search.

For Tristan’s broadcast to reach everywhere, it needed to have both a proper broadcasting code, and the approved handshake protocols. The protocol turned out to be the easier of the two to find, tucked away in a nook of code, just waiting to be used.

The code was better hidden, in a information vault where hundreds of them waited. He had to be careful as he lifted it not to invalidate it. It couldn’t be here for the company to use before Tristan did, but it still had to remain valid.

Once he had it. He carefully extracted himself from the vault, making sure no evidence remained of his presence, and then did the same as he backed out of the rest of the mainframe. He wouldn’t count on the technicians’ work to hide his presence. All it would take was one line of code and they could realize he had been here. If they did, they would go through each and every lines of code to find out why.

Once he was out he looked at the time. Almost two hours. He closed his eyes and gave himself a moment to catch his breath. This next part was a big unknown. Could he get out of here before everything was fully back up.

He took off his earpiece and headed for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Someone asked, the same voice that had given the initial instructions.

“Restroom,” Alex replied, turning to look at him.

“We’re not done here.” He was dressed casually enough to look like another technician, but he stood in a way that screamed ‘security.’ Back straight, hands close to his hip, like he was used to have a gun there. His face was hard. The guy was ready for a fight.

In response, Alex relaxed his posture. “Yeah? Well, unless you want me to piss on the floor, I need to go. It isn’t like I knew the alarm was coming, so I didn’t go before hand.”

“No one leaves until the mainframe is back up and we confirm it’s clean.”

“So you want me to stay in this room, which some genius decided wouldn’t have it’s own restroom for when there was some kind of emergency?”

“Yes.”

Alex sighed loudly. “Fine, what corner do you want me to piss in?”

A few of the technicians had paused what they were doing to watch the exchange, concern on their face.

The man noticed them, “What are you doing? Get back to work.”

“They’re wondering what you’re going to have them do when one of them needs to go take a dump,” Alex offered. “I guess they can stand the smell of piss, but sh—”

“I know what you mean,” the man snapped.

“Hey, no need to rip my head off. I’m just waiting to find out which corner to use.”

The man pointed to the door. “Get out. Take care of it and come right back here. If I find out you deserted, I am going to come find you and make you regret it. I know who you are, remember that.”

“Sure, sure, I’ll be right back.”

One of the technician glared at the man’s head. She then looked at Alex and gave him a supportive smile. He returned it before turning and heading out.

He put the earpiece away and rubbed his ear. He passed the restroom without looking at them. He needed to get to the hover, and out of here before the guy decided his desertion deserved an alarm of its own.

He took out his datapad and contacted the hover to get it ready, and immediately noted that it hadn’t registered any internal motion. How had the loaders managed to bring in the computers without shifting the hover?

He accessed its sensors and the only thing in it were the cameras. Alex cursed. He called the company’s coordination office, routing it to appear to come from the other side of the city.

“Routing,” a woman answered.

“Hi, Edward Finland, I’m with Waste Pickup. Our operator just contacted me to say he still hasn’t been loaded. What’s going on? He’s on a schedule, you know?”

“I’m sorry, we had an emergency. All the loaders have been shut down.”

Alex gritted his teeth. “What do you mean, shut down? What kind of emergency requires that you shut them down? Have they started dancing?”

“I couldn’t tell you. The decision came from security.”

“When can he expect to be loaded?”

“I don’t know. When ever Security decides to start them up again.”

Alex disconnected. His plan had been for the loaders to do their jobs while he did his. He’d already convinced the system on a previous visit that the crates containing the computers were actually waste products that was scheduled to be picked up.

Now he’d have to wait in the hover. At least he had a spare uniform. He’d learned the need for them the hard way. He headed to the lobby to leave. He couldn’t go to the warehouse dressed like he was, he’d attract too much attention. He’d walk around the building and get in the hover via the side entrance.

He got his ID ready as he exited the lift, The one that said he was Orville Pantor, and that security had already cleared him to leave. And headed for the guard as a group led by a woman entered the lobby.

He noted their hard stares and armored clothing and marked them as mercs, not security. Their clothing were mismatched. Guns too conspicuous, they looked around as if they were looking for a reason to shoot something, or someone.

He handed his ID to the guard, keeping them in his peripheral vision as they stopped a few steps from the door. The guard scanned it, handed it back to him and Alex turned to head for the door, only to stop.

The woman was looking directly at him, a broad smile of her lips.

“Alexander Bartholomew Crimson, it is such a pleasure to see you again.”