Chapter 2: Just a simple game of Simon Says

Today is my first day back on duty, and as always I try to break in. I do it to keep up the FBI’s defenses, to show them where their building security is weak. The two guards at the door are easy to convince that I’m a top ranking FBI suit, and they let me into the building’s secret private elevator. Once in there I have access to any floor of the building in theory. I head straight for the Director’s office.

Halfway up to the top floor the elevator stops, and a computer voice asks me to input my pass code. I don’t have a pass code with access to the Director’s office, and I had left both of the guards at the door so they wouldn’t be missed. Of course they probably didn’t have a code for the Director’s floor either, so they wouldn’t have been much help anyway. I guess at a five-digit number, my zipp code actually, and after hitting the fifth digit, which must have been wrong, a gas is released leaving me on the floor a limp pile of flesh. The elevator then continues to another floor, where security guards carry my limp body from the elevator to a detention cell. There I lay until I regain control of my body. A short time later Mister Smith enters the cell.

“Well, you didn’t make it this time.” He says.

“I will next time though, now that I know about that code.” I promise.

“Maybe.” Mister Smith responds back with a evil chuckle.

“Is there anyway we can do that next time without the gas? For me at least?” I have to ask.

“No.” Mister Smith doesn’t chuckle this time.

“You’d better be paying me a fuck load of money.” My salary has never been formally discussed. I receive an allowance from the FBI, but once my forced time is over I’m to be given a lump sum of money. This was bargained for as an additional benefit when I had initially refused their original offer. Yes, I can play hard ball too. I have no idea how much money they plan on paying me, but maybe I should find out one day.

“We’ve got to get going. You’ve got ten minutes to get yourself going, then we’re off.” Mister Smith tells me and leaves.

“Off to where?” I asked his back.

“The Perfect.Com office building,” Mister Smith said opening the door for me.

“Why do they give a tour?” He left without answering my next question.

Twenty minutes later I found myself in full S.W.A.T. gear, in the back of a armored S.W.A.T. van. Jane, or Agent Newell, when she’s holding a 9 mm submachine gun strapped across her chest, was beside me trying to look tough and grim which is really hard for Jane.

“What am I doing here Jane, Agent Newell? I’m not allowed to have or shoot a gun,” I complained, to all the other similarly dressed men and women in the van with me and Jane.

“You’ve had training haven’t you?” Agent Newell, Jane said ... asked?

“Well yeah, but there’s a shit load of difference between shooting little paper targets and leading a S.W.A.T. team into a hostage situation.” I protested.

She shrugged, and went back to fiddling with her gun. Jane really really likes guns, big guns, little guns, her gun, your gun, it doesn’t make Jane any difference I have learned, and no I haven’t done Jane yet. But?, maybe I should? After all if I enslave her to my will maybe she’ll quit getting hypnotized by every Tom Dick, and Harry amateur hypnotist out there and quit hitting me ... well its a suggestion ... maybe I should ask Mister Smith about.

The van pulled up about half a block from the Perfect.Com’s office tower. Between the tower and us were what seemed like an army of local police, and various other well armed government agents, local police, firemen, reporters, and other uniforms and suits. The regular circus was in town it seemed. We were lead from the van to an area where the local police had set up a mobile headquarters. There I noticed Mister Smith standing off to the side, though he didn’t acknowledge us. A tall thin man with a mustache showed up and began to brief us.

“Inside there is one Howard Taylor. Until today Howard was a mid level HTML programmer employed by Perfect.Com. He has no previous record of any knowledge and/or the use of hypnosis. He’s not a techie either, doesn’t even own a CD burner, and does good to replace a battery. Today he showed up for work at 8 AM, and somehow he got into the room where they keep the building’s automated elevator music system and inserted a CD of his own design apparently. By 1 PM in the afternoon everyone in the building had fallen under his complete control except for a few male foreign exchange students from France whose English wasn’t that good on a tour of the building. They apparently noticed something unusual was going on...”

“Like what?” I butted in impatiently. The man looked a bit annoyed at being interrupted.

“Like all the female employees removing their clothes, and all the male employees busy setting up barricades at the front entrance of the building for one thing. The five foreign exchange students tried to sneak out via a fire exit, but it was guarded by a janitorial employee, whose name we do not yet have. He had a gun and shot and killed one of the students. The other four students overpowered him, and brought him out with them.”

I tried not to look at Mister Smith, though I was thinking about what he had said earlier. This was much bigger than some overweight hypnodomme trying to scam money out of rich yuppies. This was something I was actually be needed for. The man continued.

“So what we have here is a building containing roughly two hundred employees, all under someone else’s control, and known to be proven hostile. We do not know how many of them have guns, though we do know that at least four of the security guards were armed. We also know that the supposed victims have instructions to kill and will as the janitorial employee demonstrated.” The man finished.

“How do you know it’s this Howard Taylor behind it?” I had to ask next.

“We’ve been in negotiations with him. He’s claimed full responsibility for everything.” He told me.

“What’s he want?” Jane asked next.

“He wants ... demands ... us to play his damn CDs on all the radio stations in the state.” The man told me.

“Well that’s one way to get a recording contract.” I joked out loud for my own amusement nobody else laughed.

“Okay which one of you is Agent Morgan?” The man asked next.

Everybody sort of looked around and nobody answered up for a few moments, that’s when I realized that I’m Agent Morgan, ha, ha, ha. Well, that’s my code name anyway, so my hand shot up.

“That would be me, ha, ha, ha.” I had to laugh.

“You’re lead on this mission for some reason. Now everyone hand in your guns, and I mean all of them, I don’t want any holdouts, is that clear! Don’t worry you’ll all be equipped with the latest stun rifles and other nifty nonfatal toys. They work about the same as a gun on your end, but they’re non-lethal. You’ll also be equipped with these earpieces, they are broadcasting a ultrasonic signal that will cancel out what’s being broadcast on the PA System the Techie’s assure us.” He paused at that point to take questions I guess, and yes I ... we ... were close enough that I could feel, hear that same screech of long fingernails on the blackboard that was giving me the start of a headache again.

“The insertion points will be the three fire exits on the non-entrance sides of the building. City police teams have set explosive charges to blow off the steel fire doors hinges, when they do you’re on your own. Consider everyone in there a threat, even your own men. We’ll be keeping in radio contact with everyone at all times, and we are monitoring the internal security camera feeds. So we’ll let you know if we think an agent or team may have been compromised, or what to look out for.” He told us all.

“Compromised?” I asked.

“If the music or whatever it is gets through they will turn on you, it’s happened to several of the local police officers who got too close.” He told us grimly looking very serious. Great, I still had to worry about Jane shooting me now.

An officer was coming around taking guns from us, and another officer followed him handing out the stun rifles and pistols. The airrifles shoot these glass pellets from 10 round clips that inflict severe pain and cause muscular disruption when the target is touched by the activated pellet. At best 300 Million Volts, or 10KV - 30KV that’s it. Enough to put you down, but not enough in theory to kill you. It’s not the voltage that kills it’s the current, a current of 0.1 ampere for a mere 2 seconds can be fatal.

After we were given our airguns we then split into the three groups we’d trained with. Me with one group and Jane with another. The third group was lead by a S.W.A.T. veteran Agent Frears, who had been responsible for all our training. I gave a signal and the three teams went to their designated doors.

As we approached I saw three men run from the exit door we were set to go through, and then an explosion ripped the door off its hinges. My team of three flew through our door running. Inside a man was on the floor slightly dazed from the blast. He saw us run through and started to get to his feet. He reached for something in his pocket, “Take him!” I shouted.

The agent behind me zapped him, knocking him back onto the floor and then using Zip Ties to immobilize him. Everything we said and/or saw was recorded and transmitted by tiny microphones and cameras in our suits back to the mobile HQ, so I simply spoke aloud to report.

“One down, possibly armed. Going up the stairs now.” I reported in.

“Stairway west secured. Heading to tenth floor.” I reported when we got to the top, with no further incidents. The tenth floor was where the building’s music control room was. We’d take that out first, before moving on to wherever Taylor was supposedly holed up, which was the top floor offices our intel said.

“Team Three has exchanged fire with building security on 10th floor. We’ve lost radio contact with Team Two, warning Team Two members may have been turned.” My ear piece came to life and warned me, We slowly worked our way up to the 10th floor, incapacitating and hog-tying people along the way. At first the 10th floor appeared empty, but as we rounded the corner we saw Agent Frears and his team searching the fallen bodies of the building’s security people.