by Collin Earl
*****
Scott had the best gig of any of his buddies. Ever since the situation in the Burning Plains, Scott had figured he would spend the rest of his life hauling refuse or chaperoning some rich dude's kid at the brat's weekend parties. He wasn't sure which career would have been worse. And then, his lucky break; a way out of his mess with only a few years' payment to make. And to make things even easier, he basically just sat around and watched vid feeds, radioed posts, and kept the visitors log up to date. Talk about cushy.
It would have been heaven if that stupid scientist had not been sequestered in the apartments at the last minute. Total buzz kill. To make matters worse, the doc's assigned guard gave Scott the most ridiculously complex check-in schedule ever. None of this on the hour every hour stuff. First check-in was followed by a second 17 minutes later. Then 38 minutes, then 12, then 2, then 27, and so on. The latest of these absolutely excessive check-ins was about ten minutes ago. Scott looked at the schedule, which he had hidden from the beefy man because he certainly was not going to memorize it as instructed. The next check-in would be in one minute.
Scott had learned the hard way after his first botched check-in that he had exactly 5 seconds to reply to the guard's radio before he comm'd down to the main post. Scott was late only that one time. No way this d-bag was going to get Scott reassigned away from his cushy job.
Three, two, one and...nothing. Scott looked at the desk clock. Then he checked the crumpled up piece of paper, fearing he had missed something.
Nope. There it was, 7 minutes from the last one. Scott waited a few more seconds. Weird...that guy was never late.
Scott pulled up the hallway feed to Dr. Shu's floor. There was the burly man guarding the empty hallway. Everything seemed fine. Scott reached for the comm but then hesitated. Should he really do that? If he pointed out that this guy had missed a check-in, could that bear of a man somehow twist it so it looked bad for Scott? He checked the time on the sheet and the clock again. No way! He was totally on point. The big dude had messed up and this was Scott's opportunity to let him know it.
He linked the comm open. "Hey, Hans. You, uh, miss something?" Scott muted the mic and snickered. This was totally brickin'. The big man in the vid didn't budge. Oh, tough guy, thought Scott. "Hey, Hans. You're two minutes late. You're slipping, man." Again no movement from the guard. Scott checked the comm settings, and then tried the secondary channel. "Uh, Hans...Hans? You there man?" Nada.
This guy was starting to piss him off. First he gives him this ridiculous schedule, and then when Scott calls him on missing a check-in, he pretends he can't hear him. Scott linked Dr. Shu's room. He'd just let the doctor know that his bodyguard wasn't responding. That would get the guy in trouble for sure. "Dr. Shu? Sorry to disturb you but I just wanted to see if you were all right."
Oh this was gonna be fan-frickin-tastic. Scott could tell that the Dr. guy didn't like Hans in the least; this would seriously set him off. "Dr. Shu? I really hate to call like this...I just need to check in with you." Nothing again. Maybe the comm system was acting up.
Scott called up the vid feed from the doctor's apartment. All dark. He checked the room sensors. All green. This was getting really weird. There was no way the stupid guard got Dr. Shu to go along with his ignoring game. Scott pulled up the biosensors. Two heartbeats. Well, at least the old guy wasn't –
The two signals dropped out. Scott stared at the monitor, now fully convinced that the system was broken. Oh crap! That meant that the burly guard could have been trying to radio the main post and he'd missed it. He started to pull up the hallway feed again. He would try to get the guy on the emergency link.
Except the vid feed that came up was entirely different than the one that Scott had just seen. Hans was no longer standing in the doorway. In fact all Scott could see of him was the man's leg halfway out the door. He cycled to the feed inside of the apartment. Still dark. He logged in and tried to manually raise the lights. Nothing. Scott looked at the biosensor again. What if the system wasn't failing? What if – ?
Scott was in full panic now. He reached for the master alarm and then stopped. A memory came from the back of his mind and stopped all thoughts of hitting that alarm. Scott remembered the details of his "deal." He sat back, reached for his personal comm, and linked into the untraceable number he had been given when he was assigned to the main desk. What was he going to say? He had never even dreamed of having to use the number. The comm line opened.
"Yes."
"Uh, yeah. This is – "
"We know who this is. Do you have anything to report?"
"Uh, right. Of course you do. Um, yeah. I think something is going down here. That doctor guy isn't responding and I think his bodyguard is...well, dead."
Scott listened as the silence on the other end grew.
"Hold."
Scott sat at the desk looking around nervously. The seconds seemed to crawl by. How long had it been now? The voice returned to the comm suddenly. Scott sat up and listened to the instructions he was given. He made one or two confirming noises as the instructions rattled off in his ear. Then the line went dead.
Scott logged in to the system with the credentials the voice had given him and suspended the vid feed recording the secured floor. Then he sat back in his chair. He had no idea what was going on now. He looked at the clock and waited. Two minutes. Five minutes. Nine minutes. Twelve minutes. At seventeen minutes, Scott reached over and hit the master alarm.