For good measure, I stuffed a few into the overflow hole in the top of the sink's side.
No way out for water but over the lip.
With a little muscling it around and a bit of leverage rocking it side-to-side, I turned the water cooler and moved it over a few inches. Swung the plastic lever for both faucets around so they extended out from the base.
Now they poked out under the edge of the copier's finisher tray.
Pulled half a dozen sheets of blank paper out of the copier. Set them into the document feeder.
Programmed the machine to collate and staple 99 copies.
With the clunking of rollers and gears, it dutifully began spitting out the result, moving the tray down about a quarter of an inch each time.
Each copy took two seconds, so the finisher tray should press down those little blue and red levers within a couple of minutes.
At that point, my wave of distraction would be coming.
Turned on the water at the sink.
The timing wouldn't be exact, but the basin would also fill up within a minute or so and then overflow onto the counter and the floor.
With the floor drain plugged, wouldn't take long before the water began to seep out into the hallway. I'd close the door to restrict the flow into the hallway and let the water build up.
No cameras in the break room.
With luck, I'd have an inch or more of water on the floor before anyone noticed the carpet outside turning dark.
Time for me to go before my tan combat boots got soaked.
Despite my love of the ocean, I was a Ranger, not a SEAL.
* * *
Clunk.
The steel door in front of Kwon's Goshawk Team unlocked.
Kwon let out the breath he'd unwisely been holding.
Deputy Minister Meon's inside man came through for them. At least there were still a few people loyal to the true Korea in the South.
Stro looked at him for orders.
Kwon pointed forward with his off-hand.
Stro pulled open the door from the cargo mantrap leading into the lab. The team crowded back against each other to give the door room to swing open.
"Go."
The mantrap exited into a wide concrete-floored space.
The first three of his men stacked up. Moved forward and left to secure cover and create open fields of fire around the perimeter beyond the mantrap exit.
Kwon knew from their informant that the metallurgical lab space was arranged into four zones, delineated by colored markings on the floors and walls.
Their mantrap exit opened into the red zone.
Inside the red zone, the security office in the corner on the right and the data center to the left were their immediate targets for control.
Past the steel data center door outlined in red, a hallway marked in blue represented the beginning of the lab's science offices and their secure conference room.
With their forward and left-flank covered, Stro led the other two soldiers toward the auxiliary security office to the right of the mantrap exit.
Before following, Kwon scanned the area for people or movement.
His job right now was to maintain overall situational awareness so he could adjust the team's orders in response to the unexpected.
The rest of the space they stood in opened up into a cavernous warehouse area. Marked on the floor as the brown zone.
Mostly for storage, long three-meter-wide aisles provided access to floor-to-ceiling pallet-wide metal racking used for storage of materials and unused equipment.
Only a glimpse of the wide-open area on the other side of the warehouse, marked in orange to show where the scientists ran their experiments, was visible from here.
The first two men who'd left the mantrap spread out forward.
Took positions behind the closest racks where they could cover the aisles into the brown zone.
The third hustled to the beginning of the blue zone hallway.
Used the block wall corner near the data center door to cover the hallway.
Just as they'd rehearsed.
Nodding in satisfaction, Kwon followed Stro and the two men he led.
Their inside man should have turned off the red zone security cameras when he unlocked the mantrap door. After being allowed to exit the cargo mantrap, Kwon had no reason not to trust he'd succeeded.
Kwon would deal with the data center later in the mission.
A matter of priorities.
For now, it was enough to know they wouldn't have any unexpected surprises while taking care of the security guard.
As the only armed individual besides Goshawk Team on this side of the orange zone personnel mantrap, neutralizing the threat of the lone guard was their priority.
Before the guard noticed he was no longer getting a camera feed on his monitors from the rest of red zone.
Stro reached the closed security office door. Took position along the block wall, opposite the door's hinges.
The next man behind him went to the wall on the other side of the door.
The final soldier, his com sergeant, stacked up behind Stro.
Kwon took one last glance around to make sure everything remained under control. Stacked up behind the com sergeant. Tapped him on the shoulder.
He in turn tapped Stro.
Stro slung his rifle over his shoulder. Slid his left sleeve up his arm.
Revealed a stubby wooden dowel wrapped in thin steel wire and attached to a thick black wristband.
Grabbed the dowel with his right hand. Dropped his left arm to quickly unwrap his Spetsnaz-inspired garrote.
A one meter loop spun free between a hole carved out of the center of the dowel and his wristband.
He stretched the wire taut. Nodded to the demolitions specialist on the other side of the door.
That soldier reached out and pounded on the security room door.
Grabbed its U-shaped steel handle.
As soon as the door began to open, he yanked it as wide as possible.
With the unexpected door movement, a South Korean soldier in black and green digital camouflage uniform stumbled through the doorway, caught off balance.
Stro flung his garrote wire around the enemy's neck.
Slid in behind him.
Crossed his wrists as he turned to face away from the guard.
Levered him into the air on his back.
The guard's hands tore at the wire around his neck. His mouth hung open, but he couldn't produce any sound beyond a weak gurgle.
His cheeks bulged and flushed.
Kicked out his legs. Caught the demo specialist in the face with a boot.
That'd leave a bruise later.
The com sergeant moved in behind Stro and the struggling guard. Scouted around the corner into the security office. "Clear."
Stro panted. Excitement gleamed in his eyes. Hauled on the garrote. Muscles bulged with the effort. Kept the Dominionist guard flailing on his back.
Kwon couldn't not stare at the guard.
In his panic, the guard didn't even think to reach for his holstered sidearm.
Poor training. No one on Kwon's team would be caught like that.
The skin around the guard's lips transformed from pale white to light blue. Losing oxygen and consciousness fast.
Death wouldn't wait long.
Chapter Thirteen: Lots of Eyeballs
Tried to look like I belonged.
Strode down the tan carpeted walkways laid out between cubicles in the lab's administrative offices.
Only another minute or so until the flood spilled out under the closed break room door.
Wanted to be well away from the area before then.
Clutching the eyeball printout I'd made in the air between finger and thumb, I nodded to a short Korean man in a janitor's sky blue uniform. Dodged past his cleaning cart and out into the main aisle leading from the entrance turnstile to the personnel mantrap.
Needed to be across the office when my d
istraction hit.
Copier and sink timers ticked away in the back of my head. Not so loud that I didn't notice the janitor deciding this would be a good time to clean the break room.
Sped up my walk even faster.
Wasn't even pretending to have a purpose. Really did have somewhere I needed to be soon, if I wasn't going to get caught short of my objective.
A gush behind me.
Glanced back.
The janitor stood outside the now open break room door.
Water flowed from the doorway. Formed a growing puddle.
A two inch wave reflected off his scuffed white shoes. Created reflective eddies in the expanding pool of water as it overwhelmed the nearby carpet.
The thin tan floors around the cubicles closest to the break room became chestnut-under-lacquer as the flood's irregular edge advanced into the rest of the office.
Excellent.
Now I just needed the janitor to call security, rather than deciding to resolve the issue himself. Surely with that much water he'd assume there was a leak of some sort, which he needed the building's authorities to fix.
Creative destruction took talent.
I reached the end of the main hallway. A solid security door with an orange sign, "Lab – Authorized Personnel Only", and an RFID scanner built into the wall barred any further progress.
Put my hand on a nearby cubical wall for a second. Bent over to adjust my shoelace.
Looked back again as I bent over. The janitor spoke on the cubicle phone closest to the break room door.
Perfect.
Like most government employees, he wasn't about to try and deal with a problem which was securely not-his-job.
He'd likely be willing to mop the place up afterward, maybe even ride an extra set of waves and get a few fans to speed up the drying process, but fixing leaks wasn't in a janitor's job description. That was plumber, or at least handyman, work.
An entirely different department, which only security could summon in an emergency.
Right on cue, the main security door opened.
Two guards rushed toward the janitor.
Had at least three minutes of all eyes in the security room on him while they avoided the water, interrogated him, and then distracted the boss by asking what to do next.
Finished my fake shoe tying.
Reached out my right hand. Swiped my transmitted clone of Rhee's RFID card across the reader.
Clunk.
The outer mantrap door unlocked.
I slipped inside.
This was where I was most vulnerable.
Hoped the guard in the other security office, the one near the larger loading dock mantrap, was just as distracted.
He had the whole lab area to watch, so I wasn't too worried.
The orange experiment zone by itself was huge. The warehouse section almost as large.
The blue zone with the scientist's offices contained lots of little rooms to check camera angles within.
While the red zone was small, it was also important.
The odds of not being on camera for the rear guard were well in my favor.
Inside the personnel mantrap was another solid security door, protected by yet another playing card-sized RFID reader in the wall, but also with my nemesis from the fitness center above that, the same model retinal scanner.
I let the outer door close behind me.
Ker-chunk.
The outer door locked.
If I didn't fool the retinal scanner, I wasn't going either direction.
The doors looked kick-proof. Walls and ceiling each contained a steel mesh.
A camera in the upper corner of the far wall sent a live feed to the security room monitors.
I'd be stuck in this five foot square room until one of the security guards came to investigate and let me out.
A phone on the wall with a dedicated line to the security office facilitated that process, but I wasn't exactly looking forward to that call.
Careful not to drop it, I removed a contact lens from the case in my cargo pocket. Pressed it up against the printout of Rhee's eye.
No time like the present.
Iris scanners are really just cameras. They take an infrared picture of your eye, simplify the lines in the image, and then compare a mathematical representation of that picture to what's stored in the database.
Someone's eye is never at the exact same distance and angle to the camera, so there's a lot of slack in the system.
What it's looking for is the relationships and angles between the structures of your eye.
As long as those boil down to the right mathematical range for what's stored in the security database for the associated RFID card, you're allowed to pass.
I swiped my right sleeve against the inner RFID reader. The light on the retinal scanner turned yellow.
Used my left hand to push the printout and contact lens in front of the scanner.
It had to recognize that as Rhee's eye.
Ruby red may have been the color of Dorothy's slippers, but the now glaring light on the retinal scanner didn't spell escape to me.
Couldn't spend much time on this.
Every second a random guard might happen to look at the live security camera footage.
This could work. I'd done it already. Well, after half a dozen tries.
Hope remained.
The problem with biometrics is you're constantly showing your password to the world around you. If a biometric measurement is compromised, you can't swap out your eyes, nor fingers, for new ones.
Had Rhee's eye, just needed to use it properly.
Maybe I'd been too hasty, not lining the contact and the photo up in a direct line with the camera in the retinal scanner.
Took a deep breath.
Focus.
Exhaled deliberately.
Transmitted Rhee's RFID number from my wrist to the reader in the wall again.
Yellow light.
One more try.
Took a moment to use both hands to line the contact lens up.
Double-checked it.
Slid it directly in front of the scanner's camera lens.
Emerald city, dude!
The inner mantrap door unlocked with a clunk. Dorothy wouldn't escape this time, but I would. The seafoam green of the deep ocean is my favorite color, anyway.
Right now it stood for freedom.
Who needs a whole red team of infiltrators, anyway?
I pushed the inner door open.
The slight overpressure outside the mantrap forced in a rush of air. Smelled like smoke from melting solder.
Always loved electronics lab in school.
The top secret orange zone, where the scientists and engineers ran their metallurgical experiments, welcomed me like an old friend.
Needed to find a distinctive object to prove I'd been here. An object Major Williams couldn't ignore.
Otherwise, if I showed up at Company HQ claiming I'd successfully infiltrated the facility, I doubted anyone'd listen long enough to get Rhee to turn over the security footage proving the lab was vulnerable.
No, he might be tempted to just make any evidence disappear.
Time for my personal scavenger hunt.
* * *
Kwon unclipped the RFID badge from the enemy guard's motionless chest.
With the lone guard in this area down, Kwon was ready to split his team for maximum efficiency.
Stro tucked the guard's sidearm into his bag.
Grabbed the guard's feet and hauled him back into the auxiliary security office. There, he'd be safely out of the way from casual discovery.
Their inside man would cover for any missed check-ins while Goshawk Team worked.
The guard was just a cog in the capitalist system, enforcing the will of his masters on the oppressed.
For a moment, Kwon entertained the thought he might have a family.
That was the sort of weak thinking Meon had warned against. Kwon rubbed his left br
east pocket, feeling the edge of the photograph inside.
The Imperialists murdered without reason.
He refused to sympathize with one of their soldiers. He'd lead his men to decisive victory.
No weakness.
"Stro, you two move into position to cover the primary personnel mantrap in the orange zone. Any armed resistance should come from there." Kwon pointed at the com sergeant, indicating he should accompany Stro.
Stro nodded, "Roger that."
He left the security door open a crack in case their inside contact couldn't monitor the security cameras for them and they needed to return. He and the com specialist headed toward the forklift aisles in the brown warehouse zone, hustling to reach the orange zone on the other side.
Kwon didn't need the reminder of their limited time ticking away.
Already had a mental drop-dead time noted whenever he checked his Moranbong wristwatch. Plenty of tasks to accomplish.
Clicked his radio microphone live with a thumb. "Two and three have forward defense. Four and six, follow and clear the orange zone, then set your charges." Goshawk Four, the sniper of the pair, would be best at room clearing, while the demo specialist would take the lead on the explosives.
His radio crackled with their acknowledgments.
"Five and seven, clear the warehouse aisles, grab anything worth hauling back with us, then set your brown zone charges. I'll begin on the data center. Let you know if I need a forklift later."
He'd saved the most important target, the red zone room containing all the scientist's records and information, for himself.
A good team can accomplish multiple tasks at once.
The rest of the small unit he commanded hustled forward to complete their assigned duties. The real prize here was the electronic data.
According to their contact, the lab didn't have good off-site backups.
Everything else they'd planned would slow the enemy down, but if his team could capture the enemy's top secret records and bring them home, they'd set the Imperialists back years on their research while ultimately pushing the true Korea's research efforts forward by decades.
The dead guard's badge would grant Kwon entry into the data center. Time to achieve a great victory for Supreme Leader!
Chapter Fourteen: Scientists and Saviors
What could I carry out to prove I'd been here in the top secret section of the lab?
Techno Ranger Page 14