Emily Trakker strangled the handle of her briefcase as the conversation over the breakfast that morning ran through her mind again. No one on the road would have been safe with her behind the wheel, and the fact she started the day in a bad mood only served to put her into even a worse one. Just as well her personal car sat at the garage waiting to be repaired and she'd resorted to using the family limousine.

The limousine came to a halt in front of the ISF Research International building. She launched out of the door before the driver could even open his door on his way back to open hers. Ignoring the receptionist's cheery greeting, she headed for the first of several security protocols to reach her office. She dropped the cartoon lunch cooler her son had given to her as a birthday present next to the couch and slammed the briefcase on the top of her desk.

"Rough morning?"

Emily looked up and glared at the gray haired man grinning at her, leaning relaxed against the door frame with a steaming cup of coffee held in one hand. She sat down hard in her chair, "Not in the mood this morning."

"Told you having a kid would be a problem."

"Scott is not a problem, Morton. Don't you have an intern to drive crazy today?" Emily said, not even bothering to hide her animosity to a man who'd been a thorn in her side since the moment she'd started on the project.

Degree or not, as far as she was concerned Morton Sanders stood as a failure to his profession and the company he worked for. The only reason she could see that he survived was the raw talents of the poor interns he lorded over while taking credit for their hard work.

Considering his name had been one of those brought up in that morning's argument didn't help, either, "You don't need to work now! It's not as if we need the money. Then you wouldn't need to put up with Morton or any of the other supervisors!"

Morton gave her a cheeky grin completely at odds with his gray-haired wise-man appearance that he'd carefully constructed, "Come to think of it, I do. Have fun explaining to the board why the software is late."

Once Morton left the doorway Emily walked over and shut it. Only then did she allow herself one evil smile. Not finished? Not by half. The system she'd put together would blow the socks off any of the other groups efforts. And all by using bypassed and abandoned projects which she and Dylan had figured out how to make work together in a new modular coding framework.

As if on cue, there was a small knock on the door. A moment later the door opened, and Dylan moved his wheelchair inside. Closing the door he stopped in front of her desk, folding his arms. "Want to talk about it?"

"About what? Morton giving you a bad time?"

Dylan snorted and adjusted his glasses, "I can handle the Morton's of the world. Anyone with half a brain can program circles around the moron. I meant you, and the foul temper you came to work with."

"Cindy tipping you off again?"

Dylan grinned at the name and shrugged, giving Emily no doubt about whom his spy had been. "Anyone who has seen you today knows about it. Besides, you have that little line on your forehead, between your eyes…"

Emily vigorously rubbed at the spot, finding that she had indeed been scowling.

"So, not Morton, too early in the morning. Must have been with someone else before you arrived." Dylan surmised with a sigh.

"All because I wouldn't take the day off to join him for a business meeting. I work! He knows that! He knew it when we met, he knew it when we married! I like my work!" Emily started, the words starting to tumble out in short bursts, unable to stop them. "If I took the day off it would be to spend extra time with him and Scott! Not because an oversees businessmen decided to suddenly fly across the ocean with no notice and Matt decides he absolutely has to meet them!"

"Again."

"Yes, again." Emily sat back in her chair and rubbed at her forehead again, working to regain control of her temper. "Yes, I know what you're about to say. It's time for changes, for both of us."

"So long as they are positive changes." Dylan said with a friendly smile. "Do you think he'll go for it?"

"I don't like Scott growing up in the city. Considering I'm willing to quit working here if we move, I think he'll do it. And it might help Matt, too. We both need to get away from our past lives and develop one together in a different place. Where better than the old family home?"

"You mean a mansion. Geez, I've never seen a place that big before and all I've seen are the pictures." Emily smiled at Dylan rolling his eyes. Then his expression turned serious, "Think you'll be happy there? Not working?"

"Hey, who said I wouldn't be working? There is more to life than this building. I'm taking one of the rooms for a personal office and computer lab. It isn't as if there isn't plenty to choose from. You won't stop working when you leave here."

"Shh, don't say that out loud. Someone might hear!"

Emily grinned and teased, "The Owner and CEO of the next big independent software company, that's who is in my office."

Dylan shrugged while a tint of color flashed across his cheeks, "And I'll have the loan paid back to you within a year. Which reminds me, I need to sign papers on the property during lunch. By the way, I finished the final voice protocols. You can run another compile now and see how it works in simulation."

"Thanks for coming in early and finishing it. I really appreciate it."

"No problem. You know me, I live to code!"

Emily chuckled, a small portion of her good humor coming back, "Not for long if Cindy has anything to do with it."

Dylan blushed, "Yeah, well, she's coming with me."

Emily stopped in mid-motion while making coffee. "Today, or in general?"

"Both. When I leave, she's coming with me." Dylan said a little sheepishly. He then shrugged, "What can I say, she loves me for my mind!"

For a moment Emily felt the rush of love and excitement she' felt when courting Matt. If only they could get back to that. Emily smiled at Dylan, "Good luck, to the both of you. I'm happy this happened for you."

"If it makes you feel any better, Morton is having a devil of a time with the charging tech. All his specially chosen interns and he still can't get anywhere." With a wave, Dylan left, leaving Emily with a depressingly silent office.

The comment about Morton made her smile, though. Unless he found a genius of an intern to take ideas from, there wouldn't be any new charging technology for the augment masks. Meanwhile, her part would be ready, despite the initial project setbacks.

Determined to make something of the day, Emily immediately turned to the project in front of her. As she started a new simulation, she made herself one promise to sit down with Matt for a long discussion that night, before becoming engrossed in the coding and forgetting all else.

~x~~x~~x~

"She should be here." Matt muttered, playing with the crystal water glass as he looked around the expensively decorated restaurant.

"I understand the project is almost over." Bruce offered

"It can't be too soon. The project has gone on for too long. I know the technology has a lot of potential, but I'm seriously considering pulling out of the partnership and perhaps funding a few of the projects myself with better oversight. Bedlow's idea of science is a joke. The funding should be going to the scientists, not managers." Matt scowled, "You should hear some of the tales coming out of the manager meetings."

"Fish must swim, birds must fly." Bruce said, taking a sip of a steaming cup of tea.

"Trying to tell me something?"

Bruce sat back in the chair and smiled serenely, "Like what?"

Matt let out a long pent out breath. "Fine, so working on code is in her blood. Why not start her own business? She has the raw talent for it." Matt suddenly frowned, "Unless she's planning to. Maybe that's what the funds were for."

"Emily is full of surprises, much like business itself, hey Matt?" Bruce said with a twinkle in his eye as two rumpled business men reappeared after making a furious run for the bathrooms.

"Yet another reason to not eat meals served on commercial airplanes." Matt said, as he stood up for the men's arrival, bowing at the two aged Japanese men as they rejoined the table.

"Most sorry, Mr. Trakker." The younger one said with yet another bow before taking his seat again, "You were explaining the shipping percentages?"

~x~~x~~x~

Miles Mayhem scowled at Tony Hunt and gestured after the three vehicles leaving the secure yard of the farmhouse Miles used as one of his bases of operation. "These are your idea of good recruits?"

"You needed more men for the project, and these people are good. These guys rule their area. You saw how they held their weapons," Tony said with his typical nonchalant shrug.

"Yes, and I also saw their eyes. I didn't survive so many battles by not being able to read character," Miles huffed. Yes, the men had listened carefully to their plan and run through the preliminary practice runs smoothly. But, his gut told him to watch his back. And he had learned the hard way in the past to trust his instincts.

"It's too late to do anything now. Unless you want to push back the entire operation." Tony zipped up his black jacket and stuffed a knit face mask in his pocket.

Miles frowned fiercely, "No, we cannot delay. We must hit now before some of the experiments are sent to other locations."
She instructed one of the cranes to break down, and then watched as the computer compensated while simultaneously running through trouble-shooting options.

~x~~x~~x~

The new module system seemed to be working great in bringing everything together in a smooth and efficient manner. And after she left the project, it wouldn't be difficult for others to program new logic modules for other purposes. Once she set up her home office, she might even write a few herself.

The computer balked in its problem solving and Emily gave a half-hearted sight. Okay, so maybe the fuzzy-logic modules needed a little more work. The system needed to be able to help in the deployment of the Masks, if the project were to work correctly. Plus interface with voice, and make quick decisions based on changing conditions especially in the mining and construction industries. She would leave any police force or military programming to someone else. She preferred not to think of that particular application for the Mask technology, as it could so easily be used by the wrong people.

Maybe she should take advantage of Dylan for the tweaks before he left the company.

As the simulation ended Emily allowed herself to smile. She looked forward to the day that she could see the technology be used in person, if the recharging mechanism could be solved. As it stood now, all prototypes were required to be hard-wired into a power source if used more than once, severely limiting their large-scale independent deployment. Unfortunately, all the Masks were proving to be rather power-hungry.

In any case, after today it would be Morton explaining his lack of progress to the board, not her.

"…it'll take forever to get home now. Who knows how long it'll take to put that kind of fire out," someone said as they walked down the hallway by her open door.

She looked up, but not in time to see who had been speaking. Taking a break from the computer monitor, she stretched her arms up and swiveled her chair around to look out the window. A billowing dark cloud rose in the distance, slowly mushrooming at the top. Standing up, she walked closer to the window, but still couldn't see much detail. Turning on the radio, she quickly discovered the source of the smoke. A fuel tank at a fuel depot somehow caught fire and was raging out of control.

As she sat back down in her chair, a dark helicopter flew past the building and then banked out of sight. The next moment the lights blinked. Emily looked up and eyed them suspiciously. She knew the emergency generator would keep power supplied to all the computer mainframes, but she still didn't like the uncertainty. Closing down the simulation program and then her computer, she left her office to go into the mainframe room that sat on the same floor.

As she entered the room the main lights went out. Red emergency lights flickered on giving the room an ominous glow. In response to the outage, all the doors into the room slammed shut and locked. Emily rolled her eyes at the security response as she settled herself in front of one of the terminals.

A quick check showed all of the recent changes had been properly recorded. Some of the secondary mainframes behind her began cycling down in response to the diminished power supply. Emily looked up at the clock as the seconds continued to tick by, wondering how long the outage would last.

Just as she was about to call security to ask to be let out, the doors suddenly popped open. Emily stood up, grabbing her clipboard when a short emergency siren sounded, to be immediately silenced.

When no one entered the room Emily felt a chill go down her spine. The only sound she could hear were the mainframes behind her. Something didn't feel right.

Emily sat back down quickly at the terminal and eyed it. Okay, so she would probably get in trouble for this later. As Matt had been so insistent to point out that morning, it's not as if she needed to have a job.

Leaning forward she began working. In a few moments she'd breached the building security systems. Or rather, what remained operating. Most of the systems had shut themselves down, refusing to cooperate no matter what codes she fed into the computer. Unfortunately, she didn't have the highest levels of access, but there were workarounds. Emily focused on the individual micro-systems. When the feeds from several of the still-operating security camera's finally displayed, she froze. Then her heart began beating at a furious pace.

The next second she initiated an emergency line of code into the mainframe system. In response every mainframe came to life, dimming the secondary emergency lights. Emily ran to one nondescript mainframe on the far wall, yanking the cover open and tearing out an oblong cylinder, hoping it was working like it should.

As she rushed out of one of the doors towards her office, she hoped the testing had gone well for the new backup system as very soon that would be all that would be left. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what to do. She stopped in the middle of the office, looking for a place to hide it.

The sound of voices coming from down the hall signaled the end of her time. The echoing report of gunfire and a scream quickly followed. As the voices and gunfire proceeded down the hall, she acted instead of thought.

They were going through the offices one by one. Emily's mind shut down, trying to ignore the shouts and scream, working hard not to connect the voices to the people she'd worked with for so many years. She couldn't stay in here.

A shout came from the direction of the mainframe room, with heavy footsteps quickly heading towards it. With her burden safely hidden she ran towards the back of the building as another voice yelled out. She heard an explosion of gunfire from somewhere behind her. The next second she realized she was looking at the pattern of the flooring close-up.

Even though her body felt numb, the part of her mind still rational knew she had been hit and hit badly. Her body didn't want to respond.

Then the pain hit.

Oh yes, it was bad. Very, very bad, she thought to herself. Closing her eyes she struggled to breath.

"It's just another scientist," a rough male voice said from above her as she felt something hit her ankle. Emily kept her eyes shut and stayed as still as possible.

"A scientist that could have helped us with the mainframes! Don't you imbeciles know how to do anything right?" a familiar voice said from further down the hall.

"Watch it, Mayhem. Our boss told us to work with you, not to take orders from you. Any witness is dead," the rough voice said, fading as he walked away.

"I'll need to have a serious talk with your 'Boss'." Miles Mayhem growled. "At least we can still get at the prototypes."

Emily could picture him in his mind, standing upright with a tight military bearing, making up for his short stature with the force of his will. Emily chanced cracking open her eyes. With relief, she found the hall empty.

The scene wavered as she tried to push herself upright, having to bite her lip to keep from screaming as the pain rippled through her body. As she dragged herself down the remainder of the hallway she grasped at any thought that flitted through her head, desperate for anything that could blunt the pain. The one that gave her the greatest pleasure was knowing that the likes of Miles Mayhem, as good as he might be in design, would never be able to recover anything from the mainframes. They would be permanently erased by now, the emergency magnets having wiped everything from the magnetic media.

Who had he been working with? Mayhem loved working alone, as the top dog of his personal gang. He'd been known for that since the beginning of the war, a fact that put him in direct conflict with many others in the military. Most of his civilian attempts had been doomed to failure by the same trait, thus not allowing him to rebuild the family fortune he'd started out with.

Then it made sense. Past rumors of black-market dealings Miles Mayhem during his time in the military and after. It had been listed among the charges at his court-martial. And the masks. Emily's heart sank. The technology would be worth a fortune on the black-market. Just the sort of thing Mayhem would love to get his hands on.

After what seemed an eternity Emily reached the rear elevator. The door swung open, even though a lighted scrolling sign in the back of it read, "Do not use-Main Building power is out". Pulling herself in she closed the door, doing her best to ignore the trail of blood she'd left behind her. Propping herself up against the wall under the control panel, she pulled open the compartment just below the buttons. She reached up, knocking the handset out of its resting place. It dangled in front of her as it bumped against the wall.

The building shook as she pushed the red "emergency" button, hearing the dial-tone change as the system dialed into the emergency radio channel.

~x~~x~~x~

The closer they came to the ISF Research International building, the more backed up the traffic became. Matt scowled along with the other drivers as vehicles inched through one stoplight after another. Bruce sat next to him, reading through some of the papers from the previous business meeting.

His patience already tried since breakfast, the slow crawl forward did nothing to help. Matt took a deep breath. Arriving to pick up Emily in this kind of mood wouldn't help anything. He promised himself that their discussion that night would be a lot calmer. Certainly, they could work through this problem. He was more than willing to delegate more of his business responsibilities.

Maybe a vacation and a change of scenery would help.

As he rounded the corner to turn onto the main street that would take them directly to the building Matt made a mental list of the vacation locations Emily might like best.

Billowing clouds of smoke poured out of windows of the ISF building, the lower portion of the building reflecting the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles surrounding it. He stomped on the brakes, bringing it to a sudden stop in the middle of the turn.

Bruce grabbed at the pile of paperwork on his lap that tried to launch towards the floor. The vehicles behind them started honking their horns. Bruce looked up, seeing the building, and then turned his head towards Matt, his eyes wide in horror. "Matt?"

Matt quickly scanned his surroundings. The traffic in front of them continued to inch along in all directions. Catching sight of an opening along side the sidewalk, he turned his vehicle in, stopping with the front wheels on the sidewalk and the rear of the car barely out of the way of traffic. Without saying a word to Bruce, he jumped out of the car and began to run.

Never had he run so fast, and never had it felt so slow. He passed one block after another, but the ISF building remained tantalizingly out of reach. Vehicles honked and drivers yelled out at him as he ran headlong through intersections.

Only the line of police barricades and flashing cars stopped him from barreling onto the property once he finally reached the parking lot.

"Sorry, sir, this is a restricted area." One of the police said, pushing him back beyond the taped line.

Bruce caught up with him as he was fishing out his wallet. Breathlessly he demanded, "I'm Matt Trakker and I own this building! What is happening here?"

The name immediately caught the officer's attention. He immediately lifted the tape and motioned him through, "Ah, Mr. Trakker. We need to speak with you."

Looking up at the gaping hole in one side of the building, Matt said sarcastically, "Oh, about what? The fact the area looks like a war zone, or that part of the building is missing?"

"Matt..." Bruce cautioned, placing a hand on his arm which Matt promptly shook off as they followed the officer.

"How many were in the building? Was it evacuated before the explosion?" Matt demanded. A balding man approached them, his dark blue suit showing streaks of soot and dirt. "Where is my wife?"

"Police Chief Amari, Mr. Trakker. We're currently putting together a list of all people who might have been in the building at the time of the incident." The man pointed towards a tall man with a clipboard standing near the entrance of the building, "Please provide all you may know to Lieutenant. Capari. And please stay in the area, . We'll need a full statement from you before you leave."

Chief Amari walked away before Matt could catch his breath and ask a few questions of his own. He scowled as he stalked towards the lieutenant in question.

His eyes roved over the faces of the people huddled in small subdued groups. Some he recognized, some he didn't, but all wore the expression of absolute shock. And none of the groups held the one face he desperately wanted to see. His eyes wandered to the right to an area occupied by ambulances, paramedics and doctors.

He froze, his heart skipping a beat. He knew Bruce had said something to him, but he didn't hear any of the words, his eyes focused only on the small flash of bright pink over the white of a gurney sheet as a paramedic moved.

With a strangled cry, Matt yelled out, "Emily!"

He sprinted towards the spot with all his strength. He dodged around another group of paramedics, his eyes remaining fixed on the spot.

Seeing him, a paramedic put up a warning hand and put himself between Matt and the gurney, "Sir, please stay out of the way!"

"I'm her husband!" Matt yelled, pushing past the man.

"Matt?" His name slipped out of her pale lips in a soft whisper that he could barely hear.

Kneeling down next to her, he concentrated on her face instead at the large bright red stain working its way through the white sheet covering her chest. "I'm here, Emily."

"It was Miles."

"Rest, Emily. The medivac should be here any minute," Matt said, softly stroking her cheek. As if on cue, he heard the sound of a helicopter quickly approaching.

"Love our son enough for both of us," Emily said with a soft smile, her eyes still closed.

Her face relaxed, her lips parting slightly. The paramedics pushed him out of the way, surrounding the gurney as the helicopter landed in the front parking area of the building. The rotors of the helicopter remained spun up as Emily was loaded into the back. The doors closed, and immediately the helicopter lifted off the pavement.

Matt's vision blurred into a kaleidoscope of colors as the tears began falling down his face, his heart a stone in his chest.

~x~~x~~x~

"We retrieved only a fraction of our goal, and you call it a success?" Miles raged at Tony, leaning over the table as Tony lounged relaxed in a chair on the other side, "Your 'friends' slaughtering anyone breathing? The police responding so quickly?"

"Hey, we got the helmet thing you wanted! And you got into the computer room," Tony reminded him, chewing on a corner of his bottom lip.

The attitude only inflamed Miles even more. "After the computer files had been erased! Nothing remained to download because the plan was not followed! We should have been able to infiltrate to the top levels of the building before discovery."

"Yeah, and two of the vaults with the advanced prototypes were locked down. Good thing some were out on a workbench," Dagger said, as he adjusted a bloody bandage over his head.

"Oh, shut up. You should be at a hospital anyway," Tony bit out towards him in disgust.

"And get blamed for what I didn't do? If I go to prison, I at least want to earn it," Dagger yelled back at him, stumbling his way to his feet and confronting him, "There's no way they're going to be able to fix my eye anyway. It's not even there anymore thanks to that inept explosion! I should have set those charges. At least I know what I'm doing!"

"Trouble in paradise?" A smooth voice asked.

Miles looked towards the door to find a tall dark haired middle aged man dressed all in black. Several of the men who had assisted in the operation stood behind him and to the side with semi-automatic weapons drawn. Miles narrowed his eyes at the man, "I suppose these guerrillas are yours?"

"How ironic you should call them that." If the cold smile hadn't concerned him, the clicks as the weapons were armed more than accomplished the goal. The man continued to smile with a humor that went nowhere near the eyes. "Allow me to introduce myself. Major Ansov Brichali, head of the United Freedom Front."

Dagger laughed even as a sweat formed on his brow, "The guerrillas of the South Jungle? No wonder they didn't know what they were doing."

Major Brachali ignored him and looked over at Tony, who still leaned back calmly in his chair, "Is everything ready?"

"Everything is loaded up into the truck. Nice doing business with you," Tony said with a grin.

Miles whipped around at Tony and demanded, "What is the meaning of this?"

Tony raised an eyebrow and set the chair back down on all four legs. "Haven't you figured it out, old friend? I just took over this gang. Plus made a lucrative business deal with these fine gentlemen for the technology you discovered, and a great 'distributing' deal. You will be taking a nice trip out of country. It seems that your design and tactical knowledge can be worth quite a bit on the black market."

With the weapons aimed squarely at him all Miles could do was glare at the younger man with revenge in his eyes.

Tony smirked, "Nothing to say? Why the face? I learned it all from you."

"You're no leader," Dagger spat out at him. "This gang is nothing without Mayhem."

Ignoring him, Tony pushed himself up from the table and walked casually towards the door, "Major, you can have the one-eyed cretin, as well. Consider it a bonus to our new working relationship."

With Tony gone, the Major took one last smiling look at Miles, and then with a gesture of the hand the armed men moved forward.

To Be Continued...