Jess yawned as she made her way down the darkened hallways of the ARC, thankful yet again that Lester agreed to give her a computer tablet with full access to the ADD. It made her life a lot easier. She'd spent most of the night working out a few kinks in the system, and now all she wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep for a week.
"You heading out?" a voice from her left said. She spun around and wasn't surprised to see Donald, nicknamed Oreo because of his skunk dyed hair, standing next to her. She glanced at her watch and sighed.
"Unfortunately not," she said with a tired smile, "My shift starts in a couple hours so I'll probably just take a quick nap in the lounge."
"Before you do, Lester said he left some paper work for you in his office." Jess groaned.
"You'd think he would have realized I'm not his secretary by now." Oreo gave a sharp bark of laughter before slapping his hand over his mouth and looking around as if expecting Lester to jump out of hiding. Jess giggled as she made her way to Lester's glass walled office, wondering if the taciturn boss knew just how much his underlings feared him. She rolled her eyes when she finally opened the door and saw the large stack of paperwork waiting for her on Lester's immaculate desk.
"Well," she muttered, "doesn't this look like fun." She debated for a moment whether she should get at least a few hours of sleep or dive into the paperwork. A groan slipped out when she saw the due date on some of the papers, the end of today, and the decision was made for her. Luckily for her, Lester had excellent taste in chairs and she sighed in contentment when she sank into the cushion.
"Maybe just a quick nap," she yawned, stretching her arms high overhead, before curling up into the chair.
The glass wall didn't provide her any protection from the sight of dozens of future predators ripping their way through the ops room support staff. She closed her eyes and plugged her ears, doing her best to wish it all away.
"Think, think," she muttered to herself. There wasn't enough time to call for help. She wondered if she would be able to hold out in Lester's office until Becker arrived to save day, like he always did. She had no idea if the anomaly alert had gone off and she'd simply slept through it or if it hadn't gone off at all. If it had gone off then the team would be here in seconds after racing through the streets of London.
"Oh God," she whispered. They could get outside, there was nothing between the predators and London but open doors. She moved quickly and quietly, scrambling for her tablet, a plan already forming in her mind. She desperately hit key after key on the touch screen when she was finally rewarded with a red laser scanning the room. The instant the red beam hit one of the predators the lights went off as a mechanical woman's voice announced emergency lockdown and evacuation. A shiver raced down her spine at the memory of what happens the last time this lockdown had gone into effect. The steel enforced doors slammed closed with a sickening this and Jess knew there was no going back. She was trapped in the ops room of the ARC, surrounded by bloodied bodies and vicious animals. To top it off all the air was slowly being sucked out of the room.
