Chapter 11

The Wolfblood walked confidently through the automatic doors and took in her surroundings. At the back of the room were the reception desks, while off to her right was a corridor sealed off by a barrier that was manned by a lone man on a computer terminal. A massive 'Employees Only' sign sat above it. To her left was a drinks machine. While she was deliriously thirsty, she decided to leave it for the time being. The last thing she needed was to leave anything traceable behind.

She breathed in, taking in the scent of everything around her. The people on the reception desks were Wolfbloods as were a few of the people in the lobby. The person guarding the barrier was a human though, and a definite weak point.

"Excuse me, miss?" The Wolfblood turned to face the attendant who was speaking. "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, it's an impromptu visit." The Wolfblood quickly scanned through the building's mainframe to find a reason. "Apparently there's been a change to our insurance package and so I've come to discuss it."

"Ah, I see." A knowing look crossed the attendant's face. "If you head over to reception, I'm sure they can help you."

"Thank you." The Wolfblood gave a nod as the attendant moved off to help someone else. She took a seat and quickly patched into the building's security, extending her reach to the camera systems and alarms. It took her mere seconds to disable the alarms and freeze the camera's images while leaving the counter running. It would take anyone watching the feeds a surprisingly long time to work out anything was amiss if they saw the timers still running. Provided they didn't look at the lobby image too closely, she should be fine. Next, there was the issue of the barrier attendant. She accessed the records archive and found the employees list, searching by face until she got a match. Dorothy Serrano, thirty-two, divorced with a disabled daughter. She relied heavily on her car and had to have allowances made to her attendance accordingly. That was perfect.

Switching her attention, the Wolfblood focused on the phone on the desk and started scrolling through recently received calls. Voices filled her head and she could feel the heat starting to build inside her. She knew she'd have to make it quick. She selected a voice from a recent call that she liked and then dug up the extension number for the phone itself. As soon as it started ringing, Dorothy picked it up.

"Hello?" Her puzzled expression was justified. It was rare that anyone should ring her phone as opposed to the reception desk.

"Miss Serrano, this is Dylan from security." As the Wolfblood's lips moved, her words came out of the phone in the voice she'd selected. "I'm in the car park and there's an issue with your car." Instantly, a panicked look crossed Dorothy's face.

"What?" she practically shrieked, prompting glances from everyone in the lobby. "What kind of problem?"

"A delivery van reversed into it." Now it was time to take a gamble. "Look, I'm not a car expert, but I don't think it's salvageable. I need you to come and take a look at this. I've already sent for someone to relieve you. Your post won't be left unattended for more than a few seconds."

"Yes, yes of course!" Dorothy stood up in an instant, nearly dragging the phone off the counter. "Thank you, I'm on my way!" With that, she ran around her desk and raced outside as fast as she could in her high heels. The Wolfblood ended the call and walked towards the barrier, blending in with the crowd until the last possible second. She reached over to the abandoned desk and grabbed a plastic tub of paper clips, taking three of them before replacing the tub. She quickly strung them together before threading them through the slot on the card reader. As she did, she scanned the database for the ID of a security employee. Instantly, the barrier responded in kind.

'Welcome Mike Sandoval. Employee ID: 6627. Access Granted.' As soon as the message flashed up on the screen, the barrier rose. The Wolfblood grinned as she slipped through. She hurried down the corridor as the barrier shut behind her. She knew exactly where she was going, having pulled the building's blueprints the previous night. She set a brisk pace as she headed towards the server room.

Just as she was about to round the corner, a security guard who was coming the other way did the same. Both of them ran straight into each other and were left disoriented for a second. How had this happened? She was tracking the earpieces of every security guard in the building! The nearest one was three corridors away! The question answered itself almost immediately when he lifted a hand and switched the earpiece on before speaking, an embarrassed look on his face.

"Miss, this is a restricted area. You can't be here!" She knew she had to think fast.

"Your superior says differently. I'm looking for the server room." The Wolfblood decided that if she could manipulate the guard, having an escort would be easier.

"Stay right there." One hand moved to the guard's taser as the other went to his earpiece. As he started speaking, he turned to look up at the camera nearby as if wondering why the alarm hadn't been raised. "Sir, I've got a young female here, white, blonde hair, about five-foot-six looking for the server room." The Wolfblood had already accessed the earpiece as soon as it was activated and instantly muted the call, sifting through it to find the voice of the guard's superior. The name Mike Sandoval came up, the irony not being lost on the Wolfblood that she'd just stolen that very man's identity once already.

"Copy that. She checks out." Once again, the Wolfblood spoke, Mike's voice coming through the earpiece as her lips moved. "You are to assist her in any and every way she asks of you, but you are not to share any of your own objectives with her. Say confirm."

"Confirmed, sir. I'll get her where she needs to go." The guard gave a nod and disconnected. "Follow me." He beckoned over his shoulder and she followed obediently behind him. As they passed the other guards, they all pointed and whispered. No doubt they were confused at the prospect of an outsider being in the restricted area, but none of them approached. The presence of a security officer seemed to be doing its job.

It didn't take long to reach the server room. He swiped his card to let her in before turning to leave. The Wolfblood stepped into the middle of the data centre and revelled in the lake of information enveloping her as though she were relaxing into a soothing bath.

"Hey, who are you?" There had been a computer technician sat at a desk in the corner who had just noticed her. He stood up abruptly and was about to make his way over. The Wolfblood could tell he was human, so she launched herself over the desk and landed a two-footed kick to his chest. He landed heavily on the ground before she snapped his neck with a sharp and efficient twist. Patiently, she made her way around to the back of one of the server towers before sitting down on the floor and crossing her legs.

Placing her hand on the terminal allowed her to interface with it seamlessly. Instantly, she was able to know everything she wanted to. She had access to the personnel files of Segolia's most elite agents plus any security staff elsewhere, and the IP address of the server allowed her to proxy her way past all the firewalls. The files were hers, but now the stealth part of the heist was over. The files required a certain level of clearance that no server in the building possessed. As soon as she accessed them, an alert was sent to the system and she had no way to stop it in time. While the building's alarms were still down, she knew there would be no way to stop the verbal alert from reaching the security officers.

Quickly, she got up and ran over to the body of her victim. She grabbed his ID off his still-warm body and raced for the door. She swiped it and left quickly, re-tracing her route back to the checkpoint. Unfortunately for her, the security team had been expecting that. Unfortunately for the security team, she knew that they were likely to have expected that.

As the first security guard made a move towards her, she clenched her fist aggressively. The earpiece in the guard's ear exploded, causing the guard to stagger against the wall with blood pouring from a now wide-open head wound where her ear once was. The second guard was the one who'd guided her to the server room in the first place. He'd seemed eager to use his taser before, and now there was nothing holding him back. Unfortunately for him, the Wolfblood had already accessed his taser and remotely disabled it. The barbs fired out, but no current came and she was easily able to catch them in mid air. She raced towards the overweight guard, using her enhanced hearing to pick up on the man's heart arrhythmia. Before he could react, the hand holding the wire barbs closed around the end of the taser to block its movements while her other hand pressed against his chest. Suddenly, the current on the taser reactivated. The current would only have stunned a regular human but was easily lethal to the man, causing him to topple backwards as the colour drained from his face. He hit the ground without even twitching.

Dropping the taser, she raced on. As two more guards tried to block her path, she raced up the wall on the left hand side and grabbed the woman who'd made a lunge for her. It took a simple twist to snap the woman's spine. Not a fatal injury by any stretch, but certainly a life-altering one. As the woman hit the floor unconscious, the Wolfblood vaulted over her crippled form and swung her kneecap up to smash out the teeth of the second one. An open-palm strike to the side of his head shattered his already cracked jawbone, the pain leaving him defenceless as she whirled and gripped his arm. She wrenched upwards, popping it clean out of the socket as she landed a kick to the back of his knee. He hit the floor in a dazed state, realising that the thing now sticking through his work trousers was actually the splintered top part of his shin bone.

"Enough!" The Wolfblood's gaze snapped over to see another security officer marching over. This one was different. He seemed to think he radiated an aura of power and his eyes burned yellow as dark veins pulsed in his hands. "I don't know who you are, but if you came here for a fight then I'll be a better match than any human!"

"Mike Sandoval." The Wolfblood stood up, instantly realising who the Wolfblood was that stood in front of her. "I've read up on you in your Segolia file. Your record was impressive back on that job in Spain. I wonder how you managed to get into that cartel hideout and move your way around like you knew every turn. Unless..."

"Is that why you're here?" Mike demanded. "Are you trying to get to me through my staff over something that happened fifteen years ago?"

"No, that's of no consequence to me." The Wolfblood shrugged nonchalantly, knowing it would only anger Mike more. "In truth, I just thought it would be fun to mess with you. And it was. I'm not here to fight you, but I will if you don't let me through. If you turn a blind eye to this as you did the escape of that cartel leader all those years ago, you'll live to tend to your dead and wounded."

"You know I can't let you leave alive after what you've done." Mike readied himself to fight and drew a baton from his belt.

"Then you'll let me leave here stepping over your corpse." The Wolfblood stood up to her full height, still dwarfed by Mike. As the older Wolfblood charged, the younger female didn't flinch. She didn't even move a muscle as Mike staggered and fell, a piercing high-pitch noise resonating through his earpiece. The younger Wolfblood stood over him, her own eyes blazing yellow.

"What the hell are you?" he gasped out raggedly. The Wolfblood shoved him back with almost superhuman force. The intensity of the noise grew to the point that blood started to leak from Mike's nose.

"As far as you're concerned, I am death personified." The Wolfblood's reply was punctuated by the blaring of the fire alarm as she remotely triggered it. "And before me, you are nothing." The sonic noise became louder, penetrating through Mike's head. The fire alarm only served to amplify the effect and she could hear the reception area being cleared. She poured all the focus she had into Mike's earpiece, causing the veins in his head to stand erect. The fire alarm drowned out his death screams as the receptionists and attendants worked to usher everyone out. Being careful not to tread in anything that might incriminate herself, the Wolfblood stepped over Mike's still form and headed towards the barriers. She swiped her stolen ID before darting across the now deserted reception area to the gents' toilets. In there, she wiped the ID card clean of her prints before throwing it towards the urinals where it stopped with a clatter. She then darted outside and into the girls' toilets before letting the camera footage resume. She left and headed outside with one hand pressed to her stomach as a receptionist rushed over to her.

"Where have you been, dear?" she demanded. "We cleared the building four minutes ago!"

"Am I the last one?" The Wolfblood had refined the innocent act over the years. "Sorry. I got stuck on the toilet. That's the last time I eat anything with a Vegan Friendly label on it."

"Are you okay now?" The receptionist looked her over quickly.

"I'm fine, thank you." The Wolfblood gave her a grateful nod before taking off at a run. She now had the names of anyone she especially needed to watch out for who might be sent after her. Once they were out of the way, anything she wanted was right there for her to simply take. And there was only one thing she was after.

Author's Note: Well it's Monday and you know what that means: There's a new chapter! I also have a bit of an announcement. Due to circumstances beyond my control, there will be no Christmas oneshot this year. This is the first time that's happened since I joined this site. To make up for it, there will be my first ever TRIPLE UPDATE. The documents will be uploaded on Christmas Eve and will go live on Christmas Day. I'll take this opportunity to wish you all the merriest possible Christmas this year and here's to a better 2021. It won't magically fix everything as soon as the date changes, but let's hope it'll be a chance to start putting things right, shall we?