Kim Possible: Mindwars
A FanFiction by P.C. Denton.
Authors Note: Now to the actual story. Be warned, it might be a little bit different than the first thing i worked on, but try it out! Oh, and just fair warning, the woman in this chapter is a character from the KP universe. Major? Minor? Good guy? Bad guy? I'll leave it for you to figure out who it is (for now anyway).
Chapter 1
September 6, 2006 7:06AM
Downtown Washington, Excelsior Skyscraper
Security officer Michael Earl jogged up the well maintained marble steps on probably one of the biggest office towers in downtown Washington, so the information pamphlet said in the lobby area. Walking quickly around the fountain just outside the line of sliding doors outside of the gigantic office building he noticed that the timers must have reset, the fountain was already running. Coming up to the glass personnel door farthest to the right of line of doorways that hundreds, if not thousands of people walked through in an average day he took a peek inside. He noticed Bertie, whose his head propped up by his arm on the security desk he was sitting behind. Michael smiled and swiped his key card across the reader to the right of the door. The light flashed green and the automatic door lock clicked open. Michael swung the glass door carelessly, almost knocking the coffee holder he was carrying to the ground.
"Mornin' Bertie." Michael bellowed across the huge, empty lobby. His voice seemed to bounce off just about every surface in the huge room. Bertie jumped at the sudden sound, in his disoriented state, he immediately started to shuffle a stack of papers in front of him.
Bertie paused, and held a hand up to his mouth, yawning. "I was just resting my eyes for a littles bit, honest." He leaned back in his chair. "A little late aren't you?"
Michael stepped up to the front edge of the desk, setting the coffee cups he was carrying on the perfectly shined marble counter in front of him. "Well I had to make a little detour and pick up a couple cups of java." He popped a cup out of the disposable beverage carrier and handed it to Bertie, who took it gratefully.
Bertie cracked the lid and took a whiff of it, savoring the smell. He smiled. "Just the way I like it, dark roast."
Michael shrugged and smiled. "Hey, I figured you needed the boost before heading home this morning." Michael pushed off the front of the desk and made his way around to were Bertie was sitting. "Besides, nobody wants to scrape a burned out security guard off a guardrail in rush hour."
"So thoughtful, and yet you can't make it in on time." Bertie shot back, standing up he let Michael take his place in front of the security console. Bertie unclipped the keyring from his belt and placed it on the desk in front on Michael.
Michael took a sip of his coffee, settling into his chair. "Anything interesting happen on your shift, or anything I should know about before I unlock the front doors?"
Bertie half sat on the counter, placing his cup beside him. "Not much really, it's all in the activity log. Did my rounds and all that." He leaned over to tap a couple commands onto the keyboard, bringing a camera feed onto the monitor directly in front of Michael. "The rest of the time I spent watching the tech guys on the thirty seventh floor scurrying about."
"Oh right, Res-Inc had some archival stuff scheduled for last night." Michael replied.
"And it still doesn't look like they are done. Looks like you are going to experience ultimate boredom that I had to go through for a good ten hours."
Michael leaned forward to get a better look at the less than stellar picture quality. "Looks about as much fun as watching the boss's vacation videos last month." Michael remarked.
Bertie almost snorted coffee out his nostrils. He let out a hearty laugh. "Don't get caught sayin' that around him, otherwise You'll end up on the graveyard shift with me." He checked his watch, standing. "Looks like it's a little past show time for you anyway." He patted Michael lightly on the back, and started for the front doors.
"And so begins another average day." Michael said aloud, he logged into the security terminal and deactivated the locks on the front doors.
Bertie laughed again, speaking over his shoulder, not quite paying attention to what was in front of him. "Hey, keep up your snide remarks and you'll be on the fast track to the night shift in no time. Have a good one man." He mock toasted his coffee, averting his attention back towards the doors. Bertie stopped abruptly and sidestepped to avoid the woman that had just entered the building.
"Pardon me Miss." The man, who appeared to be a security guard of some sort, tilted his head downwards slightly to the black trench coat clad woman. The man 'Bertie' she gathered from the name on his badge turned to watch the her walk towards the elevators.
Somewhat puzzled, Bertie swore he knew her from somewhere. A picture he had seen somewhere? On television? He couldn't place his finger on it. Maybe it was the jet black hair, which was tightly cropped into a bun in the back, or her well kept tan she bore. Bertie couldn't quite make out the color of her eyes behind the dark sunglasses she wore. Must be imagining things man, you need to get some sleep. Bertie shook his head of the thought and headed out the door, placing the thought at the back of his mind, filing it for later when he felt less tired.
The woman checked behind her to make sure the guard had indeed left using the optical subsystem built into the glasses she was wearing. Good, only have to deal with one if things go bad.
She turned her head and tried her best to give a friendly smile to the other guard, however forced it looked it seemed to work on him. He simply nodded and returned a smile. She stopped at the closest set of elevators and pressed the up arrow. The heavy steel doors lazily slid open, the brushed metal giving way to the rich oak paneling within the elevator.
Assuming preliminary analysis is accurate, in and out in four minutes thirty two seconds. The woman thought to herself. She lightly tapped the button labeled 37. Falling back into place at the center of the elevator she watched as the door closed in front of her, the elevator started to ascend smoothly. She checked her watch, the readout on the LCD was of a simple timer on it, the only characters displayed was of a countdown. -5:32 counting downwards towards zero. She smiled smugly to herself. Perfect. Careful not to move too awkwardly, her extensive preparation for this single live mission; more of a test she reminded herself. Doing anything out of the ordinary would just draw unwanted attention to herself, of course she was trained to handle things out of the ordinary but this had to go relatively smoothly in order to succeed. Suddenly remembering the brief she had received just hours before on her way to Washington, she brought her hand casually up to her other sleeve. As far as anyone could tell she was harmlessly fidgeting. Known only to her she had just acquired access to the internal camera system and internal security network of the entire building. She tapped the miniature controls on the inside of her sleeve until she came across feed of the cable car she was in, the video feed appearing on her eyeglasses. Even easier than the prep runs. She thought to herself as she uploaded and ran the prepared viral script on the network. All the script was designed to do was cause some hiccups in the internal security net to keep whoever was on duty busy, just a precaution of course in case any unwanted attention was somehow drawn to her. Taking a closer look at herself in the camera feed, she noted that she fit the part of a young go-getter, heading to an important meeting or some such. Much like any other business person in this building would look like. Her jacket was a plain black trench coat, with two deep pockets at waist level, the classic style buttons done all the way up. The hair was a nice touch too. She thought, the color and extensions were added as a last minute thing. Just in case somebody did take notice, which of course she highly doubted would happen. She flicked back to the camera overlooking the lobby area, she saw that people were already starting to flood into the building, no doubt going about their own everyday business. The security guard she walked by earlier at the desk was leaning forward in his seat, hitting the side of the monitor in front of him. Satisfied the script was creating the desired effect, she flipped the camera feed to the background of the HUD displayed on her glasses.
The minute change in speed of the elevator signaled that her stop was coming up. Taking a moment to glance up her heightened senses were indeed correct, the readout blinked 36, then to 37. The elevator car slid to a smooth stop and the heavy steel doors slid open, revealing a plain white hall. She quickly stepped into the hallway, her low heels clacking on the expensive tile that lined the entire surface of the floor. Again pretending to adjust her sleeve she switched to a video feed down the east facing side of the building. Empty in both directions. Still going smoothly. She walked just quick enough to appear like she was in a particular hurry. Although it didn't matter too much, the scripts running on the security net should be in full force by now, most cameras are either off line or giving seemingly random feeds. Switching to yet another screen on her HUD an overlay came up on the right side of her view, her position marked in a fittingly black dot, and the rest of the humans on the floor marked in red. All of them within an approximate location accurate to four inches, according to the specifications of her gear anyway. In the four weeks of twenty-four hour training cycles she had learned pretty quickly to not ask questions about anything. Just do her job. Period. Doing otherwise just seemed to make bad things happen.
Stopping suddenly in front of an unlabeled door, she examined the floor plans for the floor in relation to her current location displayed on her HUD. Maintenance Room, the right place, just gotta open it. She shot a glance in both directions as a precaution and ran her wrist across the card reader, the watch was designed to do many things, one of which was to disrupt electronic equipment operations, and it did its job well. A satisfying snick and the electronic lock was open for her. As the saying goes, 'open sesame'. She placed a gloved hand on the stainless steel door handle.
She winced for a split second, a sharp throbbing pain lanced through her head. The pain subsided within seconds to a dull headache-like feeling. She clasped her forehead with her free hand, the leather pulling away gold sweat. That's something new. She thought calmly, she managed to keep her voice steady. Going to have to report that to the doc when I get back. Shaking the headache aside to deal with the task at hand she opened the door. The door swung open easily, she stepped into the dimly lit room. Closing the door behind her as quietly as possible she assessed the room, as she had expected it was a rats nest of network cables and discarded computer equipment, rather than a traditional maintenance room. She moved forward and placed the briefcase she was carrying down on a stack of half used blue Ethernet cable spools that looked sturdy enough for her purposes. Popping both latches, she cracked the aluminum shell open. She carefully picked up it's contents from the form fitted padded foam lining. Other than a eight inch antenna on the little square device, it would have been mistaken for any other discarded device lying around in the room. Only her and her employer knew what it did, and it had to be done, no questions asked. A mission is a mission. Complete at all costs. None of the internals, if ever recovered could ever be traced back to anybody, the tech guy that built it back in the lab had said, and she believed him.
Not wasting any more valuable time, she placed the device's magnetic pads on a panel that looked like a switching box of some sort. It held snug enough for her satisfaction. She spun the dial on her watch 180 degrees and ran it across the front side of the device she had just planted. A muted beep and a single flashing red light signified that the device was now activated. "Done." She murmured under her breath. No turning back now, not that you would ever think that anyway.
She turned and closed the briefcase, exited the maintenance room, just as she had left it. Walking back to the elevator doors by herself she again checked the cameras. Nobody had left or entered any of the rooms on her floor, the security guard was on the phone, she tapped the line and heard him complaining to the operations manager about the problems in the security grid. The script did it's job well it looks like. Stopping at the elevator entrance, she pressed the down button. Just before the doors slid open to an empty car she checked her watch again for time. -3:25 Still ahead of schedule. Stepping into the elevator she pressed M and the elevator started its decent. All things considered, this went just as well as her employer had hoped, first real mission and it looks like a success. She rubbed her temple lightly. Except for the headache it looks like. Surprising even her she rode all the way to the bottom without the elevator making any stops.
As soon as the elevator came to a stop at the main floor, the woman made exited the car quickly, brushing past the flurry of people waiting to go up the tower, one little girl, holding her mother's hand caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. The child's curious stare was fixated solely on her. The woman slowed, tilting her head slightly to catch a better angle. Her eyes immediately locked on the little girl as she passed by. The little girl's mother tugged on her arm, coaxing her into the elevator, her stare broke eye contact, seemingly disinterested in her anymore. The woman recovered quickly. Weird. She thought to herself, shaking her head slightly she started back towards the front doors. She was careful to dodge the many people going about their own business as she could avoid. For the most part though, people moved out of her way. Probably from how she carried herself with a distinct confident stride. Checking the camera feeds one last time she noted the guard at the front desk was still completely puzzled at the errors, he didn't look too happy about what he was talking on the phone about. Luckily he wasn't even paying attention to anything else around him. Moving through the main sliding doors, she adjusted her sleeve once more, severing the link to the security grid, as well as effectively removing all traces of the scripts she had planted earlier. The security personnel will be happy about that, if not just for a moment.
Passing the fountain outside, she headed straight for the crosswalk on the street corner, she caught the cross light just as she hit the corner. Falling in line with all the other people waiting to cross, blending back into the crowd of people outside. She turned and walked down the opposite side of the street facing the office building she had been just moments ago. Pausing in front of a run down pawn shop store front she turned to take a good look at the tower in the morning sun. Beautiful architecture... It's almost a pity really. She pulled out her cellular phone, flipped it open and dialed the predetermined number and pressed dial. One ring later and confirmation of two long beeps was all she needed. Checking her watch one last time she waited for the countdown to reach zero.
6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... The timer flashed red, displaying 0:00. Not a single moment of hesitation in her actions, she punched in the confirmation code only she knew and pressed send. The screen flashed green, and the words ARMING... glowed on the screen. A loud, dull thump was all that could be heard at first, around her, people were looking around, suddenly confused at the loud sound. She looked up, shielding her eyes from the reflecting sun, looking specifically at floor thirty-seven. Out of seemingly nowhere, the glass across the eastern side of the building shattered in to millions of pieces from the floors above and below, sending debris falling to the ground. The full force of the explosion ripped out the side of the building, a thundering shock wave blew out the side, flames spewing out the side, the force could be felt on ground level. The woman winced in pain, her head pain came in full force at the same moment the shock wave hit, she collapsed to the ground, tightly gripping the phone in her hand. She fell to her knees, unable to keep herself standing, the strength felt like it was draining from every ounce of her existence. She leaned heavily on the pawnshop's glass window, not sure what was happening. Her vision started to go fuzzy, a faint ringing in her ears. What the hell is happening to me! She thought, for the first time in her memory, she was felt fearful for what was happening. She squinted, trying to see anything she could make out, the pain growing in her forehead. The last thing she could barely make out over the screams along the street level and the sirens in the distance before slipping into unconsciousness was on the cellphone readout she gripped tightly in her hand. DETONATION COMPLETE.
EOC
