Title: open hand and closed fist (both do fine)

Summary: It takes a long time to be let out of the safe room. A long time with nothing to do but listen to the whispers and stare at the the door standing between them and the yet to be named incursion.

Written for the fan_flashworks fortune challenge. Emily POV.

Because I had to reformat the ps4, and consequently restart the game.

The Director is not typically considered the cavalry. This is classed, with appropriate reference to its context, as an understatement. Trench was, as archetypes go, the Man in the ever shifting equation that is the Oldest House, and he'd held the position long enough to set the standard for most of the Division heads to follow. Not that Emily Pope, assistant, ever had the chance to interact much with management outside of Research.

Stuck in a sealed safe room, there is very little research that can be done, and plenty of time to spend on imagining what could happen to them.

Even with a grand total of two researchers to work with - Emily's being generous there, Osei hasn't got beyond fetching and carrying paper yet - they have nothing to do but wait and extrapolate on the scraps of data they can glean from the external pickups. She has a handful of paperwork on hand, the file she'd been carrying when the event first manifested, but the whispering and the oppressive nature of sharing an enclosed space with others all just stuck in limbo, waiting to be freed (or pried out, but that is not a thought she is going to be thinking. That is the kind of thought that is directly detrimental to maintaining appropriate levels of non-panic) does not lend itself to policy and procedures.

The cascades of chanting whispers quieten and redouble as crashing and - gunfire? Is that gun fire? The security team crammed against the wall confirms that it sounds like a handgun, something small, not the standard rifle. Has a Ranger make it through Executive? Or has someone slipped up trying to get - she breaks the train of thought before she can start picturing the outcomes. Even with the qualification, the sound sparks a brief surge of hope.

It's quickly leashed. Emily is a scientist. She knows better than to assume that luck is on their side - her stint in Probability proved the contrary quite conclusively.

Why would they risk - there have had to have been safe rooms nearer than Central Executive. And the gun don't sound right. Unknowns on top of mysteries.

The whispers fade to an almost eerie quiet. The camera - on delay, unconnected from all systems other than the safe room, barely more than lens and screen, because everyone remembers the smartphone incident - shows one figure standing by the control point. Emily loses mental game of rock paper scissors - she is the senior person present - and opens communications. The light changes while they're busy determining. Less bloody. Emily takes that as good sign, provisionally.

Their rescuer identifies as the new director. It's something of a relief. Emily had seen the portrait, not that she'd really been paying much attention, on the scramble inside. She's safe as an unknown can be. Emily's not in the business of interacting with management (paperwork, unfortunately exists at all levels of the FBC), but she could do with a little OoP mandated leadership right now.

The door opens on an atrium that looks like main Executive again. Or what central Executive has looked like since a team from Maintenance fixed the location of the control point. Images from before the stabilization had columns, if she recalls. Greeco-romanesque, with the usual baroque twist.

The Director is far less corporate in person. The portraits would have - does, she can see one over in the corner - her in a suit, but the combination of leather jacket and jeans speaks to more a physical approach. Not that - no, nevermind. At least she didn't say that outloud.

She's also a complete unknown.

Still, unknown or not, Emily would take this new director over a full squad of rangers. She did, after all, take out an overrun floor to get to them. They couldn't ask for better rescue. Well. Maybe, if she'd rocked up with stack of pizzas to take the taste of freeze-dried rations out their mouths ... but nobody's perfect. Overwhelmingly competent will have to suffice.