Alex D was crouched at the far end of the elevator, wary for any hint of trouble were the doors to open too suddenly. Unfortunately, our hero was, again, distracted by the soothing tones of elevator music, and so, was crouched in an elevator, his hands in pre-combat pose held ahead of him, with a wide grin on his face, occasionally bobbing his head to the music. He attempted to tap his feet in tune with the music, but in his current stance fell over.Cursing to himself, he stood up, and immediately fell into combat position. If anyone attacked him, he'd give them the slapfest of their lives.

Presently, Alex became aware of the Mako firearm strapped under his arm. He unholstered it, and attempted to twirl it around his finger cowboy style, but dropped it. Cursing again, he fell to the ground to retrieve his weapon, and as soon as it was in his hands, the elevator door opened.

"Yo.."

"Oh my God!", yelped Alex, shooting the man who had addressed him.

"Shit! Damnit, don't do that!", replied the man, who, Alex had just noticed was SSC.

"Woah, sorry bra. You.. you scared me for a moment. Thought it was one of them terrorists, you know."

"Sure, dickhead. Look, one of those Order freaks is up that corridor. I was thinking I would have to take him on myself, but then you showed up and shot me in the leg. Mind going on up ahead and taking him out? I mean, I'd do it myself, but they always taught us to let the backup handle everything back in basic training."

"Why not? You're SSC, you couldn't kill a rat with a disability."

"Bite me."

"Whatever. Just wait up a moment."

With that, Alex approached the corpse lying nearest to the elevator.

"Hello? Are you awake?", he ventured to the corpse. "No? Well, I'll just take anything you might have."

Alex lifted the body up for a moment, and grabbed an ammo clip and an electric prod. The latter had captured his interest - the ambient energy within the stun tube had aroused an almost childlike fascination in Alex. In enthusiastic interest, he jammed the tube right up to his eye to examine the prod more deeply. However, the added pressure on the tube caused the rod to discharge an electric current into Alex's eyelid, causing him to scream and fall back. He sat back up again, his left eye twitching madly, with facial nerves causing a variety of irrelevant expressions to manifest themselves on his face.

"Woah, dude... Stun prod, man. Don't you know how to use those things?"

"I do now. I'll go handle that terrorist, but let me do my shit first."

Alex felt somewhat weaker from this unexpected self-attack. He wanted to lie down, eat, do something to relieve this feeling. He went into the next apartment, Leo Jankowski's, as fate would have it. He noticed a kitchenette to his left and decided to rummage around for food. He opened up the fridge and found... a loaf of bread. He grabbed the loaf and immediately started scarfing the bread down. Once completed, he dusted off crumbles from his jumpsuit and proceeded to look around for anything of interest. He approached Leo's bed and found a footlocker nearby. Going through the contents of the locker, he found several items of interest, and a few of genuine use. After sifting through Leo's relatively modest collection of self-autographs, photoshopped pictures, and letters to himself, he found an EMP grenade. Alex decided to keep this for himself.

Alex had also noticed an open vent by Leo's bed. Not one to ignore a possible route, he jumped in and proceeded along the vent. He grabbed a multitool which had somehow ended up in there and pocketed it, and emerged into... Klara Spark's apartment.

"Score!", Alex said to himself.

He looked through her fridge and found an assortment of junk food, but he simply grabbed the candy bars and sodas. One of the advantages of being an augment was a body that didn't fail on you. After reflecting on this blessing, Alex approached Klara's bed, intent on finding anything of use. On the way, he managed to stubb his toe, stumble over a fallen over chair, and hit his head on a shelf, eliciting copious amounts of swearing. Outside, a voice went, "Who was that? Ah, must have been a rat."

Alex finally made his way to Klara's bed, and opened up her footlocker. He sifted through her belongings and came across a scrambler grenade and a multitool. He decided there would be no harm in checking her email.

Alex checked them, but all he came across was two messages from Leila Nassif regarding the new program. Uninterested in the subjects, he simple stood there, waiting for the messages to end. He was unaware as to why the Order seeker had not come in.

As fate would have it, the Order seeker himself was occupied. The unfortunate man was troubled by his conscience. He reasoned to himself that, okay, SSC are trained security, they should be able to handle themselves. But he couldn't grasp why they had gone down so easily, or why almost none of them had drawn a weapon on him. He expected some retaliation, but all that Standard Security could muster was a pathetic whimpering from around the corner.

Alex was leaning to the right, taking in the meanderings of the Order seeker, who maintained his patrol route quite flawlessly. He crept slowly towards the doorway, pistol in hand, and switched in his flashlight while pointing his weapon outwards into the corridor. This was not a good thing.

The Order seeker had just noticed the circle of light forming on the wall, and realized he wasn't entirely alone. He decided to surprise this new antagonist with a charging attack. At that, he ran post haste towards the light, and turned right into the path of the beam. This, too, was not a good thing.

Alex let off seven shots, frightened by this new presence, although he had been warned to it. The Order seeker fell back, violent jerks accompanying each shot, until he finally ended up against the back wall, sliding down into a sitting position.

"Dude! Are you okay? Sorry for... um, you're dead, aren't you?", Alex waited for a response. "Guess so."

He searched under the seeker for any ammo clips, and was annoyed to find none. The SSC guard came running over, at which point Alex turned and let off another shot, hitting the poor guard in the arm. The guard, used to such gestures from the people he worked with, ignored the sharp pain in his arm and came over to Alex.

"Well done, rookie! You got yourself your first kill! That's one more than everyone in the SSC!"

"Yeah, that's not really surprising."

"If there's anything I can get you."

"Ammo. now."

"I need this!"

"Not like you ever use it."

"Gah... fine, take it. It's just one clip."

"Unused, too."

"Fuck you."

Alex entered his own bedroom, intent on taking any items he may have left behind. Suddenly, a message light blinked on the left hand side of his vision. Infolink, he thought. He activated it.

"Now, watch, Alex," said Billie Adams, every word dripping with self-righteous anger, "as I cut the power to the apartment. Just look at the ceiling."

"I'm looking Billie, I don't see anyt-"

"In a few seconds."

The infolink cut off, and the ceiling powered down, much to his surprise. He saw two people in an observation window up above the ceiling rafters, and decided to get up there to listen. Climbing onto the kitchenette, he jumped up onto the rafters, but could not get close enough to hear fully what they were saying. He heard mention of someone not liking being spied on. He was uninterested.

It was then that he noticed a new item in the corner of the level made by the rafters. Precariously balancing himself in the center of the rafters, he made his way over to the corner, and was rewarded for his curiosity with a sort of modern-day crossbow which fired knockout darts.

Alex equipped this weapon and began to acrobatically proceed down the rafters, but unfortunately, these rafters were not much suited to the weight of anything heavier than a crossbow for extended periods. The rafters collapsed, and Alex went tumbled into his fridge.

"Crap!"

A voice from above, "Did you hear that?"

"God?", said Alex.

"Yes, doctor, I did. But if we don't move, I don't think they can see us."

Alex, getting up and dusting himself off, went into his bedroom to retrieve any of his items. He came across his NG Resonance doll, snapped in half.

That was when Alex lost his civility. His knees began to shake, and soon he collapsed to the ground. This was too much. He screamed in agony. Once over, he vowed to murder all who would commit such an atrocity. Slowly, with tears in his eyes, he stroked the hair of his former toy, and laid it down on his bed. Wiping away these tears, he grabbed his crossbow firmly. There was determination written on his face.

That was when he noticed his hairgel. It was intact. Joy! thought Alex. At least one thing was saved. Quickly, he applied some of the fast-acting product to his hair, making sure it was picture perfect. Once done, he went to his bathroom to watch away the gel from the gloves. In the bathroom, however, he noticed a new occurence. A big hole in the wall? No. Someone had run off with the toothpaste. He looked around the bathroom to find the toothpaste, but it was missing. That was when he came across the, you know it, big hole in the wall. He proceeded through it, and came into a sort of storage room, with a lower level that had a few crates. Slowly, he made his way to the top of the ladder, and he placed his hands on it to lower himself. The gel he had forgotten to wash off his hands now came into effect, essentially causing him to fall onto a crate, and then fall off to hit his head on the floor. Swearing again, he walked over to a wall, rubbing his ass, grumbling. He had seen a door up there earlier, but now it had gone. He figured he'd have to climb up, but how? That was when he noticed the crates again.

Seven minutes later, Alex could not convince the crates to assist him in his endeavor to climb the wall face. He decided that he would have to do it himself.

He jumped up, and managed to grab onto the upper edge of the wall. Slowly, he pulled himself up, grunting in the face of the exertion that he had never applied himself to. Finally, he managed to make it up, facing the door he had seen. Gleefully, he ran towards the door, and suddenly ran into it. Rubbing his face, he remembered that these doors are not automatic. He flicked the switch by the side, and went through...