A/N: All right. To clear things up. The door in the last chapter is indestructible. Even by Max. If someone blows the whole damn building up, the door will still be there. Maybe it was built by magical circus midgets. Maybe it has nanoprobes in it too. Maybe it is alive and kills all who come near it. Bottom line? The door is indi-fuckin-structible. Thank you and good day.
It was all bright yellow sun, white sand, and clear water. It was beautiful, and accompanied by soft ukulele music. It was nice and calm and relaxing. It was suddenly interrupted by machine gun fire.
Blaine yelled and fell out of his bed. Looking around in a panic and scrambling for cover, he tried to determine who the hell was shooting at him, and instead was rewarded with the sight of his roommate sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed.
"Surprise!" Jack chirped cheerfully as the machine gun chatter continued.
"What the hell! I was sleeping, you moron!"
Jack replied, but his words were covered up by the continuing noise.
"WHAT!" Blaine yelled, trying to hear him.
"I SAID," Jack yelled over the noise, "IT'S A TAPE RECORDER UNDER YOUR PILLOW! TURN IT OFF SO WE CAN HEAR!"
Blaine moved from where he had fallen to the side of his bed, thrust his hand under the pillow, and was rewarded with a silver tape recorder still spitting gunfire noises. "HOW THE HELL DO YOU TURN IT OFF!"
Jack was about to answer, but then stopped himself. "I…DON'T REALLY KNOW! IT'S NEW! TRY FUMBLING WITH THE SWITCHES!"
Blaine answered by tossing the shiny silver machine into the fish tank three feet away. The noise got softer immediately, then became bubbly, then stopped.
Jack sighed. "Should have seen that coming."
Blaine glared at him. "Yeah, and you owe me a new eardrum you idiot. Why the hell'd you do that!"
Jack shrugged. "You said to wake you up at 5:30. It's 5:30 now."
Blaine stared at him. "So?"
Jack remained cheerful. "So, it's time to get up!"
"What are you, crazy? It's 5:30." Blaine got back into his bed and pulled the covers over himself.
"Come on! I made waffles!"
"I hate waffles."
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Somehow he got himself out of bed, through the gauntlet of waffles, and back to N-Tek only five minutes late. He pulled up to the curb going 60 mph, and left skid marks when he stopped. He got out of the car grinning; he always loved doing that. His host was not amused.
"Are we done playing games now?" Dread asked dryly.
Blaine got out of the car and went over to the part of the sidewalk where the man was standing. "It's 6 AM and I'm here; I wouldn't be too picky about my entrance."
Dread stared at him. "It was 6 AM five minutes ago, not now, so I'll be as …picky… as I want to be. Are you ready to start, or not?"
"Yeah, fine."
He listened as Dread explained where the mark would be most of the time, times he'd probably be alone, what time he got in to work, etc. While listening, he scanned the area, and saw someone who, he was pretty sure, hadn't been there before. A redhead, probably in her early twenties, who might have been attractive if she did not have that permanent "bitch" expression on her face. She did not seem too thrilled to see him.
Dread followed the direction of his gaze and realized that someone else was there with them. "Abigail, it's rude to lurk in the shadows. Come over here and introduce yourself."
Blaine heard the girl mutter something like "I wasn't lurking," and watched as she turned on her heel and walked back towards the dark garage she had appeared out of instead of coming forward to introduce herself.
Dread seemed inclined to drop the subject, but Blaine looked at him and raised his eyebrows. Dread sighed. "My granddaughter," he gestured towards where her form had disappeared back into the shadows. "You'll be seeing a lot of her around the base."
"Your granddaughter? So…she-"
"Does not know anything about our arrangement, and will remain in the dark until the plans are carried out."
"All right…look I know you obviously know her a lot better than I do, but she doesn't seem like the kind of person you can keep secrets from for long."
Dread sighed again and rubbed his temples. "I'll be going on a very active misinformation campaign. Now, we don't have a lot of time; we have to get in soon. So…" Dread pulled a DREDD minion uniform out of a paper bag and handed it to him.
Blaine picked up the thing, held it up, and started laughing. The thing was made out of a spandex-type material and obviously designed for a man three sizes smaller than he was.
Dread rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. "Problem?"
"Um, yeah." Blaine held up the suit in front of his body, and Dread saw the legs stopped at about where the man's knees were.
"All right," Dread said exasperated, "you won't have to wear the uniform. I'll introduce you as my bodyguard. Just try to make it seem like you don't despise me as much as you do- that might cause suspicion among the others."
"How long exactly is this going to take?" Blaine repeated his question from the last time they had met in this place.
"That depends on how good you are at what you do. In all reality it shouldn't be too long, the person in question can be pretty foolhardy at times. You just have to look for the right opportunity."
"Ok…just one question."
"…Go ahead."
"Do they have coffee?"
Dread grimaced. "In a manner of speaking."
Blaine groaned. "Great."
"Time to go."
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Jefferson Smith sat down in his cushy leather chair and reached into a middle drawer to retrieve an only slightly stale donut. It had been a stressful day, and he just wanted to sit there and munch on the fried goodness. Unfortunately, it was not to be. He was interrupted by a beeping coming from the speaker built into the left side of his desk. He sighed heavily, but pushed the green 'accept' button. He was the leader of an organization created to protect the world from terrorism. He could not ignore calls just because he wanted to eat a donut…although the thought had crossed his mind. "Smith," he said, answering whoever had chosen to interrupt his morning snack.
"Berto Martinez here, sir. Sorry to interrupt, but I thought you should know that Dread is outside the base."
"Well, we expected he'd know how to get in and out regardless of our attempts to keep him in," Smith said. "He did help design the building."
"That's not the problem."
Jefferson leaned forward. When the words 'Dread' and 'problem' were used in the same conversation, it usually wasn't a good thing. "What's going on, Berto?"
"He's not alone."
"I know; I'm not happy about it, but I agreed to let bring in a close associate or two."
There was silence on Berto's end.
"Martinez?"
"A close associate or two?"
"Yes."
"…"
"Berto?"
"…Try 25."