4. Chapter: Complete Lockdown

Amy tried to open the door with her code, but nothing happened.

"It doesn't work," she explained unnecessarily.

Toby didn't respond. He fished his com out of his pocket and talked to his team members: "Guys, what's happening?" While he was waiting for an answer he tried to find a backdoor into the security program via the small device next to the shut door.

"Who are you talking to?" Amy sounded confused.

"My team," he answered abrupt, without looking up from the display in front of him.

"I'll call the security," his ex-fiancé told him and dialed the number on her phone. Nothing happened. "It isn't working."

"Toby, where are you?" Paige's voice sounded a little bit uneasy. "I tried to call you on the phone but the network is down.

"I'm in an office across the hall. The door is locked and the whole system shut down," he answered.

"Can I borrow your phone?" Amy asked Toby still irritated by the situation and his sudden change of behavior.

"The phone's aren't working," he explained briefly and without even looking at her.

"The control center is also on lockdown. The doors are closed and the computer screens went blank minutes ago," Paige confirmed.

"Someone must have tempered with the system," Walter assumed. "Maybe our perpetrator is on the run."

"I hate closed spaces." Sly's voice was full of suppressed panic. "I tried to hack the system, but within complete lockdown most of the codes aren't working."

"Maybe there is a backdoor we can use," Walter mumbled. "Cabe? Can you get me Baker's security code? Maybe we can tell the system that it's false alarm."

The line was mute for a minute. No one was talking.

"Cabe?" Walter sounded impatient. "Cabe? Do you hear me?"

Toby didn't like what was going on. "Happy? Are you there?"

At first the line was dead again, but then he heard a small cough. "Happy? Is that you? Talk to me!"

"I don't think that this is false alarm." Toby had never been happier to hear her grumpy voice.

"Happy, what do you mean?" Walter asked.

"I was defusing the bomb right before the system went down. I had a little incident and then the doors locked and the light went out as well." After her explanation she coughed again.

"What do you mean when you say you were defusing a bomb?" Toby's voice was a little bit higher than usual and Amy flinched next to him.

"Our task seemed easy at first. We should open a metal box without damaging it to secure the evidence in it. When we were successful we discovered a small bomb, so I tried to defuse it. You would know that, if you had been on the com."

"What the hell," Toby swore. "Are you alright?"

"I'm great, part of the bomb went off," she answered sarcastically.

"Are you injured?" Toby's mind was listing hundreds of possible injuries that needed to be treated immediately.

"I'm fine," she responded, but coughing didn't stop.

"You don't sound fine," Toby pointed out. "We have to get you out of there."

"What do you think I'm doing right now?" By the time Happy was really angry. "I'm in the security system and trying to get access to the surveillance, but the display is broken, so it isn't a piece of cake, alright."

"We don't need surveillance right now," Sly argued. "We need a way out of this hell."

"I'm not going anywhere until I know it's save there," Happy responded.

"Happy is right," Walter stated. "We don't know what is happening in the building right now. At the moment we are separated, but save."

"What do I have to do to get the cameras working?" Toby searched the menu of the security system.

"Like I said, I'm already on it," Happy told him.

"Yeah, but you are working on a broken display in a room without light, so maybe letting me take over would be helpful."

"I can do this myself." Happy responded like he did several weeks earlier. Toby hadn't an opportunity to answer.

"Guys! We can sort this out later, when we all are save at the garage," Paige argued. "We are stuck here and don't know if Cabe is alright so we get our acts together. Do you understand?"

"YES," everyone copied that.

"Listen," Walter demanded "Happy you are going to guide Toby through the system so we can bring the cameras back online. Sly and I are trying to open the doors."

Several minutes everyone was working according to Walter's plan.

"The cameras are back online," Toby announced.

"Some screens are working in here again," Paige told the rest of the team. "Oh my god!"

"Paige? What happened?" Walter stopped what he was doing and waited for her to respond.

"I found Cabe. He is lying in a hallway and seems unconscious."

"We have to get to him," Happy said.

"There is a problem," and Toby didn't like it at all. "Happy was right. It wasn't a false alarm. Baker initiated the lockdown. That's why you can't hack the system. His code overrules any command."

"There must be a way out," Sly said even tough he didn't sound convinced at all.

"Maybe, but there is another problem," Toby was looking at the small screen in front of him. "Do you smell smoke?"

"Smoke?" Paige asked for confirmation. "No, there is no smoke in here."

"I don't recognize it either," both Walter and Sylvester said seconds later.

"There may be some smoke in here," Happy admitted.

"That's because there is a fire on the other side of your door. It's only a matter of time until it spreads and the others are closed in to. We have to get you out of there ASAP." Toby looked at the camera feed angrily. "Happy, you looked at the blueprints of this building. Are the vents big enough for us to crawl through it?"

"I think so, but they aren't exactly designed to resist the human bodyweight. There are at least twenty people in here with us in the restricted area, I don't know if the vents will withstand."

"I'm looking at the plans right now," Sly told them. "We would have to take different routes to disburden some parts of the vents, but we should at least accomplish to get away from the fire. There is also a server room in the other part of the building where we could access the mainframe of the security system; maybe Walter would be able to enable the lockdown from there."

"But we have to be careful," Walter reminded them. "As soon as the fire get's more severe the vents will be filled with smoke. It could be even more dangerous in such a small tunnel."

"Okay," Toby said. "Do you all see an entrance to the vents, where you can escape?"

Everyone agreed except Happy. "I have a flashlight, but I won't be able to reach up to the entrance of the ventilating system."

"No problem," Toby answered. "I'll come and get you. Sly, I assume you memorized the whole plan, you can guide us through the system."

"Toby, I don't think it is very smart to crawl near the fire," Sly explained. "The vents will be filled with smoke sooner than you think. Given the closed room Happy is in and the estimated expansion of the fire you have less than ten minutes to get to her and for the two of you to get at least forty feet away from the source of fire."

"I could try to get her out before I search for the server room," Walter offered.

"We need open doors to leave the building and get to Cabe," Toby reminded them. "And when you are in the server room you could also try to get the sprinklers online so you shouldn't try to rescue Happy when I'm only a couple of feet away."

Without any further discussion everyone opened the grids in front of the vents. Toby pushed a desk under the entrance and helped Amy to enter it. "Sly in which direction do Amy, Paige and the other scientists have to go?"

Sylvester gave everyone a detailed instruction.

When Toby also was in the vent he turned to Amy. "You have to follow that corridor. At the next junction you turn left, then right and then left again," he told her. "You will meet my team mate Paige and your colleagues there."

"You aren't coming with me?", she asked a little afraid of being alone in some dark and closed tunnel.

"No, I have to get Happy," he answered and before she could reciprocate he turned in the other direction and hurried.