Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
For several hours it looked as if Mr. Murphy had called it a day. No additional catastrophes happened.
The first gigs took place. Thankfully at least the musicians' technical equipment was working without problems. Much to the organizers' delight people kept streaming in from all sides, drinking, laughing, enjoying themselves. Quite a few weekend bikers were spotted, some of them even along with their pillion-chicks-turned-wives.
There were some sunstrokes and the usual amount of circulation problems, sprained ankles, broken fingers... thanks to the heat the effects of too much alcohol were setting in earlier, and there were a couple of minor arguments here and there. With more and more visitors arriving, lots of them using their cells to give friends and family an impression of the atmosphere and the bands, communication between the different security units was becoming increasingly difficult, especially since the security cams went out of order shortly past one, too. All in all, however, things were going well.
Still no sign of Walding, though.
And that was not the only factor that was keeping Chance restless.
He had asked around a little about the notification that the 500 missing security guards had received and he didn't like the answers at all.
"The security companies didn't send that notification...", he told the others via earpiece.
"Prank maybe?", Winston mused.
But although he was trying to come up with a harmless explanation, he wasn't completely at peace with the situation either. A couple of minutes ago he had, grumblingly, decided he needed to take a look from the inside and was now getting in line to enter the premises through the main entrance.
"To send that notification someone must've hacked into the personnel data bases of three security companies", Chance replied, deep in thought. "Quite a risk for a good laugh... and take into consideration that twitter thing... a couple too many coincidences for my taste." With furrowed brows he watched the crowd on the lawns become bigger and bigger.
While early in the morning the originally targeted audience of middle-aged men had pretty much had the event to themselves now more and more rather young and already rather drunk people were coming in, most likely more drawn by the twitter/facebook thing than by the old-fashioned hard rock bands. Although they were rather easy to spot, sorting them out and sending them back home was impossible with the lack of personnel.
As the afternoon approached it was announced on the main stage that the highlight of the day, the band reunion, would soon start. Naturally the people now all gathered at the center stage. In addition to that the streams of people only just arriving significantly swelled once more and were flowing towards the middle of the area, too. All together the people began creating a core pressure at the center that had the potential to become dangerous. Additional guards from the exits and entrances were ordered to reinforce the units around the stage.
The remaining personnel present at the east entrance received the following message:
Close off entrance. South exit will be opened instead.
The personnel at the north entrance received the following text:
Close off entrance. East exit will be opened instead.
Can you guess what the people at the south entrance were told?
The guards at the exits, however, got messages that read as follows:
Close exit. Fire brigade detected problem. Main entrance will serve as exit now.
"Chance?" Guerrero's voice over the earphone. "I think we've got a problem."
He, as the only one with a bird's eye view via satellite, could see what the guards at the entrances and exits couldn't: Without realizing it, they were turning the premises into one huge enclosed space, with only a single entrance and exit – the tunnel.
"Chance, what are we going to do now?" Ilsa, thanks to the VIP box also rather high above, could spot at least part of the problem. The people who wanted to get out were turned away at the originally designated exits and sent to the main entrance. This was increasing the core pressure and creating dangerous vortexes inside the crowd, wherever coming and going people were colliding.
Good question by Ilsa, though. Chance, standing in the overheated HQ, with the police coordinators around him growing more hectic by the second, honestly had no idea. This was huge, a thing of giant proportions, hundreds of thousands of people to protect, not a single client or the passengers of an airplane...
Someone was manipulating this, all these glitches just couldn't be a coincidence, but how were they supposed to stop whoever was trying to play god here...? First and foremost they needed the staff to reopen the exits and entrances...
"We've got to try an Aunt Linda, Chance", Winston suggested. "This is too big for us to pull off alone."
"Already tipping them off to the cage thing." Guerrero's voice via earpiece.
Huh – Guerrero and Winston agreeing? Without a single word of bickering? Were things really that grave?
They were.
To an outsider, especially not to their client who was sound asleep on a sofa at the far end of the room, with a little bit of assistance from a certain substance in his coffee, Guerrero would have looked totally calm, but the deep lines on his face had just gotten a lot deeper, ever since he saw the newest pictures of the concert area.
Winston was in that tunnel.
"Ames, you've got to convince the staff in your proximity to reopen at least their gates." Chance was still not completely sure what to do, but reducing the core pressure seemed like a good starting point. "Once the main event is over, two streams of visitors will collide – those coming in for the public aftershow party and those wanting to leave. If security doesn't react fast, they'll run into each other headfirst – inside the tunnel. Ilsa, try to get down, too..."
At this very moment, Chance was interrupted by a loud curse from the officer in charge. "This can't be", he yelled, staring at the piece of paper in his hands. "This just can't be!"
At the same time on the center stage a very timid announcer took the microphone: "Unfortunately I've got to inform you that there's been an accident..."
One of the band members had received a cocktail with shrimps in it... he reacted allergic to shrimps and had to be shipped off to hospital.
No band reunion.
Almost immediately, a wave of frustrated concert goers turned away from the stage, yelling insults, and headed towards the tunnel – which was still full of people wanting to come in. And with no communication between the security units... no options to make public announcements...
Inside the tunnel things came to a screeching halt. Unable to go back or forth, the people could do nothing but stand still, tightly packed like sardines in a can.
Winston was starting to feel claustrophobic. Sweaty bodies were pressing against him from all sides. He tried to concentrate on the swoosh of the ventilation fans that would keep the air inside the tunnel fresh and cool.
The swoosh of the ventilation fans...
Now that he was thinking about it, where was it? He was trying to concentrate, straining his ears... There was nothing.
Nothing.
The ventilation system was turned off.
Meaning the air in the tunnel, that currently some thousand people were needing to breathe, would soon turn warm and stale, with a rapidly increasing carbon dioxide percentage.
Winston looked around and wondered how long it would take before others would notice, too.
Well, for the moment, most people had their attention turned elsewhere. The lights on the ceiling were suddenly starting to flicker. At first barely noticeable, then steadily becoming more visible, they dimmed down, returned to normal, dimmed down, then went out, came on, went out.
And then they didn't come on again.
Darkness.