-REC H8069/0926-OUTSIDE METI STRATEGY DEPT., BLOCK 2 GROUND FLOOR, SETI CAMPUS, OKLAHOMA

About two doors away from the conspicuous METI subdivision is a vending machine, one of only two units stationed impractically at opposite ends of the Institute building. What makes it so special, to the interviewer at least, is that it doesn't dispense the usual fare of artificially sweetened beverages and candy bars. One machine gives out snacks—chips and the like—and the other has microwave meals.

The interviewer, still irked after crossing swords with the card readers, finds himself in need of the services of the snack-vending machine, even if its' offer of two dollars and something more for what looks like a one-and-a-half-ounce packet of Bagel Bites is highway robbery...Then again, he supposes it's sort of admirable that the vending machine's glass front catches the sunlight from the windows at the end of the hall so strategically. The price list under the glass is obscured by the resultant glare, saving customers from thinking too much about the exact number of coins they were feeding into the machine.

Two golden dollars and a quarter later (he was counting), the interviewer retrieves his Bagel Bites and a nickel from the chutes, pocketing the coin and tearing open the packet as he walks to the elevators. He jabs at the 'down' button next to the door, making short work of a few 'Bites as he waits. They're ever so slightly stale; a subtle insult from the last catering company to think restocking these things was a pain in the gluteus maximus.

Within his conveyance he is, mercifully, alone with his bad mood as it crawls up to the third floor. This late in the game of fox and hound between the investors and SETI OK, the elevator music is now available at the lower limits of the human hearing range and the cabling and winch system have been maintained, but not updated, since the fifties, keeping travel speed at an unsteady crawl. At least the light still worked, and the interior paintwork was ageing gracefully. He still finds the elevators here woefully outdated, though.

Then, the elevator stops with uncharacteristic lightness, giving him pause for thought regarding the caprice of machines and technology. It seemed that the maintenance crew had finally gotten around to updating the braking system.

As he steps out into the third-floor lobby and the tempering order of the Management Department, he lets his mind wander onto more pleasant avenues. While not ideal, stepping in forty-four minutes into his show means that, at the very least, he's just in time for the third episode of the day.

(_moderate_)

In theory, the plan is foolproof. Nobody's where they're supposed to be after the scheduling snafu out of the blue (though Doctor Chekhov would beg to differ) in management, and Lesley, the building's security man, has been dragged away from his cameras to help herd up the stragglers.

Today, nobody's activity logs will be in order and everybody's timesheets will warrant at least one call from the higher-ups, and there is at least one group that this situation serves perfectly well for.

If Josef and his team were in the room where SETI OK kept its' files on company equipment instead of at the Control Room manning the switchboards, they'd notice the new I.T. wunderkind Marvyn Holloway sauntering up to the drawer containing the security device manuals and pocketing a few papers, instead of recovering and redistributing everybody's schedules.

Or if Les could find the time to return to the Security Room, he'd catch the campus' Doctor Chekhov fiddling with the CCTV footage and the timestamps, holding a Janitorial card that wouldn't be his, rather than standing at the entrance and directing employees to their departments.

And if Corsa or Leanne or anyone else currently scattered across the campus could see Mrs Galbraith struggling to haul a suitcase towards the supply closet instead of wandering around in a befuddled daze like everybody else, they'd ask some questions.

For the next nine hours, they are as close to invisible as is humanly possible, barring their presence on the CCTV footage. The four temporarily rogue SETI OK employees slink out of their positions and rush to converge around Jenna's suitcase, cramming in more items, then pushing and hauling it out of its' inertia.

Five days' worth of meticulous planning and consideration in stolen snatches of down-time shows in their growing impatience; Jenna and the doctor vacillate between pulling the suitcase along and ducking down to fiddle with or declare to the stiffness of the wheels every few seconds.

The suitcase, evidently protesting all of the harassment, creaks alarmingly and dives to the left. Jenna, mid-curse, jumps back, while the doctor finds himself with the unenviable task of yanking its' fifty pounds or so back onto its' wheels.

As soon as the suitcase settles, the very much human doctor staggers back from the handle to remove his jacket. "Christ. This bag's a hell of a lot bulkier with the supplies in it. Marvyn, take the bag for the door and go on ahead. Jenna, you'll throw your back out lifting like that. Kiera, come and take the back."

"Oh. Uh...sure." The lanky Swede, a comparatively new addition to Mrs Galbraith's group of trusties, stuffs the beat-up Motorola she's been fiddling with into her pocket. At this stage she understands only the basics of their plan: get a cleaner out of the supply room he's locked in, which did sound a bit dodgy, but she'd be willing to give this story the benefit of the doubt if it means she'd be able to get into Mrs Galbraith's good books.

Pulling the fabric straps on the sides of the suitcase towards her, she chirps out her obligatory ready when you are, Boss.

Doctor Chekhov—now divested of his jacket—has been ready since he created this plan four days ago. It's the practical side that keeps letting him down now; the equipment malfunctions and the corporate busybodies and the way this place seemed to fall to Murphy's Laws so often. He allows himself a weary sigh as he flings his coat over the suitcase.

At the very least, Marvyn would have gotten through the supply closet doors before they got this suitcase there.

(_developmental_)

Even though he'd never given two stooges about this place until five days ago, Marvyn Holloway (oh yes, son of Archie 'Rocket' Holloway, tech whiz and all with the household name and the Great Expectations, yada yada) can tell these corridors haven't been under the Stillwater Council trustees' budget since almost a dog's lifetime ago. Any old gossip near his cubicle could've told him that 2001: A Space Odyssey was filmed here and he'd believe them.

After all, there's the closet that keeps in all of the security controls for this corridor, most importantly those for the card readers. It's straight out of a cheap action flick, the way he knocks in the combo lock and swings the door open with a theatrical creak, then steps into the world's most depressing security office. He honestly pities whoever had the job of sitting here—on a wooden high-backed chair, no less—and making sure nothing went wrong. He leaves the door open; to hell with being caught looking suspicious, this place brought out claustrophobia he thought he'd never had, and who was going to complain anyway? Janitorial?

As Marvyn rips off the metal cover of the host controller with the bit of his Chapman 'driver, he mulls over the atmosphere of this whole place (it felt like the right thing to do, seeing as he was only gonna be here for a day or two, then it'd be right back to 'fixing' the computers and replacing the printers' toner cartridges) and how non-threatening and unreal this all felt. Like there wasn't an actual missing-presumed-dead guy behind one of these doors. This whole hallway felt like the limbo zone; being alone here with the horror movie tube lights and the walls with the almost-plaster paint and the abandoned smell. Not even rummaging through the rat's nest of wires on this old host controller system or slicing through the wires relating to the door he wanted or soldering connections that weren't meant to be there, just waiting for that buzz that signalled his success felt particularly real to him.

He guesses that this old place was a bit too lonely for him when he feels a sort of relief in response to the sounds of Chekhov and Mrs G. talking about Maury again.

Their voices reach Marvyn's ears pretty neatly in these halls. Old Chekhov's huffing and puffing is hilariously audible even as he grills Mrs G. "Wasn't...Maurice's cart available?"

"Maurice's cart...was full of office supplies! The...the other janitors...must've taken it!" she almost snaps.

Well, mystery of the missing cart solved. The suitcase is still pretty inconvenient though, and he's not the only one who thinks so, from the sound of those echoes.

"The other janitors didn't a...ask any questions...about...the unmanned cart?" Chekhov asks disbelieving.

"They reported Maurice...as AWOL."

"To the Interviewer...I presume. Well...this simp...simplifies matters...I suppose."

"You...didn't re...rep...oh, God...this..is...killing me..."

There's a sort of rustle, and the suitcase wheels clack against the linoleum. At the sound, Marvyn sticks his head out and spots the group crawling into his part of the hallway.

"You didn't...report his absence?" the data analyst wheezes.

Doctor Chekhov steps back from the suitcase, motioning for Keira to stop as he staggers back to rest next to Mrs G. Both of them are as red as ol' Rudolph Reindeer's nose, leaning against the walls there.

"Not...not my division." This from the man who made it his personal mission to cover up whole departments' slip-ups and shortcomings from the higher-ups.

Marvyn turns back to the machine's rearranged innards, hiding his amused grin at Mrs G's disbelieving snort. A few more hacks with the wire cutters and a bit of melted tin here and there and he'd be done.

"Should we kick it in?" Keira offers, to the surprise of Marvyn and Jenna; they didn't take her for the aggressive type.

There's a significant pause before the doctor shoots down that idea. Nobody wanted to say that barging into the room sounded better than creeping in like something out of a horror movie.

Chekhov soon falls back among his thoughts again, and stays still and staring like his comrades.

It's now a quarter to ten by Keira's cellphone, and they've at last gathered in front of Maurice's supply room, held back only by the neutralized door...and their irrational nervousness of taking action, of finding something terrible beyond that door. The paranoia really is difficult to evade after so much planning and so many possible scenarios involving the janitor in peril; beside that, they don't dare begin to ponder the consequences for their clandestine rescue mission. Each of them knows that the only reason they are here, before this door, is through illicit means, which obviously necessitated an elaborate cover-up—

"C'mon." Mrs Galbraith finally pipes up, her false cheer interrupting the downward spiral of collective worry, "Let's get this door open and find Maurice."

Marvyn responds with some kind of joke about a SWAT team as he reaches for the handle, but it is lost on everyone else. Chekhov releases a breath that he'd subconsciously held in, while Jenna loosens her white-knuckle hold on the suitcase's strap and joins the others. Keira rearranges herself into some kind of fighting stance.

The door opens with a push and a squeak of protest. Marvyn takes it upon himself to stick his arm in and quickly feel about for the light switch as well.

A click and a hum, and the entire room is bathed in cool white light, the oppressive darkness replaced by signs of an attempted cover-up of a struggle. Cleaning supplies shoved into corners, or else strewn over the floor. Boxes piled near the door. The stench of gas over the tropical-scented cleaners. Suspicions are proven true, and yet false, with Marvyn's gasp and Jenna's squeak of dismay.

Equally conspicuous in its' absence is the objective of their rescue mission. There's no sign of the janitor suffering on the floor, or taking his final breaths, or his body torn apart, mutilated, stuffed into a corner by whatever had taken out the camera and had so visibly scared him. It's so horribly obvious that it renders them speechless with shock, even Marvyn, who can't bring himself to force out a jab at Houdini now when there's just no magician and no big act behind all this, just...the worst kind of nothing.

(_delay_)