Security Lockdown and Overview

The only door that lacked the decorations from the other two led them to the main security room of NorCo’s headquarters.

It was a big barren room with a multitude of screens showing the feed from the cameras around the building, most turned off for some reason.

It also had several stands for weapons and power suits, most empty, a big metallic table with a dozen chairs, two of them occupied, and finally, an old, or seemingly old, arcade machine.

The room also had a compact food production machine embedded in one of the walls, but that was already beyond the point.

More important than the barebones furniture, the two other occupants called more attention.

One of the was a balding middle-aged man in a white high-class three-piece suit and trousers, and a brunette no older than Lily wearing a light blue ruffle blouse with a darker odessa skirt.

“Good afternoon, my soon-to-be fans!”

The explosive greetings and sudden approach of the idol startled everyone else, but she still managed to get some greetings.

One was a strained “good afternoon” from the woman she was shaking hands with and the other was a glare from the older man though.

As the idol was entertaining herself with the two bystanders in the area, Richard and Lilianna moved away to have their own discussion.

“What’s happening here, Richard?”

“I’m not so sure myself... An explosion happened on the lower floors and then some unknown tangos started to attack from an unknown source. My men scattered to fight them off, but the elevators went offline, the emergency doors locked up and we lost access to all other doors too...”

“What do you mean? We talked with one of your subordinates and got inside. It was an hour ago at most.”

“That’s the hard part, you know? We lost connection with the outside a long time ago. Even opening the doors to the emergency stairs was impossible until you two arrived and the only way to move through the floors was that safe elevator there..."

As he said so, Richard pointed to the thick steel doors of the security hub elevator.

Those could only be opened with inputs on the consoles from both the destination floor and this one and Richard's personal input though.

"And even that one died a few minutes ago, so it became impossible to leave this area and I still have no idea how someone managed to do half the things happening here...”

That elevator was heavily armored and close-off elevator from the system as it was meant to be the only, and safest, method of accessing some floors.

The president's office, the local server mainframe, the main research lab, and the saferoom could only be reached through it.

Even using that elevator was something very few people had permission to.

Either way, without the safe elevator, the emergency stairs and their lockdown systems were the only way to move around floors at the moment.

The detective could only react in one singular way to this news though...

“Wait, wait, wait! WE'RE STUCK HERE NOW?!!! And more than that, what happened with the police droids then?!”

“I'm not sure, but probably nothing good. And it’s not only we stuck here… Most workers are still here too.”

“I counted something like five thousand heat signatures inside the building. Almost every single one of them is located at the bottom half of the building though.” Noted the idol still trying to open a conversation with the other two people in the room.

“Five thousand?! How there are so many people inside here?”

“This high up only has a dozen or so scientists and almost all occupants from VR tubes since most of the priority workers escaped right away, but most workers that aren't citizens got stuck inside when the elevators stopped.”

“You don’t mean…?” A dangerous glint covered Lily’s eyes as these words left her mouth with no need for her to finish talking.

“NorCo employs a good number of workers taken from the underground levels, Ms. Officer. They’re cheaper and they came by their own accord to stop being useless government suckers living in chemical bliss like most down there.”

“It is still illegal!”

"Well, can't say it's a good thing, but still..."

“If I can say so, Lily, I do not think one has many other choices if they want to live in the city properly. Demonizing a security chief will change very little if not nothing at all too.”

The pink-colored girl joined the conversation after being talked off by the other two people a little too much as they seemed to be in the middle of their discussion.

She got on Lily’s side while continuing her words that carried some heavy implications.

“Not all who live in the dark are happy to receive subsistence for free in exchange for their hope of a better life. And very few are called 'useful' and receive the chance to go up without the funds to convince someone...”

“You lived underground, Amy?!”

Lilianna couldn’t hold her surprise at the possibility that such a gaudy was a heightened habitant of Miskaria’s lower levels.

There, the basic was all one could have and the standard was living on chemicals, which would only make the idol weirder in comparison.

Her answer broke all the excitement about her possible backstory though.

“Nope, never been there. I am citing the words of a friend.”

“I see..." Reacted the detective while almost showing her disappointment. "You may be right, but still…”

“I’m not saying it’s a good thing, Lilianna, but it’s something at least. I try to pretend it to be so or things would be much harder too...”

“And I am always up for having more people around, you see? The underground areas of Miskaria cannot be accessed easily and I can never manage to make shows there…”

One of the comments was the usual corporate garbage Lily had heard many times before while the other was just the usual nonsense.

Both of them were able to make the officer blow her limited patience, of course.

“That’s why I left this stupid place...” The annoyed woman said so while snorting at the whole discussion before changing gears to focus on what was more pressing. “Whatever! Brief us on what’s happening already.”

With a clearly annoyed Lilianna pressing for the talk to continue before she blew up, Richard went for the console without saying more.

There, in just a few seconds, he opened what seemed to be a 3D map of the building with a massive number of bright dots in three different colors covering it.

“During the party, my subordinates reported an explosion happening around the 420th floor. I sent the close-by guys there and we started to search the cameras for something, but the signal died right as the first team was arriving.”

“And the shots?”

Hearing the question, Richard started to point to the big red dots staying still on some floors, many of them blinking when close to the more numerous blue and green dots.

“Started almost right after we lost contact. We managed to track the positions with some cameras and the sound system later on as you can see on the red dots, but the details are scarce, to say the least. We couldn't even get a good shot on the enemy's appearance..."

Several images showed vaguely humanoid blurs moving through the corridors and a few scenes of firefights too, but no clear picture.

While the images were going, Richard went back to pointing at the map and started to explain it.

"The blue dots are the droids that entered a while ago and the green ones are where my subordinates should be. I can't be sure of their status and if they're engaged or not though... Luckily, a few floors actually have enemies and even the remaining workers seem to have managed to stay safe closer to the lower floors.”

“Can you use the cameras to watch them?”

“Just a few are working, but keeping tabs around is doable if you have the patience. Communication is harder since we can only use lights and camera movements, so I wouldn't recommend...”

Broken cameras, disconnected ones, and many without signals for no reason were all motives for why the map information was mostly static.

It was also why Richard was having a hard time keeping tabs on the situation, even more when he had been stuck on this floor for a while before Lily's arrival.

“What are the golden ones, buff guy?”

“They’re VIPs I want to bring here, or at least assure they're safe. They're the one thing I’m focusing on for now too.”

“So these two here…?”

Lily pointed to the two other people inside the room as she asked so, making it as if it was a sign they were waiting for.

Having been called, they stopped their hushed conversation and got up when prompted, closing in on Lily with very different complexions.

“I-I’m d-doctor Shia di Vellaron… I-I'm… I’m the current chief doctor a-and…” The lady went first, starting her presentation, but being cut midway by the balding man with annoyance in his eyes.

“Joseph Herman. Currently Mr. Norcraff’s personal lawyer and the caretaker of his will. You’re his granddaughter, right? The cop one.”

“Yes, that’s me…”

"You're not exactly the kind of person I would like to trust, but my other options are an uncultured soldier and that failure of a man that is your brother, so it should do."

Somewhat put off by the lawyer's way of talking, that somehow made Richard and, weirdly enough, Amy too, move in a protective fashion before Joseph could approach Lily.

The detective failed to answer the words sent her way for a moment though, which seemed to please Mr. Herman enough for him to overlook the pink thing blocking his path.

“Good. I like this attitude... Follow me, you all.”

Noticing that he wouldn't be able to get much closer, or not caring enough about two people he saw as irrelevant, the man turned away and started walking towards the exit.

He only stopped one more time to throw some words at the medic in the room.

“Show them the patient, rookie. I don’t want to lose more time here and she can make my job easy while maybe showing why exactly someone like you was brought here.”

Shia nodded and hurried towards the door too, the two leaving right away towards the office.

Prompted by the situation, and by Richard’s strained confirmation nod as he watched the white-clothed man leave the room, Lily and Amy followed the man too.

With Richard on their back, all of them soon reached the most imposing door of the floor.