Urban Fallout (hold)

(4.1): Inposterum

(4.1): Inposterum

Rogers came through with her job quicker than expected, and Issa had spent only a day getting settled into her new apartment when she was called in to work. Issa got the feeling that this wasn't out of Rogers's fondness for her, and instead an urgency on the part of the company. It had been good luck, on her part, that she'd asked for the transfer at a time like this.

Issa's new post was in night security in the massive, central Inposterum building, the one she could see from her window. She'd hadn't expected it, thought she'd get a side facility if she was lucky. But late Monday night she found herself knocking on the security office door, as they were yet to issue her a key card. She would not be alone here. The staff was massive, and she was just a cog in the machine. Issa liked that idea. She liked that she would not be alone, at three o'clock in the morning, forced to investigate a disturbance with no one to call for backup.

The head of security was a nice enough man named Dex. He got her her key card, and gave her the tour. The building was much too big for Issa to even begin to know her way around, be he assured her tonight was just for training. Of course she wouldn't be expected to jump right in. By the end of the night she'd been shown what was probably about ninety percent of the building, the only ninety percent she'd ever see. However she was assigned a quadrant in which she would work for the foreseeable future. There were four security offices, the main one in which Dex worked being in the basement. Issa was assigned to the section above it, mostly lower level labs. This area of the building looked hauntingly like the one out in the edge zone. Issa felt like she got the hang of the job easily enough. Even the security systems were just newer models of the ones she'd worked with back home.

It was not until the next night, her first night of official work, that something happened. Issa was patrolling the corridors, flashlight in hand, when one of the florescent lights flared to life. It wasn't flickering or uncontrolled like what had happened the night she'd met the boy. It was just one bulb and it had come on smoothly, elegantly.

"This is quadrant 2C checking in." Her voices sounded very small, in the silence of the midnight building. "Reporting an electrical glitch. A single bulb turned on, isolated from the rest in the hall."

"Message received, Issa," the voice was familiar, her supervisor in security office 2, an attractive woman just a bit older that Issa herself. "Be warned that this is not an isolated incident. Some of the monitors here in the office are out, and the electronic door is jammed. Dex is out there trying to get us out, as we speak. Other guards all over have been reporting electrical anomalies, machines coming to life, doors opening and closing."

Issa suppressed a shiver.

"Investigate further, and check in periodically."

"Yes ma'am," Issa answered, immensely glad that she was no longer alone in her night shift.

"No need to call me ma'am, Issa. It's Sophie."

They ended the communication there, but Issa could help but smile a little as she approached the illuminated stretch of hallway. Just as she stepped into the light it went out, suddenly, without a single flicker. As soon as the hallway was black again, another light came on a ways down the corridor. Issa could do nothing but walk towards it, fighting the feeling of dread that had began to build in her stomach.

It happened again, this time a light coming on around the corner from her. Issa didn't care that it was against protocol. She went to the switch. Up. Down. Nothing happened. No lights went off or on, but ahead of her the one bulb glowed.

"Something weird is going on," Issa said, into the communication device.

"Please elaborate." Sophie's voice greeted her almost immediately.