She watched the small green lights flash across her screen. Her zone, the stretch of land from Pike Place Market and Capital Hill down to the West Seattle Bridge, was a densely populated area of SPAR, Special Paranormal Allowed Region. To keep the peace, it was her job to keep the paranormal cultures separate. She kept the vampires, the witches, and the lycanthropes away from each other and the humans. she had been been staring at the small green lights representing the greater Seattle vampires for the last sixteen hours and she still had eight hours to go. coffee was being a good friend to her. the supposedly ergonomic chair she sat in didn't keep her back from aching and her shoulders from slumping tiredly. she stretched her arms over her head, muscles protesting her movements. another agent sneezed sharply, making her, and some of the other agents, jump. there were eleven other agents all staring at jumbotron sized monitors in the stuffy, stagnant room. they were all sitting in a circle, backing facing the middle, so there was not much of a chance for talking. some agents watched over them, pacing back and forth from stations, filling coffees and grabbing the constantly printing readouts of paranormal creature whereabouts. The shifts were also staggered every two hours, so there were no chances of mingling before or after work. she didn't even know the names of the other agents in the room.
her eyes blinked slowly. she focused on one dot. it floated down first street, heading towards pioneer square and the southern boarder of her zone. she sat forward, hands poised over the key board. the dot moved swiftly through pioneer square, heading straight for the boarder line, the west seattle bridge. the dot was moving fast, there was no hesitations at intersections and crosswalks. now, the small dot had ten blocks to go. she started typing furiously. one of her smaller monitors pulled up the tracking code and profile of the vampire heading right towards an exclusively human population. six blocks to go. her hand hovered over the enter key, ready to send a fugitive flight warrant to the boarder agents. when a creature got within two blocks of the boarder she was suppose to send its profile and tracking information to the street agents stations at the zones edges. four blocks now. she didn't know what was going to happen, but either the dot would disappear permanently or the it would be removed for some prompt reprogramming and be readmitted to the zone. three blocks. the dot was coming up on the second block from the border very quickly. at block two, the dot took a sharp left and headed deeper into the industrial area. after a moment, it turned away from the bridge and headed back towards safeco field, which was deserted. most humans stayed away from seattle seeing as it had the highest most dense population of vampires in the state of washington. She sat back in her chair, sighing. a few quick key strokes on her key board and the tracking information and profile were gone. the dot was moving very quickly away from the boarder. vampires were fast and the eyes watching needed to be faster. she reached for her cup of less then warm coffee when the dot came to an abrupt stop. the dot flickered. she squinted at the giant monitor. she checked the time, 04:53:03. there was no daylight yet, and for a vampire, a flickering light meant that it was dieing. the dot went dark. she sat there stunned for less then a second, then she started typing franticly. her computer beeped repeatedly, breaking the silence in the room. a few other agents looked over at her. then the dot came back, closer to the bridge. then it was gone again. then it lit up, on the border, and stayed there. like a machine, she typed. the tracking information popped up again, pale green eyes stared at her from the profile of a twenty something looking vampire. she hit enter, hard, her key board slid a few inches across her station with the force. the small green light turned to red. the profile and tracking code left her screen. she sat back, as the now red dot blinked away from the bridge, towards the humans. after a second, the dot disappeared. it was now in the border agents hands. 'what the hell just happened' she thought.even at top speed, a vampire could not move like that. a hand came down firmly on her shoulder and she jumped. "agent, shift change" the emotionless voice came from an agent she had never seen before. she started to protest, but the strong fingers dug into her shoulder,"Shift Change, agent." She stood. "Yes, Agent" she said in a monotone voice. She turned and crossed the circular room, heading for the door. the two agents on either side of the small space for an exit glanced at her. Breaking protocol, she glanced back. A new Agent already sat at her computer, typing. She checked the time on her watch as she exited the room, 04:55:17.
the corridor in front of her was the length of a foot ball field but barely three feet wide. as she walked, she passed darkened alcoves, in which Agents in full riot gear were stationed. there were eighty agents in all, staggered in their dark pockets, forty on each side. if they stepped forward, the hall would be impassable. All this to protect the tracking main frame. at the end of the hall she pressed her palm to the security plate. AGENT 23 flashed across the screen and the heavy metal door swung open silently. a blast of cool air hit her as she crossed into the brightly lit offices of SPAR. no one looked at her as she passed the cubicles of Agents. at the elevator she waited with two other agents. the elevator dinged and they entered. the elevator slid down silently. both Agents exited before her. now alone, she slumped against the wall. she could see herself in the brushed aluminum paneling. the elevator dinged, announcing that she had reached the floor that held the living quarters. she exited the elevator, vaguely recalling that she was still twenty floors above the ground. the SPAR building took up almost all of mercer island. it has been built fifty years earlier when the paranormals had risen from the shadows. she had not been out of the building in eight years. as she pressed her hand to the security pad of her residence, she thought briefly about her family, now living safely god knows where. the door to her unit swung open. she entered but the automatic light didn't come one, so she squinted into the darkness and reached for the service phone for maintenance on the wall. her hand never reached it. a blunt object landed a heavy blow to the back of her head. everything went black.
