Max Collins - Before the Dawn

With its deep plush carpeting, expensive oak paneling, and gilt-framed examples from Sterling’s art collection lining the walls, the executive floor felt more like the mansion of the company’s owner than his corporate office. Seth moved down the darkened hallways, spidering himself to the wall, avoiding the built-in video cameras. Slick and unobtrusive, the security cams had a flaw: they were stationary, and could be maneuvered around.

Without any trouble — and with the help of Logan’s info — Seth easily made his way to Sterling’s office. Even without Logan, Seth could hardly have missed the egomaniacal display that was Sterling’s name, embossed in gold on a black plate on the rich wood door. He picked the lock and went in.

To the right sat the desk of Sterling’s executive assistant, Alison Santiago (or so said the nameplate). This reception area gave Ms. Santiago a generous space that any nerd downstairs would have given his or her pocket-protector collection for.

Stepping to Sterling’s door, Seth found this inner barrier locked as well, used a pair of picks to open it in 3.5 seconds, and stepped inside, closing and relocking it. If the security guards checked while he was inside, they’d find this door locked and likely move on: all Seth would have to do to facilitate that was conduct his search in the near dark. Between his sharper-than-shit eyesight, and blinds he adjusted to let in moonlight, Seth knew that would be no prob.

He settled in for a thorough search.

Seth didn’t even turn on a lamp or use a flashlight to take this unguided tour of Sterling’s office. The CEO’s desk was clutter-free and not quite big enough to accommodate an ice-skating competition, his computer station a second, smaller desk behind. An immense painting took up the whole wall above the computer...

Seth’s wide eyes traveled over severed arms, bull’s heads, image upon image, screaming women, dead people... it was the strangest, most bizarre painting he had ever seen and he wondered what weird shit had been going on in the mind that created such a horrific, yet undeniably beautiful scene.

He also wondered what sort of a man would have a painting like this in his office — would want to live with such a violent collage of images, who might find this nightmare in oils soothing, or somehow inspiring...

Slipping behind to the computer, Seth sat down, touched a key, and the monitor came alive, the flat screen glowing brightly in the dark room; the computer itself was already on.

What a thoughtful host, Seth thought, and started breaking Sterling’s security.

Coming from a company so supposedly adept at computer tech, Sterling’s system caved pretty quickly; on the other hand, X5s had hacker training and physical abilities that would put the best system to the test. Once in, however, Seth searched through thousands of computer files with no luck.

He did find one promising folder, though... an encrypted one with its own password. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t open it, which was starting to piss him off (admittedly, his rage threshold was easily crossed).

Finally, giving up, Seth copied the file onto a disc, covered his computer tracks as best he could, and crept back to the door. He unlocked it quietly, slipped into the executive assistant’s space, then opened the hall door a crack to peer out and down, both ways, to see a wonderfully empty corridor.

Seth was halfway back to his lunchroom entry point, on a floor where no geeks labored, when he saw a member of the security team, a heavy guy in his midfifties — probably an ex-cop or maybe somebody’s uncle, passing the days until retirement. The guard had no firearm, but he did have a Tazer and a walkie-talkie on his belt.

Keeping to the shadows, Seth followed the guard down the hall toward the entry point. All the guard had to do was keep moving and Seth could slip out as easily as he’d slipped in.

But as they passed the lunchroom, the security man looked in casually... then stopped — cold.

Seth didn’t think the guard could’ve spotted the window from that vantage point, but, damn, the guy must have! Here Seth was, a lean young genetically tuned engineered soldier, less than twenty feet from his access out of here... and this old fat friggin’ guard decided to pick now to be on top of his job.

Fatso reached for the radio on his hip, his head swiveling as he looked down the hall in the other direction, apparently checking for more evidence of an intruder.

Seth had hoped to get in and get out without raising any suspicion; but that seemed impossible now. The guard had lifted the radio from his belt, poised to put in his call — a call that if Seth let him make meant the rest of a (presumably slimmer) security force would be on the way in seconds. But taking the guard out first would tell Sterling that his company’s security had been breached...

Manticore training, and life on the streets, had taught Seth long ago to pick the lesser of evils.

The guard had just pushed in the TALK button, and sucked in a breath to form the first word, when Seth chopped him on the back of the neck, and the guard folded up like a fat card table, pitching awkwardly forward, the walkie-talkie clunking to the carpeted floor and bouncing away a few feet. The guard had barely hit the indoor-outdoor carpeting when Seth had him by his collar, to drag the man away.

“Hey!”

The voice came from behind Seth, off to one side.

“What the hell?”

Another voice.

“What’s going on?”

Another!

Spinning toward the lunchroom, Seth saw four more guards sitting around a big table, sandwiches spread out before them, two empty chairs, their eyes all now turned toward the boy in shock.

Shit, the X5 thought. Fatso hadn’t discovered Seth’s entry point — the guard had simply been calling to the last member of the security team, to invite him to join the group for their midnight lunch!

So much for getting away clean.

Seth didn’t wait for them to gather their wits; he’d been trained to use surprise, and the surprise on their faces invited him to join them, in the lunchroom...

As the nearest guard rose from the table, Seth jammed a fist up under the man’s nose, the X5 thrusting hard, the guard unconscious, possibly dead; as the guy toppled, Seth grabbed the man’s Tazer before he landed, taking the chair with him.

Seth aimed the Tazer at the guard across the table, out of the X5’s reach — a kid barely his own age. The two darts flew and struck the young guard in the chest, the charge dropping the kid to do a twitching dance on his back on the floor.

“Fuckin’ kill you!” another of the guards spat, a square-jawed probably ex-military boy, on his feet, going for his own Tazer; but then, like a jump cut in a movie, Seth was suddenly beside the guard, and triggered the weapon in the man’s grasp, sending the shocking darts sailing down, sinking into the guard’s own trousered leg, to convince him to do his own convulsing Riverdance before he dropped in a spasmodic heap, to duet with his twitching buddy.

Seth allowed himself a laugh at that, which may have been what sent the final guard’s scare level into overdrive, inspiring the guy — another older, overweight waste of a security-guard uniform — to make a run for it.

The X5 merely walked quickly — running was not necessary — and grabbed the guy by the hair on the back of his head and guided him, face first, into the door frame. The guard dropped to his knees, a glistening red clown’s nose in the midst of a pitiful expression.

The red-nosed guard wasn’t unconscious, though, able to say, “Please,” before Seth put him to sleep with a right hook that caught the guard on the side of the jaw, knocking him over like a potted plant, blocking the lunchroom door.