Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Audrik" data-source="post: 7440833" data-attributes="member: 73653">The Bedford Project - Session 4aAs the agents regained their senses and rose to their feet, it was Atwood who broke the silence.“The hell was that? A meteor?”Dempsey was staring wide-eyed with a grin. At times like this, when he was truly and entirely enthralled, his accent could become heavy and thick.“Oi don't nu, but if i'd 'av 'ad wan, oi might not 'av 'ad ter leave Éire.”Atwood blinked at the Irishman for a moment, and his blank expression gradually became one of contempt. When he replied, he lingered on the initial ‘W’ and dragged it out.“What?”Dempsey had either not heard the FBI profiler, or he was ignoring him. Porter clarified the Irishman’s words for Atwood as he started covering the ground to the building.“He said he doesn’t know, but if he’d had one, he might not have had to leave Éire – Ireland. For the record, I have no idea what the hell that was either, but I don’t hear alarms or sirens.”No alarms or sirens. Porter saw it as an opportunity. Dempsey saw it as an invitation. Atwood was sure it was a trap. Regardless, they were all sure there were answers somewhere in that building, and now there was an easy way in. The Irishman jogged to catch up with Porter, and Atwood followed but lagged behind. All three agents drew their guns.The three stepped through the shattered glass doors. The building was eerily quiet. They could hear dripping water and a dull wind near the center of the large room, but the only light came from the light posts in the parking lot and the sliver of moonlight filtering through a large crack in the ceiling.All three agents lit their flashlights, and each had a different way of holding it with his gun. Porter held his with his thumb closest to the lens and just below the grip of his pistol. Atwood held his with his pinky closest to the lens and to the side of his pistol with his wrists touching. Dempsey held his out to one side and pointed his gun in the other direction.Beyond the reception area with brochures, newspapers, magazines, and teal couches, the room was essentially just a large secretarial pool. Ceiling tiles in the center of the room had either fallen or were hanging precariously. The crack in the roof had to have been almost 100 feet long, and the satellite dish was hanging inward on a sagging section of roof.A door on the far wall was labeled ‘Training Evaluation Office,’ and not far from that was the steel door of an elevator. Closer to the agents, another door was labeled ‘Stair Access to Roof and Basement.’ Dempsey and Atwood were about to head up to the roof when Porter stopped them. He said they needed to clear the ground floor first before heading off. Besides, there was something off about that Training Office. For all the security in this town, why did this one door have a standard mechanical lock and no electronics?Porter led the way, and the other two followed. The NSA spook was the only one trained in this sort of thing, and whatever fell from the sky would probably still be on the roof when they cleared this floor. The door was unlocked, and Porter stood to one side and pushed it open. When nothing exploded, screamed, or shot at them, he whipped around and pointed his gun at the room in general.Power seemed to be out to the rest of the building, but this room had three computer workstations running at full power. It was difficult to tell at a glance just what the computers were doing, but it was obviously not “training evaluation.” Each computer had three monitors, and each monitor displayed continuously updating graphs, charts, and lists. One monitor also had an open window cycling through live-streaming video from traffic cameras in Bedford. Each workstation had thick cables running through holes in the floor, and Porter said they were likely connected to a mainframe on a lower level.The three workstations had various personal touches of the workers who manned them; pictures of family members, Bedford Bulldogs Football bobblehead, birthday cards, Bedford High School desk calendar with "Homecoming game and pageant!!" written in red ink on today's date, etc ... The room looked like the typical IT office, just with overly-expensive computer equipment. There was nothing to imply an evacuation any more hurried than your usual end-of-the-workday exodus, but Atwood still didn’t like the feeling he was getting.Other than the door through which the agents entered, there were two other exits; a concrete-walled stairway in the opposite wall leading up and down and a door to their left with a mechanical lock and a plaque identifying it as the office of a Dr. Clark.The door to Dr. Clark’s office was unlocked and opened easily to reveal a small, windowless office containing a desk, computer with a single monitor, and a modular shelving unit. Several computer printouts were stacked neatly on the desk, and Dempsey flipped through them. They contained a wide variety of charts, graphs, and lists ranging from a complete traffic-flow map of Bedford to the likelihood of Bedford residents to call phone-sex lines broken down by demographic subcategories. Porter and Atwood would have found all of that quite interesting and important, but the Irishman just yawned and failed to mention it.</blockquote>

Verification