A trail of aching derrières- next time they'll be more thoughtful

[gone_byebye]

The door opens onto an expanse of asphalt, steel, and glass. Nearby a sign reads:

WELCOME TO WHITE FLINT MALL
BEST PRICES IN THE DC AREA

4708 BETHESDA AVENUE
CHEVY CHASE, MD

It's a big parking lot, with the mall itself only visible off in the distance. Ray gives it the squint-eye before turning to the others. "Okay, people," he says. "This is it. Johnny says it's underground. Egon's best estimates indicate three miles down. Are we good?"

Comments

[steadfastknight]

Kitt, however, was looking at Obi-Wan with a sense of vague recognition.

Nah.

"Indeed," he said. "I don't want to draw too much attention."

He had counterparts in this universe.

[gone_byebye]

"Which way are you guys going?" asks Erwin- or Whistler, that being what the guards called him. "If you're going down, I think a friend of mine was still on level D when I found the elevators. Marty Bishop. Baritone voice, tall, mid-forties. Blond, assuming they didn't shave his head or something. If you see him, could you grab him?"

[masterofsoresu]

"We're headed down, yes," Ben allows as, "towards the power room, but we'll watch out for him. Can you find your own way from here?"

[gone_byebye]

"I think I can manage. I got a pretty good read on the layout of the place a while ago on this raised map they have. It's about two floors down, right outside the power room. Turn right coming out of the elevator. Can't miss it."

[md_donighal]

"Thanks," says Michael. "The power room was where we were heading, as it happens, but the map's likely to come in handy. Take care of yourself, friend."

[gone_byebye]

Whistler nods. "Will do. Give 'em hell for me." With that, he sets off, one hand fumbling along the wall next to him.

The elevator ride itself is uneventful, although it should be noted that the music playing is The Girl From Ipanema. When the doors open two levels down, Whistler was quite right; there's a map of the complex on the wall, sectors, offices, and corridors marked out in raised bronze-tone metal. It looks as if someone had too much money in the decorator budget and opted to spend it all in a hurry.

It also looks as if the power room has both a slightly uneasy security guard and a fairly complicated electronic lock on the door- in the 'thumb print and voice print' sense.

"Hey," says the guard. "You're not supposed to be down here."

[masterofsoresu]

"Surprise inspection," says Ben.

[md_donighal]

Behind him, Michael's eyes begin to glow faintly as he extends his quantum senses into the lock. If he could override the entire OpNet to deliver the Manifesto, almost a year ago once removed, he ought to be able to convince this lock to open. Unless Foliage Census are as paranoid about their security as Proteus were, anyway.

[gone_byebye]

They're not.

"Nobody said anything about a surprise inspection," says the guard, proving once again that guards the world over just don't get it.

[masterofsoresu]

"Well now, if they'd said anything, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?" Ben replies with a twinkle in his eyes.

[md_donighal]

Having (presumably) secured the lock, Michael starts checking for alarms it might be wired to; if there are any, he'll start disabling them. If not, he'll just pop it at the most dramatic moment.

[gone_byebye]

There is a hole in this logic somewhere, dammit. Nobody surprises anybody around here. The guard starts to reach for his walkie-talkie, just in case.

There's no alarms on the door. It's inconceivable that anybody unauthorized could get this far into the complex. If the codes are entered correctly, the door becomes capable of being opened. That's all.

[masterofsoresu]

"You don't need to call anyone," Obi-Wan assures him with a familiar wave of his hand. "After all, you wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."

[md_donighal]

Last decision before the Big Reveal: would it be simpler to convince the lock that his voice and thumbprint are in the system, or to convince it it's hearing a voice and seeing a thumbprint that are in the system?

[gone_byebye]

There's a couple of extra security measures that have to be jiggered to activate the response to a thumbprint and voice that aren't physically there. Much simpler, really, to fiddle with the response to what's presented.

The guard's expression becomes extremely puzzled for a moment before he answers, "Nah. Wouldn't wanna spoil the surprise. You guys go on and inspect in there, okay?"

[masterofsoresu]

"Thank you, friend." Obi-Wan bows, then turns to his gray-suited colleague. "Doctor?"

[md_donighal]

"Ready and willing, my good man," Michael replies. A phrase he occasionally heard from Alex "Synapse" Doan, the Teragen's hacker supremo, leaps almost unbidden to his lips as he places his thumb on the print-reader. "My voice is my passport. Identify me." Even as he speaks, his node is reaching out to tweak the readings the lock receives into something it'll accept as authorization.

[gone_byebye]

There's a few moments of hesitation, and then-

Click
click
click

-the magnetic locks holding the door shut release, and the door swings open as neatly as if Kitt himself had persuaded the computers that he was a long lost cousin coming home to visit.

[masterofsoresu]

Ben nods, then turns to Michael again. "After you, sir."

[md_donighal]

Michael does a fancy bow. "Why, thank you." He then leads the way into the power room, Ben and (presumably) Kitt trailing behind.

[steadfastknight]

He followed - and was glad to see that someone besides him could fix the system. It would've been awkward to present himself as a car in the middle of the hallway.

Even Obi-Wan might've been hard-pressed to negate that.

"Thank you indeed," he said, and followed.

[gone_byebye]

The power room's controls are incredibly complex and varied, but they have a particular advantage: they're all labeled. The Foliage Census people have their own version of ISO 9000 certification. If you can't figure out what it's supposed to do just by looking at it, you'll get told what to do with it- one way or another. There's just so damnably many of them.

[md_donighal]

"Not like the last time you were shutting down power to something, eh, Ben?" Michael says, gently mocking, as he starts tracking all the electric flows in the room, then finding which particular panel seems associated with the most of them.

[masterofsoresu]

"Oh, I don't know," Obi-Wan replies. "Getting out was the hard part that time as well." Relying on his ongoing sense of dejys visti, he heads for the panel that looks most like the controls for the Death Star's tractor beam.

[steadfastknight]

"Remember, leave the environmental controls and life support up - after all, we are three miles underground. Also, let me offload the computer data before anyone catches on--"

And he looked around. The room appeared unpopulated besides them, but the question was if there was room for him.