Alpha Flight: Ground Zero (Teaser)
Ok, so I've recently recovered something from my crashed computer and am picking it up where I left off. I thought I would post the first portion of it to get your opinions. As you're reading this and the rest of it that I put up, keep in mind this is an 'Ultimate-ized' Alpha Flight. Enjoy:
Darcy Driscoll started the morning like any other. It started off with her doing a small amount calisthenics after a light breakfast, followed by a long and winding drive to the remote complex twenty miles north of Toronto. A quick check by the security guards while dogs sniffed her vehicle for explosives, and then a short drive to the massive parking lot that was attached to the R&D branch of CSIS.
As she walked from her car to the front entrance, Darcy greeted her fellow coworkers and chatted about what she thought about the current events. It was that small talk that made the monotony of her day that much better. She was a clerk, and stared at a computer monitor for most of the day. Her job was neither glamorous or as well paying as those around her (she was a payroll clerk), but it helped pay the bills.
Stepping into the surprisingly large lobby, Darcy went through a metal detector (in case the guard shack had missed something) and made her way to the bank of elevators. This had been her routine for almost a year. And another part of her routine (the one she hated the most) was walking up to join her in the elevator.
The older gentleman smiled at her and winked through his bottle-thick glasses and pressed the elevator button. While he wasn’t looking, Darcy rolled her eyes. She didn’t like Arthur Hargrove, he was a lecherous old troll who always wanted to take her out to dinner. Over the past several months, he had kept at her almost everyday about going on a date. And even after an initial warning from the Director himself, he refused to take no for an answer.
“Good morning, Darcy.” he said in his usual insecure way. His wavering voice now almost to the point of nails on a chalkboard to her.
“You’re not supposed to talk to me, Arthur.” she said, not bothering to conceal the annoyance in her tone, “And as I remember, you’re not supposed to even ride in the same elevator as me…if you can help it.”
Darcy watched as Arthur hit a button to one of the closer floors and heard him mumbling to himself. The next thirty seconds were filled without another word muttered between the two of them before the lift stopped and Arthur left, mumbling as he went. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end and something in the back of her mind told her that she needed to be careful.
Folding her arms as if to warm herself, Darcy stepped back against the elevator wall and rode the rest of the way up shivering.
The next few hours went by without any further incident. Darcy had been able to push her encounter with Arthur to the back of her mind as she dealt with various security agents and their pay issues, a bit of water cooler talk with Francis (the woman from the legal office across the hall), and a technical issue which required arguing with the IT guy until he agreed to come up and take a look at it.
Though her traditional day stopped about fifteen minutes before lunch. While sitting at her desk, Darcy first knew something was wrong when the whole building shook. The lights flickered and she saw that more and more people were poking their heads out of their cubicles. When the building shook a second time, and the lights went out, everyone knew that something was severely wrong.
‘Everyone remain calm’ a prerecorded voice came over the building’s PA system as the emergency lights flickered to life. ‘Remain in your offices until cleared by security personnel.’
“Are they testing something new?” Darcy heard a voice say from behind her.
“If there was a test that would do this they would have told us.” Another voice responded.
Without thinking Darcy sat back down at her desk and made a call to the Director’s office. She knew that if this was nothing but another mishap with whatever tech they were testing, than Heather (the Director’s administrator) would know. Yet when there was no dial tone on the phone, she immediately knew that something was up. There were redundancy systems in place to ensure that nothing would be out of service for more than a few seconds.
“I don’t think this is a test.” Darcy said, standing up.
‘Everyone remain calm’ the prerecorded voice stated again. ‘Remain in your offices until cleared by security personnel.’
As Darcy looked around, unsure of what to think, the building shuddered again. This time she could hear an explosion, and rushed to the side of the room with the windows and looked down. To her horror she saw smoke coming from a nearby floor. For a moment she wondered if the auto-fire suppressants had kicked in. If they hadn’t, there would have been an announcement to evacuate. Yet as she looked on, she only saw the smoke, and the prerecorded voice stating to remain calm.
“The phones aren’t working.” Francis’ voice was heard.
Darcy turned around and wanted turn around and scold Francis for ignoring the security protocol to come over here, but was distracted by two objects flying out from a lower floor. Squinting to see through the smoke, she almost wished that she hadn’t seen what she did. The two objects being thrown out were two members of the security force.
“Alright everyone,” Darcy said, walking back over to her desk and kneeling down, “I think the wisest thing right now is to pretend that there is an intruder. Everyone hide beneath your desks until security clears us.”
Panic began to overcome Darcy as she steadied her hands and calmed her movements as she lowered herself to the floor and under her desk. As she positioned herself, she prayed that everything would be alright. When the building trembled again, this time sending a light to come crashing to the ground, she quickly pulled her chair close to her to make it look like no one was underneath it.
From all around her, she could hear the startled cries of her coworkers followed by people praying to their respective gods. There had been memos passed around from the Director about the possibility of something like this happening. This building, after all, was a test bed to some leading edge technology. Though something within her had always hoped that she had transferred to another department in another province before that happened.
When the explosions stopped, it took all of Darcy’s willpower to command her body not to move from her hiding spot. The guards had yet to come through saying that whatever was causing this chaos had been neutralized. Though that wasn’t stopping the others from popping their heads up from their desks.
“Is it over?” she heard one person say.
“I,” she heard Francis’ voice pause, “I believe so.”
After another couple of minutes, she decided that perhaps the trouble had been taken care of. Hiding underneath her desk was no longer necessary, as soon the all clear would be given and whatever the trouble was would be discussed in an employee meeting after lunch. For all she knew, it had just been a weapon test gone awry.
“Come on out everyone.” Darcy heard another person say.
Deciding that it was time to stop being overly cautious, she slowly got up from underneath her desk and looked around. One of the file clerks was holding her leg, apparently it had been hit by the lamp as it fell. Other than that, no one seemed to be harmed. Though everyone did seem to be justifiably startled.
“Is everyone alright?” Francis asked, looking around to everyone.
There were nods from the surrounding people and from Darcy herself.
“Good,” Francis said, looking over to her own offices, “I’m going back to see if anyone was hurt over in Legal.”
As Francis left the office, Darcy heard the elevator opening. Looking through the window that separated her office from the hallway leading to the elevator bank, she half expected to see security walking out to give the all clear. Instead, what she saw was a bright flash of light, and an arc of energy reach out and hit Francis, who was standing in the middle of the hall. Almost instantaneously she was vaporized; without a scream.
The next few moments were a blur of panic as everyone around Darcy started to run for any exit that wasn’t leading towards the elevators. There were screams, and there was a lot of pushing as all ten people in her office let their survival instincts take over and stampede over everyone else. There was no time to think and barely any time to react. The only thing that Darcy could do was brace herself as she was shoved to the ground and shield her face against the small stampede of people.
Hot tears streamed down Darcy’s face as she heard footsteps coming through the corridor that led to the elevators. There was a ragged breath and the combined stench of ozone and cooked flesh. Her mind was telling her that she wanted to shut down, to just keep telling herself that this wasn’t real. That all of this was just one horrid nightmare that she would wake up from. Yet somehow her wits stayed with her, and the horrible reality of the moment was the only thing she was going to keep focusing on.
Forcing her eyes back open and willing her hands away from her face, her eyes were drawn to the windows leading out to the hall. What she saw made her want to run. It was like a nightmare she had had numerous times over the past several months. With maddeningly glowing eyes, she watched as Arthur Hargrove walked slowly down the hall until his eyes met with hers. A weird, twisted smile crossed his face as he quickened his pace. Soon he was in the office, standing over her feet.
“Well, well, well.” he said in a voice that was his, yet wasn’t, “Looks like I finally found the person I was looking for.”
“Arthur--,” she started to say as he bent over and grabbed her by the throat.
A fire erupted in Darcy’s throat as his grip tightened. She couldn’t breath, and knew that within a matter of a minute she would no longer be conscious. With her hands on his wrist, she looked down at him, hoping that he would see the pleading in her eyes.
“Arthur,” she managed to get out.
Arthur tilted his head and loosened his grip so she could speak.
“What are you doing?” she asked after a violent intake of breath.
“I’m going to give the land back to their proper rulers, Darcy.” Although she wasn’t sure how it was possible, his smile grew broader, more twisted.
“You know they’ll stop you.” she replied, “And whatever you’re planning on doing.”
“The Flight won’t have to deal with me, Darcy.” Arthur straightened his head and revealed an ornate knife in his other hand.
Darcy took a moment to look at the knife, and wondered where he would have gotten such an ornate bone knife. Especially one that had a soft white glow around it. Not that it mattered to her, the only thing that mattered was that the knife quickly found a home in her stomach.
A cry escaped her lips as she felt him take the knife and force it upward. Tears streamed her cheeks as her cry quickly became a scream. This was not how this day was supposed to go. It had started out as just a regular day, and quickly degraded into something of her worst nightmares. As the world slowly slipped away into nothingness, the only thing that crossed her mind was how much she should have never taken this job at Department H.
