Chapter 4 - LATERAL MOVEMENT
The ventilation shafts of the Genesis Tower were not designed for human occupancy. They were narrow, lined with jagged sheet metal, and thick with a decade of accumulated, recycled dust.
Marcus wiggled forward on his elbows, the cold metal pressing against his chest. His polyester polo was soaked in sweat. Behind him, Julian crawled with a grim, silent determination. The billionaire hadn't complained once.
Down below, through a slotted grate, Marcus could see the executive floor. Three armed men in tactical gear were sweeping the corridors. These weren't standard corporate security guards. They moved with military precision, holding suppressed submachine guns. Vanguard Holdings had clearly supplied Vance with an elite cleanup crew.
"Hold up," Marcus whispered, freezing.
Directly below them was the main security rotunda. A massive flat-screen television hung on the wall, tuned to the internal company broadcast. David Vance's face filled the screen. He was standing in the lobby, looking disheveled, a bandage over his eye where the coffee had burned him. He was speaking into a microphone, feigning utter devastation.
"...a catastrophic hardware failure in the executive boardroom," Vance’s voice echoed softly up into the vents. "The halon fire suppression system engaged erroneously. I managed to escape, but... I am heartbroken to announce that our founder, my dearest friend, Julian Sterling, is trapped inside. Emergency services have been delayed by a localized network failure. I fear... I fear we have lost him."
"Son of a bitch," Julian hissed in the dark behind Marcus. "He’s establishing the narrative. If the police arrive, his mercenaries will pose as building security, block them at the perimeter, and claim it’s a biohazard lockdown."
"We need to get a message out," Marcus whispered back. "If we can drop down to Floor 70—the Marketing and PR department—I can access the broadcast network. It’s physically wired to the lobby’s main terminal. I can bypass the air-gap."
"Can you overwrite his broadcast?"
"I can do better than that," Marcus said, a spark of defiance finally overriding his fear. "I saved the logs of his smartwatch ping. The execution code for the murder trap. If I broadcast that to the entire building, and to the external feed waiting in the lobby... the whole world will see he murdered you."
Julian tapped Marcus's shoe. "Lead the way, Mr. Reed. Let's ruin his day."
They crawled for another agonizing twenty minutes, navigating the labyrinthine ducts using the internal blueprints Marcus pulled up on his tablet. The air grew warmer as they descended. Finally, Marcus found the drop-point. A large intake vent overlooking the deserted Marketing floor. Because of the acquisition signing, most non-essential staff had been given the day off. The floor was a sea of empty cubicles and glass-walled conference rooms.
Marcus kicked the grate loose. It clattered to the carpeted floor. He dropped down, wincing as his boots hit the ground, and helped Julian down after him.
They were exposed. The floor was an open-concept nightmare. There was nowhere to hide if Vance's death squad came down the stairs.
Marcus sprinted to the nearest PR workstation. He threw himself into the ergonomic chair and woke up the terminal. Locked.
"I need your thumb," Marcus said, looking back at Julian.
Julian pressed his thumb to the biometric scanner. A red light flashed. ACCOUNT SUSPENDED.
"He's wiped my credentials," Julian noted coldly.
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"That's fine," Marcus said, cracking his knuckles. "I'm Level 1 IT. I have the backdoor admin keys they forgot to delete from the legacy system."
Marcus typed a string of commands, accessing the command prompt. The screen turned black with green text. The IT technician was finally in his element. The real war was about to begin.
