Location: Carfax Holdings – Executive Level / The "Mirror Floor"
Date: May 02, 2016
The 50th floor was an architect’s dream and a spy’s nightmare: a labyrinth of floor-to-ceiling glass and polished chrome. Every surface was a reflection, creating an infinite gallery of shadows. Vane stood at the center, holding a tablet that controlled the building’s internal environment.
"I know you’re in the vents, Maddy," Vane’s voice projected through the ceiling speakers, calm and paternal. "The bio-metrics in the HVAC caught your elevated heart rate. You’re having an attack, aren't you? The 'Strange' mind is finally cracking."
The Counter-Pulse
Maddy didn't answer with words. She kicked out the vent cover and dropped into the server lobby. She was pale, her breathing shallow, but her hands were steady. She slammed the Siren Motherboard into the floor’s main data port.
"Audit... initiated," she rasped.
She flicked a switch on her wrist. Instead of the rhythmic Siren drone, a chaotic, jagged wall of White Noise erupted from the building’s high-end sound system. It was the sound of a thousand radios screaming at once—a frequency designed to shatter the "Sync" Vane relied on.
The Cleaners—four elite operatives in tactical gear—stumbled, clutching their headsets. The noise was like a physical blow to their equilibrium.
"Kill the sound!" Vane roared, his face contorting. He swiped his tablet, and the room’s lighting shifted.
The Hall of Violet
The bright office lights died, replaced by the Deep Violet Strobe.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
Maddy’s world fractured. In the infinite mirrors of the executive floor, there weren't just four Cleaners; there were forty. And every one of them was illuminated by the violet light that her brain was programmed to obey.
She felt the "Phantom Pulse" slam into her. Her knees buckled. A Cleaner lunged at her with a combat knife. Maddy moved by pure instinct, parrying the strike with her forearm, but she was slow. The violet strobe was dragging her back into the "cage."
"The Mind... is a..." Maddy began to whisper, her eyes flickering toward the vacant white.
BZZZT.
The bio-feedback band scorched her wrist. She screamed, the pain snapping her back. She grabbed the Cleaner’s wrist, used his own momentum to spin him, and slammed his head into a glass partition.
CRACK.
"My mind..." she gasped, kicking the knife away, "...is not... yours."
The Static Fight
She moved through the hall of mirrors like a wounded animal. Every time the violet light flashed, her body tried to Strip or Kneel. She had to fight herself and the Cleaners simultaneously.
She saw a Cleaner raising a suppressed submachine gun in the reflection to her left. She didn't turn; she fired her 9mm through the glass behind her, the bullet shattering the mirror and the man behind it.
The White Noise she’d unleashed was reaching a crescendo, vibrating the glass walls until they hummed.
Vane retreated toward the private elevator, his eyes wide with a mix of fury and fear. "You're supposed to be broken! The data said you were processed!"
"Your data... is obsolete!" Maddy shouted over the screech of the static.
She took another step, but the "Standardization" command hit her with a sudden, peak intensity. Her hand moved to her chest, her fingers curling. She felt the sickening rush of forced dopamine. She stopped in the middle of the room, her eyes rolling back, her body frozen in the half-pose of a puppet.
A Cleaner stepped out from behind a pillar, leveling his weapon at her head.
"Checkmate, Thorne," he sneered.
Maddy’s vacant white eyes stared at him. Then, slowly, she reached into her pocket. She didn't pull out a gun. She pulled out the Brass Gear.
She didn't spin it. She swallowed the blood in her mouth and spit it at the man’s visor.
In that split second of distraction, she slammed the jagged gear into the junction box on the wall beside her. The sparks showered over her, the physical shock overriding the hypnosis one last time. She lunged, tackling the guard through a glass window into the conference room below.
They fell through a cloud of crystal shards. Maddy landed on top, breathless, bleeding, but standing.
She looked up at the elevator. Vane was gone, heading for the penthouse. But she had the Motherboard. She had the building. And the "Strange" mind was finally, truly, in control.
ns216.73.216.208da2
and then Add to home screen.