The interior of NexaShield at midnight was a forest of glass and shadow. Usually, the lobby was a cathedral of light, buzzing with the low frequency energy of a hundred brilliant minds. Now, the only illumination came from the pulsing blue "heartbeat" lights along the baseboards, intended to guide maintenance crews through the dark.
Sam moved with a frantic stealth, his sneakers squeaking against the polished concrete. He didn't take the elevator. Elevators were tracked, their weight sensors would log his every floor change on a security monitor somewhere. Instead, he took the service stairs, his breath echoing in the concrete cylinder as he climbed to the fourth floor, the nerve center of the company.
He reached his desk, a sleek island of mahogany and three ultra-wide monitors. He didn't turn on the lights. He didn't need to. He could navigate this workspace by touch alone.
He opened his "Emergency Kit" a rugged, waterproof case hidden behind a false panel in his bottom drawer. Inside wasn't a weapon, but something far more powerful in this building i.e. a hardware-encrypted bridge and a packet sniffer tablet.
"I'm at my desk. Getting the key now," he whispered into his lapel mic, knowing they were listening.
While his left hand mimicked the typing patterns of someone searching for a file, his right hand was tethered to the tablet, launching a high-speed trace. He needed to find out where that "God Key" request was actually going. He needed to see if the signal from his house was a direct link or a ghost.
Suddenly, the air in the room seemed to chill. A shadow detached itself from the glass wall of the conference room ten feet away.
"Log in, Sam."
The voice was a low, rasped command. Sam froze. He didn't turn around. He could feel a cold, circular pressure at the base of his skull, he unmistakable bite of a suppressed pistol barrel.
"I'm... I'm doing it," Sam said, his voice trembling. "The authentication takes time. There are three layers of biometric".
"I didn't ask for a lecture," the man said. He was wearing a NexaShield security uniform, but it sat wrong on his shoulders ,too tight, too tactical. "I asked for the key. Type Now."
Sam's eyes darted across his desk. He saw his architect's lamp a heavy, articulated LED arm with a "high intensity" mode designed for scrutinizing motherboard circuitry. It was rated at 2,000 lumens.
"I need to adjust the light," Sam muttered. "The glare is hitting the sensor."
"Quickly."
Sam grabbed the arm of the lamp. Instead of pulling it toward the screen, he twisted the head 180 degrees and slammed the "Override" toggle.
A blinding, artificial sun exploded in the small office. The gunman roared, his retinas instantly seared by the concentrated white light. He fired a shot, a muffled phut but the bullet went wide, shattering a glass partition behind Sam.
Sam didn't look back. He dived under the desk, grabbed a heavy CO-2 fire extinguisher from its bracket, and pulled the pin. He didn't aim for the man's face instead he aimed for the floor.
A freezing, opaque cloud of white gas billowed out, filling the cubicle row in seconds. In the sub zero fog, the gunman was blind and disoriented. Sam scrambled on all fours, feeling for the heavy steel door of the server room i.e. the "Vault."
He reached the biometric plate, slammed his hand against it, and rolled inside just as a second bullet punched through the padding of his ergonomic chair. The heavy door hissed shut, the magnetic seals locking with the finality of a tomb.