The Vault Incident-02

“Approaching drop zone. Prepare for drop.”

Alex handed Robert a drop pack, and both of them quickly put it on.

“Robert Prime, ready to drop.” Robert said, and he moved into the rear compartment.

“Alex Prime, ready to drop.” Alex said, and she moved to join Robert.

Both of them grabbed handholds in the jet’s frame. The aide, seeing the Vault coming up, circled around and rolled over half a turn. With the frame now upside-down, the opened the rear hatch.

“Drop zone below. You are cleared for drop.”

“Acknowledged.” Alex said, and she threw herself out.

“Acknowledged.” Robert said, and he followed.

As the lightjet closed up and headed back to the Inner City, Robert and Alex engaged the packs’ wings, which winked into existence as gleaming gossamer wings out of the packs. Robert took the time while in transit to scan the scene below—literal and otherwise—and it did not seem like a worst-case scenario, yet. No breakouts, no breeches, and certainly no security forces struggling to put down such. Yet there Alan 1 stood, next to a foursome of more common security constructs, on the landing pad. As he and Alex glided in and touched down, Robert wondered just how bad things are- and worried that this was actually worse than it seemed.

“Identify.” Alan 1 said, with his infamous chakrams in hand.

“Alex Prime, Independent Security Monitor, Council Liaison.”

“Robert Prime, Engineer.”

The old security construct looked them over and them put its weapons away.

“Acknowledged, Alex and Robert Prime. Follow me.”

Robert didn’t try to engage the old construct. Alan 1’s reputation for being tightly-focused on the job, such that it did not tolerate idleness, well preceded it and Robert felt no desire to test if those reports were accurate. Alex made no such moves either, though Robert could not tell if it was due to a general lack of concern or if it was due to a specific protocol forbidding it.

As Robert followed his host, he now made a more specific inspection of the situation. Nothing at all was out of place; there were no signs of a breach, or of any damage, or anything at all out of the ordinary- and that got Robert very worried indeed. Once the three of them arrived at the Vault’s central command chamber, leaving them alone—the common constructs lacked the clearance to be there—he turned to Alan 1: “Alan 1, request situation update.”

“An unknown entity penetrated the outer barrier and entered the realm. It immediately engaged security and got overwhelmed, whereupon it went into quarantine here. The breach is sealed and all involved rectified.”

“The Council is concerned that the entity possesses dangerous qualities that our existing measures are unable to address.” Alex said.

“That explains why I am here. You need a man.”