Equilibrium

Chapter 8 - Operation: Don't get caught

Zenneth executed his mission on Wednesday, wanting to get it over with and get back to his life without it hanging over his head. He planned it out on Monday and Tuesday and felt comfortable that it was low risk.

He went into the office for half a day, going in after lunch. He told Kara, who was the program lead while he was out, that he wasn't stepping on her toes. Just doing a couple of things that couldn't wait until his vacation was over. She didn't entirely buy it, but it was enough of an excuse that she let it go.

So he wrote the budget justifications for the next phase of their project - which did have a looming deadline, but he'd been perfectly willing to throw it together within a couple of days of coming back to the office.

At five o'clock, he packed his things as if he meant to go home. Kara popped into his office to see if he wanted to grab dinner. He declined, saying he had plans.

He went from the third floor of their modern building down to the operations center in the basement level, and walked into the third room as if he was meant to be there - all swift strides and a no-nonsense expression. It was empty, as he'd expected, and let out a breath. He checked the operations schedule beforehand, and this room had no bookings for a couple of hours.

The third room was the least used - more of an overflow. It had older computers and wasn't as decorated with company posters and inspirational messages as the others. It was smaller, too, with ten stations.

He went to a terminal in the middle station, whose screens didn't face the doorway. He opened an operations training program and ran it - so that if someone came over, he had a viable excuse for being there.

Zen concentrated and used his magic easily to stop the logs for everything this computer was doing besides the training program.

Then he accessed the satellite constellation he would need. Sparrow would have sats over the target area right now - he ran the calculations yesterday. When he opened up the control program, he saw he was right.

He put in the command to locate the hangar he was meant to take pictures of - the latitude and longitude to within a square mile, with a filter for concrete images. The image that came through was all forest. What was he doing wrong? He widened the view a few times and saw what he was looking for.

He started zooming in, but the commands were touchy. East brought him too far East. Zooming made him lose sight of what he wanted. Would it be easier if he commanded with his magic instead? That was more intuitive to him. He could make finer corrections and navigate much faster.

He had an operations certification but it was never his job. He knew there were a lot of on the job tricks that made the work easier that he just didn't know. He would get it this way - it would just take a little longer than he would like.

Zen concentrated, closing his eyes for a moment as he connected to the program. Zoom and center. Yes, better, and in less than a second. Just a few more times should get him what he needed.

Just then, the door opened, and Zen flipped the screen to the paused training program. He glanced up, and was surprised to see Kevyn looking back at him.

"Hey," Kevyn greeted.

"Hey."

"What brings you to the dungeon?" The dungeon was the nickname for the room, small and in the basement - slightly damp.

"Training."

"Aren't you - on vacation," Kev asked, puzzled.

"It's a mandatory requirement that's overdue. My boss called me in," Zen lied, with a complaint in his voice.