"Hey, Greg, check this out with me will you" said one of the security personnel in the security room inside the fourth floor.

"What is it Matt?" replied a rather preoccupied Greg with a tone hinting at being annoyed by what was asked of him to do. 

Officers Gregory and Mathew Jones, who were both sitting in front of the monitors with each having been doing their own thing for a while now, except that that was about to become interrupted by Mathew. Greg had his feet kicked high and crossed, resting on the dashboard underneath and connected to the monitors while his face and mind were both emersed in his video game screen (Messengers of the High Realms: Apocalypse) while Mathew watched the camera feed nonchalantly seconds earlier.

"What is it Matt? You know that I'm in a heated battle right now. I'm about to beat the other team for the first time ever and it only took me like, you know, a month to get to this level. This boss of theirs with codename; 30R15 is so good that it's freaking annoying" Greg frowned with a vein attempting to pop on his head.

 

The game Messengers Of The High Realms: Apocalypse was a mobile and console online video game where two teams played and fought against each other for the fate of the world. The player who becomes the boss and in essence the God Of The High Realms during the beta version sends his messengers to another realm to get something from it which happens to end the world but unfortunately just like with every video game there's the hero of the game who teams up with other players to save the world.

 

The first five thousand players who started the game during the beta test version were the only ones allowed to attain the title of God Of The High Realms and each game play needed a GOTHR before their game could kick off. The rules of the game was very uncommon amongst other popular games and while leveling up you can eventually get to the stat where you eventually become the hero with your own server and world to defend and there isn't any Beta test restriction to gaining that level.

 

"Leave your stupid game for a minute and come check this out" Mathew waved his hand in front of Greg just above his video game console and forehead.

 

"Not possible my friend slash brother... I'm, almost, there--  If I can just win this guy then I end up becoming the-- hero—NO!"

[GAME OVER... BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME WANNA BE HERO] said the programed voice from the game

 

"What is it? Mathew asked rhetorically while he rolled his eyes.

 

"I just lost and it's all your fault, distracting me with all your nonsense. Why can't you let a fellow play his game in peace—" Greg fell his arms to the side of the chair armrests as they swung back and forth with the game in the right hand as the sound track played at a reduced volume.

 

"Ahh!" Greg exhaled then continued "What is it anyway? What did you want to show me so badly that you couldn't wait simple five minutes for?" He leaned forward and bent his head closer to Mathew's as they both look at the monitor.

 

"It's important I swear. Now look at that!" Mathew stretched his finger to one of the many segments of the feeds being displayed on the monitor.

 

"Okay? And what am I supposed to be looking at here exactly?" said Gregg rounding his mouth and poking his lower lip with his tongue while he squinted.

 

"Loo— Gosh you're hopeless. It's Mrs Benjamin" said Mathew abrasively.

 

"First of all you mean Miss Benjamin. Just trying to make you grammatically correct and soo?" Greg retorted. 

Gregg changed from a confused and lackluster expression to a confident one and annoyed one "Okay, now I get it" he said, retracting his body back into his chair which did a bouncing motion because of the spring connecting the body of the chair to its leg.

"Finally you do, thank you! So you can see the issue I'm talking about don't you" said Mathew with a satisfied look

"Dude, is this seriously why you distracted me from my game? Because of your little crush?"Greg pointed at the monitor and frowned

 

"What!" Mathew exclaimed "What are you talking about?"

"Dude, I already told you. She's a single mother whose husband just died therefore it is never going to work. Not for a while at least, because you know it's very hard to compete with a ghost, so stop killing yourself over this woman and get a life man. Nothing good is ever going to come from you obsessing over her you simp ass little bitch"

 

*RUB*

Out of annoyance Mathew rubbed his left index finger and thumb against the corners of his pressed shut eyes.

"My goodness, just shut up for a moment Greg and look at what I'm showing you" Mathew pointed at the screen vigorously.

 

"And what is that exactly?" Greg replied sceptically

 

"Thank you, so like I was saying, Mrs sorry Miss Benjamin and her daughter are leaving the building right now, and look, they just got to the parking lot" Mathew pointed.

 

"Yes I can see that, and so? I don't see what's wrong with your analysis here. It is a Thursday after all plus isn't today a special parent and child holiday or whatever they call it?" Greg looked at the feed then back at Mathew with lackluster filled eyes.

"Yes, but look at the time, it's 2:09pm already" Mathew pointed at the clock on the wall over the monitors and also at his wrist watch for more emphasis.

 

"Okay? So what's your point exactly?"

 

"My point is that Mrs, no sorry Miss Benjamin always leaves work by 12:45pm every Thursday because of her book club meetings with her neighbors. Plus, I had already seen her leave the building exactly by 12:45pm today with her daughter so this makes no sense because I didn't see her come back in" Mathew said swallowing saliva afterwards.

"Book club meetings? Book club meetings!? Dude, knowing about her schedule is so wrong in so many ways. Did the thought ever cross your mind that she might have been busy with work? There is that meeting happening upstairs right now you know..." Gregg looked at Mathew furiously with a bit of disgust

 

"How does the meeting affect her? She isn't even a part of the board" Mathew mumbled to himself "Looks like this guy hasn't read the workers and workforce handbook"

 

"...Also, did you ever think that she wasn't going for her book club meeting today? And I just remembered the name they call it, it is father and daughter day at work today after all and she might be filling the role of the father, you know, being that her husband and father of her only daughter is dead and all" Greg said looking at Mathew who refused to consider what he was saying with an adamant look

 

"I don't think the name of the celebration is Father and Daughter day at work and if I remember correctly it's Bring your daughter to work day actually" Mathew mumbled, giving Greg the time he needed to finish his rant while also thinking of how dumb his brother sounds sometimes.

"Dude, this stuff is getting out of— wait a minute, what is that?" Greg leaned back in, closer to the monitor and squinted once more as he dropped his leg to the floor.

 

"What is what? asked Mathew who hastily looked at every display segment on the monitor.

 

"Is-Is that me?" Greg intensified his gaze and also raised his body a bit to get an even closer look of the screen while supporting his weight with hands against the dashboard.

 

"Where?!" Mathew quickly searched the entire different display segments of the feeds on the screen, turning his head from left to right and up to down but he couldn't find what Greg was talking about.

 

"Over there!" Greg finally pointed at himself on the monitor to his brother. "What the hell, what the... Is that not when I went to get us some hot dogs a while ago? look at that, I'm even holding the boxes in the footage"

 

"See! I told you that something was wrong. Call the chief and tell him that something's up with the cameras" Mathew instructed.

 

"Sure thing!"

 

*SHHH*

 The sound of the communicators tuning on 

 

"Hey chief, we have a situation with the camera feeds. Can you please come help us check it out?"

"Look at that, something good did actually come out from me obsessing over Mrs Benjamin no Miss Benjamin, fuck! Whatever, not that I was obsessing anyway" Mathew spoke smugly but Greg was too occupied with the bizzarness of seeing himself live on the feed to listen to what he was saying.

 

"The chief will be here any minute—"

 

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

 Suddenly, the alarm on the dashboard started to flare up followed by flashing red lights on the bulb next to it

 

"What the!? What is this alarm for?" asked a panicking and confused Mathew

 

"I don't know, the cameras aren't working properly so I can't tell but quickly, let's check the workers and workforce handbook. Maybe there'll be an answer to it. We should even check if there's answers that could pertain the cameras as well" said Greg who hadn't read the handbook so he didn't know what exactly was in the handbook or if it was going to be helpful.

.

.

.

MINUTES EARLIER

Down at the sublevel where I was tinkering away. The security panel right in front of me this time required fingerprints and DNA biometrics input in order to activate and allow access 

 

The order was first the fingerprint, followed by the blood analysis so I took things one step at a time. For the fingerprint I grabbed one of the chalks from the backpack and went down on one knee then I untied the ribbon which held my hair in a ponytail, making my hair to fall down, covering my face and sight in the process.

 

"This would have been better if it was shorter"

 

*SWIPE*

A one handed hair adjustment by crossing my right hand behind my neck and pulling the hair at left side, raising it over my neck, pulling them to the right and dropping them. This fixed the sight issue in a second. 

 

With the ribbon I wrapped it around the chalk and dropped it on the ground, making sure the ribbon properly covered the chalk before I stood up and used my feet to stomp on it, turning the concealed chalk to powder form. 

 

Unfortunately, the pieces were still a bit chunky so I used the edge of the phone to do a more refined job until I finally got the powdery consistency I wanted.

I grabbed the two hotdog boxes from my backpack, holding them in front of me with the tissue protecting my prints from getting on them while I tried to identify which was Brian's and which was mine because I couldn't afford using the wrong fingerprint. 

 

"Which is it?"

 

With no idea of which was which, I decided to make an educated guess and since mine had only one hotdog in it when it was bought while Brian's had two, then the one with more sauce stains had to be his. Also, the fact that Brian had spilled some sauce when he rushed to me and the kids outside helped me in deciding because when it was time to eat, my hotdog looked like the sauce was mostly intact so the spill must have been from his.

 

I took a considerable amount of chalk powder and sprinkled it all over the box, blowing off the extra  afterwards which revealed some fingerprint marks. 

 

"Okay!"

 

I pulled back a piece of transparent tape, cutting it off with the knife in the multipurpose screwdriver then I plastered it on the biggest looking print mark I could fimd which most definitely must have been the thumbprint.

To be certain of where the thumbprint was, I mimicked how the box would have been held using the way the prints aligned on the box with what I remembered during the lunch time with Brian on my own box then I slowly removed the tape, capturing the print on it as I pulled back on the tape. Too fast and I stood the risk of destroying the print.

 

I held the tape in front of my face, inspecting to see how good the print I collected was then I pressed it on the fingerprint scanner on the panel and after scanning for some seconds the screen flashed green. 

"Alright, now to the next one" I gave a half smile

 

The next step was clearing the blood analysis and this was going to be a tough one because I didn't have a vial of Brian's blood lying around somewhere. I needed to be creative in my approach to this dilemma. 

 

Since Amanda and Brian shared a fifty percent DNA similarity I thought of using hers for the scanning, however, fifty percent wasn't going to do the job. I needed to either make it a complete one hundred percent or fool the scanner enough that it thinks that the fifty was one hundred.

I needed to mess with the efficiency rating of the scanners, so with that in mind, I opened up the circuit board and made some changes to the hardware and program with the phone and after some time with it I closed it back up.

 

"Only one way to find out if all my hard work paid off"

 

I cracked my knuckles in anticipation which hurt as Amanda's knuckles weren't used to it then I stuck my thumb inside the blood extraction port only to exclaim soon after "Ouch!"

 

A pin from the inside popped up and pricked my finger, taking a drop of blood for scanning. The display started to read its progress in percentages starting from fivr to ten to fifteen to twenty and from this point on it made increaments of ten percents with each interval.

It did that until it got to ninety percent where it started increasing by one percent in a steady slow pace and so it got to 95%, 96, 97, 98, 99....

 

"Wow, looks like this is going to work... Eat it Tom Cruise!" I grinned, also forgetting the fact of how truly smart I was with me usually questioning my own ingenuity however my joy was cut short when...

[ERROR]

The screen started to flash red with the writing [PLEASE INSERT FINGER FOR  RESCANNING]

 

"What? Shit!" I exclaimed

 

I knew that I wasn't going to do that, as demanded of me to by the panel, again because I was certain that if it didn't work once then it wasn't going to work at all, no matter how many times I tried it and I didn't have time to make any adjustments or the necessary tools for that.

"What should I do!?"

I began to panic not knowing what to do or which steps to take anymore and things got even worse as seconds later the alarms went off because I failed to follow the instructions. The entire room started to flash red

 

"FUCK!"