Excerpt: The Living King

At fifteen minutes to midnight, a dark van pulled up around the corner from the NovaTek main campus. The driver was a tall man dressed in green, with a black hat and a badge sewn to the pocket of his shirt. In the back, a short man with a portable computer typed furiously; a short, heavy woman with curly hair tied tightly behind her head nervously twisted the strap of a black bag back and forth in her hands.

At ten minutes to midnight, the central computer of the Metropolis fire response system received an alarm; the south-east wing of the main building was reporting a blaze. Two units scrambled and took off into the darkened city streets, sirens blaring.

At seven minutes to midnight, the fire trucks reached NovaTek; security met them at the side gate. They claimed there was no fire, but Metropolis fire response is required to investigate all reports arriving on the central computer, so security grudgingly let them in and accompanied them to the circuit on the first floor that had made the report. The area was clear; fire response called in a malfunction, and warned the security staff to have it seen to.

At six minutes to midnight, while Metropolis fire response was entering the building, a dark van with a flashing light pulled up at the main guardhouse. The guard at the gate requested ID; the driver produced it. As the guard flipped open the badge, the driver leaned over and wrapped an arm around his neck, slapping a cloth over his mouth and nose. The arm strength required to hold on as the guard struggled was prodigious, but his arms and legs soon weakened, and he sank to the ground. The driver, the short man, and the woman exited the vehicle, leaving it running, and entered the guardhouse; in forty-five seconds, the driver had exited again, and climbed back in the van. He moved it into deep shadow, a block past the campus entrance and in a blind spot of the city camera system, then ran back to the guardhouse.

It was two minutes to midnight; Metropolis fire response had just finished giving a strongly-worded message to security, to pass on to maintenance.

“Fire report was a faulty circuit,” one of the guards called in on his radio. “All clear.”

“Copy,” said the short man, from the seat in the guardhouse where he was busily erasing all footage of the van’s approach, copying footage of the blank street and altering the timestamp to cover the missing four minutes. Behind him, in a storage locker, Severin had just finished tying the security guard’s hands and feet, and wrapping a gag about his mouth.

“Okay,” Sev said, positioning the man on his side, facing in toward the back of the locker, and half-closing the door. “Make sure he doesn’t choke, okay?” he told Francis.

“I got it, I got it, your moral peculiarities are noted and catered to,” Francis said. “Motion detectors off; clocks synced with the system clock. Four minutes ‘til your window.”

“Kora, you have your materials?”

“Ready,” she whispered.

“Okay, we’re getting into position in the basement stairwell. We’ll cross the hall to the office at five past. Maintain silence; danger signal is three quick taps to the ear mic, you understand?”

They nodded.

“See you in two hours,” Sev said, and they descended into the basement, letting the heavy metal fire door swing quietly shut behind them.