Mission 11: Bad Fairies 1/5

DO NOT CONTINUE READING UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO PLAY MISSION 11.

I sip a cold drink and watch the thunderstorm lashing the trees outside the transparent dome of the sports center. The athletes and some of my staff are enjoying a pool party. Despite the splashing and shouts, Tushabe and I have a quiet conversation.

“I checked something out,” says Tushabe.

“Oh?”

“It kept bothering me that no one calls us out on being in the elevator silo climbing that ladder,” he says.

“Me too,” I say, “but I haven’t brought it up. If they decide to kick us out of the restricted area, they can build us a three hundred foot ladder somewhere else.”

Tushabe grins, which is pretty normal for him. “Yeah...so, I was wondering why no one noticed that the alarms don’t work in the silo. I did some digging.”

“You mean spying,” I say.

He nods. “Yeah, a bit. The security woman, Maelith, she checks the security diagnostics each day. That failed alarm is right there on her report roster. She knows the alarm is out. And guess what?”

“What?”

“The alarm listing isn’t red, it’s black. It’s not malfunctioning. It’s turned off.”