Nope. We’ve got a problem.

Diamond made a joke about not paying the phone bill and pulled hers out to offer to me…but she had no signal either. Before I could figure anything out, Jasmine picked up the phone and called security. Two rings later, she was speaking to someone. Everything was fine.

Except that she fucking told them where we were--which they should have known if they were security! I was too slow to stop her. I tried dialing 911 on her phone and got a ‘out of service’ message.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Someone had taken the building and knew where we were! My knowledge of the security measures of the building flowed in front of me. The elevators were a trap unless we had control, which was only available from the security rooms on the ground floor, or top floor, neither of which we had access to.

“Remain calm. Follow me, now,” I ordered.

Diamond obeyed. Jasmine started to argue, but Diamond pushed her along. There were still two staircases for fire safety and we were only eight floors up. There was a keypad on the door, but Jasmine’s code should get us through, and hopefully the intruders didn’t know the system well enough to find the access controls/records. Not like there was a big red ‘lockdown’ button for them to smash. Then we head down and get the fuck out of here.

My brain worked, I’d parked a bit away…but I’d seen Diamond’s car by the southeast corner, so we headed for the stairs nearest that corner of the building. Jasmine was complaining, but she punched in her code.

We made it down two stories before a door opened next to us and a fully armed and armored man stepped through, with an **** rifle in his hands. He froze for just a moment as Intimidating Presence effected him, and I snatched the rifle free and slammed its butt back into his face, shielded by a mask which did nothing to slow my strike or prevent it from crushing his nose.

There was another man behind me, but he likewise froze for just a moment, letting me get my gun up first. “Drop it!”

He did. Fuck.

The second scrabbled for a pistol, then froze as I switched targeting. “Drop all your weapons,” I ordered, watching them carefully. I had the upper hand, but I doubted there were only two of them. A shot would bring a lot more trouble than I could handle. Parley might get me out, but it made no promises about Diamond or Jasmine.

They complied, pistols and knives landing on the landing. “Can anyone else use a weapon?”

“I can shoot a pistol,” Diamond said.

Jasmine was frozen. I jerked the weapon and sent the two men ahead of me down the stairs. Diamond grabbed a pistol and looked at Jasmine. “Come on!” she snapped, “Focus. Jas, you know how to use any of these?”

Jasmine flinched. “Uh...” she grabbed a knife after a moment and followed along. “No names in front of the criminals, please. We don’t want their names either. We got nothing against you, we’re simply getting the fuck out of the way,” I said.

“Listen, just surrender. This won’t be so bad, we’re not crazies, or after you. This is a robbery, not a ****. Just don’t do anything stupid and you’ll be fine,” the prisoner who didn’t have a broken nose said.

“Fuck that, keep going like this, the boss’ll burn you alive with a wave of her hand.” the other one said, his voice muffled by the ski-mask and broken nose.

“You better hope not, because you’re going first, everywhere we go. So you’ll be between us and your boss.”

He grunted. They didn’t make any attempt to turn the tables, but we did hear a bit of radio chatter. Apparently the team that was supposed to grab us had missed us, and now they were checking the perimeter teams that had been meant to contain us. Including this one.

They had to respond, or everyone would know where we were. I glared at them and ostentatiously lifted the gun. “Nothing stupid. I heard how the others reported in.”

“Team Echo, no sign of them,” he reported, which did match the others, as best I could tell…unfortunately, the team names weren’t consistent, so that might have been a signal. We picked up the pace, hitting the ground floor. I had the men use their zip-ties to cuff one another to the stairs and quickly cut the cords to their radios and dumped ‘em out of reach. “What you tell your boss is up to you, but if they catch us, I’m telling the truth and that doesn’t make you two look great.” I said.

They remained stoically silent. I patted one on the shoulder and on impulse, he had said ‘her’ after all, imbued him with the touch from the app. Just in case. I got almost nothing from his security knowledge. Apparently raid knowledge was too disconnected from security to count. I got a few details about their weapons, and the sewer systems, how to hotwire a car and a few ‘martial arts’ techniques, if hitting someone really hard from behind counted, but that was it.

I peaked out through the small window in the stairwell door into the lobby. Two guards were dead on the ground, the door to the control room was open and a third guard was inside with more armored men. Hostage or collaborator I couldn’t tell.

Nothing to do there. I used a couple more zipties to seal that door as best I could. If I survived this, I was going to interview with every security agency in town, steal all their knowledge and improve my ass until I knew exactly what to do when this shit happened.

Then I turned to the women. Diamond was preternaturally calm…because I’d ordered it, duh. Jasmine was, reasonably freaking out. “We should be close to your car, Diamond,” my new awareness confirmed the direction. “That way. You’ve got the keys?”

She held them up and nodded.

“You’ll be in the lead, run directly there. Jasmine, you’re right behind her. I’ll be last and provide covering fire. If Diamond gets hit, Jasmine, help her to the car. If she can’t be moved, take the keys and keep going. If you get hit, I’ll move you.”

“And if you get hit?” Diamond asked.

“Neither of you can carry me. Keep going.”

“I’m not going to--”

“Keep going,” I ordered.

She nodded, Jasmine looked scared out of her mind. I took the knife from her, looked her in the eyes and said, “You can do this.”

To my surprise, she rallied and nodded. I cut the alarm on the fire door to the outside. The guard I’d robbed of his knowledge didn’t know if that would prevent it from warning the command room, but I somehow doubted it. We had to move fast. “Now.”

Diamond ran, I pushed Jasmine out and popped out myself, using the door as cover.