Well, you don't have to wait too much longer. ^^ Should be up soon, Part Five's done, and now all I have left to do is write up the, "this is the prequel to Masks!" part, maybe add in a few words on behalf of Anne Scarborough. 

[hider=Part Five][center][img]http://41.media.tumblr.com/9794efcaa8fa28ca9e71e8380a77c772/tumblr_n8fvn1U8Ax1snm4upo1_250.jpg[/img][/center]

It was all over already, there was no reason for all of this bullshit. Just theatrics at this point, or so Gerry supposed. They had already won, Ashley’s team were down, the lobby was taken, along with the South parking lot for some reason, and the  ex, oh, seven team were either locked down in the lab or standing right in front of him, under armed guard. They’d obviously come for the asset, and the protocol zero team wasn’t responding, so clearly they’d either disabled comms to the lab, or the team had been wiped. Now they’d torture him for a bit, he’d refuse to open the doors to the lab, and the Guardians would swoop in and save the day. Why these girls had come in like this he couldn’t say. There was no way into the lab except through him, and they’d have to know he could hold out for the minute or so it would take for the supers to show up. I mean, shit, Anne Scarborough had them on speed dial, and even if she didn’t want them to know about the asset she must have planned for this contingency. This wouldn’t end well for him, he’d be down a few fingers and toes before the day was over and done with, but it wouldn’t end well for these bitches either, and that knowledge would get him through this momentary agony. He’d been trained for this, was mentally prepared for this, had great life insurance for this exact situation, could and would hold out, no matter what they said or did to him. A bridge over troubled waters, or however that saying went.

There were four of them, all young women, the blonde with the neon clothes and butterflies, some rabbit headed freak, and yes, he had at first been convinced that it was a mask, but upon further inspection was more than satisfied that no, it was not a mask but rather her head, the black girl with a shield and sickle sword, and then there was the last one. She seemed to be their leader, at least from the way the other three were treating her, but she didn’t seem all that impressive to him. She was mostly just dancing around like a lunatic while the rabbit held a knife to his throat and the black girl told him that she’d, meaning the freak, cut his nose off if he didn’t give them the code.  Why was there a code to get in despite the lockdown? For one, simple reason; the code was the only thing that could open the lab, ever. Short of actually taking a drill truck to the thing, one of those claw through mountains kind of machines that are mounted on modified tank treads and burn hundreds of gallons of diesel an hour, the people, experiments, and information in that lab would be buried in an underground death trap from which they would never escape, at least while still breathing. The rooms didn’t have their own air systems, to keep out those supers that could change size or become gaseous. They’d all be dead within the hour from lack of fresh air if the system remained on lockdown. Of course, the Guardians would show up well before that, and clean up the riff raff. 

Once the problem was dealt with, most estimates placed the time to about three minutes after lockdown protocols had been enacted, the door would be opened by Anne or someone she’d call down to with the code if she was unavailable. It wasn’t public knowledge, but just in case she was unreachable there was always someone who happened to have the code. Now, as to how they had put together that he, Gerald Oberlin, the mild mannered personal assistant to the personal assistant of the manager of the in house food court, happened to be the only person, to the best of his knowledge, besides Anne Scarborough herself who happened to know said code, he couldn’t say. There was no paperwork that would have his name anywhere, he didn’t exactly collect more money than anyone would normally expect of a personal assistant to a personal assistant. He would get his payment after he retired, and on the same day the code would be changed, too late by the time they’d know he knew. He had never signed anything, this was a deal passed down from Anne to some executive to some management to some middle management to some supervisor to, well, the secretary, basically. They hadn’t even known what they were passing down, couldn’t have come from any of them, and he sure as shit never said anything about it to anyone, hell, despite knowing about the crazy shit they were really doing around here, he’d never even met Anne Scarborough face to face. It must’ve been done by some supernatural means, which though it was hardly unheard of, still seemed incredibly odd and hard to believe. 

How long had they been planning this shit? Long enough to have gotten this far, he supposed. Maybe it was all that extra training he’d received, their tip to his knowing the code, but even that was under the cover of totally standard company stuff, classes on management and PR things. He’d even done the reading, on his own time of course, in case anyone asked about how the classed had been and what they were about, and the people who had actually trained him had never met Gerald Oberlin, or even seen his face, no, they knew subject eighty seven, a potential dark ops recruit. They’d put a lot of effort into this, whoever these girls were, or whoever they were working for most like. He wasn’t really paying attention to them even as the rabbit headed freak put the tip of her knife into his flesh, starting her work on his nose. He was far away, listening to A Song For You on a beach somewhere, midnight, brilliant full moon over the water, a tumbler of bourbon in his hand, and life was beautiful. It wasn’t until the lunatic walked over, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and mentioned a name that he came back to reality. “Sandy, that’s her name, right?” [i]how had she[/i], “There he is!” she poked him between the eyes to emphasize that she realized she’d gotten his attention before she continued. “I broke your phone’s encryption, psyPhones, so unreliable,” she shrugged, “Apartment 201, 4901 Elm, right? She’s your neice? You raised her after your sister and her husband died, no? Says here, ‘[i]Thanks for always being there, Uncle Gerry[/i],’”. [/hider]