Codename: Ghost

Party Favors (6)

I found another bottle of wine and made my slow way through the ground floor press. Pouring. Pouring. Pouring. My glances monitored the high table. After twenty minutes I was positioned between it and the nearest restroom, waiting for-

The implacable right hand of Raul Philippe Artuga finally stood up. His bowel's steadily increasing distress could be tracked by his pace. Bautista walked down the high table. He trotted down the stairs. At ground floor he began pushing forward through outraged high society types with increasing force. Only a group of governors remained between us. I braced myself for impact, turning towards him with a false expression of surprise. SLAM: It was like getting hit by a human freight train. I went down hard, rolling back up onto my hands and knees. Guests shouted, but all eyes followed his retreat into a sidehall. Bruised and satisfied, I slyly pocketed his stolen keycard before standing back up. Without delay, I headed towards the kitchen hallway. All was well. My actions had created a public distraction, sidelined Artuga's head of security, and allowed me an ideal opportunity to obtain upper floor clearance. I bid them all a mental farewell for the night while slipping out of the dining stadium.

My true endgame had begun.

Revelry echoed behind me. I strode gracefully down the hallway, passing servers heading both ways. The main kitchens were a hive of activity. Making my way through it took a full minute. Another was spent waiting at the service elevator. Once it opened I stepped inside holding a covered tray. The doors closed. Gears whirred. It brought me up, floor by floor. The doors opened. I stepped out into a sumptuous hallway, walked down its length, turned, and headed straight for the dictator's suite. His guards stared me down. I passed them and stopped at the far door. A swipe of Bautista's card let me into his adjoining suite. I set my tray on his table before entering his bathroom. Once inside, I removed the All1 core from my pocket, placed it against the back of my neck and pressed its button. Sheets of weblike material shot out of it, using my glove's sensors as a reference to cover me. My sneaking suit finished forming. Clad in fullbody black again, I left the bathroom and headed for the balcony. Its doors opened silently on oiled hinges. I stepped out. Wind blew. Stars twinkled. The compound spread below me, but there was no time to waste.

To avoid detection I would have to be swift.

My eyes scanned the building exterior. Railing, ledge, roof edge, out of sight balcony. With this whole sequence visualized, I launched into action. A burst of speed saw me leap onto the railing. I immediately sprang off it, soaring towards a ledge. Landing again, I ran forward to leap again. I caught the roof's gutter at the building's corner, whipping around it to release back into another leap which allowed me to barely catch the bottom of the dictator's private balcony railing. I pulled myself quickly up and over, landing into a crouch safely out of sight.

Exhale.

Curtains billowed slightly out from the breeze. I kept low, slinking inside. Three voluptuous women were sprawled naked across his massive bed. Empty bottles, drug paraphernalia, and spent Virago tabs cluttered side tables. I continued past their soft snores. Rich material trophies were displayed across his grand bedroom, and the hall beyond. Leaving them all untouched, I headed into a private study. His safe stood before me. I crept right up to it. Pressed my ear against it. Drawing out slender tools I then got to work. The sounds within were magnified by my All1s sensors. After a few minutes my efforts were rewarded with a click, followed by the safe door swinging open. A pile of documents was revealed. I swiped my All1 glove across each item while using it's inbuilt scanner, recording schematics, codes, locations, and names. During this process, a slow realization about what all of these classified documents actually meant built within me. This was big. Huge. Incalculable. A scientific megastructure whose potential energy output might force even the alien Mediator's, untouchable within their nearby shielded homeworld, to sit up and take notice.

This was IT. A planetary game changer.

Once every document was scanned I closed the safe, crept back out and left by a side window to drop down into a crouch upon another balcony. Wind blew above the railing. The guest suite inside proved empty. I slipped inside through a sliding glass door, heading for the master bathroom (to change back into my "server" disguise). But an alarm wailed above. Slams struck across the upper level. An alarm sounded on this level, after which emergency shutters slammed down across this suite's exterior window and all the others on this floor. I froze, my mind stalling.

Was it Bautista? The women? Or a hidden alarm I had unknowingly triggered in the dictator's private study? Well, in the end it didn't really matter.

Plan A was fucked.