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Since my status declaration I've gotten a bit of friendly fun made of me in the office but everyone's kept their hands to themselves. Probably for the best, we don't need the office drama. Anyway, I got tagged to bring the afternoon coffee run to the techs in the control room. Fuckin' Italians with their coffee orders, man.

I carried the box with both hands through the door, "Buongiorno! Cafe!"

A collective cheer, and I went around the stations.

"Tommaso, Espresso macchiato caldo."

"Valentina, Decaffeinato bollente poca schiuma."

"Giulia, Lungo tiepido in tazza grande."

"Mauro, Caffè d'orzo macchiato freddo doppio zucchero."

"Serafina, Espresso semi freddo in tazza piccola poca schiuma."

"Cesare, Americano corretto grappa con latte e panna in tazza a parte."

"Sven, cafe."

Come to think of it, maybe Italians have it right.

Mauro: Hey, Miss Barbour? You available after work tonight?

I shot out my hip and raised an eyebrow at him, "You would have to get past my handler first, and I don't know if you can handle that much duct tape on your dick."

Laughter.

Valentina: I don't know, maybe I can distract her.

I wiggled my nose at her, "You'd need a suit like mine to get her attention right now I'm sure."

Valentina: Will you share?

I admit I blushed a bit, but an alert shows up on the main screen and the techs put their coffees down to frantically begin investigating. I know nothing, I'm just an office bunny and research tech so I stepped aside to get out of the way with a hand on the comm in case support was needed, I could call for it.

"Orbital particle emitter not responding."

"Turning to face the surface."

"CERN not responding."

"Emitter target point traversing Spain. Northeast direction."

"Response from CERN, they're locked out."

"Attempting our back door."

"No response from orbiter."

"Keep trying."

"Should we raise a security alert?"

"Where's the boss?"

"Um," I began.

"Nice timing with the jacket machine, boss."

"Who's in charge?"

"You are, control room lead."

"Sound security alert."

"CERN already has. Someone locked themself in the control center and security is trying to cut the door open."

"Distress ping received. It's a Syxen?"

"In the control room?"

"No, it's moving, south of the Geneva airport."

"Satellite view on screen. Zoom."

"It's on a bus?"

"Emitter target traversing the French-Swiss border."

"CERN has entered the control center, it's empty and the controls aren't responding. It's operated remotely."

"The Syxen's distress ping has a sample of the master code to access the emitter."

"It's off the bus and moving north along the east edge of the airport toward the French border."

"Emitter firing."

"Porca vacca! It just missed the bus! The street is melted!"

"Syxen moving north still."

"Emitter target following the Syxen, will be ready to fire in ten minutes."

"Do we have any assets in range to intercept?"

"Negative. Closest mobile unit at least half an hour away."

I was staring out the window at the launch pad below, and blurted out, "Get a stasis cage mounted on one of those boosters."

"What?" queried the control room captain, eyes wide.

I was already headed to the door. "If that Syxen has the only master key we need to get to it before that orbiter fires again."

"Geneva in five minutes? You'd need to do Mach Five!"

I stopped in the doorway and replied, "Six point two with acceleration and braking."

And I called my Ghost.

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