SHADOWCORP Episode 3 by kayemjay | Action Story

SHADOWCORP Episode 3

written by kayemjay

The building was intimidating. The wow factor was not just in its size alone. Of course there was something spectacular about the physical design of the place. Located in the outskirts of the commercial nerve of the country, the Dome was the new state-of-the-art headquarters of ShadowCorp. It was a spherical shell structure based on a network of geodesics on the surface of the sphere. The dome was enclosed with the goal of creating a structure analogous to nature’s own designs. The dome was the creation of Sensei Magnum. He had recreated ShadowCorp, making it more exotic and ten times more ruthless. The Dome had been fitted with extraordinary defence systems with an underground bunker for the worst of scenarios. The dome also had a special characteristic: it could reflect sound and create echoes. Sensei Magnum had specifically included that security measure. He could not afford to have spies in his command centre having experienced first-hand how spies and double agents were responsible for the huge blow to the organization years ago. At the touch of a button he could listen in on conversations, disrupt frequencies and create deafening sounds. He was not going to leave anything to chance nor trust.

However, in all this it was the interior that made one cringe with fear. If one happens to get past the security at the gate and gain entry into the dome, all that would be seen would be a wide oval space with mirrors in every inch of the interior. Just mirrors and nothing else. These mirrors were bullet proof, cut from titanium steel and could withstand rounds from a Kalashnikov automatic weapon. The mirrors were also scanners, connected to multiple high end cameras which were linked to several intimidating database servers. Upon sensing entry into the dome the mirrors scan for facial, and bio features automatically initiating a search-match with the data servers. If a connection cannot be made or the query returns a negative result, the enclosure fills up slowly with sodium cyanide gas. The deadly gas permeates the whole room, masked by its sweet almond smell. The intruder inhales the scent and then dies within seconds. The new ShadowCorp HQ had just three sections; defence, intelligence, and strategy. Agents could be identified by the bold reflective letter tags inscribed on their lapels: S for strategy, I for Intelligence and D for defence.

On this beautiful day, all agents were in respective designated areas as usual, working on one thing or the other. All agents except the Strikeforce Team. The Strikeforce Team consisted top lieutenants handpicked from the three departments by Sensei Magnum himself. These uniquely gifted and trained individuals had a very simple job description: Strategize Attack and Damage Control. Even though these men and women were trained in all forms of combat, they were off-field agents. They were the brain behind every hit, every attack and every move that ShadowCorp made in public. The members of the StrikeForce Team were not at their desks. They were in the Mission Room, seated and waiting for their leader, Sensei Magnum.  Although the agenda had not been spelt out, they knew they were in the meeting for the latter part of their job function: Damage Control. Word had spread about the infiltration of a holding centre and it was not pretty. Sensei Magnum would want to know every detail. The eleven-man team sat at the conference table, starring at the remaining unoccupied chair at the head of the table and waiting for their Boss to walk in and take his seat.

At exactly 09:00hrs, the lights in the room dimmed to a very low level. As the agents began to react, a real time holographic display appeared in the room. It was the image of the Sensei. He walked to his seat and stood. All agents immediately got up from their seats, acknowledging the e-presence of their boss. He took a seat and seconds later, the agents did the same.

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I trust you all are good. I am disturbed by a particular matter and that is why I called this impromptu meeting. As some or all of you must have heard, one of our holding centres was compromised. We had two of ours killed and a non-agent with a severe cervical fracture. I have gone through the footage presented to me by the Intelligence Unit and I am quite concerned. Now, I would not have bothered if it was a commando-style break in and there was a considerable amount of carnage. I am concerned because the perpetrators of this break in were careful, left no trace and were very professional. You know why I picked you and over the years you have proven yourself in even more difficult situations. So I don’t doubt that we will unravel this in no time. Intelligence, have you been able to get anything over the past 48 hours?” The Sensei queried.

His eyes fell on a light skinned middle aged man. He had a large headphone around his neck and looked very scruffy. He had unkempt beard, allowing it to grow untouched but had no single strand of hair on his head. Rasaq shifted on his chair and swiped the screen of his tablet.

“Sensei, we have combed the whole contact area in search of leads that could help us unravel the identity of the visitors. We searched mainly for bio-items including hair strands, saliva, blood and of course prints. The prints gotten at the incident scene belonged to ours. We did not lift a single print we could not match. We had the same luck with the hair strands and saliva samples. We also got into the local police division’s systems and intercepted the forensics report. They did not provide additional information that we did not already have. However, I had Joan edit the information as the report contained leads that could be tracked back to our outsourcing company. We are still cross referencing the blood samples with our database. We have been able to identify all the samples from the scene except one. The boys at Data are working on it and so far they say they are making good progress. They are streamlining the few hits…”

As Rasaq spoke, his tablet beeped. He apologized furiously and gasped in surprised as he saw the contents of the message.

“It is from the guys at the data section. They found a match on the blood sample.” Rasaq said and paused. He could almost hear the heartbeat of every agent seated in the room.

“The details of the match have been erased from site, from our remote servers and from our cloud based storage. All efforts to recover the data have proved impossible, wiped clean. It’s like seeing a footprint without any footwear.”

Sensei Magnum smiled. He liked what he was hearing. Just then a woman raised her hand. She had a huge D on her lapel and wore her hair in a tinted gold low cut. The Sensei looked at her for a few seconds and then recognized her.

“Martha. I see you have a member missing. Where is your team captain, Frank?”

“He is on a special op. So I am standing in for the Defence Captain sir.”

“Proceed”

“Thank you sir.” She replied and then faced the agents at the table.

“We dug into all surveillance tapes, CCTV footage, and HDCapture records at the time of the incident. Unsurprisingly, we could not get a single image of the perpetrator. We decided to ignore the time stamps of the surveillance blackout and scan the footage at two separate points. The minutes before and after the black out. Not to bore you with details, here is what we found.” Martha connected her tablet wirelessly to the conference table and streamed the information from her device unto the table. The table was made of glass but was integrated with a hidden circuitry and intelligence system that allowed the table serve as an interactive display when needed. Keeping her tablet on the empty seat beside her she began to explain.

“Now we know that whoever did this was not within the camera range before the cameras were hijacked. That means they were in the perimeter outside the different foci of the cameras. The camera foci captures here and here which leaves here and here as the grey areas…”

Sensei Marcus interrupted her.

“Hold on Martha. Define here and here. I would prefer you to be less ambiguous.”

Agent Martha nodded and pulled the imagery from the 2D presentation ontop of the table, making it sit on the table in a 3D format.

“The cameras capture anything from the walkway, to the gate and then everything inside the wharf.” Martha demonstrated, waving her hand in the air and pointing to the projected imagery.

“The road and everything after the walkway are not automatically captured unless the cameras are redirected. Now unless our man appeared from thin air, there is only one place I am sure he must have come out from.” She said

“The abandoned van.” Rasaq replied.

“So we did a couple of checks on the footage for the previous days and noticed that at exactly 02:15 hours there is activity in the van. There was no entry. So we guessed that our man must have used the broken van as a base for a few days, waited for the perfect opportunity and struck. Yesterday, three silent crawlers were sent to check out the van and we discovered a hole on the floor of the van leading to a sewer. That was how he got in and out of the van.” Martha said

“I have a feeling that the van was not there by chance. Can you look into the date of the accident?” Sensei Magnum said.

“Already did sir. Will upload the details to your secure drive.” Martha said and left the footage running.

“Good. So where do we go from here? How do we determine the identity of this man and find out what he knows about us?”

The whole room fell quiet. A few minutes passed. Everyone seemed to be thinking up a plan to make this happen. No one dared speak without being very sure. Just then Rasaq spoke.

“Ermmmm… it’s not a he sir. It’s a she.”

“How so?” Martha countered.

“Can I have the control please?” Rasaq asked. Martha handed him her tablet device.

“If we rotate the surveillance footage about 243 degrees, and then zoom it 200% you will see that six minutes after the surveillance came back on, traffic cams caught a Chevvy Camaro driving over the speed limit.” Rasaq replied rewinding the footage.

“A chevvy? What is that?” Sensei asked

“A Chevrolet.” Rasaq replied and continued.

“It stopped at just the exact point where the cameras would be sharp enough to detect their silhouette but not the faces. There are three people. The driver, a man and a lady. You can see it from the footage here. We know Mr. Raymond was broken out of our holding centre. So, when you do the maths, you have your answer.”

“It seems our professional hero is not so professional after all. Now all we need to do is blow up the image, run the facial recognition and we would have her.” An agent with a huge S on his lapel said. He sat directly opposite the sensei and had a bit of grey on the sides of his hair.

“A brilliant idea Tunji. She had been perfect all along. Why would she make that mistake of allowing the cams come on before she left totally?” Martha asked.

There was silence.

Then Sensei Magnum spoke.

“That is because it was not a mistake. It was deliberate. She is definitely working with someone and they did that to send us a message.”

Getting up from the chair, he put his hands in his pockets and continued.

“Message received. Let’s send them one right back. Reconvene same time tomorrow.”

The holographic display shut down and the lights came back on. Seconds later the conference room was empty.

*****

The lounge was dimly lit, the ambience refreshing.  Colourful lights bounced off the walls and the air conditioning could give the South Pole a run for money.  The interior of the strip club was cool and cozy, even better than had been described. The leather seats were very comfortable and soothed the back. The air smelled like lavender giving the feeling that it was a night that would forever be remembered.

He had been working so hard for the past few weeks and had looked forward to this break. After successfully completing his tasks and reaching his targets, he had to unwind and relax himself. He could not go home. There was nothing interesting for him there. He had called up a long-time friend and was given the description of the strip club. In his friend’s words:

“My guy, if you are not impressed, do not talk to me ever again.”

He had been friends with Edwin long enough to know that he did not make lame promises. So he had proceeded to Kings & Royals, his mind full of high expectations. So far, he was utterly impressed. He observed the lounge for a few minutes admiring the activities already happening. Many of the girls were not wearing anything at all. Their exhibited their nakedn3ss in all its glory. He gulped, swallowing a bit of spit. He had been warned by Edwin that he could meet with such a scenario but he waved it aside saying that nak3d black babes were usually not appealing to behold. As he stood by the bar looking at the gorgeous nak3d women, he was not the least repulsed. He could feel his member agree with him from within his shorts. As he continued to feed his eyes, he saw a few girls with one or two strips covering their holes and nips. He beheld a few lap dances and the groove was really settling in. He looked at his wrist watch, 9:35pm. He smiled, licked his lips and swore to have a swell time. He turned and ordered a bottle of beer from the bar. As he gulped from the bottled, his eyes caught an interesting scene. A stripper was giving a guy a lap dance and right in front of everyone, she removed her thong. Another girl was strolling across the lounge with big, gyrating buttocks in stockings and nothing else. Her bare breasts giggled as she walked to take a seat. He saw another girl in what looked like a bikini, another in a jacket with a bowler hat and nothing under.

It was quite a lot to take in, so he found his way to one of the unoccupied single leather sofas and rested his fragile frame. His eyes darted to the dancing pole at the centre of the lounge. The dark, busty lady there jumped on the poll and twisted around it, flashing her bare bum out for all to see. Her labia glistened as the lights settled momentarily on her figure. A soft pornographic film was playing on a 48 inch screen behind her. He drained the contents of his bottle and switched gears just as he had been instructed by Eddy. He signalled to the waiter and his table was decorated with a bottle of champagne. He had barely taken two sips from his cup when a dame strolled to his side and sat. She was light skinned, petite but sexy. Clad in white bra and panties, she snuggled closer and then requested a drink. He obliged and they engaged in small talk while she teased him, rubbing her hands all over his sensitive areas. Sensing that he wanted a lap dance, she climbed on top of him and started to wriggle, rotating and bouncing her exterior on his bulging organ in tune to Wizkid’s For You.

She leaned forwards, licked the insides of his ear and spoke softly,

“Spank me baby, spank that booty”

He was already lost in her moves so he willingly obeyed, spanking her softly. He was thoroughly enjoying himself and was loving every second of it. He made a mental note to give Edwin a treat for opening his eyes to this level of fun. Just when he thought it could not get worse, she pulled her bra and it came off. His hands groped her breasts as he was half blind with lust. She leaned forwards again, still grinding him ever so seductively.

“I am so wet. Do you want to feel it?” She asked.

He nodded like a he-goat in heat.

“Take them off baby” she cajoled.

As his hands went to her sides and down her hips, she slapped his hands away and got up off him. He had thought she wanted to make it easy for him but there she was, walking away. He was tempted to run after her but held himself. He kept his eyes on her until she faded from sight. He shook his head and shrugged. Turning his attention to his bottle of champagne, he could not find his glass.

“Looking for this?” A feminine voice asked.

He looked beside him and his face fell. He knew her and did not like that she had followed him. At that moment he understood why the girl had left him alone.

“Hello James. There is work to be done.” The female said, taking a sip from the glass.

“Stella, what are you doing here? I thought I had the weekend off?” James replied and continued.

“You know I deserve this. I have been working my ass off these few weeks. Can’t a man get decent rest anymore?” He lamented.

Stella smiled and leaned forwards.

“Maybe we should ask Steven. What do you think?” She whispered.

“He is here?”

Stella bent her head to her left and winked. James turned to her direction and there Steven was at the bar. Steven waved at James, signalling for them to come over.

“Oh my God.” James cried, putting both hands on his head.

“Come on superman. Let’s go.” Stella said, pulling him from the chair.

James got up reluctantly, following her to meet Steven.

To be Continued …

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