5Author's Notes: I've had the idea for this story for a while now and after putting it off for quite a while it has evolved. Just so you know, there will be slow moments, there will be action sequences and there will be parkour, you cannot have Mirror's Edge without parkour right? ...Not as far as I know anyway. Anyhow this chapter is just a prologue so enjoy.
Disclaimer: Do I really have to write this? I mean, we all know I by no means own Mirror's Edge or any of its original characters, right?
Prologue
The clouds covered the usually bright glossy city, covering it in an unusual atmosphere of foreboding. No rain had fallen since the clouds had come to settle over the city. They were just there, waiting, anticipating a threat that was imminent. A threat to what, was the question to be asked.
Such thoughts were not on the mind of the man in the suit however, nor his companion with the briefcase. They both walked with purpose through the large glass doors of the Serpix Corporation. The business had moved into the city about a year or two ago and already became very successful. The tall skyscraper that came close to doing as the name suggested was a testament to the company's success. The lobby was always busy, a hustling confusion of persons purchasing and selling stock, making investments and going to meetings. The corporation's symbol, a large snake binding a building of similar architecture with its fangs bared, stood mounted on the wall behind the counter.
The two men approached the counter, the man in the suit spoke to the receptionist, a middle-aged underpaid woman with a business smile on her face. He spoke a few words to her. She responded courteously. "Yes sir. You're expected. If you'll just wait over there," she motioned to some chairs occupied by other persons in the corner, "you'll be escorted to him in a few minutes." As the two men walked away she turned to the next man in a suit, who was demanding assistance; they were all the same to her.
The two sat across from each other, no words spent between them. The man in the suit contemplated all the possible ways the man they were about to meet could have obtained the information he currently held over his head. The man with the briefcase looked passively at the people on the street, not studying anything but his instructions, follow the man in the suit and hold on to the case.
The two were eventually approached by another man in a suit, wearing shades, their escort, probably security. He instructed them to follow them. When they had risen he turned and walked, taking them around the side of the receptionist's counter and through a metal detector. The two walked through calmly, no alarm was sounded. They turned right and the escort pressed the button to call one of the elevators on the farther down the wall with the metal detectors. The escort pressed the button for the sixty-seventh floor. The elevator began its ascent slowly and eventually picked up speed.
On the sixty-seventh floor, the vice-president of the Serpix Corporation, looked at his laptop. The image on-screen displayed the inside of the elevator occupied by the escort, the man in the suit and the man with the briefcase. He could not help but smile. A man like him had experience with a computer, and that experience often unearthed information people did not want going public. A little incentive, a little leverage, whatever negotiators preferred to call it, often got the company some heavy investors.
The elevator slowed to a halt. The small screen on the inside of the elevator displayed the number "67" in bright green. The elevator doors opened to a hallway. The escort exited the elevator. The two men followed him. They walked down the hallway and eventually came to a boardroom. Through the glass walls they could see a man sitting at a large desk, a laptop on it, smiling a scoundrel's smile as the escort opened the door and motioned the two men through the door.
"Thank you Pierce," he said addressing the escort. "That'll be it for now." The escort nodded and walked down the hall without a word. The vice-president, a man in his mid-thirties, rose from his seat and extended his hand to the man in the suit. The man shook it, if only out of the common pleasantries of business and introduction. "I take it you know why you're here sir."
"Your message was not exactly cryptic," the man in the suit said taking a seat. "Quite the opposite in fact. You made it quite clear what it was you had and what you wanted."
The vice-president returned to his seat, the glass behind him, displaying the vast expanse of the white city that stretched for miles. He turned his chair and looked out the window. "Strange weather don't you think? The clouds have been set up for about a day now."
"Please...," the man in the suit said. "Spare the small talk. Suspense tricks are below me. Your business has been in the city for about a year and a half now, it's unwise for you to have what you have and try to blackmail me."
"Yet here you are." The vice president turned his chair around to face the two men.
"Indeed. I assume you have what I've come for."
"Of course." He reached into his jacket and removed a square object that filled his hand. "It was quite the file. I had to put it on this," he showed them the external hard drive.
The man was boasting about his feat. He needed to learn the rules of the city were to be careful about what you do and to whom. The man in the suit looked at the hard drive. "How do I know it's on that."
"Show me the money and I show you the file itself."
The man with the briefcase, who had chosen to remain standing, placed the briefcase on the table. He flipped up the locks and opened the case, turning it to show the money to the vice president. The man smiled, satisfied, it was a start. He connected the hard drive to the laptop and opened the file, turning it in the same manner the man had turned the briefcase. The information on the screen scrolled; enough to satisfy the man in the suit.
"That's it."
"Of course," the vice president turned the laptop back to him. "If there's one thing I am, it's a man of my word."
The words barely escaped his lips, when the glass behind him shattered and his forehead was split, blood splattering on the two men across the table. The man in the suit lunged across the desk and yanked the hard drive from the laptop in less than a second and then ducked down in false panic, tucking the hard drive into his jacket as he did so. The lack of security cameras in the room where private meetings were held made it an easily executed task.
The man with the briefcase had closed the case the instant the man in the suit had lunged across the desk. He was now propelling the man in the suit through the door, close behind him. The escort ran to the room accompanied by several other men, all armed. The briefcase wielding man shouted, "Sniper!"
Everybody ducked low, the prospect of getting shot, the last thing on their priority list. The escort and the other armed men ducked, looking through the glass door to see the vice-president slumped over the desk, blood splattered across the room. For the first time in the last minute, some one noticed the glass that was the inside wall had shattered as well, a large gaping hole on the parallel wall in the second hallway to the right.
The men ran back to the two men, who were now anxiously pressing and waiting for an elevator to arrive. The man with the briefcase was talking rapidly on a cell phone, demanding a car be in front of the corporation's doors in the next two minutes with its doors open and an experienced driver. The escort ran up to them and looked at the man in the suit.
"Are you okay, sir?" he said, genuinely concerned for this most important of persons.
"I'll be fine if you can get this lift to move faster!"
As if on cue, the elevator opened its doors with its customary high pitched sound. The two men and the escort and another armed man quickly got into the elevator. It began its rapid descent to the lobby. The two armed men replaced their pistols in their jackets, hidden from view of the persons in the lobby as the doors opened. They rushed the two men through the oblivious lobby. Few heads turned as most knew that in this city looking at strange occurrences for more than five seconds made one guilty by association.
The man in the suit and the man with the briefcase quickly got into the car waiting out front. The two escorts closed the doors and the car sped off, merging with traffic. It was about five minutes before the man in the suit spoke. "Okay, you can slow down I think we've gotten far enough."
He removed the external hard drive from his jacket and handed it to the man with the briefcase, who removed a laptop from beneath the money in the case and turned it on. He connected the hard drive and began checking the data. After a few minutes he muttered a profanity. The man in the suit looked at him.
"What?"
"Damn internet."
"What's wrong?" The man in the suit looked at the laptop.
"The data is still registered as being in Serpix's data network. Someone is hacking it."
"Can you trace it?" The man in the suit knew the answer to the question but the question itself still needed to be answered, it gave him a greater sense of security.
"Yeah, hold on." The man began typing feverishly, his face concentrated on the screen. Windows opened up on the screen displaying various data streams and one with an overview of the city getting smaller and smaller. He cut off the opposing hacker's connection and the hacker ceased his activities before the location could be zeroed in.
The man in the suit noticed his companion had stopped typing. "You get him?"
"We need to have a meeting."
EDIT: I realised that a building with 94 floors seemed a little too tall so I made it a bit shorter.