Author: Nova

S*T*C
by S. K. Smith

Chapter One

“Damn!” 
Ivan Frankel negotiated the tight curves on his motorcycle up Mt. Nauseous with the agility of a trapeze artist. Behind him, the California Highway Patrol sirens blared, and they were getting louder.
Near the top, Ivan swerved his Harley off the main road. Turning into the S*T*C, the guard at the entrance spotted the Department of Defense sticker on the windshield and waved Ivan through the gate. 
Moments later, cops on bikes—CHiPs—whizzed by. Their sirens dropped in pitch and faded as they crossed over to the other side of the mountain.
Ivan parked among the clutter of motorcycles. He pulled off his helmet, shaking out his head of thick dark hair. Steam from his Harley radiated into the chill of the fog. The vapor condensed on his black leather jacket. He glanced at his watch.
“Damn!” 
Next problem: the reason for his high-speed chase. How to make that morning shift briefing?
Ivan strode toward the main entrance. His legs were shaking. But he grew a wide grin under his trim mustache and laughed with giddiness. 
Ditched the CHiPs. Again. 
He was slender in stature and had the heart of a kamikaze.
Ivan pulled out his badge at the lobby door. Then he spied a cluster of over-dressed strangers, clogging the main security checkpoint. 
“Damn!” 
CSC new hires.
The guards were dawdling to process them all in, meaning Ivan was about to be late. Again. That meant another demerit from IG—his supervisor, Isidro Garcia, that is. 
But Ivan had a plan. There was a way into the Mission Control Complex where he could bypass the normal guards in the lobby. Meanwhile, IG would be collecting all these uncleared newbies and escorting them inside. That would buy some time. 
Ivan slid his badge under his jacket and detoured to the admin wing.
“Forgot my badge,” he explained to the red hair, pimply-faced guard at the door. “I need a temp.”
The guard pointed. “Down the hall. Third door on the left.”
As Ivan saluted, his jacket popped open, exposing his S*T*C badge. 
The guard’s eyes bore down on the ID. “Stop!”
But Ivan continued to strut down the hall.
The guard drew his gun. “Stop! Or I’ll shoot!” 
“Take your best shot.” Ivan laughed as he turned the corner.
An elevator door opened with a chime. Ivan slipped inside. The morning crowd rushed in after him to make that 7:45 shift change. 
Ivan figured the guard would be hard pressed to catch him taking the stairs. Each floor was shielded to withstand a nuke. So, three-floors in the S*T*C were more like six floors most anywhere else.
The elevator stopped with a jiggle. Workers piled out. 
Brandishing brief cases, Styrofoam cups of coffee, newspapers, and magazines, all were on their way to spend most of their day behind locked doors with no view of sun or sky.
Clear to the left. Clear to the right. Ivan shot down the hall, shaking from the adrenaline rush. He loved it. Two brushes with death in the last half hour and he hadn’t even started his day yet. 
His trembling fingers punched the buttons on the cipher lock into his mission control complex: MCC-F.
“Damn!”
The door did not unlock. Some joker had punched in a digit to throw off the next victim. Often Ivan was that joker. 
He punched the cipher lock—again—and it opened this time.
Above the door to the mission control room hung a sign printed on large computer paper: 
It’s 1984, people. Big Brother is watching.
Ivan smiled, twitching his mustache. 
He had made that sign. And management hated it.