Office Challenge: Control: Fanfic: Running Through Recon

[schoolsasaint]

Title: Running Through Recon
Fandom: Control
Rating: General Audience
Length: 641
Summary: The Oldest House is like space, vast and empty. And also like space, sometimes places lead to other places.

Jesse takes it slow. Makes her every move methodical. Like clearing a room. Start from the corners, work in from there. Only, its a whole series of rooms. Whole building full. All empty. So far.

She's not counting on that staying that way for long. Not in the absence of posters on walls, hiding all the cracks. Guess that makes me the ivy.

After the stairs, there's a portrait gallery in the balcony above the entrance. More camouflage? One more set of offices and a faceless building lost in a sea of them. First in the set is a whitecoat, the kind that looks like it actually sees use. Dr Darling. Head of Research. It fits. Not that she hasn’t worn similar when cleaning labs.

Nearly overlooked - but not, because Jesse is not a rank amateur - a fire alarm tucked away high in the corner reads Find Shelter in big, square letters. Not a typical model, but. Well. This doesn't seem like the kind of place that has fires. A place that has stealth built in shouldn't have any trouble. Hopefully

An abandoned briefcase lies on the floor below. Red. Matches the carpet. Just … pretend I didn’t say that. It's locked, the key wherever the person who dropped it is now. Not a promising sign - or perhaps the Bureau likes to decorate along the horror side of gothic. They can make an entire town disappear, she doesn't see why they wouldn't.

Then a three quarter length portrait of … a janitor’s back? She's not going to lie, it's not anything she was expecting to stumble across. Especially not in a one to one scale this close to the lobby. Good sense of movement though. Not static. Lines of sight, or whatever. There's no name attached, of course. Jesse wasn’t expecting one. Just a pithy motivational plaque. At work. Always at work.

The third of the trio is old white guy in suit. Classic desk shot. The Director of this place. Is he the one with the answers I'm looking for? Does he know Dylan? Where Dylan is? The portrait isn't going to give any answers, and she isn't at the stage where she's willing to try getting it down from the wall. Yet. She's not leaving this building until she finds Dylan.

Further on, on the other side of the balcony, she finds two first aid kits near a bathroom. One in, one out. It shoots the FBC right to the top of workplaces for OSHA standards, or would if they weren’t mostly emptied. Also, not a Geneva violation. Crosses are white, not red. Five dosen mornings sitting through intake trainings are finally coming in useful. She’s a regular killer at trivia, or would be.

Looking down at entrance – the rain outside is only getting heavier – and … the pyramid in logo seal thing is upside down. Jesse hadn't noticed it, close up. Does it mean aliens? Are aliens a thing now? Not that it matters. Aliens aren't the ones responsible for her quest. Outside, the real world continues on, nothing more than smears of colour through the glass.

Further into the heart of the building, conference rooms stand empty, and the shadow glow of vending machine flickers across the glass in a away it's not supposed to. It looks full. That's the three necessities of life taken care of, if she doesn’t mind drinking tapwater. Jesse doesn't, usually, but the quality can vary.

Flipping through a sheaf of paperwork - numbers and code, it means nothing to her - a noise catches her attention. It's easily caught. A radio? The only thing creepier than the silence is breaking it. She grabs an official looking file – more of the same, they all look like that – to scan and or use as a weapon, and goes to investigate.