Title: Evacuation Protocol GTFO
Fandom: Control
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 258
Author's note: pre-canon
Summary: The entrance is the one part of the Oldest House that is not affected by building shifts. The one way out. The door is right there.

The lobby is never the most populated part of the Oldest House. It is too small for that, too incidental to the objectives of the FBC. The lobby is merely where the Oldest House connects to the outside world. The real world. Passive. Ordinary.

Safe, for a give value of safety.

It's a nice assignment to get - a view of the outdoors (even when those outdoors are traffic and the skyscrapers opposite) is a rare commodity. A reminder that there is life, outside.

When the alert starts blaring, the five lucky enough to be there sprint for the door. Lockdown is initiated from up in Executive, and they have a minute to move before it does more than lock the computers. No one wants a prolonged stay in the lobby. Only three chairs, and none of them decent enough for a nap. The rooms upstairs are slightly better, but not by much.

They get outside, and they stay out.

For one thing, the doors are locked. Only the foolish try to break through the Lockdown protocol - drawing attention to the slight interpretation they'd put on stay in place and wait is just as bad an idea as turning around and voluntarily walking headfirst into whatever warrants cutting the entire House into sections.

Besides, they still get paid. That particular section of bureaucracy is located outside the House. It wouldn't do if a shift were to cut off people's pay. Only the most dedicated do this sort of business for nothing more than the fun of it.