Story code: ST-001764
Part 2: The Pre-Service Protocol
The heavy velvet rope hit the marble with a soft, muted thud.
A passing waiter holding a tray of empty champagne flutes froze, his eyes darting from the fallen barrier to Leo’s gray maintenance jumpsuit. The waiter’s mouth opened to object, to call for security, but the survival instincts Leo had honed over three years in a maximum-security block overrode his momentary lapse in control. Anger was a luxury that led straight back to a six-by-eight cell. He needed a shield, and in this world, invisibility was his best armor.
“Bio-hazard,” Leo grunted, his voice rough and devoid of apology. He pointed a calloused finger toward a dark corner near the VIP tables. “Guest got sick. I need the backstage mop bucket.”
The waiter’s face immediately contorted in disgust. He took a quick step back, the objection dying in his throat. Nobody in a tuxedo wanted to interrogate a sanitation worker about bodily fluids. The waiter nodded stiffly and hurried away toward the kitchens.
Leo didn’t wait. He stepped completely out of the ballroom, slipping through the heavy, soundproofed service doors that separated the opulent gala from the utilitarian guts of the university. The transition was jarring. The air back here was stagnant, smelling of hot dust, ozone from the lighting rigs, and cheap floor cleaner. Above him, the PA system crackled. Carter Vance’s smooth, practiced voice echoed through the concrete corridors, spinning a fabricated tale about the burden of addiction and the noble road to recovery.
On Leo’s hip, his venue-issued gig tablet buzzed aggressively. The screen glared in the dim light, displaying a GPS map of the building. A flashing red warning indicated he had left his assigned perimeter. If the automated system flagged him as out-of-bounds for more than five minutes, his shift supervisor would automatically forward a violation report to his parole officer.
Leo swiped past the warning, navigating to the venue manifest. Zone 4: The VIP Green Room. It was technically off-limits while the guest of honor was on stage, but the electronic lock codes were still active on his device. He pushed through a set of double doors, moving deeper into the backstage labyrinth.
The Green Room was a stark contrast to the concrete hallways. It was draped in black velvet and smelled overwhelmingly of expensive cedar cologne and stale anxiety. Half-eaten fruit platters sat on glass tables, surrounded by discarded garment bags and empty espresso cups. Leo moved silently across the plush carpet, his eyes scanning the vanity mirror at the far end of the room.
There, sitting plainly next to a stack of Carter’s discarded speech revisions, was the truth.
A heavy, sterling silver pill crusher rested on a mirrored tray. Next to it lay a small glass vial, custom-engraved with the initials *C.V.*, and a razor blade coated in fine, white residue. The sheer, brazen arrogance of it hit Leo like a physical blow to the ribs. Carter was standing on a brightly lit stage just fifty yards away, accepting millions in donations for an opioid recovery charity, while actively using in his private dressing room. Three years ago, it was a similar stash, tucked neatly into Leo’s gym locker by Carter’s people, that had cost Leo his freedom. The billionaire’s son had needed a fall guy to avoid a trafficking charge that would have ruined a corporate merger. Leo, an expendable warehouse worker with no money for a lawyer, had been the perfect target.
Leo’s hands shook, but not from the floor buffer this time. He unclipped the heavy, rubber-cased tablet from his belt. The gig-worker app had a strict protocol for unlogged messes: snap a ‘Pre-Service Condition’ photo for liability before cleaning. Leo framed the shot carefully. He made sure the engraved silver vial, the white residue, and Carter’s VIP all-access lanyard were all in razor-sharp focus.
*Click.*
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Leo’s blood ran cold. He froze, his thumb hovering over the tablet’s screen. In the reflection of the vanity mirror, a massive figure filled the doorway. It was Graves. The head of the Vance family’s private security. Two hundred and fifty pounds of tailored malice. Graves was the man who had physically shoved Leo against that locker three years ago, pressing a knee into his spine while the police “discovered” the planted evidence.
Leo immediately dropped his gaze, hunching his shoulders to feign the posture of a terrified, lowly janitor. He turned around slowly, keeping the tablet pressed tight against his stomach. “Logging a hazard, sir,” Leo mumbled, staring at Graves’ polished shoes. “App protocol. Have to log it before I clean it.”
Graves stepped into the room, the heavy door clicking shut behind him. He didn’t look at the mirrored tray. He looked at Leo. The security chief crossed the distance in two long strides, reaching out and snatching the plastic ID badge clipped to Leo’s collar. The breakaway lanyard snapped loudly in the quiet room.
Graves held the badge up to the light, squinting at the name and the barcode. A cruel, predatory smirk slowly stretched across his face.
“Leo,” Graves said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Well, well. I heard the state decided to let you out early. I just didn’t realize they had you scrubbing toilets for polite society.”
Leo kept his mouth shut. His jaw ached from clenching it. Every muscle in his body screamed to drive his heavy work boot into Graves’ knee, to shatter the man’s smug face. But doing so meant handcuffs, a revoked parole, and a guaranteed return to the cell block. He had to be smarter.
Graves tossed the ID badge onto the floor and crushed it beneath his heel. He pulled a two-way radio from his belt. “Control, this is Graves. I have a paroled felon in a restricted VIP zone. Total perimeter breach. I want local PD waiting at the loading dock in five minutes. Contact his parole officer. His release is revoked.”
Graves grabbed Leo by the collar of his uniform, shoving him brutally toward the hallway. “You’re going to walk out of here quietly, piece of trash. If you so much as flinch, I’ll tell the cops you swung at me.”
Leo stumbled into the corridor, his shoulder slamming hard against the concrete wall. Through the vents, Carter’s voice soared, drawing thunderous applause from the ballroom. Leo had exactly five minutes before the police slapped cuffs on his wrists. He looked down at the heavy tablet still gripped tightly in his hand. The high-resolution photo of Carter’s stash was saved in the app’s cache. And his gig-worker tablet was fully connected to the university’s central Wi-Fi-the exact same internal network currently bridging the live-streamed presentation to the massive projectors in the ballroom.