Story code: ST-000003
Part 2: The Price of Panic
“Vance!” Principal Davis’s voice was a ragged, breathless wheeze over the speaker. In the background, the mechanical shrieks of the lockdown sirens I had programmed wailed through his heavy office door. “Vance, are you seeing this? We have an active threat. The system locked down the entire east wing!”
“I’m looking at the preliminary alerts now, Arthur,” I lied, keeping my voice steady, cold, and entirely professional. I sat on the hospital stairwell landing, my thumb resting a fraction of an inch from the tablet screen that displayed the terrified faces of his students. “But my dashboard is restricted. Your board revoked my administrative access, remember? I can’t deploy the localized countermeasures or open the secure communication lines to the classrooms.”
“Screw the board!” Davis hissed, his voice trembling so violently I could picture him vibrating under his mahogany desk. “The police aren’t inside yet! You have to override it! You built this damn system!”
“I can’t illegally hack a municipal network,” I said, leaning back against the cinderblock wall. My heart hammered against my ribs, but I forced my breathing to slow. “Not without an active contract.”
“I’ll authorize it!” Davis pleaded. A loud bang echoed over the phone-probably just a heavy fire door slamming shut in the panic, but to Davis, it sounded like a gunshot. He let out a muffled, terrifying sob. “I’m reinstating it! Just fix this, Vance. Tell me where the shooter is!”
“Send the confirmation to my email. Right now, Arthur. The full eighty-four thousand, authorized for immediate deployment. The second it hits my inbox, I’ll bypass the legal firewall.”
“I’m sending it from my phone. Please, God, just hurry.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and set it on speaker on the concrete step, turning my full attention back to the hardened tactical tablet resting on my knees. I zoomed in on the cafeteria feed. The strobe lights were still pulsing, casting harsh, erratic shadows over the bodies of hundreds of teenagers pressed flat against the linoleum.
The psychological damage I was inflicting was playing out in high-definition silence. Underneath a row of folding tables, a boy in a varsity jacket was hyperventilating so hard his chest heaved in violent, erratic spasms. Next to him, a younger girl with braided hair had her eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming down her face as she clamped her hands over her ears. They were convinced a killer was stalking their hallways. I was forcing them to live through their darkest, most visceral nightmare.
My eyes flicked to a camera in a second-floor janitorial closet. Three students had crammed themselves behind a rolling mop bucket. One of them, a lanky kid with glasses, was having a full-blown panic attack. He was clawing at his own throat, his mouth wide open in a silent scream, suffocating on his own terror. He tried to stand up, desperate to flee the tiny room. Instantly, the other two teenagers tackled him to the floor. They pinned his arms and clamped a hand over his mouth, violently suppressing him to keep him from making noise. They were practically suffocating their own classmate out of sheer, primal survival instinct.
A sickening wave of guilt crashed over me, making my hands shake. I thought of Elena, one floor above me in this very hospital, her own lungs struggling to pull in air, trusting me to take care of her. Was I really going to sacrifice this teenager’s sanity-and maybe his life-to save her? I was breaking these kids. The trauma I was etching into their brains would outlast this day. They would flinch at loud noises and look for the exits in crowded rooms for the rest of their lives.
*Cancel it,* a voice in my head screamed. *Hit the All-Clear. Blame it on a software glitch.*
I reached out to tap the green Abort icon on the dashboard.
*Ping.*
A notification dropped down from the top of my tablet screen. It was an email from Principal Davis. The subject line read: *EMERGENCY CONTRACT REINSTATEMENT – OAK CREEK HIGH.* Attached was the digitally signed PDF, fully authorizing the eighty-four thousand dollar payment for my security firm.
I stared at the document. It was the exact amount the hospital billing department demanded. It was Elena’s life, delivered in a panicked digital signature.
“Vance!” Davis’s voice crackled from the phone next to my boot. “I sent it! Do you have the feeds? Where is the threat?”
I took a ragged breath. I had the money. Now I just needed to de-escalate. I could tell him the sensors misfired, that the building was clear.
Before I could speak, a new alert flashed on my dashboard. My stomach dropped into freefall. The exterior security cameras surrounding the high school’s main parking lot lit up with a dozen flashing red and blue lights.
“Arthur,” I said, my voice finally cracking. “The police are outside.”
“Thank God,” Davis wept. “Our resource officer must have hit the silent panic button to dispatch them.”
I watched the external feed as a heavy SWAT BearCat rolled right over the pristine front lawn, tearing up the grass. Heavily armed tactical units poured out of the armored vehicle, assault rifles raised, moving with lethal, adrenaline-fueled precision. They weren’t coming for a drill. They thought they were walking into a massacre.
“Vance, the police lieutenant is radioing me,” Davis said, his voice dropping to an urgent, desperate whisper. “They want access to the internal cameras. They want you to link your dashboard to their command post so they can hunt this guy down.”
My blood ran entirely cold. If I gave the local SWAT team access to my network, their tech experts would instantly see that there was no shooter. Worse, they would trace the lockdown initiation protocol back to my administrative override. They would track my IP address straight to this hospital stairwell. I would go to federal prison for domestic terrorism, and Elena would die alone.
On the cafeteria feed, the boy in the varsity jacket was now crawling blindly out from under the tables, completely unhinged by his panic. He stood up, grabbing a heavy metal thermos like a weapon, and began running aimlessly toward the main corridor doors.
They were the exact doors the SWAT team was currently stacking up against, preparing to breach with drawn weapons.
“Vance,” Davis begged. “Send them the feed link. Now!”