Activate The Ravagers Ep1v2 by Alex Albrinck

garage barrier and fumbled in her bag for her badge. They used the same badge for true Jamison & Associates employees like Jocelyn Whitfield as they did for those who worked underground, which prevented awkward questions when the two groups mingled. She found the badge and swiped it, watched the light turn green, and listened as the barrier lifted. She drove through, wondering why they bothered barricading the entry to the parking garage when no one but employees and clients had reason to use the facility.
    Or was the barrier there to keep them in ?
    She pondered that mystery as she drove to her parking spot on the lowest level of the garage, gathered her belongings into her bag—including the pieces of her broken phone—and headed for the door into the facility. She’d brought the phone with her on a whim, wondering if one of the more technical people might be able to repair the device. She thought a new screen might do it, though the other parts would certainly need testing.
    She swiped her badge at the entry, waited for the green light, and pulled the heavy metal door open. The door slammed closed behind her. She strode across the landing to the door on the far side, the door which led up to the primary offices, and swiped her badge again, waiting for the badge reader to signal as she wondered what else could go wrong this day.
    The locks on both doors engaged, the lights went out, and the floor dropped out from beneath her as she screamed.

fifteen
Deirdre Silver-Light
    …Diasteel announced the formation of a “Department of Research and Development” to be led by Silver’s only child, Deirdre, an aspiring model and fashion mogul… met with initial jeers and cries of nepotism, but most objective accounts show Ms. Silver as possessed of a business mind to rival that of her legendary father…
    The History of the Western Alliance, page 4242
     
    D eirdre sat at her desk , staring into space over fingers steepled before her face. She could feel the strain and fatigue around her eyes, and massaged her temples. She opened her eyes and took in the eclectic artwork hanging upon her office walls, finding expression of her swirl of emotions in the quirky colors and shapes marking the collection of framed canvases.
    She’d activated one of the caches, privately hoping she’d botched the job. She tried to convince herself that if she’d improperly activated the weapon and it failed to detonate, she’d bear less guilt in the events to come.
    The effort to assuage her guilt failed.
    She instead turned her focus to her husband. Roddy had been a dream come true, a man who appreciated her mind as well as her body, and they’d been inseparable since they’d first met. He was a man heavily damaged by the horrors he’d suffered during his military stint, activity she could fathom solely because of her access to information even Roddy hadn’t seen. They were two dominant, passionate personalities drawn to each other by a gravitational pull neither could resist.
    Until this morning.
    She’d all but thrown herself at him and he’d resisted. That had never happened before. She could sense the powerful desire she’d unleashed in him… and still he’d turned her down.
    Something was wrong.
    She lacked Roddy’s innate ability to read people. His initial perceptions of people proved incredibly accurate, and she’d never seen anyone get away with telling a lie to him. In even the cases she thought he’d been tricked, he’d later revealed that he’d allowed the lie to go unchallenged because he’d considered it to be to his advantage.
    He’d offered no indication that he’d known she’d been hiding something major from him for the entirety of their relationship. It certainly wasn’t personal; she hid that part of her life from everyone . Except her father. She’d done her job well if Roddy hadn’t noticed until now. Was that the issue? He’d realized her stories of challenging projects were a cover for something