Chapter 1
"Yes Mandy, just send me all the info. I'll drive up in the morning and figure out how the whole thing is setup, and get it sorted out, It's usually a 2-3 day job......
Ugh Mandy it's 6pm I just finished a job, and this is at least three hours away...
Fine, 72 hrs double pay, txt me the address, and email the info over."
Giving myself a ten minute rest, and then I hit the road. Pushing my slightly worn truck seat back, I close my eyes. Trying to take a few minutes to collect my thoughts.. It's been just too much stuff, one thing after the other. Just a bit worn out, rubbing my eyes a bit.
"Beeep... Beeep"
Well that's the address, as I pull it up on my phone. I'd better stop and grab a coffee, and some type of dinner. I grab a turkey hoagie, and a coffee. I figure I can get in, take a look around, figure out the layout, and crash somewhere. The place was out in the middle of nowhere, the nearest house was almost a mile away.
I pull up to a rather large log cabin, it was dark so I didn't really look around. Pulling up my laptop, I re-read the message.
Mr Waldorf,
I appreciate you taking up this last-minute contract, this is for our highest VIP client. Half of your contract will be forwarded to you now, the rest on completion. The system is very redundant all the floor plans and documents are attached, the loss of signal is very odd. But more than likely the cause is something simple, and this is located out in the wilderness so it could be a critter causing mischief. Please get the cameras and security system back online, asap.
P.S. The rear door's combination is G-L-2-u-c-i-@
Thank you,
Secure Systems inc.
Grabbing my backpack, and a flashlight. I hunted around back, finding the heavy wooden door probably with a thick metal layer in between, which appeared to have a rfid access. Luckily this door is on a separate backup power system, from the rest of the house. It was a fairly typical setup for the ultra-high end. Finding the panel off to the side, I slid out the keyboard and entered the code. No monitor or anything else, this was a simple enter the wrong password and it let you into the vestibule then closed and locked the doors and called the cops, personal security etc. who would find you locked between two heavy doors.
As I closed the heavy wooden door, and approached the more ornate secondary door unlocked.
Woohoo! Lucky me they didn't screw up documenting the code.
The last project I sat in a lobby for six hours waiting for the fire marshal to get me out, cutting through multiple thick doors to get me out. As the master code had not been documented correctly, and the previous owner skipped town. I spent the time examining the ornate wooden snakes on the doors and the pondering the frogs painted on the ceiling. I'm still convinced there was some meaning behind the unique decor.
I took my snow boots off, in the mud room. According to the plans, there's four bedrooms, an office, workout room, five bathrooms... kitchen, tech room etc.. The tech room was my primary goal, it luckily wasn't too far from the rear door.. just down the hall and to the right.
It was frigid in the house, I could see my breath. I'm half surprised I didn't discover a pipe burst or something. Once there I punched in the administrator code and was able to get in, it had redundant power as well. I searched around a little, and found the breaker box, after resetting two of the 100-amp sub breakers controlling the security system and the house maintenance systems. The house flickered back to life.. A moment later It kicked back off. I then turned off all the sub circuits.. And powered them back up. Then flicked on some of what appeared to be the first floor and A/C ones, as well as the ones for the utility room and the whole security system.. I left the ones labeled DGN and ext and a few others off for now, at least one of them was causing it to kick off.
As I finally heard the air conditioner kick in.. I went out to my black SUV and grabbed my toolbox and a my trusty bag with some spare clothes. I left my toolbox and boots in the mud room, went around and opened a few faucets, and checked the pipes to make sure nothing had frozen... The house had been without power for almost a day, with the freezing temps it could have frozen. And last thing I needed to deal with was a burst pipe.
As I went up to the first floor I noticed the dark hard wood floors throughout the first and second floors of the cabin, to the left was a large full kitchen which opened to the living room area. To the right a dining room. The hallway lead directly into the living room area. I checked the large refrigerator which was fairly well stocked but only used part of it and grabbed an amber lager. And put some of my groceries and half the sandwich in a corner of the ridiculously large refrigerator...
I grabbed the smart-house tablet which was sitting on the wall between the kitchen and lounge, it seemed to have fully booted itself... I started the fireplace from the tablet, within a few minutes there was a descent gas fire, in the fireplace warming the room.
I sat down, took a few swigs of lager as I went over the house status screens. Which all seemed to checkout... as I started checking the camera system out.. I noticed total 116 cameras... Shit... That's a lot... Oh well I guess I won't be checking them all tonight.
I started glancing through the pages of screens... Dozens were outside of the house, covering the perimeter, and pretty much every inch the property. The next forty cameras or so covered almost every inch of the first and second floors and then several screens where everything was locked out.
As I glanced through the screens... I noticed several screens worth that appeared to be areas not on the floor plans. Then I noticed something that looked like a person moving... Zooming in, I realized what it was...
