Mundy’s Log, supplemental:
// Descriptions of rooms in Paragon City Hall are what appears in the log from this point on; they are the anchor points for the log text, which is memorised.
Charlie Sparks, in the S.E.R.A.P.H. office, stands in front of a wall, facing West, with a wide glass window. Just in front of the window is a wide desk, with two office chairs, two computers, a microscope, two racks of vials..
Several officers were in the bar already when I arrived, still dusty from packing up equipment for the cadet event. (Which, by the way, leads me to think that the air filters in the storage rooms need replacing, because there really shouldn’t be any significant dust anywhere on the station. Or else there is some hitherto unknown law of the universe by which dust will self-generate given a large enough number of storage containers in one place.) Hall, Garion, Slate, van Leigh, Aramond, and then Matsiyan, just before I arrived. We settled in with our food and drink, chatting. Then Blaze made his dramatic entrance.
Through the window I look into a laboratory, with white tiled floor, a work bench, two medical gurneys (one with a black body bag on it), a medical full body scanner.
Blaze staggered in, gasped “That bastard!” and collapsed onto the floor, with a knife in his back.
Following the wall round the corner and facing South, the wide glass windows continue, and I can see there are also metal cabinets in the lab, computer databanks, tanks of gas, though I can’t read any labels on them.
Aramond went chasing out of the room to see if he could catch the person who stabbed Blaze; van Leigh went to examine the wound; Matsiyan called security and medical teams; I rushed to the bar to get the emergency medkit.
Outside are three massive metal crates, and, as I face the door in the furthest West wall, a woman who may be guarding the crates, or the door: her codename is Shadowstar. She wears a black leather suit, and there is a strange effect of shadow, or perhaps smoke, that masks her face.
Major Johnson of the Marines arrived, with two EMTs and two Marines; they stabilised Blaze and set up security in the bar, the usual protocols, nobody in or out.
There is, naturally, a keypad by the door.
Garion and Hall started searching through station sensors for any sign of an escaping craft, deducing that the culprit would attempt to flee.
Along the North wall of the room, in order, a gurney, some wheeled medical equipment, some kind of portable scanner with a small monitor, a metal case, a microscope, an assortment of glass test tubes and vials, and Rebecca Brinell in her white lab coat, taking notes and taking no notice of me.
Major Johnson and two Marines followed the trail of Blaze’s blood to the closed door of a nearby conference room. According to the cameras, two people had entered and only one had left. The Marines opened the door and discovered the body of an Arvonian, who had committed suicide by ingesting poison.
Further along the North wall, more bookcases, with long desks in front of them and chairs haphazardly placed, as if someone had just stood up from them. Kip Cantorum, jeans, white T-shirt, long blond ponytail, is taking notes.
Major Johnson then declared that there must be a second Arvonian still on board the station, since Arvonian spies always work in pairs. He gave instructions to all personnel to activate their side arms for self defence; and to search for the spies’ shuttle, probably still connected to the base somewhere, and for the shuttle’s main ship, somewhere in the vicinity. This search to be the main focus of naval activity effective immediately.
And out we go into the hallway again, continuing North to the wide double door where the sign says G.I.F.T. Genetic Investigation and Facilitation Team… and yes, someone got paid to come up with this acronym too. This is where we used to go most of the times we went to City Hall: my mother used to know the people here, from her work at Crey Industries.
That led van Leigh and Aramond to call on Feil to scramble a fighter and search for the Arvonian shuttle; but the Fleet Captain countermanded the order.
The room looks more like a library than anything else, at first glance: to the left of the door, facing West, are five rows of tall bookcases, all of them full, and a chair with its back against the end of each bookcase. But if you go past them all, and walk along the last bookcase to the West wall, there is a door with its keypad lock. I have never been past that door.
The investigating security teams found a device planted by the Arvonians, clearly with a timer of some sort. Matsiyan attempted to disarm it, without success. The search for the remaining agent continued, and Matsiyan and I realised that hundreds, if not thousands, of Academy applicants would be arriving within hours, to make the search more complicated.