Crisis at the Conference

I was now Brian Rogers, a freelance journalist. My credentials and everything held. Mindy did really good work.

I sipped my coffee at a charming café in the heart of Geneva, Switzerland. My new persona would be working on a story about the upcoming UN conference; that was my cover for being here.

I soon finished my meal and left the building. It was time to head over to the UN building to stake the place out.

Fifteen minutes later I found myself approaching the UN building to investigate further. Mindy had coached me on how to go about this so I immediately went with her plan.

I headed straight for the surveillance room and knocked on the door. I waited only a moment before the door opened and then I smiled at the uniformed man, who was frowning at me, and flashed him my ID.

"Hey there, I'm Brian, Washington Post," I said, introducing myself. "We made a call and arranged for an interview to go over how paramount security has always been for past UN events so… can I come in?"

I pretended to be chipper, all the while worried if Mindy's plan would work. What if they had called the real Washington Post and found out Mindy's call was a trick. But all my worries died as he stepped aside and let me in.

I held up several paper bags of McDonalds and KFCs. "I brought food," I said to the room of fifteen security officers.

It was another piece of advice from Mindy and I got to see it work like magic. The food disappeared from my hands and soon the bags had made the rounds across the room before ending up back in my hands, leaving me with only one cheese burger.

I smiled and accepted it and we all sat down to eat and chat. I began to grill them like a professional journalist, using questions Mindy had provided.

They were simple questions that in no way compromised the security of the building or event so the officers freely answered. Unnoticed by them, I took every moment of opportunity to look at the surveillance monitors.

I spent three hours with them as we ate and chatted and memorized the layout and blueprint of the building. That was the only good that came out of this though, aside also learning how the security forces responded to different threats. But for the reason I was doing this, which was to catch anyone planting a bomb or deleting a CCTV footage, I failed.

Soon I was out of questions and as I prepared to leave, I had one final question. This one was mine.

"Now, if you had heard a rumor about a security threat to the upcoming event, say a bomb threat. How would you go about countering it?" I saw them exchange looks that made me barely withhold a wince. Maybe O shouldn't have asked that.

They did their best to assure me that such a thing was impossible while exchanging secret looks they thought I didn't notice. I soon left and did my best to hurry out of the building. I didn't know why they were spooked by my question, but it was probably because the question had made them realize how suspicious my entire set up of an interview was and come to the wrong conclusion.

I stepped outside of the building to the sound of sirens, confirming that the officers had indeed arrived at the wrong conclusion.

I did my best to fight my instincts to flee as the policemen walked up to me. I groaned but kept my mouth shut as I was read my rights, cuffed, and escorted into their car.

*

I found myself now sitting in a police station cuffed. The only silver lining was that I was at least not in a cell and had been fed. But I could not stay here any longer. The UN meeting was to begin soon and after that the bombings would start. I had all the info but even the police were not taking me seriously.

I sincerely wished I had a way out of here, pouring all my frustration and fear into her wish. A futuristic laser pen appeared in my hands. I blinked in shock. It wasn't exactly a key but it would do. I adjusted my hands to hold it properly and clicked the cap. I activated it and used the contained laser to carefully get rid of my handcuffs.

I looked around the nearly empty cubicles. It was too soon after lunch break so a lot of policemen and detectives were still out. I managed to sneak out of the police station and return to the UN building without conjuring anything else.

I arrived in a cab and was just stepping out when a resounding explosion took off the highest floor of the UN building. The first bomb just went off, I realized, destroying the uppermost floor and there were three more to go.

I sprinted in haste towards the building as a crowd began to troop out of it. I navigated my way through the throngs, heading inside the building.

"Sophia is still in there. She's on the next floor. Oh god, what if she's trapped under some rubble," I heard a guy to my left lamenting to his friend.

If Sophia had been there then the last thing he should be worried about was she trapped under some rubble, I thought, whoever Sophia was.

Still I rushed into the building. Even if I couldn't save Sophia, I could save the others. I gained access to the building after a lot of shoving and tried the elevator but it was damaged so I took the stairs. I hurried to the tenth floor and it was a disheartening sight. A huge part of the uppermost floor has collapsed down into it.

I went searching the offices still standing and found someone in the third office I checked. She was wearing a pristine white suit, had the look of a woman in her early thirties and an air of professionality oozed from her. She was a beautiful, petite redhead, and I found myself captivated for a while before I regained myself and rushed to her.

I came to a halt though when I found her looking at a bomb inside an air conditioning unit that had been disassembled, probably by her.

She noticed me and her eyes widened. "What are you doing! Hurry, go get help! Tell them I heard the beeping and found the bomb."

I looked at her in askance then looked at the bomb. "Why don't you get away from that," I told her. If I could get her out of this room then she could help me evacuate this floor.

She shook her head. "I can't," she refused vehemently and pointed at the bomb. "There's only two minutes left."

"All the more reason for you to get away from this place!" I yelled at her, wondering how stupid she was.

Her nostrils practically flared as she glared at me. "I'm not leaving until this is taken care of."

We yelled at each other for a few seconds before I realized that should we continue this the bomb would go off. She brought out her phone and made a call to the police telling them about the bomb. I moved closer to her to see the bomb as she spoke on the phone.

"Yes, there's a bomb. What do you mean am I being serious? I can't do that as there are about a hundred people on this floor, some trapped under debris from the collapse of the 11th floor. So you were told earlier that there might be a bomb? Why didn't you do something about it? My god, I can believe this," she said and he scoffed, remembering that he'd been the one to warn the police and they didn't believe him. She soon hung up and looked at him after arguing with the police for a while. "They asked me to evacuate the building as quickly as I could. I told them that was impossible. We need to get the people here out."

I shook my head and pointed at the bomb. We were all going to die as the bomb was now 01:05. She gasped and looked around frantically as if a solution would materialize out of thin air.

It just might but I didn't know what from my powers could solve this, I thought in frustration as I looked at the panoramic view windows in the office and saw that there was an infinity pool about a hundred meters away.

I had an idea immediately, a mad one.

I leaned down and grabbed the bomb, rushed to the window and tried to break it with a frontal kick to no avail. Remembering the futuristic laser pen my powers had provided me with, I brought it out and activated it. Carefully, I brought it to the window and used it to cut a seven feet tall square hole in the glass. The glass fell down the building in a crash. I lifted the bomb and, through the hole, threw it down into the pool as fast and accurately as I could, then I rushed over to the girl and pushed her down to duck, holding on to her just as the bomb went off in the air before falling into the pool. The concussive blast from the explosion shattered the glass windows of the building and I used my body to protect the UN lady from the shards.

Groaning, I looked down at her and saw her looking up at me from the floor, as I covered her with my body, her visage overwhelmed with awe.