Working Day (Carnyveil)

A few days passed since the incident in New Orleans. Most of Bliss' thoughts stayed outside of what occurred on that night, but she still retained the cache of information in her lab. The tear of duct tape ripped off and wrapped around a cooling pipe to maintain the air flow from a cooling duct to a computer server Bliss just put together. Wearing a pair of jean shorts with a green T-shirt, the CEO of Bliss Co took her own leisure when it came to the level of comfort she decided to work with. The heat of Palo Alto itself would call for casual dress alone, let alone the heat off take of a server complex she just put together.

The building itself only hosted a work staff of eighteen people. Thee people worked under Ashley in the business office taking care of the face of the company, six coders worked on the infrastructure of the code Bliss put together, four people managed the hardware maintenance of the servers, and the other five people consisted of Bliss and the rest of the team she kept on staff for meta human activities.

One being Abby, the red headed girl with a talent for being invisible when she needed to be. And, who could keep Bliss' schedule on par when Bliss forgot about any kind of meeting. Spinning in a swivel chair in the corner of the room, Abby continued to kick her legs to further propel motion. She wore a pair of chucks with a pair of torn jeans and a pink V neck, half sleeve shirt.

"Stop that." Bliss pulled a circuit out of one of the servers and tightened a screw.

"What else can I do? There's no one for me to spy on. You don't need help. You won't let me go home." Abby drug her feet to a stop.

"Just be quiet."

While Bliss continued on her work, Ashley would eventually make her way in wearing slacks and a blue blouse. "Have you looked through those files yet?"

"No." Bliss put the circuit back into the server. "I have not." Pushing the wire back into the breaker, Bliss turned from her work and faced Ashley. "I have more important things to do."

"I think this might be fairly important." Ashley followed Bliss on her way back to the tool chest.

"Pretend I'm not here." Abby would slowly fade from sight.

Even without sight on her, Bliss managed to grab Abby by the shoulder. "Abby, make yourself useful, look through those files."

"But, I don't-"

"Know how to read? Your people invented the language. Get to it." Bliss would turn her back to Ashley and Abby, heading back to her supercomputer for a little last minute touch up.

Ghost was outside in a shadow watching through a window with a bundle full of rope and a couple of gags. He phased through silently into the back of the room careful not to be to loud and trying to be silent as possible. He looked around the room carefully as he thought

Interesting, I could wreck her business and a dire threat I must say to her...all more useful to get rid of though files.

"If you think that's best, the girls up front probably need some help." Ashley turned and walked back into the hallway leading to the lobby.

"Think she's mad?" The file opened with a number of dust particles spreading about the room.

"Probably, but I have taken off too much time fighting cults and shadow people. I need to get these servers up to keep the- you don't actually know what I'm talking about, so I won't bore you."

"Too late." Abby took a gaze through the files, finding some oddities, but nothing she could really put together. "What am I looking for?"

"Something odd. Something about ghosts. You know, boring stuff." Bliss bit back on the insult she wanted to throw across the room.

"It talks about chemicals. And results. And this is getting kinda morbid." Abby spun around to face the direction Bliss occupied herself with.

"Hmm?" Bliss walked away from her machine and grabbed the roll of tape, spreading a strip to wrap up a bundle of wires. "Morbid?"

Ghost slowly started to move . Using his shadow travel when possible. He goes toward the light switch of the room, trying to be as stealthy as possible. When he gets there he flicks it off and begins to use his shadow travel.

Mean while he thinks Just need to get to that girls computer and delete thoughs files. So we will start with the light and let darkness embrace the room...soon to be my room.

The lights switched off, casting the room in darkness. "You pulled too much power Bliss." Abby put the folders on the table while she started to dig through the desk for a flashlight.

"I didn't pull anything. The server isn't even pulling an overload yet." Bliss waited for Abby to grab the flashlight, not thinking the outage could come from something as simple as the light switch. Bliss grabbed the flashlight from Abby's hand and shined it over to the rows of servers she just installed. "Just sit tight and I'll fix this."

Moving through the darkness of the situation, Bliss stayed focused on getting back to her servers. Reaching down, she pulled the plug on the server. The hum of the machine died down. "Abby, check the breaker now." Walking back towards the desk, Bliss kept the light focused over Abby's shoulder to give her light to switch the breaker.

"Not working." Throwing the switch back and forth two times, the lights still remained out. Abby turned back as Bliss came back to the desk. "There's still lights in the hall."

"Okay, so we just lost power in this room." Testing her hypothesis, Bliss touched the mouse connected to the computer gently. The screen popped on, drawing the attention of both the women. "Did someone just flip the switch on the lights. I will be so pissed if I did all this and someone accidentally turned the lights off." To be honest, no one accidentally shut the lights off.

While they were both distracted he would try and grab Abby from behind and around the mouth (like to cover it) and around the waist. He would phase with her and walk through the wall to the outside. He would hold her there until she went out from his power (if you need a refresher, his touch slowly puts you to sleep and is icy cold.)

If he missed he would phase into two building next to this one where his real body was and let his soul leave. the black bodies eyes would stop glowing white and fall over in a heap as the blue orb enters his real one which stands up in a repair man suit for electrical wire & appliances.

After tracing back the source to something other than the breaker or her servers, Bliss put her light on the wall source. The last thing always became the most simple. While Bliss made her way across the room, a cold shock would go down Abby's back. She opened her mouth to gape at the sudden shock, but she only muffled into a cold hand. Her eyes grew heavy and without much reprieve to her struggle. After dissipating through the wall, Abby would away from consciousness, slumping to the ground.

Bliss hit the switch and the lights came back without much delay. "Someone must have hit the lights. Abby what were you saying about those files?" A mystery surfaced all over again with the disappearance of Abby. A quick sliding of her finger put the flashlight off. "Abby?" Bliss walked over to the desk and picked up the folders. Looking over her shoulder, Bliss would try to survey the room to see if she could make out where Abby went off to. The side door looked inactive for the past few minutes. No sign of her by the servers. "I guess she is getting paid for working today then." Bliss flipped through the folders, pulling out one of the pieces and looking it over with some interest. "Morbid indeed."

Not wanting Abby to get away with sneaking out in the darkness, Bliss would reach to pick up the in business land line and begin to reach out to dial Ashley's extension.

After she went out he would cut part of the rope (not a weapon!) with a small swiss army knive and tied her arms and legs together. He quickly took out the phone when it rang and crushed it. After that he threw her in a dumpster and closed the lid. He then went in phasing through the wall, he then trys to grabbed Bliss from behind with both hands around the mouth while she was distracted with the phone.

He thinks while doing this Easy as pie and...THE PHONE! Forgot the phone oh no. Ok get rid of it...quickly dump her and rush in and there is she, grab her and then we can gag her and get the files and then get out of her life...need to fix my run on thoughts.

Bliss dialed the extension number and waited for the ring to go through. "Come on, pick up." While Bliss held the phone to her ear, she freed up her hands to grab the folder. She breezed through a few dates to try and start putting together a running chronicle of when these events took place. A few years from the looks of it. Each year progressed and showed some marked response in the results they got. Then she read through the results of these experiments. The powers looked familiar to the man she faced in New Orleans. His power came from these experiments for sure, but what did he want the files for? Was he searching for his origin- or searching for his future.

"Bliss?"

"Ashley could you look for Abby for me? She went off somewhere." While Bliss continued to look through the files, she felt the cold hands accost her mouth, keeping her quiet as her strength began to sap. Again the familiar agent came, but Bliss decided to put up a fight against him. She grabbed her folders and pushed them towards the internal mail drop off. A suction tube would pull a few of the documents within the folder into the tube, sending them towards the Ashley's office. Bliss threw an elbow behind her to try and fight Ghost off, but she could feel herself going cold. Bliss turned to look at her attacker. The only thing not covered in white orbs- his haunting white eyes, and a rolled up rope.

"Yeah, I'll make sure Abby isn't hiding somewhere, thought it might take some time if she's invisible. Alright Bliss, take care." A moment hung on at the end. "Bliss? Bliss?" More time passed as Bliss felt her strength sap. "Can't even hang up. Great Bliss, thanks."

You feel something hard when you elbow him but now the only thing touching is his fingers on her face as he is pushed a little bit back just by that force. Though he trys to come in again to improve his almost lost grip. You see on his face just his glowing white eyes and a pure black mask. There's no hole for mouth and no pushing on the mask to reveal a nose or ears. If you take a better look hes covered in black. His chest has a m16 pressed tightly against him with some pockets and his belt is covered with them. You see a glint around his ankles, probally something shiny from the light and its something metallic.

Thats surprising, dosn't matter, she will soon be asleep. He thinks as he stares directly into her eyes.

Bliss could hear the voice on the other end of the phone, but could do nothing to make contact with it. She tried to pry herself free, but could only flail as she finally stopped her fight and fell back. The white orbs continued to move around her eyes. Their presence almost hypnotic in their trance. Breathing became easier somehow. Less frantic. More controlled. Bliss felt her head go back and her body go limp. Right into the hands of the Ghost who stalked her back to Palo Alto to steal her information.

On the other side of the building, Ashley's office took a special delivery. A number of documents fell into her tray for outgoing mail. The documents hit the tray but no one heard. They made an impact, but no one saw. Running errands through the office, Ashley stayed on the lookout for Abby, never thinking to look for her in the dumpster behind the building. "Have any of you seen Abby?" Some nods of negative approval came form the coders. "Is Abby around?" The hardware maintenance team saw her a few hours ago, but did not know where she went off to. "Did Abby checkout early?" The lobbyist behind the desk nodded no while she continued to take her call.

Ashley finished her rounds and sat back at her desk. The documents from the folders snug behind her. She picked up the phone to call Bliss, but put it down. A call would go no where if Abby did not pick it up. With Bliss building hardware, no way would she break off to pick it up. Ashley just decided to go back and check herself. Walking past the documents of the origin of Ghost, Ashley walked into the hallway and started to go towards the server room.

Ghost put her down gently after gagging her and wrapping her up to her own chair in the remainder of rope as he quickly went to shut the door and lock it then turned the lights off. He then began to look around the room and watched the tubing until it disappeared into a wall. He then turned light blue, poked his head through to make sure no one was there and if there wasn't stepped right through.

Meanwhile, his brain thought Had to be mail...the oldest trick in the book again. Reminds me of Operation: Liquor.  But lets just make sure she's cozy, make sure that they think she left. Then follow the tubing to the objective. The files. He thought with bored coldness.

Ashley pushed the door to the server room to try and force it open. At first the door refused to budge. Ashley knocked once. "Bliss?" Enough of this attitude of Bliss'. Ashley could do better without the attitude Bliss threw out, but still, Ashley knew Bliss took in a great deal of stress since coming back from Egypt and then going through her confrontation with the Ghost. Knocking once more would really do nothing. Ashley wrote a note asking Bliss to call her and slid it under the door.

After the note took place, Ashley would return to her office. Placing herself down in her seat, Ashley would grab the tray and bring it to herself. An inquiry for more funds came in at the top of the list. Ashley looked it over before thinking of sending it to Bliss. "Bliss can call when I approve it then." And with that a quick approval went over the top of the page and Ashley put it in the outgoing mail box. "What's this?" Ashley started looking over the documents. "These are from the files? Why did Bliss send them to me?" Ashley made a quick copy of them to her computer before sending it to the internal system. She pulled the hard documents and put them next to her computer. She would retain the hard copies herself, but the copies would go into the internal system of the infrastructure for the command staff of the Bliss Force to look over.

Bliss started to come back to reality. She struggled to try and pull her hands apart, feeling the tightness of the rope binding her in place. Ropes wrapped her legs and arms up to the chair, keeping her from contesting her freedom and putting her into a stressful situation. "Mppphhh." Bliss chewed on the gag in her mouth, trying to get enough sound to try and send a message of warning and a need for assistance all in one. None of the message made it further than Bliss's gag though.

Ghost continued that same tactic until he arrived at Ashley's office. When he got there he phased through and remained phased except for his hands that went to grab the folder, phases his hand with the folder, and phases through the walls on the same pathway to bliss where if she still remained in the chair roped up nice and tight. He would go over to the computer search for her company files and began to delete them. Then say "Don't. Bother. Ghost." and disappears into the wall where dumpster abby is there and continues to make his escape through there.

If she isn't tied up then he just remains phased until he passes through her, the wall, and the next building. Then keeps on running. His thoughts in the mean time Do do do da da da me me...Ah there it is, Lets just grab it and make the run.

Back in her office, away from the calamity consuming the office, Ashley continued to work away. The folder files she copied vanished from under her nose- or it would seem. A ring came from Ashley's phone. A graceful answer begged the meaning, but the meaning made no sense. "No, no one should be deleting those files. Back them up." Before the head of the phone touched down, Ashley felt a revelation come over her. "Damn." Pushing back from her desk, Ashley exited the room with some haste, grabbing a fire extinguisher on her way down the hall.

Bliss grew restless. She flailed back and forth for a few moments before realizing her career as an escape artist would not save her. Falling back on the good stuff, Bliss levitated a pair of scissors from the desk over to her hands. Cutting the ropes quickly did not seem like an option, but Bliss would still try to saw her way through the ropes as Ghost made his way back into the room. Bliss narrowed her eyes towards his arrival and met him with a slew of curses he would never get to hear. Then, he entered her computer. "Mpphhh!" One by one he went down the list of files, deleting what he deemed fit.

A bang came on the door, but not the center, the handle. Another. And another, followed by a blast of energy forcing the door. Ashley erupted into the room to see a pleased look on Bliss turn to a look of annoyance. "Don't worry, Bliss." A telekinetic grab pulled the gag down from around Bliss' mouth. "You're not hiding anything from us now Ghost." The lights turned on and the fire extinguisher shot out to coat Ghost with the sticky residue, keeping him in Ashley's array. To save the files, Ashley pulled the plug on the computer he pilfered through before he could finish his entire deletion of their files.

Back in the alley, Abby started to come back to life. Horrible conditions and an inability to change those problems proved troublesome, but Abby went to work pressing her hands against the side of the dumpster. After a couple of attempts, Ashley would eventually break her hands loose from the ropes, giving her just enough room to move her arms to pull the gag off and work the ropes off of her arms and legs. Freed from her smelly dungeon, Abby would break loose from the alley and make her return to the server room. "The guy from the folder is here!"

"We know." Bliss and Ashley would say in unison, Bliss still tied tightly to her chair.