Chapter 3 - The Breach Protocol
I crouched lower into the damp forest brush, watching the security feed as Ryan and his cousins carried heavy power tools down my basement stairs.
They thought they were breaking into a wealthy relative's hidden vault filled with cash, jewelry, and expensive heirlooms.
They were actually breaching a federally protected secure compartment facility that I used for classified remote briefings.
I immediately initiated a silent lockdown protocol from my phone, engaging the secondary magnetic deadbolts on the vault door.
Sparks flew across the basement camera feed as Ryan's industrial drill bit violently snapped against the reinforced titanium plating.
Ryan threw the broken drill across the room in a furious rage, completely unaware that he had just committed a federal felony.
He pulled out his phone and started live-streaming the basement door to his thousands of online followers, claiming he had found a secret government bunker.
My command center radioed me, their voices tight with urgency, warning that Ryan's live stream was exposing classified structural schematics to the public.
I requested immediate authorization to engage the targets and secure the facility using non-lethal tactical force.
The general denied my request, stating that local law enforcement had primary jurisdiction and a federal strike team was still forty minutes away.
I knew that in forty minutes, Ryan and his idiot friends could accidentally trigger the thermite fail-safe and burn my entire house to the ground.
I decided to take matters into my own hands, moving like a ghost through the dense pine trees toward the rear perimeter of my property.
I scaled the wooden trellis leading to the second-floor balcony, avoiding the motion sensors I had personally installed.
I slipped through the master bedroom window and immediately smelled the overwhelming stench of cheap perfume and stale cigarette smoke.
They had completely trashed my sacred space, leaving empty liquor bottles and dirty clothes scattered across my expensive hardwood floors.
I accessed the master control panel hidden behind my bedroom mirror and disabled the internal cameras to mask my movements.
I heard heavy, deliberate footsteps echoing down the hallway, far too disciplined to be one of Ryan's drunk relatives.
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I pressed myself flat against the wall, drawing my tactical combat knife just as the bedroom door slowly creaked open.
A man wearing a tactical vest and night-vision goggles stepped into the room, holding an illegal, fully silenced submachine gun.
