Although MI6 is charged with ensuring the safety of their country, it is good relations formed through years of nonjudgmental and respectful policies that really provides the best protection. This starts with having a government that is re-elected every four years, ensuring the cycle of meetings to maintain trust and respect occurs again and again. But, that being said, informing world leaders, quietly, about a threat that endangered everyone through technology could create a double edged sword. Technologically advanced countries knew their duty to ensure safe usage of that technology. Developing countries, or those reeling from economic recessions, brought an unbalanced element to this equation which kept MI6 busy. The most basic principal of being a spy is not to be detected at all. They knew that if they failed to follow this rule that it could cost them their lives and the lives of everyone they knew. Somewhere deep in Uzbekistan a research facility that had lain silent since the onset of the Cold War turned its lights on for the first time in twenty years. Men and equipment moved into the compound buried hundred of metres below ground. The heat signature instantly activated a satellite high above. With technological advances there wasn't much that happened without someone knowing about it. The real trick is setting this aside and investigating everything no matter how small. MI6 agents had noticed that the local bulletin boards in neighboring towns and villages in Sussex advertised for bilingual volunteers to participate in a study into how psychiatric medication affected linguistic performance and capability. The drug was supposed to improve oral skills. This seemed rather strange to Robert who had been sent to investigate. He had been chosen primary because of his linguistic ability in the regional dialect and his skin colour. With his ruddy cheeks and freckled complexion he looked as if he was a local villager.
He arrived by bus and saw the village was even smaller than it had looked on the map. Immediately he saw the poster advertising for volunteers in a prominent position in the post office window. He studied the poster for a few minutes until a grizzled old man came and stood next to him.
"They pay well but don’t trust them," he said, shaking his head as he took a long draw on his pipe.
“Why is that then?" asked Robert, curious about this unexpected reaction.
"Last time it was open people went in but never came out of that facility thing," replied the old man.
"Who’s the agent I’d need to contact to join up?" Robert asked.
“He’ll be in town this afternoon. He goes round the local villages with a big wad of cash and an armed guard,” the old man replied.
Thanking him, Robert went to get food from a nearby hot dog vendor while he waited. Some time later a man appeared in the market square with two uniformed armed guards. He did not recognise the insignia on their tunics but the pistols in their holsters were recognisable enough. The man they were escorting was chatting to passersby, asking them to come and work for him, and Robert noticed he focused his attentions particularly on young bilinguals with European accents. Robert strolled across the square casually and sure enough, the tall man approached him, hand outstretched to shake Roberts hand. Robert replied to his greeting in perfect French. He explained that his father was married to a Frenchwoman. This sharpened the agent’s interest. He asked in lots of questions some of which seemed to be health checks and some general background information gathering. Eventually he nodded his head and offered Robert a job. He was very vague about what the job actually was but offered Robert a retainer as he took a wad of cash out and put it in Roberts’s hand. Robert played the part of a greedy but unquestioning local as best he could, allowing his eyes to widen at the sight of the money, and agreeing to take the job after a few token questions. The guards politely escorted him to a truck containing five other people. The guards were not soldiers but hired security dressed in peacock blue uniforms. They looked full of self importance and from their monosyllabic replies to Roberts innocently probing questions he deduced that they were not very bright. Robert and the other five passengers sat in the van in uneasy silence for about an hour while the agent continued his hunt for other language proficient speakers but eventually the van started up and pulled away. They drove for about three quarters of an hour before the van pulled in and Robert got his first glimpse the facility building. It was not much bigger than a large house and set in large heavily fenced grounds. They had entered through an electronic gate and parked in front of a large cargo bay. Roller shutters slid open at the press of a button to reveal a large lift. As they climbed from the van, stretching their legs in gratitude after the long wait, another van pulled up and at least ten people got out. Everyone was loaded into the lift before the shutters came down. Roberts’s instincts were telling him to run, his gut broadcasting that it felt danger. He ignored it; he had a job to complete. His eyes began to adjust as the lift moved quickly downwards and the bright lights dimmed down a little. Robert was trying to count how many floors they descended but the guard was covering the lift buttons with his body. The lift finally shuddered to a halt and the rollers went up. He saw a number coded door directly across the corridor. Beckoning the passengers to follow him the guard punched in a code and the door opened although the alarm sounded. The guard went through the door and punched a number into the panel on the other side as he signaled to the CCTV camera watching him. Robert was grateful that this stopped the clamoring bell. The recruits were escorted to a large food hall where they were offered meals. The food was European and this got Roberts grey matter working; his employers must also be European and they wanted European bilinguals. Robert sat at a table with his fellow travelers from the van. They looked rather daunted and conversation did not flow. As soon as they had eaten men in white coats came into the hall and singled out individuals by name. As each name was called the owner followed the white coated escorts through the canteens swinging double doors. Eventually it was Roberts turn. He was led through three sets of double doors into what appeared to be an interview and assessment room. It looked very much like his doctors surgery with its computer terminal and screen on a desk, two chairs and a stretcher in the corner just showing behind a discreet screen. A selection of sample bottles and swabs were on the desk alongside a clipboard. His interviewer was friendly and explained that he would be given some basic health checks before completing a questionnaire. Robert gave blood samples and had swabs taken from his mouth. The questionnaire was extensive but Robert had learnt to bend the truth but not completely break it. He knew he couldn’t get away undiscovered with lies about medical conditions and his family health history. Once he had completed the questionnaire he was x-rayed and taken through to another room containing a magnetic resonance machine. Now he was scared; he knew what these things could be used for and looked around carefully, attempting to see if the scanner was connected to the Internet. The doctor sensed his fear and offered him a glass of water which he drank slowly to delay the procedure. Then he remembered nothing. He woke up on a jail style bed, immediately noticing that his clothes were gone and that he was wearing a night gown. With relief he saw that his clothes were actually folded neatly over a chair in the corner of the room. He felt slightly lightheaded as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to get up. He didn’t know what they had done and this worried him. A pair of slippers lay on the floor at the end of the bed and he slipped them on before walking cautiously over to the door which he found unlocked, to his immense relief.
"Hello, you're awake then," an attractive woman wearing a nurse’s uniform bustled into the room just as he opened the door and before he had chance to leave.
"Yes. What happened?” asked Robert “One minute I was at that machine and the next I was here undressed,".
“You passed out. I’m sorry but we believe you are not suitable for this programme," replied the nurse as she measured his pulse, holding his wrist in a cool firm grip as she did so. Roberts face dropped, he needed to maintain his suitability if he was to snoop around. Shoulders bowed he s
tarted to dress. The nurse saw his disappointment and looked carefully at his file.
“There is some good news though; there may be another place you in the organization. John Paul Phillips will come and see you later today,” she smiled.
As soon as he was dressed the nurse led Robert out the small recovery unit. Doors lined the corridor they walked into and at each end he saw sets of double doors. He saw an MRI scanner through a partially glazed door as the nurse led him past and then they were in another corridor. He calculated that the canteen was one direction and office in the other. They passed more doors before his guess was proven correct. They were in the canteen. He had no idea what time it was or how long he had been unconscious or even what tests they had run on him but he would soon find out. The nurse asked him to wait in the canteen until he was contacted before leaving him in the bustling room. Robert immediately joined the queue for a meal; he was starving. As he looked around he saw that the people in the canteen were nearly all workers. There was only one other person in the canteen besides himself who he thought wasn’t a worker. The others all had small logo ‘Terra Domum Corporation’ on their uniforms. This was almost but not completely the same as the logos MI5 had found in the machine room where Max and the others had been found. Around him people were coming and going and he saw there were they were no clocks in the room. He waited for what seemed like an eternity before a short and rather sweaty man hurried towards him, pausing only to introduce himself as John Paul before launching into an explanation. He told Robert that they were short of porters who could work across various countries in medical facilities. John Paul very carefully explained that the work involved maintaining a high degree of security and he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the compounds he would be working in for up to three months at a at all and that breaking that rule would lead to death or imprisonment. Robert was aware that dodgy contractors or mercenaries often worked like this in the backwaters of the world. He also knew that they always explained the conditions and consequences and most people were fine about it as long as they were paid well, and were also fine about turning a blind eye to what was actually happening as long as they were paid very very well. Philip gave him a full tour of the building. He was to help out wherever he was required whether it be in the morgue, canteen, hospital wards or dealing with supplies. He wasn’t to be as much a porter as a labourer. Robert was delighted. It would give him an almost free run of the compound except for the restricted areas. There were two areas on the lower floor he that he would not be given access to. He was issued with a card key, an identity badge and codes for the main doors but noted that this apparent freedom was actually meaningless; there were guards everywhere. He had been shown through most of the compound now and seen nothing terribly out of the ordinary. He could quite easily have been in a completely legal facility. The rest of the day was spent being processed and settling into the accommodation found for him. There were fourteen floors all together, most of them underground which allowed the exterior of the building to maintain the illusion of being house sized. The bottom two floors were the ones he didn’t have access to and the next floor up contained store rooms for supplies. Communications and command were housed above that and the next six floors were designed as accommodation. Workers only had access to the floor they lived on. He was told the rest of the building was unused apart from two medical floors and was only shown round one of these as he was told his duties would not take him to the other one.
Tour completed, Robert settled down for the night. He was exhausted; it felt as if it had been a very long day since he had stepped from the bus in the village and he was tired from taking everything in. Before he could sleep though, there was work to do: he took out his belt and undid the buckle which contained a small microphone. There was no signal when he turned it on as he was several floors below ground level. He would have to get to the surface to contact his support team and let them know what was happening. Robert read through the list of duties that he needed to perform every day; the command and control offices needed to be cleaned and the officers and senior management needed their teas and mid morning snacks on a daily basis. He would pick an internal radio up in the morning so that he could be given direct instructions whenever needed. Robert needed a full plan of the facility so that he could access it all. He decided to check out the ventilation shafts and, looking round the meagerly furnished room and saw there was an air duct in the ceiling. One of the unused floors must house some sort of air conditioning or engineering workshops he thought. The shaft wasn’t big enough to get inside or use to move around the complex but the duct in the catering hall and possibly the one in the supply floor may be big enough. He decided he would check the next day and see what other intelligence turned up.
As morning dawned Robert woke and made his way to the command floor. He had a cleaning trolley which he planned to use to hide anything he found that might be useful. He was happy to find that he was free to move from office to office, cleaning and observing as he went. The command floor was mainly open plan with the exception of a row of long offices to one side of the large square expanse. These were the meeting rooms, relics of the cold war. He had cleaned the first two, which clearly hadn’t been used for years, before Philips came in and asked him to dispose of old paperwork in the offices. He explained that there were thirty or so box files in each office containing paperwork that was now ready to archive. He was told to take them to the storage floor. Robert emptied his cleaning trolley and slowly filled it up with the box files, playing close attention to their contents which were mostly mindless data that he didn’t understand. He spent a lot of time taking files from the third office and was getting quite a work out in the process before he found something he thought might be useful. It was an old fire plan showing emergency escape routes. It showed that there was another set of stairs to all the floors behind a security door. There were no cameras on those stairs but Robert thought that they must have been fitted later. The doors were connected to the fire alarm system which must be tested at some point. That would give him an opportunity to snoop around. Better still, he found a map with the layout of each floor. He had the air conditioning plans, maintance logs and maps of everything he might need and would study them later when there was no chance of getting caught.