"Mr. President?"
Someone was calling me out, but I was having trouble lifting my head to have a look. Right at this moment, the top of the desk was the most comfortable place in the universe. I was tired from all the work yesterday in the dark office; I hoped that there wasn't anything important and tried to get back to sleep.
"Mr. President!"
The person seemed to be persistent, so I had to wake up.
"Pro-professor?"
"Good morning, sir. Sorry to wake you up."
"No, no, it's alright." I said, yawning and stretching. "Which day is it?"
"The fifth." he said.
"Which means..." I said. "Three days to go, including today.... right?"
"About that..." said the professor. "That's actually why I'm here."
"Huh?"
"According to our knowledge on the AI probes' detection capabilities, it should be safe to restart our machinery and get back to work now." he said. "We no longer need to continue the blackout, but as the president, it is your call."
"If I was commanding a military base, I would have us wait two more days just to be safe..." I said and sighed. "But we are talking about a city here. The sooner we lift the blackout, the less pressure we will put on people."
"On the other hand..." said the professor. "Since we are dealing with a civilian population with children and everything, you might choose to be more careful."
"Yes, there is that factor too." I said. "Technically, how long can we continue a blackout for, using our current stocks?"
"Not more than a month before we run out of either clean air or food." said the professor. "Estimations are very close on which would happen first."
"I see." I said. "Hmm... I think that we will only partially lift the blackout. Start up the power generators and converters for essential operations like food production and water purification, but keep the industrial production centers and luxury services closed."
"Sensible." the professor agreed with a nod.
"We will get back to normal after waiting for two more days."
"Alright, that will be all for now, then."
Just when the professor was about to leave my office, a single gunshot was heard in the distance. It was distant enough to not cause immediate panic, but close enough to make us both uncomfortable. I told the professor not to go out, so he silently closed and locked the office's door.
Only a few moments later, someone knocked on the door. From the sounds, I could understand that there were at least three people behind the door.
"Come here." I whispered the professor. "I want you to shout out this word..."
"I'm listening."
"Granite."
"I shout this out?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Granite!"
"Terracotta!" we were replied from behind the door. I unlocked the door using the secret button on my desk, and four guards rushed in.
"Mr. President, are you alright?" one of them asked.
"I am." I said. "What is going on?"
"We don't know, but another team is looking into it." they said. "We are here to protect you and the profess- Hold on, there are news from the other team."
I waited for the guard to finish talking to the commander of the other team.
"What is it?"
"Sir, the second team found one of our guards dead in the main entrance." he said. "Single bullet to the chest. There seems to be no leads yet to point to the attacker, other than the bullet itself. They are locking up the whole government section."
"Create defensive perimeters to protect all staff and form search parties to look for the attacker." I ordered. "Do not give permission to any spacecraft departures. I want the whole site searched. If the attacker failed to run, he will be around."
"Yes, sir." said the guard in command. "Let's move."
Two guards stayed with us in the room, the other two walked out to defend a larger area. They would soon be joined by some other guards that were previously spread across the government site.
"What a crazy world it is down here." said the professor. "Sometimes even Lodos made me feel safer."
"Things happen." I said. "I'm just curious what the attacker was thinking when they attacked a guard and ran away."
"Maybe they were planning to attack you but failed to infiltrate the site?" the professor suggested.
"Maybe." I said. "Maybe not. We won't know until they are found."
The guards started searching around the government site to find the attacker. Few teams worked synchronously to give the attacker no place to run or hide. However, even after a long operation, the attacker wasn't found. Despite that, the news were interesting.
"Mr. President, our security system has been breached." the commanding guard contacted me. "Security logs and recordings have been erased, even the backups. I say that whoever planned the assault knew their way around here."
"Be extra cautious then." I said. "I wasn't worried until now, but this looks a bit too good to be an act of protest. Is there anything else that might help us?"
"I'm not sure..." said the commander.
"The bullet." I said. "I want the corpse and the bullet to be safely transported to a lab and inspected."
"Yes, sir." he said, and closed the channel. Subsequently, another channel opened.
"Mr. President?"
"Admiral Mei?" I said. "How can I help you?"
"It is the commander." she said.
"It is the- Wait, wh- what is the commander? What are you talking about?" I was baffled.
"The attacker." she said. "He is the commander of the government site guards. Trust me on this."
"Wh-wait, how do you know all that?" I asked. "News about the incident were not even made public yet!"
"Arrest. Him." said the admiral, almost in a threatening manner. "One of the cargo ship captains in our fleet made some confessions to me, including some criminal activities. It involves your guards. Arrest the commander now, I will give more details later."
With a pale face, I slowly closed the communications channel. I couldn't guess the relationship between a cargo ship captain and our guards, but if the admiral knew about the incident down here without us telling her, it meant that there was something weird going on.
"What did she tell you?" the professor asked me, worriedly. I didn't answer him, and contacted the commander of the guard force.
"Commander, please report to my office ASAP. I have a new mission for you."
"Yes, sir." he said, seemingly without noticing anything odd. A few minutes later, he was in the office with three other guards in total.
"Please close the door, this is a secret mission." I said.
After the door was closed, I pressed the button on my desk and locked the door. Then I stood up and walked to his side.
"Give me your sidearm."
"Ex... cuse me?" the commander was confused.
"Your sidearm." I repeated. "I want to have a look at it."