Emergency strobes wash the corporate headquarters in red as employees stream through the lobby, a mixed group of young and middle-aged men and women in office shirts, blouses, and dark trousers or skirts. Bishop braces a buckled security door, his charcoal-gray suit straining while something powerful pounds from beyond it.
Bishop
Keep moving! Do not stop in the lobby. The door will hold, but I will not.
The fleeing employees clutch badges and phones, glancing back toward the armed vigilante and the shattered reception kiosks. Their fear is real, but their panic seems strangely selective.
Bishop
You have made your point. Whatever your power showed you, forcing people together is not saving them.
Beyond the glass walls, two executives stand motionless beside a conference-room table, a middle-aged woman and a middle-aged man in tailored charcoal suits, with neat hair and rigid, pale faces, ignoring the evacuation alarm. Their hands remain clasped, their eyes fixed on each other.
Bishop
And now nobody leaves until you finish this intervention? That sounds less like guidance and more like a hostage situation.
The pressure against the door abruptly stops. In the silence, a hidden speaker clicks on, and a calm corporate voice begins counting down from ten.
Stop the countdown
Rescue the executives