Bryan's Office.

When we got into Bryan's office, we found both Gregg and Elisabeth in there with him. The three of them are on a different team than Kat and I, but still we felt as if we'd been left out of something. They'd been in here for hours talking and finding out whatever there was to find out, and we were out there, in the dark. At least, I know I did. It's not that we didn't get along with them, our worlds just didn't intersect that often.

Bryan was behind his desk, Elisabeth sitting on the end of his desk, and Gregg was sitting in one of the chairs off to the side. The overhead light was off, but he had his lamp on. The whole scene as I look at it now reminds me of those back room scenes in mobster movies. All we needed was a strip club out front and a fog of cigar smoke in the cramped office. Oh, and for the guys to be in suits and the chicas in low-cut sequined dresses. Well, at least there was smoke. Gregg was a good one for taking four or five cigarette breaks in any given day, and he was puffing away when we went in there, even though this was a No Smoking building.

"Hey, guys," Elisabeth looked up, startled at our abrupt appearance. "I didn't know you two were still here," Bryan followed. "Where've you been?"

"Way to watch out for the team," Kat chided. "Geeze, we could've been killed and you wouldn't have even noticed." Normally, a comment like that would have elicted at least a few chuckles, but a grim silence met it this time.

"Well, it's not like we were gonna go out for a walk. So, any news?" I asked him, nodding to the computer monitor.

"Nah, well, yeah. But it's spotty. All the sites have these emergency home pages now, and CNN and Excite are down altogether. Whatever it is, it's not just here. I got an email from my brother in New York a few hours ago. He didn't say much, he was asking me what I'd heard like it was the blackout again. Mentioned the fog and the explosions, but not much more. I replied, but... nothing."

"CNN has a quick blurb advising of a fog alert and warning people to stay indoors and not approach strangers and that they are getting scattered reports of violence from various places. But it hasn't been updated in, like, two hours. To be honest, we stopped looking. What's going on out there?"

It was actually pretty peaceful in here. In here you could almost pretend none of it was real. We told them what we'd seen. Eventually, everyone decided we'd stay the night, see what the morning brough. Everyone kept their cell phones on, we double-triple-checked the doors were locked and holed up in the offices along the wall with Bryan's and Sharon's. Kat and I wound up here. It is almost peaceful and quiet now. Maybe when we wake up tomorrow, everything will be back to normal and we can find out what the hell happened. Maybe.