The thing about having a job within the government, was it never really ended. It was a truth universally accepted that government employees are overworked and underpaid, in every country. And so it continued to ring true for one Olivia Grayson. She had been at work 12 hours now. An emergency the night before tripped an alarm at 2am that morning, prompting them to call her. After dealing with the situation, she tried to look as presentable as possible for the meetings she would be sitting through until 5 in the evening, before going to dinner with some representatives of the anti-terrorism unit. Overall, it was shaping up to be one of the worst days in a very long time. This type of devotion to her job was coming out of nothing but sheer annoyance with those who wished her to quit.

Ever since that awkward meeting in her office when the elusive MI6 agent scared off the bureaucrat three months ago, life had been getting more complicated and a lot less easy. She had no solid proof, but when she complained about how things were spiraling at the office for one reason or another to her blond friend, his face took on a peculiar expression. That alone was enough to make her nervous, but the other happenings only ramped up that anxiety.

Twirling her pen as the thoughts swirled in her brain, she was completely conscious of the fact this meeting was something she should most certainly be paying attention to. However, her brain could scarcely focus on anything but the conundrum that was Project Olympus. Just as she was getting around to tuning back in to the presentation at hand, she felt the buzz from her phone which was in her pants back pocket. Placing her pen on her open note page, she tried to gracefully extract the thing from her pocket.

Eyes flickering up to the PowerPoint slide on the screen at the front of the room she nodded as if paying attention before sliding her eyes down to the phone on her left thigh.

One new messaged from: Unknown

Her eyebrows twitched in confusion and curiosity. This was her personal cell, very few people had the number. Biting her lip, she shifted her eyes back up for a moment while her fingers slide across her lock screen and thumb print unlocked the device. Pretending to scribble a note in her book while nodding, her eyes darted down below the table, the text message application open.

I warned you more than once Miss. Grayson. This is on you.

Olivia froze, her whole body coming to a screeching halt. Her mind ran through every possibility. Every contingency of how this could be connected to the odd happenings at the office and her flat. She thought about the prickle at the back of her neck, the feeling of being watched she never mentioned to James. The uptick in outsiders in her office, a million and one innocuous things that just became very, very dangerous. Her mind went to the threats made about Project Olympus. She knew that there was opposition on all sides, those fully for and fully against the project. This could be from either side. After Anderson's visit, there was peace, no one spoke to her about his visit or the expectations of her in regards to the project. This, this was a threat. She knew it in her bones. She jolted back to reality with a hard jerk.

"Miss Grayson?" Olivia whipped her head around to see the entire collection of officials staring at her.

"I apologize Mr. Smithson, I just received news of a family emergency." She did not have to play nervous and scared- she felt it. The eyes in the room shifted to annoyed or sympathetic after her proclamation. She tried not to show the tremors running through her limbs and down her spine. "Please excuse me I need to make a few calls."

"Of course, please return as soon as possible Miss. Grayson. This information in paramount." The disapproval was clear in his tone and his voice. Mr. Smithson did not like to be ignored. The ass.

"My assistant will take excellent notes of anything I miss. Excuse me." She was gone before anyone could respond. Her hands shook as she pulled up her contacts page. She hit his name before she consciously thought. Her mind going a million miles per hour, she almost missed the click that indicated her call had gone through.

"Olivia, I'm a bit busy at the mome-"

"Somethings wrong!" She only felt mildly bad for cutting his sentence off. She had no doubt he would be busy in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. She nearly reached her office door before she froze. She had no idea who this was from, if it was a threat from the people for or against the project. She whirled around and headed away from her office door she nearly reached. No, she needed to think.

"Olivia!"

She realized her had been saying her name for some time, her eyes glanced around the space.

"I got a message three minutes ago. They said I was warned repeatedly and what came next was on me. I think it has to do with Project Olympus." She was hurrying around the space almost aimlessly. Everyone in her office was in various conferences, the ones she just came from, meaning the space was empty.

"Where are you?" His voice took on a different quality; one she had not heard before. He sounded intense, focused, but almost frazzled. It didn't seem to jive with his laid back demeanor he often adopted.

"At the office. I've been here since…" she trailed off as her conscious mind caught up with her subconscious, with her gut instincts.

2am, an alarm in the building went off, must have been tripped by accident.

The thought had her nearly stumbling, catching her hand on the desk nearest her. Without thought, she followed her instincts. Nearly flying across the open work space, her momentum had her slamming into the wall, but before she could even regain balance, she was pulling the fire alarm.

"I think they planted something in the building!" Her voice rose, trying to communicate over the den around her.

The lights flashed, the blaring ringing that indicated an emergency was going off in its high pitched way. She looked around frantically, trying to think about her next move. She didn't have one. She needed to clear the building and she needed to find out what type of threat they were dealing with before she could plan a next step.

"Olivia, listen to me. Get out of the building, Olivia get outside this moment. I will be there in ten minutes." His voice was steel, and she didn't think she could defy him if she even wanted to.

"Okay… okay. The alarm was tripped at 2am, on the floor below mine. They could have planted anything," she rambled on as she headed for the door to the reach the hallway, the stairwell would be just to the left. she stayed on the phone, in silence, her talking tapering off as her mind was whirling a million miles per hour.

She ran through the most likely suspects, explosives, gas, an actual fire, etc. The brunette didn't have to wait long to discover which method it was. She was thrown to the floor in the next second, the deafening roar of sound causing her ears to ring was disorienting enough, but the black plumes of smoke were really what tipped her off.

Bomb then

She struggled to push herself up off the floor, but the rocking sensation was still causing her fits. Was the floor moving or was she? Olivia's head began to fog up as the smoke got thicker. The screech in her ears almost distracted her from the wet sticky substance she felt trickling down her forehead. Her eyes narrowed in concentration as her instincts said bad bad bad.

Where was she again? Why was she so worried? Why couldn't she see straight? She laid there, looking for answers to questions that kept slipping through her fingers. Black little dots danced in front of her eyes, making the surrounding area a poke-a-dot monstrosity. Her head hit the floor. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours but the next time she opened her eyes, the red glow that had been low was not much brighter. It did little to cut through the thick grey and black fog around her.

Her ears were ringing less and she could have sworn she heard something other than the nails on the chalk board scream. Black blurs came out of nowhere, she tried to roll over on her side to get a better look at them, but no matter how much she scrunched her face, they never cleared. Hands wrapped around her arms, shaking her, and the owner of those hands came close enough for her to make out blue eyes. She knew those eyes, or at least, she thought she did. The look in them, that was not something she recognized.

Her body was being lifted, pulled and man-handled. A garbled version of her name was the last thing she heard before the world went black.