"She's with me," Jesse says firmly, in the tone of one who will NOT be letting anyone shoot her twelve-year-old today. "I picked her up in Maintenance; the janitor said she'd make a good assistant."

She clearly wasn't expecting that. She frowns and lowers her weapon slightly, though she keeps her eyes trained on what appears to be a 12 year old girl as she speaks. "That's not really standard operating procedure ma'am, but, you're the director. We're already dealing with one crisis today, though," she adds, trailing off meaningfully. When that doesn't get an immediate response, she lowers her weapon a little further. "Well, if you're here to help, you should speak with Chief Arish in the security booth. He's been handling things here." 

"Thanks."

She heads for the security booth and keeps herself pointedly interposed between Dairine and the lady with the gun as they pass.

Inside the room is a man standing in front of a set of computer banks, he turns when he hears the sound of the door opening. 

"Ma'am! Hey! Chief Arish, FBC Security. Shouldn't you be in a safe room?" Then he notices Dairine, and his eyes narrow and his hand moves to his sidearm. 

"This is Dairine, she's with me," says Jesse, once again stepping between the kid and the person threatening to shoot the kid. "We're here to fix the reactor. What can you tell me about that?"

Dairine attempts a little friendly wave from behind Jesse and tries to look human.

"Yeah, yeah, look, I'm not sure who the both of you are or what you're doing here, but you need to get back into a safe room, now. I'm sorry, I know you might want to help, or just go home, but it's really dangerous out here right now. We'll sound the all-clear when this is over." 

Okay, time to once again say the thing she hates saying. "My name's Jesse Faden, I'm the new Director. If I don't fix this, I'm not sure who will. What can you tell me about the reactor?"

"Look, ma'am, I don't have time for-" he pauses for a moment, his demeanor shifting. "Oh hang on, you're the new director? Sorry, ma'am. It's, it's a pleasure." 

"Let's skip the formalities, please."

"Right. Faden. Ma'am. Look, as you can see, it's a bit of a shi-- er, a bit of a disaster down here. We've been holding our ground, but whatever's gotten into our buddies has them wrecking the coolant pumps and the power converters. The NSC keeps overheating and my crews keep getting shot before they have a chance to make any repairs." 

"NSC?" She's seen the signs, but nothing that explained what it stood for.

The thing where everyone suddenly changes their minds about Jesse when she says something without any actual evidence is kind of weird but adults are just like that a lot of the time. The good news is that it sounds like there are some people who know nuclear science around here and they just need to protect them from getting shot.

"Sorry. Bureau jargon. It's what we call the power plant: you know, the big rumbling metal thing?" He chuckles. "Salvador, Head of Security, asked me to protect it in case of an attack. See what's inside is, dangerous. Dr. Darling seemed to know it'd be a target."  

"Darling?" Also a name she's heard, but also without a ton of context.

"Yeah, he's Head of Research here at FBC. He came down a few days ago before everything went, um, sideways. He was out of it, and smelled like, um, like he'd had too much of the sauce, if you know what I mean. He was ranting about vulnerabilities and how he had only one 'large scale HRA', but that he needed it somewhere else. Still, at least he gave us these personal HRAs before he left." Arish steals a confused glance at Dairine for a moment before turning back to Jesse. "Hey, did I mention that, um," he glances at Dairine again. "Well, nevermind. Darling's always been a bit strange, a bit par for the course when you do research at a place like this, of course, but he was acting much stranger than usual. Crazy dude." 

(Darling knew the Hiss was coming. Now there's an unsettling conclusion.)

"Listen, I love playing 20 questions as much as the next guy, but we have got to get the water and electrical systems repaired before this baby blows. I'll have my guys unlock the doors out of here for you, and we'll make sure your um, friend gets somewhere safe so you don't have to keep track of her."

Okay, so either Darling was smart and foresight-having orrrr he was somehow responsible for the Hiss and trying to fix what he screwed up.

"I should go with Jesse. I'm a lot more use in a fight than I look, and depending on what's wrong with the reactor I might be able to help fix it better than you could. I'll show you what I mean if you promise not to flip out."

Arish glances at the girl again, then back at the new director, his hand drifting to his side. "Ma'am, you said she was with you, right? Who, or what, exactly is she? We don't exactly get a lot of visitors under the age of 18 here, and she's not wearing an HRA." 

"I found her in Maintenance. Ahti, the janitor, told me she'd make a good assistant. So far he's not wrong."

His hand relaxes at the mention of Ahti, but he's still cautious. "Look, a recommendation from Ahti certainly counts in her favor, but this is a very secure facility. There's still the question of how she got here in the first place. If there's any risk of her being connected to whatever's going on here she shouldn't be allowed anywhere near anything critical. And it's far too dangerous out there anyone to be babysitting a kid, director or no director, um, ma'am. She'll be better off in a safe room until you get all this cleared up." 

"I'll take your advice into consideration," she says; and then she reviews the words that just came out of her mouth, and sighs, and changes tacks. "Look, no offense, but right now I trust Dairine more than I trust you. She's new around here? So am I. Got in somehow despite the lockdown? So did I. No HRA?" She gestures, silently, at her own unencumbered chest.

"If I start flying will you admit I'm not just a random kid who needs protecting or would that freak you out worse?"

Arish turns to stare at the girl for a moment. Then he sighs and puts up his hands. "Look," he says, "You're the director, if you want her with you, it's not like I can stop you. But just because you have your own weird director, um, stuff going on, doesn't mean anything else you run into should get a free pass. More often than not, the weird stuff in here is dangerous, and she definitely counts as weird. Be careful."

He turns back to Dairine. "I'd stay on the ground when any of my men are around. If someone sees you doing that they might shoot first and ask questions later, and the radios aren't working so I can't exactly warn them about you in advance."