Chloe had been sitting in her garage, the large family home she'd grown up in, now her private refuge during those damnable required leave periods. She'd been deployed long enough that some agency shrink rubber-stamped a required leave, which left her sitting in her garage, cleaning her dissassembled Colt 1911.<br/><br/>Her family had been gone from the town so long that they had given her the house without dispute when their parents died. It was a large house, though the garage now saw the most use. When the windows of the garage door lit up like daylight, several things came into Chloe's mind, none of them good. She could have put her weapon back together in a few short seconds, blindfolded, but she didn't bother. Her hand went under the workbench and came out with a H&K .45 in even less time. She didn't go outside, if her town was...what? Under attack? That didn't make sense, none of it did. There was no storm, no reason for the flash at all, unless it was localized, then what? Her thoughts ran to an assassination, somebody knew what she did, and wanted her dead, no helicopter noise. Why the light then?<br/><br/>She was in the house and into the basement in short order. It only took her a few moments, practiced moves all well rehearsed, to get into the only locked room inside her house. The door was a simple number-pad lock, and once inside, she pulled a headset from a small hook on the wall, sliding it into her ear. She touched the button on the side, standing, facing the door, feet apart, gun at the ready, waiting for the inevitable reply.<br/><br/>Then...nothing. Long moments went by, and no reply came. Inexplicably, the sattelite comm set she'd used everywhere from Bolivia, to South Africa, to Sibera, had failed her. There had never not been a reply. It was working, she knew that much, when meant one of two things. Something inexplicable had happened, to the town, to the rest of the world, or her employer was trying to kill her. The latter situation being hopeless, she opted for the former, and holstered her weapon.<br/><br/>She grabbed a flashlight, and a flack-jacket from the wall and headed back into the house. Curiouser and curiouser, it seemed, and the answers were all outside, if they were anywhere.