A four-strand non-barbed wire fence standing about 4'6" tall runs around the perimeter of the grounds. The front vehicular entrance gate, standing between two stone pillars, is locked at all times. It can be opened by an electronic remote control or by the living room and monitor room intercom keypads. Visiting vehicles must use an intercom unit at the gate to ask for someone in the house to open the gate.
All windows on the buildings within the grounds have key-lock security grills covering them. The roof tiles have been wired down and together to make it harder for people to enter through the roof.
All doors on the central house are self-closing. The doors can be either locked manually or as a result of a Vampire lockdown. In the event of power failure, locks will remain in a locked position.
The house is covered by a combination of motion detectors and security cameras. The motion detectors are installed in the roof cavity to cover any intruders that may try to enter through this point. They are linked to the Unknown Intruder alarm.
Security cameras have been installed to cover the public access/common living areas within the base (except for the toilet and shower blocks). A two day rotating cycle of film is stored in the recorders located in the computer room on the second floor of the base. A security camera also covers the front gate.
A tachyon tracker is constantly running to detect any close proximity teleport entrances or exits. If it detects anything, it notifies the Exemplar in the monitor room.
The primary communication system within the base is the intercom system. Intercom units are found throughout the base and at the front gate. While the front gate unit can only transmit to the living room and monitor room units, all other units are cross-linked to each other.
There are two types of alarms that can go off in the base - the Villain alarm and the Unknown Intruder alarm. These two alarms will normally be set off by the computer or the Exemplar on monitor duty, with appropriate signals also being sent to all wrist watch alarms. However, both alarms can be set off manually, in case the base is under attack and the Vampire System has not detected the intruder. Every intercom unit except the one at the front gate has an alarm button for this purpose.
Any of the base alarms can be turned off by the keypad in the living room or via computer. To turn an alarm off requires only an A-Level internal computer clearance level. If either the "villain" alarm or the "unknown intruder" alarm is left unattended for five (5) minutes, the police are automatically notified.
The Vampire System uses both a series of UWB radars and the base's Cerebro unit to scan the base and the grounds immediately surrounding the building for intruders.
The UWB Radar system scans every part of the house for movement. By default it will also scan areas outside the house to a distance of approximately 60 meters, though data coming from objects beyond about 2 meters from the house will be ignored. A complicated pattern recognition algorithm is used to filter out data obtained from more normal household objects within the house (i.e. pots and pans that may be moved about in the kitchen, swaying plants in pots of known position, doors, refilling toilets of known position, etc). As well as detecting solid objects, the radar will also pick up dense mists.
The base Cerebro system is constantly running to detect any of several exceptional results. Cerebro automatically scans for people in the Villains group out to its maximum range (approximately 16km) and for anyone within the base or on its grounds. As Cerebro scans, it compares the minds it finds to three defined groups: Friendly, Villain, and Unknown.
Friendly refers to people who are registered as safe and whose presence is not cause for alarm. Villain refers to people who are registered as potentially hostile or dangerous and whose presence is cause for alarm. Unknown refers to anyone who has not been assigned to either of the other two groups.
If a Villain is detected within the base, the Villain alarm is automatically set off. When an Unknown is detected in the base or a Villain is detected outside the base, the Exemplar on monitor duty is notified.
When a non-hostile Unknown visits the house, they should be added to the Friendly group on a temporary basis. This involves assigning the Unknown person to the Friendly group and entering the duration of time the visitor will be considered Friendly: the computer also records the person making the entry. People cannot be assigned to the Friendly group for more than eight (8) hours without permission from the (acting) exective officer. At the end of the duration the person is automatically returned to the Unknown group.
Adding or removing someone from the Villains group requires the permission of the (acting) exective officer.
When the UWB radar unit detects something moving within its region of interest, the computer crosschecks with the Cerebro unit to determine if there is a Friendly mind at that location, and notifies the Exemplar on monitor duty if there isn't a Friendly mind. That Exemplar uses the base video cameras, if possible, to check for the cause of the movement. If it is an intruder or if the cause of the alert is still unknown, the various base alarms and communications are used.
The Cerebro information gathered from targets within the grounds is also fed through the main computers. Minds found this way are cataloged as Friendly ("ignore"), Unknown or Villain ("notify the Exemplar on monitor duty"). Once again, the various base alarms and communications can be used as appropriate.
If an Unknown person is detected in the base or a Villain is detected within the grounds, and no response has been given to Cerebro by the Exemplar on monitor duty after one (1) minute, the Unknown Intruder alarm is automatically activated and the location of the intruder sent to all communication watches.
The Vampire System also performs locking tasks if there are no Friendly minds currently within the base or pool area for one (1) minute. All door and front gate locking mechanisms are activated (including the doors to the monitor room, computer room and armoury) and all computer access is restricted to A-Level.
The computer system consists of two physically isolated systems.
To facilitate security, there are different levels of access available to the internal computer system.
All provisional and probational Exemplars have A-Level access. Regular members have additional levels of access depending on their role and responsibilities.
Passwords consist of a minimum 8 digit alphanumeric word. If someone tries to access a computer and fails three times then the computer account name will be locked out and the watch alarms of the nearest three Exemplars is activated. They should treat the situation as though an "unknown intruder" was present.
When base alarms are sounding, all access beyond A-Level is locked out and unavailable, no matter what clearance is possessed by the user. In the event of someone forcing physical entry into computer units without previously notifying the system to deactivate its defences, all hard drives are immediately corrupted by a short pulsed magnetic field.
Specially designed watches form the personal security and communications net for the Exemplars when they are not at the base itself, but still within the general area of San Francisco. The base provides most of the processing and signal power, as the watch is a display unit with buttons. The watches are used to communicate various alarm conditions and simple text information sent by the Exemplar on monitor duty (such as the location of an emergency and who is in trouble), and to provide data on the location of the wearer. They do not have video or audio functions.
The watch is normally set on Standby mode. In this mode, the base computer "pings" the watch every two minutes. The watch automatically "pings" the base system back and the base computer calculates the position of the watch and stores this information. If the watch fails to "ping" back, then the computer alerts the Exemplar on monitor duty and provides the watch's last known whereabouts.
Watches can also be set to Alert mode by the Exemplar on monitor duty or by manually operating a combination of buttons on the watch. Alert Mode is automatically triggers when the watch undergoes electric shocks or very rapid temperature change. When any of these triggers occur the watch starts to beep and an alarm signal is sent to the base if the watch triggered the change of mode. At the base, the base computer determines who set off the alarm and where they are, alerting the Exemplar on monitor duty, and then sends a distress signal that sets all watches to Alert mode. When an alarm has been sent, all receiving Exemplars should respond with the "on the way" button combination to indicate to the Exemplars at base that they are responding.
If an alarm is accidentally set off a cancel signal can be sent out by the Exemplar on monitor duty. Anyone who sets their watch to Alert mode by mistake should contact the base as soon as possible.