New York, Lyndon Tower. 05/01/2013. 08:50.
Passing the front door of the building, Jon took a moment to look at the lobby. There was already a fair amount of traffic, mostly employees at this time of the day. His eyes focus almost instinctively on the security personnel guarding the lobby. There were five people at key points around the lobby keeping a close eye on every person entering the building. He noticed two of them looking at him with interest as he was standing in the entrance of the lobby and not moving.
Not wanting to be questioned, he starts walking again in the direction of the front desk manned by two extremely attractive young women.
"Welcome to the Lyndon Tower, sir. Do you have an appointment?" She asked in a warm voice looking at him appraisingly.
"I do. My name is Jonathan Smith, I'm scheduled to meet Nathaniel Lyndon?" He answers with a questioning tone at the end.
He was still having trouble understanding what was going on here. He was personally convinced that the two men that came to recruit him were from an intelligence agency based on the information they had on him and their overall demeanor but so far he got no concrete information to prove it.
The car that they had to meet him was a rental and so did not prove useful to Jon about what was going on. The only other thing that he got was a name, Nathaniel Lyndon. He had looked it up on the internet and was not ready at all when he found out that the kid was a successful pop star and actor. More, it did appear that the kid had in fact some talent in singing and acting, which puzzled him even more.
And then there was that building and the Lyndon record as a whole. Everyone knew it in America and it was an extremely legit company. If that was a front for an intelligence agency, it was for sure the most impressive he had ever seen in his life.
"Of course Mister Smith, you were expected. Can you sit with that young lady over here?" She said, pointing to a row of seats on the side where a pretty latina was already waiting. "Someone is going to come to fetch you in a few moments."
"Sure. Thank you." He nodded before going to sit near the woman already there.
Seeing someone coming near her, the woman looked at him with an intensity that made him feel a little unsetle. It was as if she was pondering about if she could beat him in a straight fight. Drawing a conclusion that did not appear to be a good one for his ego, she faintly nodded at him as a greeting before looking back to her phone.
Smiling bitterly at being dismissed like that by a member of the fairer sex, he choose to focus once again on the security personnel around the lobby. Contrary to the old and fat one that was commonly seen inside of banks and museums, these guys mean business. They were competent, focused on their task with extreme attention and seemed to be highly skilled. In fact one of them kept giving them a look over from time to time as if he knew they were a possible threat. It was impressive, really.
Looking at the front desk again, he could see an extremely attractive young asian girl on the desk talking to the same girl that he talked to a few minutes ago. He was surprised on the other hand when the girl made her way to them and sat near the latina who again made a show to look at her like she did with him but with a more challenging look. The girl, to her credit, did not even flinch and react to that challenging stare by just giving a faint, slightly confident smile as an answer.
It was at this moment that another gorgeous girl came their way sitting on a seat on his left. She was around twenty five years old with mid shoulder length blond hair. Jon could see that she was stylishly dressed and every item that she wore was coming from an expensive brand. The girl did not even bother to look in their direction and sit directly, avoiding the whole staring contest with the latina who seemed unhappy about it.
Being surrounded by womens that could easily be models, Jon was starting to have some thought about his presence here. Were the girls invited for the same purpose as him or were they waiting here for another purpose entirely?. It was not long before someone gave him an answer.
"Oh good, you all came. Follow me, please." Scott said, once he stopped in front of them.
Getting to their feets, the four of them all follow him in the direction of the elevator. As they were already a couple of people waiting in the elevator, Scott spoke again.
"Excuse me, Lyndon security. I'm going to ask you to use the other elevator for security reasons. I'm sorry for the inconvenience." Scott said in an authoritative tone, showing his badge.
Seeing the badge, the two employees grumble quietly but still exit the elevator without making a scene. Nodding, Scott invited the four others to get in before closing the march. Sliding his badge on the reader, Scott pressed the button for the sub-level 3 and did not let up until the doors started closing.
Reading the floor on top of the door, they all exchanged surprised stares when they passed the sub-level three and the elevator kept descending for a moment before the doors finally opened, showing a huge reinforced steel door. Going to the panel on the right side of the door, Scott lowered himself for his eye to be checked by the scanner before sliding his badge. What followed made the four of them raise an eyebrow.
"E.T phone home." He intoned in a leveled voice.
With a sound that looks a lot like The Imperial March from Star Wars, the door starts opening itself.
"Seriously?" Jon asked in a puzzled voice. Camilla on the side was shaking her head and Na-Yung et Lucie were wearing an amused smile on their faces.
"Don't tell me about it. This is the risk when you trust a girl obsessed with movies and anime to handle security." Scott answered with a shake of his head.
Passing the bunker doors that were at least twenty centimeters thick of reinforced steel, Jon could see two people waiting for them. The first was a cute looking brunette a little over twenty years old and beside her an even younger brown haired kid who both had smiles on their faces.
"Hello everyone, I'm Lina Campbell and beside me is Hans Fuchs, we welcome you to what we are calling affectuously, 'The Bunker'. Not the most imaginative name as we are obviously in a bunker but we liked it so we decided to keep it. Please, follow me to the conference room." She said with a barely noticeable hint of shyness in her voice.
Following the two young people, Jon looks at the main room they were passing by. It was a big place, filled with around ten desks with top of the line computers on them and two screens on each. There were only three desks that seemed to be used at the moment. One of them was filled with various pieces that were difficult to identify for him. The second had two more screens on it with a second computer on the other side of the desk. The third, lastly, had more paper on it and was definitely more organized and clean compared to the two others. It was easy for him to find out to whom the last desk belonged but he did not know which desk belonged to which youngster between the first two.
Entering the conference room that was already open, Jon looked at it for a moment. It was a rectangular room with a long table in the middle that could host at least ten people and was currently unoccupied.
"Just sit wherever you want except on the two sit at the head of the table." Lina advised before taking a seat herself, quickly followed by everyone.
"I would like to welcome you all to The Bunker." Nathaniel's voice echoed upon entering the conference room.