It's been a week since Juliet arrived at the office. She has been living in one of the simple rooms in the small three-floor office building. The three of them, Hunter, Hanson, and Juliet work there. The receptionist is the only other person but she works her shift and goes home. It's been quiet since she moved in but Hunter and Hanson have been keeping her occupied with mostly small tasks.
There was a knock at Hunter's office door. "Come in." Juliet entered, "I finished shredding and filing."
"Thank you."
She sat down in the chair across from him, "I need to talk to you though."
"About?'
"Well, I am a succubus."
"Yes, which reminds me, remember what we talked about?"
"What? Which talk?"
"Your body?"
"Ok! You know what? I'm demeaning myself by keeping a B-cup but I'm wearing a pushup bra so I feel comfortable!"
He put his hands up defensively, "Ok, fair enough, so what was it that you wanted to talk about?"
"Well, I'm starting to feel run down?"
"Do you need a vacation?"
"No, I need to feed."
"Oh. Oh! Oh… I see how that can be a problem. I will get with Hanson on that and we'll come up with a plan for you."
"The sooner the better."
"We should have something tomorrow."
Juliet nodded before walking out of the room. On her way out she bumped into a short man who she almost tripped over. In a high-pitched yet gravelly voice, he shouted at her, "Hey! Watch where you're headin'!" The little man was just about to her hips. She almost fell over him. He waddled past her mumbling, "Dumb broad."
"Hey!"
"What?!"
Hunter stood up from his desk, "Stop! Both of you!"
The short man snarked, "She ran into me!"
Juliet bit back, "He insulted me!"
Her boss shut them both up, "I don't care! Denny! Apologize!"
"Why?"
"Because you will treat my staff with respect!"
"But she…"
"Denny."
"Ok, ok. Sorry, Geez."
He motioned to Juliet, "Now Juliet, you apologize for running into him."
"What?! But…"
He didn't have to say anything. He just looked at her and she could feel a twinge at her neck. "Ok, ok, just… don't, please. Sorry for running into you." Denny just huffed at her, turning back to Hunter, "Whatever, I'm not here for you anyway."
"Be nice Denny, what do you have?"
"There's a bunch, none of the contracts have come up yet. There have been issues with people wandering into Centaur territory in Yellowstone. They keep saying that it's bears but people have been getting iffy about it. There's been some crazy nonsense in Brazil, not sure what it is which is what has people concerned. Afghanistan is still the cluster fuck it's always been and getting worse. Pirates in Somalia are getting destroyed by something in the water. Not a problem yet because, well, pirates. Recently there's been a huge wave of information coming from Pripyat and Chernobyl. Dead radio signals are being used and it's disturbing stuff."
"I hate Chernobyl. That should have been taken care of the first time but it's still running."
Juliet chimed in on her eavesdropping, "Chernobyl, wasn't that the city in Russia that had the nuclear power plant?" Hunter looked over at her, "Yea, back in '86 one of the reactors had a power surge causing it to fail. It just destroyed the region and still is a hell hole."
"But what did you mean the first time?"
He shifted in his chair with a deep sigh, "Two years ago a contract came up to deal with some of the 'after effects' that had sprung up. After two days and borderline radiation poisoning, Hanson and I were recalled, the contract was canceled with no resolution, and the place was just left to sit."
"Well, what happened there?"
"Nightmares happened. It was a hellish two days where we could not sleep. I'm not going back there again if that contract comes up."
Juliet decided not to touch it again. She left Hunter and Denny to talk in his office to go to Hanson's office down the hall. She knocked with him, answering, "Come in." She stepped in looking around. His office was very plain and minimal. No photos, no personal items, no real personality. Just a desk, computer, and paper. "Lady Juliet, how may I help you?"
"I just talked to… I still don't know how to address him."
"I typically use 'young master' when talking about him and 'sir' when talking to him."
"Either way I talked to him about an issue that I have been… what I am."
"Ah yes, feeding, correct?"
"Yea, did he talk to you already?"
"It was a concern we brought up on the plane back. We have ideas but haven't set anything solid."
"That's all well and good but now I have something else on my mind."
"I will help the best I can."
"What happened in Chernobyl?"
She caught his full attention. His eyes widened to great concern while his normal relaxed expression turned firm. He stood up from his desk walking around the room checking outside the door and closing the blinds. He sat back down but now Juliet was at the level of paranoia. Hanson leaned in as close as he could, whispering to her, "What were you told?"
"That you and he went on a contract that was abruptly canceled."
"Anything else?"
"No, that was it."
"I'm not surprised. He and I were contracted to look into a disturbance coming from the area. There were old radio signals that were being reactivated. There were tapes and recordings in Russian that were about the response team trying to do what they could to slow down the effects. It's haunting really, just thinking about it."
"Wow, that's why he was jumpy that the radio signals were active."
"They're what?"
"The short guy said that they were picking up radio signals from Chernobyl."
"Oh, dear. That's not good at all."
"He already said that he wasn't taking the contract."
"Well that's the problem, it may be ordered on him since we were already there once before."
"What happened?"
"We don't know. We searched for the signal, and we scoured most of the city and Pripyat but we could never track it down. It kept moving. But it wasn't just the radio signals. We picked up Morse Code, enigma transitions from World War 2, and cold war era signals as well."
She shivered, "That's chilling."
"After the second day, everything just stopped. With everything gone they canceled the contract when we reported that we had not done anything. Now that it's back I wonder what we will have to do."
"You guys deal with some messed up shit you know that?"
"That kind of language is very unbecoming of a lady of your stature but yes, it's rather strange."
Juliet finished up with Hanson before heading out of his office. She walked around the hallways until the receptionist went home for the day. She locked the doors as was her new duty before going upstairs to let Hanson and Hunter know. The evenings after the office closed were quiet. Hanson spent his nights reading up on the events of the world looking to get a head of good contracts. The Hunter spent his nights planning and taking care of the administrative needs. Tonight they went over Juliet's need to feed. The plan was that she gets one day a week where she gets to go out and do her thing but she is restricted to certain areas and she cannot kill anyone.
With her rules in place, she was allowed to go out the next night but tonight she was restricted to the building. At 3:30 am she was woken up by Hanson, "Lady Juliet, pack your things." She was still in a daze and not fully functional, "Why? What's happening?"
"We took a contract in Brazil. We leave immediately."
"Brazil?"
In her half-dead state, she packed what little she had and followed behind the two to the car and eventually to their plane. She slept the entire flight down until they landed.