Elite

by Joseph C. Anthony

  MAYBE we can THINK about it?!

  Daniel was screaming inside his now spinning head. With all the stress of the past two weeks this had been the last thing he had needed. Sure, several months down the road he could probably, or according to Jordan, maybe make a relationship between them happen and live happily-ever-after. So much could change in a matter of months though. Especially if Jordan spent those months sleeping under the same roof as Gordon Demérs. If she couldn’t resist his advances in the classroom, how would she ever resist them in their own home?

  Daniel’s mind had gone completely numb. It was as if the news of Jordan moving in with Demérs had been the final bit of stress that finally overloaded his circuits and fried his motherboard. He was barely capable of cognitive thought.

  He managed to squeeze out a few last words to Jordan before losing his mind completely, “Oh…well…I have to go now. I have a sales proposal I have to finish before going home.”

  Jordan let out an audible sigh on the other end of the phone. She knew how he was feeling, but she decided there was no use in discussing it any further at the moment.

  “Okay. I’ll talk to you soon. Good luck with the rest of work,” she said in a gentle tone.

  “Thanks,” Daniel reflexively responded.

  “Bye,” she said somberly.

  “Bye,” he said blankly.

  Then he heard the other side go silent as she hung up. He looked down at his phone as the screen when dark, then looked up and stared straight ahead.

  There were no thoughts. Nothing. Just numbness inside him. Somewhere he supposed there was a great deal of sadness and anger, but right now, he felt nothing.

  He unconsciously stepped back inside and walked back over to his desk. He sat down and stared at the PowerPoint he had been working on before Jordan had called. As he placed his hand on the mouse to continue where he had left off, something inside his brain suddenly clicked back on and everything came rushing back in a tsunami of stress and emotion.

  He took his hand off of the mouse and let his head fall into his hands, his elbows planted firmly on his desk. He couldn’t take it anymore. This had finally put him over the edge. He had waged a war to start a relationship with Jordan so many years ago, and looking back on it now realized that he had lost so many more battles than he had won. Now it appeared as though surrender was imminent, but he refused to go down with the ship.

  He looked over at his phone again, which had returned to its designated spot on his desk, just to the left of his keyboard. He stared at it for several seconds, silently contemplating to himself.

  It was time to call Blank.

  He picked up the phone and once again scurried out to the courtyard.

  Daniel stepped off the train at the stop near the Elite complex. Walking across the platform he felt as though he had just been there yesterday, even though his first meeting with Richfield had been two weeks ago to the day.

  Mr. Blank had seemed very pleased to have received a call from Daniel two days ago, after his disappointing conversation with Jordan when she had broken the news that she would be living with Demérs for several months. Although Daniel had told Blank then that he had made up his mind and was ready to move forward, Blank told him that Richfield insisted that he wait until Friday to come back to the complex to be sure that he had taken the full two weeks Richfield had allotted him to make his decision.

  Daniel guessed that the extra day was probably a good thing since his call to Blank was an emotional decision made in the heat of the moment. However, his mind had not changed in the extra day he had been given to further think things over. He was all-in at this point. He had grown weary of being second-best and was desperate to make more of himself.

  Blank had once again instructed him to be at the Elite Security building at noon sharp. As he approached the giant warehouse, Daniel looked at his watch. This time he had better timing and had arrived only five minutes early. He walked to the tinted glass doors in the front-center of the building and walked through.

  As he walked through the door he saw the same African-American man sitting at the desk as two weeks ago, however Blank was nowhere to be seen.

  After quickly surveying the room, Daniel turned to the guard at the desk to speak.

  “I have an appointment with Mister Blank,” Daniel told the man.

  As if hearing Daniels words from wherever he was, Blank burst through one of the two fire doors at the back of the hallway, right of the elevator that he and Blank had used to travel up to Richfield’s office in his previous visit.

  “Danny Boy! So good to see you! Follow me through here kid,” Blank instructed Daniel.

  Daniel nodded his head and made his way down the short hallway to where Blank was standing, leaning with his back against to door to prop it open. He held out his right arm, beckoning Daniel to step through the doorway. Daniel obliged.

  On the other end of the doorway, Daniel found himself along the back dividing wall of the personal fitness area of the complex, which if he remembered correctly from his last visit, divided the gym/personal fitness area from the sparring area. Last time Daniel had seen this area of the complex it was from four stories above. It seemed much bigger and much more life-like from ground level. Everywhere around him there were men and women either lifting weights or doing cardiovascular exercises, all seemingly enthralled in their own vigorous workout routine.

  Then he remembered what Richfield had told him about his people being in pique physical condition in order to go up against the world’s deadliest assassins. Daniel assumed that he too would soon have an intense workout regimen of his own, though he couldn’t imagine being able to keep up with any of these people anytime soon.

  Blank put his hand on Daniel’s back and guided him across the floor of the fitness room. About halfway across, he spoke to Daniel.

  “That could be you someday soon Danny,” he said. “You’re gonna be in better shape than all these goons if you stay here with us.”

  Daniel looked at the “goons” to which Blank was referring. Many of the men were shirtless – their incredibly defined muscles glistening with sweat. Their chest muscles like mountains, rising up over the hills that were their abs.

  Daniel let out a small laugh in the form of an audible breath. He didn’t believe it was possible for any person to be in better shape than these men, let alone a plain shaped guy such as himself.

  At the other end of the vast room was another set of fire doors. Blank opened the one on the right and held it open for Daniel to walk through. On the other side Daniel found himself standing in a long, brightly lit hallway. It was wide enough for maybe four people, and stretched the entire length of the complex. The floor, the wall that separated the hallway and the fitness room, and the ceiling were completely white, but the wall opposite the doorway was made of some sort of reinforced glass.

  Through the glass wall, Daniel could see some sort of arena, dug into the ground. From where Daniel stood at ground level, it appeared the floor of the stadium was some two stories below him. Hundreds of seats formed a large circle around the center of the room, extending some twenty rows back. What intrigued Daniel was what stood as the focal point at the center of the arena. There stood what looked like a boxing ring, only in the shape of an octagon, and instead of being lined with rope, a ten-foot high cage spanned the perimeter. It was much like the rings Daniel had seen used for mixed martial arts fights on TV.

  Blank noticed him staring.

  “That’s the challenge arena,” he explained. “Every agent here is ranked according to ability. The ranking is determined by any number of things, from experience, to accomplishments in the field, to obstacle course scores and so-on. But if at any time an agent feels as though the rank they have received is unfair, and feels as though they deserve a higher rank than any other agent at the company, they can challenge them to the octagon. The fights there are much like the MMA fights you’d see on TV, only executed with far more skill than those fighters.
If the challenger defeats the higher-ranked agent, then they assume that agent’s rank until the next challenge, or next assessment. Anyone can challenge anyone else at any time. Richfield feels the competition keeps the guys and gals at their best.”

  Daniel looked up at the large board of names that hung on the wall to his right. On the board were forty-two name plates, ranked in order from one to forty-two. The name at the very top of the list was someone named “Tyrus Jones.”

  “Sounds pretty intense,” Daniel muttered.

  “Oh it is, kid,” Blank responded. “You get everyone in the company in here, yelling for ya…or the guy against ya depending on how many friends they got…and how good’a jobs you get depends on you knockin’ the other guy out. It’s a beautiful thing kid.”

  Blank looked over at Daniel who was still staring at the ring in the center of the arena, imagining what it would be like to get in there, fighting against one of those jacked-up beasts he had just passed in the gym area.

  “If all goes to plan, your name will be at the top of that list Danny Boy,” Blank said, pointing up at the rankings board Daniel had just noticed earlier.

  Daniel looked back up at the board, not entirely convinced.

  “Come on,” Blank said, turning to their right and gesturing toward an elevator at the end of the hallway. “Richfield and the doc are waitin’ for you downstairs.”

  “The doc?” Daniel responded in utter confusion.

  “You’ll see when we get down there,” Blank assured him.

  Slowly, they walked over to the elevator and Blank pushed the call button. A half a second later the door slid open and the two made their way onto the elevator. The bank of buttons on the elevator went down in rescinding order, with “1” at the top, and “5” at the bottom. Since he knew there were no real floors above them, Daniel assumed that each number represented how far below each level was.

  Blank pushed the number “3,” the doors slid shut, and the elevator car began moving downward.

  “We’re going down to the medical level,” Blank explained.

  Daniel just gazed at him with a confused look about him. Why in the hell were they going down to the medical level? What were these people about to do to him?

  When they reached the third level down the car stopped and the elevator doors slid open.

  On the other side of the elevator doors was a hallway that looked like a generic hospital hallway. Daniel figured that made sense seeing as Blank had referred to this as the “medical level.”

  Blank moved out of the elevator and into the hallway with Daniel in tow, still trying to decide what they were doing here. Then it hit him. Of course – they would obviously need him to pass a physical if they were going to put him through such rigorous training. He took Richfield as the type who would insist that any examination be done by one of the doctors on his payroll as opposed to Daniel’s personal physician, which in all honesty he didn’t have anyway.

  About halfway down the hallway Blank took an abrupt left into a conjoining hallway that ran perpendicular to the first. This hallway was much shorter than the first, and at the end he could see where a third hallway ran perpendicular to the current one, creating an H-shape. From here it appeared that the medical facility was probably not as large as an actual hospital, though there was absolutely no way to know for sure.

  Halfway down the second hallway Blank made another abrupt turn, this time to his right. He immediately threw his arms forward and in one fluent motion strode through a pair of swinging hospital doors. By the time Daniel turned to follow, the doors were already swinging violently back toward him. He quickly threw his arms up to shield himself and the doors crashed into his forearms, resulting in a rather awkward looking entry into the room.

  The lights inside the room were a bit brighter than the dim lights in the hallway, and it took a moment for Daniel’s eyes to adjust. Once he could comfortably look around, he noticed Richfield seated in a swivel stool about ten feet directly in front of him, and across from Richfield, slightly to Daniel’s left, sat an older gentleman with long, grey hair. Between them was a rather long and narrow metal table. It was not an exam table as Daniel would have expected to find. It appeared more like a dinner table. Daniel felt he could safely assume though that very few meals were probably ever eaten off of it.

  Daniel guessed that they were in some sort of a work room where members of the medical staff could come to do paperwork or things of that nature. It could also have functioned as a makeshift conference room if need be.

  At this point Richfield and the man with the long grey hair had turned to face Daniel as he stood in the doorway. There were remnants of smiles on their faces, as though they had been engaged in pleasant conversation before Blank has barged into the room. Blank himself had taken his place standing over Richfield’s shoulder. He too, was looking in Daniel’s direction.

  “Welcome back, Danny Boy,” Richfield spoke, greeting his visitor. “How do you feel?”

  “To be honest,” Daniel spoke, contemplating, “I’m not exactly sure.”

  This put a grin across Richfield’s face. “Well that’s alright,” he assured Daniel, “maybe the doc here can enlighten you a little bit and put you at ease.”

  Richfield lifted his right arm which had been resting on the table and gestured to the man sitting across the table from him.

  The doctor, with his hands folded between his legs, shot Daniel a big, half sincere grin, as if that were supposed to make him feel better about being there.

  Where is here? Daniel had to stop and think for a moment to let his mind catch up. He was on the medical level of this covert training facility that was built to look like a warehouse.

  Was he still in Chicago? He knew he was, but he felt worlds away from home way the hell down there.

  “I’m honored to finally meet the man who might help me change the world,” the doctor finally spoke.

  Daniel was taken aback for a moment. Change the world? Who was he to help change the world? Then he remembered his initial interview with Richfield, and how big of a deal the boss had made of who Daniel would become. They were probably just blowing more smoke up his ass.

  Still, Daniel was curious to hear what Richfield and the doctor had to say.

  “Doctor Horchoff is one of the most brilliant minds in the medical profession today,” Richfield explained.

  “Though the rest of the world may never realize it,” Horchoff interjected.

  Daniel looked at Richfield, then back at the doctor, and raised his eyebrows as if to ask, “Is this true?”

  “It’s true Danny Boy,” Blank answered, reading either his facial expression or his mind. “I’ve seen the doc here do a lot of spectacular things.”

  He hadn’t the slightest clue why the testimony of a borderline sociopath like Blank put his mind a little more at ease, but it did. He had somehow grown to trust the man, like a sort of older brother almost. Well – cousin maybe. Maybe it was the heart-to-heart they had after his first visit to Elite. The manner in which Blank spoke to Daniel was if he truly cared about his well-being. Daniel wasn’t sure whether or not it was all a front, geared toward creating a false sense of comfort within him – but if it was, it was working.

  “Come on and sit down,” Richfield said as he wheeled another stool around from the far side of where he was sitting, placing it on the end of the table so that Daniel would be seated directly between Richfield and Doctor Horchoff.

  Doctor Horchoff was a scraggly looking fellow, and Daniel wasn’t sure if the scrubs and white lab coat he was wearing made his appearance seem more acceptable, or just made him even creepier. He carried a rather unkempt appearance, and looked to be in his mid-fifties. He had long, scraggly grey hair which was pulled back into a ponytail that extended down to his lower back. A number of renegade hairs had managed to break free of the hair tie that was making a gallant effort to hold his ponytail in place.

  His face and skin tone gave the impression that the doct
or had not spent a whole lot of time outdoors in the last century. He seemed very frail with ghostly white skin which was covered in grey stubble. His sunken eyes sat under his bushy grey eyebrows, magnified by his prescription lenses which were mounted on wiry silver frames.

  Daniel took his seat at the end of the table, situated between Richfield and the doctor. Both men swiveled in their stools so that they could properly navigate the paperwork which sat on the table before them. Blank moved over to the wall behind Richfield and leaned his back up against it. He took off his hat and began spinning it around in his hand by the rim, as if inspecting it for abnormalities. Daniel would have guessed that it was a nervous gesture, except he didn’t believe that Mr. Blank ever felt nervousness.

  From his appearance, one would expect Horchoff to speak with some sort of Eastern European accent similar to Doctor Frankenstein. Instead, he possessed a rather mild tone in his voice, accompanied by a plain, mid-western American accent.

  “So some of this is going to sound very strange to you, and also very scary,” Horchoff began. “And I won’t lie to you, the idea of doing this procedure on a live, human test subject kind of scares me too. But I am extremely confident in my ability to not only perform this procedure safely, but with the desired results as well.”

  “Just a moment Doctor,” Richfield said, raising his hand to cutoff the doctor. “Before we go any further Daniel, I’m going to need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

  “Of course,” Horchoff muttered, as if disappointed with himself for almost revealing the details of the so-called “procedure” without first following proper protocol.

  Richfield slid the papers across the table to Daniel. He was once again in modest dress, wearing a blue buttoned up shirt with the top two buttons undone, tucked into a pair of dark grey khaki-style pants that looked as though they could have been purchased from Penny’s. He did appear to have taken the time to shave this morning, but his hair was as greasy as Daniel had remembered it.