by Newbiel
"No, no. Moms have three personal bodyguards each, one of them is currently resting. These four are here to protect my mothers exclusively." Nathaniel explained.
"What about you then?"
"I can take care of myself, uncle." He smiles mysteriously, not adding anything more.
******
"Ah, I see that you are finally here Nathaniel Lyndon. Is this your arrogance at play for you to postpone our meeting and arrive late after that or are you trying to send a message?" Lucie Lafite asked with a displeased voice and in perfect english.
Lucie Lafite was a twenty four years old woman with mid shoulder blond hair and brown eyes. 5"11", she was quite tall for a woman and had long, enticing legs that the jeans that she wore displayed beautifully. She had a really attractive figure and even the frown that she had on her face could not hide that fact.
"No, it was not. I was just visiting my family here in France and got delayed. I'm sorry for the delay and for being late." He answers in french.
"Oh. I didn't know that you had family here and that you talked french so well." She answers pleasantly surprised, her hostility ebbing away.
"Yes, it's not well known yet but I'm quite good at tongue." He gave a half smile.
"Now that you are finally here, why do you want to talk about? You were quite vague about that." She answered, hiding the smile that came to her face at that double entendre.
"I'm here to offer you the job of your life, of course."
"Well, you are confident, I can give you that at least. Do I look like I want a job Mister Lyndon?" She said, pointing to herself and the sumptuous decor around her.
"What we want and what we need are two different things. I have an hypothesis about you."
"Oh? An hypothesis about me? Please, do tell." She ease herself in her seat with a knowing smirk.
"I believe you are bored in your life. At barely twenty four, you are already a millionaire without even having to lift a finger to get it. Your whole family wants just for you to appear at caritatif event and be pretty for PR purposes."
"I believe you are a millionaire as well Nathaniel and you are not even eighteen so I think you are not the best person to say something like that." She made a frown at him.
"True but I win it with my own work. You also have a fascination for Molière."
"What does that have to do with anything?" She asked not getting where he was going with this.
"Well, let's ask that question to Frosine Jordain who just got her pilot licence or Cléante Diafoirus who got published in a medical revue for her work in PTSD treatment. There is also Elmire Pernelle who is currently being searched for questioning for destruction of property and theft. All of them mash up characters in Molière novels and all of them fake identities made by you."
Lucie wanted for a second to deny all of it but she realized by the names that he just gave that he knew already too much about it and so decided to cut to the chase.
"What do you want?" She asked icily.
"To stay silent about this? Nothing. I'm not here to strong arm you into accepting to work with me. But if I manage to make the connection, I'm sure others will eventually. You do realize that changing the color of your hair or their style, using makeup and clothes are wholly ineffective against face recognition software, right?"
"I know but it was never supposed to come to that. I was infiltrating the company to use their lab for my research when I found out they were doing illegal experiments on animals. I couldn't just act as if I didn't see anything, I had to do something. I liberate them and smash all their research before running away."
"That was sloppy, you could have done better to put the blame away from you, you are resourceful enough to do that easily."
"I was angry! I just didn't think and even if I would have done that, my disappearance at that time would not have gone unnoticed." She defends herself.
"Indeed but you give them a certainty over a doubt. Still, I understand now why they did not put what you destroy in their reclamation, it was incriminating for them." He mused out loud, deep in thought before going back to the original topic. "I'm assembling a team Lucie, people with unique skills. I believe you will be a nice addition to that team. I can't tell you our mission as of now, you will need to sign a NDA before that but I can tell you we are going to punish bad people."
"Can I know how many people are going to be on this team of yours?"
"Seven if I don't count myself in it. So far three have accepted, two others are thinking about it and will meet with us in January to give me their answers, then there's you and one I have not talked to yet and let me tell you that they are all geniuses in their respective field. We all are."
"Even you? I didn't know being an actor and a singer could be of use in an action team." She mused with a smirk.
"You of all people should know that everything is not what it seems. I have my hidden skills too, the only difference is that I didn't need to create fake identities to hone them." He smirks right back at her.
"I am at a disadvantage here. You know I'm a brilliant psychologist who can pilot everything that has wheels but I don't know what you can do. It's not every gentlemanly of you to keep a girl in the dark like that." She pouted cutely.
"Accept to become a member of the team and I will tell you." He smiled, not affected by her charm act.
"You know what. If your skills can impress me, I will come in January with the others that are still thinking about it and hear you out. What do you think?" She offers.
Not letting the chance pass, Nathaniel did not hesitate. Making his throwing knife appear between his hands, he starts making them turn between his fingers before making them disappear again to reappear somewhere else. All of it was so mesmerizing to watch that Lucie eyes were glued on his hands as the knife beep twirling and flashing. It lasts for about thirty seconds before he throws them suddenly in the air. Making eye contact with her, he put his hands; palme first on the coffee table, not bothering to look at the knife's anymore.
There were two audible 'Chunk' when the two knives finally fell on the table and embedded themselves in the wood of it. Looking at the hands of Nathaniel, Lucie could barely believe it. The two knife have fallen at exactly the same place, between two of his fingers, less than an inch away from them. Taking his knives back, Nathaniel put a letter on the table where the knives had landed.
"I can wait to see you in New York next year Lucie." He gave her a bright smile before walking away. Even as he was exiting her home, she still had an expression of wonder on her face.
Chapter 172: :
New York, 19/12/2012. 21:15
"How was I Maggie?" Nathaniel asked after the interview was over.
They were back in the lodge and now that he wasn't wearing makeup anymore, he had the impression of living again. He knew that he had to get used to it eventually but that still feels extremely unpleasant so far.
"No worse than usual." She answers with her deadpanned voice.
"That's why I love you Maggie, your support is always heartwarming." He said with a laugh.
"Just shut up! I'm still mad at you for disappearing just after your movie and album were released." She said angrily.
"It was not what I planned to do but I had no choice in the end. Trust me, I would have liked to stay here Maggie. I feel bad for leaving you alone to take care of things while I was away."
"I know. Despite all of your flaws, you are a hard working kid. Moreover, I heard from some of my people that your grandfather kind of disappears and then comes back after you disappear, so I gather that you had something to do with it."
"Kind of yes but I can't tell you anything about this." He answers.
"I wasn't asking because I don't care about gossip and it's not my business but I'm going to ask you to not disappear again until Christmas at least."
"The studio is that mad with me?"
"No but I am. The studio understood that you were sick and thanks to the fact that you did a
lot of interviews in local news channels, they didn't even try to ask for their money back. I saw the numbers, the movie did especially well in the city that you visit so kudos to you. It's been two weeks and the movie is still well placed in box office and we just passed the two hundred fifty millions in earnings worldwide." Maggie said with a smile.
"And since I own five percent of the movie and you get ten percent of the deal you negotiate for me… You start looking for an Ivy league university for your daughter or not yet?" Nathaniel laughed.
"We already have everything planned for her future." She smiled wolfishly at him.
"I'm sure you do." He laughed again. "So, what are we going to do now?"
"We need to talk about what you want to do with your life. I got a lot of calls and I mean really a lot of them. For starters, what do you think about sponsorship?" She asked.
"Sponsorship? I'm not really interested, why are you asking?"
"I got offers from various companies, not the least of which are Nike, Apple, Coca Cola who all want to work with you. The money they offer for a few hours of commercials is just insane."
"Well, I'm not interested. I like having my own thing and be as objective as I can. Doing commercials will just make me a sell out and be honest, I don't really need the money so I'm going to say no to that."
"Got it, I'm not really surprised at your answer to be honest. Next, you have been offered new roles for movies but since you are going to start SpiderMan early next year, I denied all these offers in your stead." She explains.
"Thanks, you were right. I won't have any free time for the foreseeable future. I even think I'm going to stay to the SpiderMan role and not look for anything other than that. What do you think?" He asked.
"It's your decision but this is risky. If the movie goes bad, it could end your career as an actor. Moreover, the movie is going to take a couple of months to turn, after that you are going to be bored."
"Bored is something I never knew in my life Maggie, I hope someday I will. I'm a singer first and foremost if my acting career stops, I will not be sad about it." He shook his head.
He had thought about it for some time and he could not do everything as they were only a limited number of hours in a day and all of his were full even when he was sleeping five hours a day like him.
"Noted. Next, I received a call for you to sing at the next Victoria Secret Party. Interested?" She asked with a frown.
Seeing the smile that came to his face, Maggie's face scrunched up in disgust and she spat.
"Men are thrash. "
*******
New York, Lyndon Tower. 19/12/2012. 23:05.
"Scott I need you for something." Nathaniel said.
They were meeting in the bunker under the Lyndon tower, Lina and Hans here too were looking at everything with curiosity and excitement writing on their faces. Press by time, Nathaniel was forced to contract an external company working with the DOD on various secret complexes for the military. Now that they were finished, everything was perfectly clean and futurist looking. Screens were turned on everywhere showing the Lyndon logo, Lina and Hans almost dying to test the whole system.
"Sir?" Scott asked, curious.
"It seems I'm going to be blocked in New York until Christmas so I'm going to ask you to retrieve the last member of the team."
"Of course, it's not a problem. I just need to know where to find him or her." He answers.
"Well, that's where it's going to be a little complicated. She's a trainee in Williamsburg, Virginia, also called The Farm by the CIA."
"Oh I see, well I never liked these assholes so taking one of their recruits is going to be fun, at least for me." He smiled.
"Well me either but you must be careful. I arranged for your rank to be reinstated so that they can't just refuse you at the gate but don't tell them anything about who you are working for and why you need this trainee in particular, do you understand me?" Nathaniel warned him.
"Yes sir." Scott nodded seriously.
"Good, take this, you will have all the necessary information you need in there. I took you a plane ticket for tomorrow, take a good night sleep Scott."
"Thanks sir." Scott answered, taking the files and exiting the bunker.
"Good, Now you two. I see that you are dying to touch the computers and you will have the occasion to do it but not now. I want you two to take everything apart and look for things that do not belong there, spying device, tracker, everything. I want this place totally secure, got it?"
"Yes sir." they answered, starting to get to work excitedly.
"After that, reconfigure everything to your liking. If you need new materials, juste tell me and I will foot the bill. Just keep in mind that I want it secured and efficient."
"Yes sir." They repeated, even more excited now.
Nathaniel just laughed and let them go nuts. He hadn't even left yet that he was already hearing metallic sound on the ground.
Chapter 173: :
The Farm, Virginia. 20/12/2012. 11:05.
"Get the fu** up Kim! Now!" Her instructor yelled.
Shooking herself from the blow that she just took on the side of the head, she got back to her feet more by strength of will than energy in her body. The hand to hand training had started for more than an hour and she was exhausted. But still, since she had learned to fight from a young age, she had it better than the rest of her class and that's why the instructor singled her out to train with him, again and again.
"I'm ready." She nodded at him.
Getting into her fighting stance, her eyes lock on her opponent. She always was a good fighter and months of training here had made her even more deadly but despite that, she couldn't beat her instructor. She knew that she was faster than him but she could not compare to his knowledge in combat. He always seemed to know where she was going to go before she did.
"KIM!" A voice shouts, stopping the fight before it even begins.
Turning her head, she saw that it was the second in command that was calling her, the rest of the recruit smirking or pitying her. They had learned the hard way that it was extreme bad news when him or the one in charge of The Farm were calling from someone.
"Follow me." He ordered before turning his back and starting to walk away, not waiting for her.
Nodding to her instructor, she then started running to catch up to him.
"Sir, can I know why I'm being called?" She asked respectfully.
In general, the people they called upon were the ones who got sacked by the program because they did not make the cut. When she had started it a few months ago, they were thirty five. Now, almost three months later, they were only nine people left, 6 mens and three women's including her
"No." He answers harshly, his tone of voice warning her to not say anything more.
Getting the message loud and clear, she kept silent and followed him where he was leading her. The more they walked, the more uneasy she became as she recognized that they were going to the office of the lead instructor. The unease transformed quickly in dread when she heard the lead instruction yelling at someone in his office.
The yelling cut off abruptly when instructor Peters knocked on the door before entering the office, taking her with him. Inside the office, she could recognize the lead instructor that she saw a number of times giving class or administering punishment. She could see that it was quite pissed off by the look of his face and eyes. Facing him, there was another man looking calm and a little shy of forty years old in uniform, the stripes identifying him as a colonel in the USAF. She had been taught to recognize the stripes of the uniforms from various military and country across the globe as part of her training here.
"Sir, recruit Kim as you requested."
"Thanks Peters, you can go back to your previous assignment." He said, dismissing him with a wave of his hand.
Nodding, the instructor leaves the office, giving a warning glance to Kim on his way out. Once Peters leaves the room, two sets of eyes focus on her. Th
e lead instructor with anger and suspicion, the colonel with open curiosity on his face.
"Recruit Kim, I'm going to ask you something only once, I expect the truth from you. Did you apply for a position in the US Air Force?" He asked with piercing eyes.
"Sir?" She asked surprised and more than a little lost.
"Just answer the question!" He ordered in a cold voice.
"No sir, I did not." She answers honestly.
"You see?" The head instructor said to the colonel, designating the young woman with his hand. "Now this is clear, I'm going to ask you to leave Colonel McCornaig."
"I've never said that she did Agent Nuttows. You grasping at straws here, you saw my orders. She's coming with me, whether you like it or not." He said with a slight smile on his face.
"Your orders are pure bullshit! You even refuse to say for who you are working for and why you are taking away one of my most promising agents!"
"This is a need to know basis and you don't need to know, agent. The only question here is, are you going to comply with the orders you have or do I need to send the army here to arrest you?"
Locking eyes for a moment, the agent's face was turning redder and it seemed to be ready to explode any moment. It was only the knowledge that it would accomplish nothing that made him relent in his envy to throw the colonel out of his office.
"Recruit Kim, gather your thing from the barracks, then meet the colonel in thirty minutes at the front gate." He ordered, gnashing the words so much that he looked like his teeth were going to break.
"But sir, I don't want to…" Kim started before she was stopped abruptly by her superior.
"This is not a matter for debate, you have orders like I have mine. Go, now." He ordered coldly.
"Yes sir." She straightened before leaving the office. It was only when she was out of earshot that the agent turned back to the man in uniform.