9/15/3103

  ‘Just at least text them.’ Nathan's voice echoed through Xandra’s head. She turns on her phone and goes to the messaging app. She types in the phone number and turns her phone off. She didn't expect to get a message from the club so quickly. ‘Must be desperate for members.’ she thought.

  ‘But I don’t really want to keep my guard down.’ she thought. Just then she got a call from the number of the club. She picked it up. “Hello, we meet in the alleyway of Sandie’s Coffee Place.” said a text-to-speech voice. She went back to the messaging app.

  No response. The number called her, again. She answered, again. “Hello, we meet in the alleyway of Sandie’s Coffee Place.” It was the same message. “If this number calls me a third time, maybe I’ll go.” she told herself. She turns off her phone, automatically hanging up. The number called her a third time. ‘I guess I’m taking a morning bus trip.’ Xandra said, internally.

  Xandra stepped off of the bus near Sandie’s Coffee Place, the local coffee shop she never stepped foot inside. She never tried coffee in her life, though she knew that there is no pressure for her to buy from the shop to be in there. She didn’t have to be in that shop. She had to meet someone in an alley, like some sort of Noir or superhero novel. She turned to move towards the alleyway. ‘I hope I don’t get mugged.’ she chortled as she thought. She stopped at the opening of it as she saw someone with his back turned to her at the end of it. She could tell that he wore safety lab goggles on top of his head. The dark, brown-haired man also wore a labcoat with some sort of crosshair-like symbol on the back of it and three letters on the bottom. She assumed that was the acronym for the club, the Science Club for People. She stepped even further into the alleyway. “Hello?” she called out. The man turned around, under his coat he wore a light brown vest over a white buttoned-up shirt and blue necktie. She was about six feet away from him, but she could tell he had a slight smile behind his mustache.

  “Was I supposed to dress up for the occasion or…?”

  “No, this is just an aesthetic for the immersion.”

  “What immersion?”

  Just then something stung her arm. “Ow!” she yelped with her voice cracking in pain. Her nearsightedness seemed to get worse everytime she closed her teary eyes and opened them back up as she flinched in pain. She felt like she got stabbed, but she didn’t get stabbed. Not with a knife at least. She couldn’t see what was impaled into her arm as she fell down to her knees and onto her side. Now she could see there were two figures that stood over her. The dark, brown-haired, mustached man and a shorter, chubbier man with blond, curly hair. Her vision faded to black.

  Xandra then wakes up on a bed similar to the ones at a hospital. She notices that she is still wearing her clothes. She sits up as someone walks into the room. “How are you feeling?” the man that walked in asked. He was a man in dreads with an almost fully grown beard. He wore a labcoat with a medical shirt with matching pants. “Where am I?” she asked. “You're at the hospital.” the man said.

  “Wait, really?”

  “No, you're at a disclosed location at Site-260.”

  “W-where?”

  “Are you nervous?”

  Of course, she was nervous. “Am I in trouble?” she asked. He snorts. “When I was first hired, I thought of the same thing. Good thing you're not a former criminal, then there would be a fifty-fifty percent chance that you'll die being a lab-rat.” he said. Another voice chimed in. It seemed to have startled the man and Xandra. The voice said, “And the reason why you haven’t heard about this place is because we’re a secret organization, independent to the government. We fight in the dark, so you can live in the light.” She looked over to whoever was speaking. It was the blond man from the alleyway. She could see now that the man in front of her had blue eyes and an tired look on his face. He was wearing a labcoat over a red shirt and blue jeans. “Jesus Christ, Kent! Give me a warning next time!” the man said to supposedly, “Kent” the other voice. By the tone of his voice, he was obviously shook.

  “W-why am I here?”

  “You wanted to join us, didn't you?”

  “Wait, were you-were you the-the guys who put up that poster?”

  The blond man shook his head with a smile. “What's your name?” asked the other man on the left side of her. He now held a file. “Miss Corder.” she replied. She didn’t trust others she just met. “Your real name.” said Kent, coldly. She gulped and sighed. “Xandra.” she said. The man right next to her wrote something down in the file.

  “Didn't you used to be a veterinarian?”

  “How did you know…?”

  Kent walks over to the man. He whispers something in his ear that Xandra couldn’t hear as her mind was still a little foggy from the incident in the alleyway. The man writes something down again in the file. Then both men walked out of the room. Kent glances over to Xandra. “Your labcoat is on the chair.” he told her. “Put it on before MTF security chases you out.” He then shuts the door behind him. Xandra still had so many questions. She got out of bed and walked over to the chair where a labcoat was neatly folded. She hated to unfold it because something told her it wasn’t hers, but if she must. She put the labcoat on.

  As she put her left arm into the sleeve, somebody suddenly burst through the doorway, tackled and pinned her to the wall. She felt like the person was hiding her or that they were both hiding from something. She then caught a glimpse of possibly that something slinking away from one of the windows of the medical room. It looked like a rotting corpse of some sort of animal. Then a few seconds later, the person let go and got off of her to look at the window. She could see that it was a dark-haired man wearing glasses over his blue eyes. He was wearing a labcoat over a black vest, white dress shirt and red necktie that was almost covered by his beard. He was breathing heavily. She guessed he ran into the room to get away from... whatever was outside. He then spoke, “Sorry about that, please don't tell anyone that I accidentally let six eighty-two loose.” “What!?” she asked with her tone of voice being a mix between surprise and confusion.

  “Oh,” he nervously chuckles. “I usually don't pay attention to these things under stress…”. He holds out his hand out for her shake. “I'm Dr. Kirby J. Lennard!”. She grabs his hand. “Kirby, I'm Xandra.”

  “Sandra?" the man queried with a tilted head.

  “No, Xandra-with a X, like in xylophone.” she tells him.

  They both let go. “Oh, are you new here? Cause I've never heard of a Xandra before…”

  “Obviously, I have no idea what's happening.”

  Just then an alarm sounded.

  Both Xandra and Kirby were running down the hallway adjacent to the medical wing. They stopped around the corner to catch their breath and started walking. They go inside an office room. “So, how'd you get here?” asked Kirby. She sighs and says, “I don't know, I was knocked out in an alleyway with something and somehow ended up here.”

  “What did that something feel like?”

  “Like I got stabbed. It really hurt a lot.”

  “Yikes,” In a lowered voice he said, “Goddammit, Kent…”

  “Hm?”

  “Yeah, try not to get in trouble or you might get injected with that, again… or worse.”

  “What? What did I get injected with?”

  “A strong dose of a cocktail containing Ketamine and amnestics.”

  “What?”

  “Ketamine, a hydrochloride tranquilizer used in veterinary pra—”

  “I know what ketamine is. I used to work as a veterinarian, but amnestics?”

  “Amnestics are a memory wiping drug. Wow, you just got here didn't you?”

  “I told you—.”. A roar was then heard down the hallway. “What was that?” whispered Xandra. In a lower voice Kirby said, “Don't worry, we'll get you caught up eventually. Just hide under the desk.”. Kirby goes into a large cabinet. “But what about you?” muttered Xandra. “We just met each other! I'll be fine!” he hissed.

  More animalistic noises are heard down the hallway. The more Xandra heard them, the more fake they sounded as if the snarls and the growls were pre-recorded and played back on a speaker. “Kirby? Kirby!” Xandra called out to him in a whisper.No response from him. She was on hands and knees, crawling and trying to make sure she didn't make loud noises herself. The door of the office was still open. She crawled out into the hallway, following the noises. Then she caught sight of something being dragged, 'What kind of large reptile has a flat, droopy tail like that?' she thought. She touched it, hoping it won't react to her doing so. It didn't. Whatever it was, it was still distracted by whatever… or whoever's scent it was tracking. The “tail” was fake. In fact, it wasn't a tail at all. It felt like was made out of the burlap-like material ghilliesuits are made out of. She put both of her knees on it, revealing that there two people under a costume. The growls and snarls still played. Xandra stands up.

  “Dude, she figured it out. The gig is up!” the person controlling the back whispered to the one controlling the front.

  “Hm?”

  “Dude, she figured it out. The gig is up!” says one guy controlling the back whispered to the one controlling the front. “Hm?” went the other, who was controlling the front. He turns to Xandra and says, “Disgusting human! How dare you—!”

  The person in the front of the costume looks at his partner and takes off mask, looking back at Xandra. She heard clapping behind her and she turns around. It was Kent. She didn't realize–now standing up and not sitting in a hospital bed–that he was about the same height as her, but perhaps a few inches taller.

  “Congratulations, kid. You got the job; but if this were the real deal, you'll be dead…”

  “Oh…, wa-was I not… supposed to do that?”

  “No. Like I said, if it were the real Hard-to-Destroy-Reptile, you'll die. But you got the job anyway.”

  “You will hire me to work here, even so there is a chance of me dying?”

  “If you fuck up, it would be you, us and millions of other people. You won't be alone in the afterlife.” In a lower voice Kent said, “If there is one.”

  Xandra nervously giggles. “That doesn't sound like a lot of responsibility.” she said.

  The blond man snorts. “The man next to you, Dr. Roderick Jameison in the medical room asked you, if you worked as a veterinarian, you asked us how we know about that. We tracked your records using your phone number.”

  “Oh.” says Xandra.

  “Your experience with animals might help us out.”

  She smiled, still nervous and a little scared about what was in store for her in the future.

  Xandra went back to the office where she saw Kirby disappear into the cabinet. She opened it. The cabinet was empty. She figured that the other side of the cabinet had the shelves behind the door. She was proven wrong when she opened it. There was a door. It was small, but it was still enough of a size for someone to go through. She opens the door. In front of her was a metal fence railing. She stepped onto the metal platform and walked towards the railing. She glanced around. She sees someone down the stairs. The person looked up. He waved at her. She waved back. She walked down the stairs to the the man. It was the dark, brown-haired mustached man she met before.

  “Uh…, hi.”

  “Hey, we really haven’t met properly. Sorry about that.” he says as holds his hand out. “The name’s Stanley.”

  “I’m Xandra.”. She takes his hand and they both shake.

  They both let go.

  “You must’ve met my cousin earlier–Kirby.”

  “Yeah… did he come down here?”

  “He did.”

  She and Stanley sees Kirby walk over to them. “And from I heard it looks like you got the job.”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “Good luck!”

  “Thoughts and prayers, too.” muttered Xandra.

  “You’re nervous, aren’t you?”. She nods, tears almost forming in her eyes from how fast this was going for her. He pats her shoulder and she blinks the tears away. “We’ll start interview whenever you’re ready.” says Stanley. She sighs.

Interview

  “So how’d it go?”. Xandra gave him a confused look. “The club, I just assumed you were there all day. It must’ve been fun for you.” said Nathan. “Right, the club… yeah, it was fun. They were hiring.” she told her roommate.

  “Hiring? For…”

  “You know, for volunteers at the local veterinary clinic.”

  “So, you’ll be working there.” She nods. Then there was a knock at the door. “I'll get it.” said Xandra. She goes over to open it. There sat a letter on the floor. She picks it up. “Travel Information” it said on the front. She flipped it over. It had the same crosshair-like insignia that she saw around the site. She closed the door behind her and opens the letter.