Post by Roman Mason on Jul 31, 2011 18:25:30 GMT
Fluorescent lights flickered hesitantly on as the switch was flipped up. Roman allowed the lights to settle on before entering the shady looking locker room in an equally dodgy looking train station in the south end of New York’s Bronx burrow. The locker room was dirty and completely empty save one bum, drunk and slumped against the farthest corner of the room. Roman leaned back out of the room’s only door, rubber necked around, and ducked back inside, locking the door behind him.
“We’re alone.” he muttered without preamble.
The bum looked up from an apparent drunken haze and removed a large manila file folder from beneath several layers of coats of all colors and types. He hid his face under a wide brimmed boonie cap, but Roman caught a quick glimpse of dirt and grime on a weak, almost feminine, jaw line.
“You’re moving.” He rasped as he tossed the folder onto a nearby bench.
Roman moved quickly across the room to take the folder, the hard leather soles of his shoes clicking loudly into the silence of the room. “Chicago?” he asked, glancing briefly into the file.
The bum said nothing, just settled back into the same apparent stupor.
“Fine.” Roman declared. “Chicago.”
He tucked the folder inside his suit jacket and briskly exited the locker room, flipping off the lights as he went.
The tickets to Chicago were for the next morning so he packed two large suit cases with everything he’d need for at least three weeks until the rest of his belongings arrived. “Amazing.” He blurted to himself before walking out of his Manhattan apartment. “If they’d ever give me more than a day’s notice, I could maybe get a dog, or a peace lily. Something.” With a shrug and a “Hrumph” he swung the door closed behind him.
Alcohol and Dramamine made the next twelve hours a blur of barely comprehensible P.A. announcements about the white zone and baggage left unattended and half-hearted attempts at small talk. His job called for him to fly often, yet he never seemed to get used to the motion sickness. Though more than that, he found being in a chemically induced, walking coma kept most people from prying into his business, which, he figured, was absolutely none of theirs.
An apartment in the north side of the city had already been rented in his name and the key would be waiting for him at the office of his building. If anything, the company was exceedingly efficient at the relocation of personnel. The apartment was already furnished, a near carbon copy of the one he’d just left, minus those personal touches that make a place a home.
There was a small dining nook just beyond the living room where another file folder was lying open on a stylish black volcanic glass dining table. A piece of paper, with a stylized FWF scrawled across the top caught his attention first. The post-it note attached to it simply stated “Your Assignment.” Inside were a number of profiles, each complete with height, weight, hair and eye color, names of associates and relatives, pictures and even favorite foods. He picked up the dossiers and idly flipped through, scanning the pictures for anything interesting but nothing seemed to catch his eye.
The next few hours were spent unpacking, showering, working out, showering again, and trying, and failing, to sleep.
The sudden explosion of sound from his phone startled him from his now near meditative trance of staring at the ceiling of his new apartment. He scrambled around in his bed, looking for his phone, finally finding it exactly where he left it on the night stand.
“’Ello?” He blurted as quickly as he could after pressing the accept button.
“Mason?” Questioned a stern, yet feminine voice on the other end.
“You got ‘em.” He stated as nonchalantly as humanly possible.
“Giordano’s. Thirty minutes.” Then the line went dead.
Giordano’s, as it turned out, was an extremely popular pizzeria. Roman had thought at first he stood out, wearing a nine hundred dollar medium grey suit, until he noticed the restaurant’s patrons. Persons from every walk of life, from near poverty stricken urchins to apparent corporate big wigs were present.
Before he could be seated, a strikingly beautiful, blonde haired, blue eyed woman wearing the kind of provocative skirt suit usually seen in men’s magazines, approached him.
“Mason.” she stated rather than asked. “I’m Monica. I’ll be your handler.”
A slow smile crept across Roman’s lips. “I’m gonna like this assignment.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and fairly purred in response, “That remains to be seen.”
Roman noticed over their dinner, a deep dish pizza he had to utilize cutlery to eat, that Monica had a very easy sense of authority about her. It wasn’t so much like the mantle one wears after years of struggling up ladders and over barriers to achieve a position. Rather, she wore her authority as easily as she wore her own skin. It was flawlessly natural, and something about that unnerved him a little. He wasn’t intimidated by women with power, quite the opposite, but the thought of someone who would do anything to maintain the power she was born to have brought sudden images of History Channel documentaries and lessons of numerous wars flooding to the fore front of his mind.
“Your task,” she continued from a conversation he hadn’t been paying attention to. “will be to dominate. Simply put.”
“Oh.” He stated conversationally. “Is that all?” He gave her an incredulous look. “And after that, I’ll fly to the moon, resurrect John Wayne and cure cancer.”
She stared daggers at him, completely un-amused.
“What I mean to say is,” he changed his tone to a more matter-of-fact quality. “These are some of the world’s foremost gladiatorial athletes. ‘Simply Dominate’ may not be the easiest of directives to fulfill.”
Daggers still. If looks could kill, this woman would most assuredly make Hitler look like Gandhi. She could have sold that look to Al Qaida and made a fortune.
“You WILL do it, Mason.” She ordered.
“Don’t get me wrong.” He started, not back pedaling so much as making a verbal riposte. “I’m gonna do it. But just for the record, I am a fan of a few of these guys.”
“Good.” He detected a slight skew to her accent. Russian? “And you know the consequences should you fail?” she arched an eyebrow at him.
“I won’t.”
“But should you…” she trailed off.
“I know.” The anger seethed just beneath the surface of his face. Beads of sweat began dotting his forehead. “You want to leave this conversation.”
Her lips curled into a sardonic grin. “As long as we have an understanding.
The rest of the dinner was in uneasy silence. They finished. She paid. And they went their separate ways. She drove, even offered him a ride in her apparently brand new Mercedes.
Roman walked. It had been ten years since he’d been in Chicago, since he’d started in the business running packages for pocket money. Now he was home, though it didn’t feel like it. This was work, and there was plenty of it to be done.
“We’re alone.” he muttered without preamble.
The bum looked up from an apparent drunken haze and removed a large manila file folder from beneath several layers of coats of all colors and types. He hid his face under a wide brimmed boonie cap, but Roman caught a quick glimpse of dirt and grime on a weak, almost feminine, jaw line.
“You’re moving.” He rasped as he tossed the folder onto a nearby bench.
Roman moved quickly across the room to take the folder, the hard leather soles of his shoes clicking loudly into the silence of the room. “Chicago?” he asked, glancing briefly into the file.
The bum said nothing, just settled back into the same apparent stupor.
“Fine.” Roman declared. “Chicago.”
He tucked the folder inside his suit jacket and briskly exited the locker room, flipping off the lights as he went.
The tickets to Chicago were for the next morning so he packed two large suit cases with everything he’d need for at least three weeks until the rest of his belongings arrived. “Amazing.” He blurted to himself before walking out of his Manhattan apartment. “If they’d ever give me more than a day’s notice, I could maybe get a dog, or a peace lily. Something.” With a shrug and a “Hrumph” he swung the door closed behind him.
Alcohol and Dramamine made the next twelve hours a blur of barely comprehensible P.A. announcements about the white zone and baggage left unattended and half-hearted attempts at small talk. His job called for him to fly often, yet he never seemed to get used to the motion sickness. Though more than that, he found being in a chemically induced, walking coma kept most people from prying into his business, which, he figured, was absolutely none of theirs.
An apartment in the north side of the city had already been rented in his name and the key would be waiting for him at the office of his building. If anything, the company was exceedingly efficient at the relocation of personnel. The apartment was already furnished, a near carbon copy of the one he’d just left, minus those personal touches that make a place a home.
There was a small dining nook just beyond the living room where another file folder was lying open on a stylish black volcanic glass dining table. A piece of paper, with a stylized FWF scrawled across the top caught his attention first. The post-it note attached to it simply stated “Your Assignment.” Inside were a number of profiles, each complete with height, weight, hair and eye color, names of associates and relatives, pictures and even favorite foods. He picked up the dossiers and idly flipped through, scanning the pictures for anything interesting but nothing seemed to catch his eye.
The next few hours were spent unpacking, showering, working out, showering again, and trying, and failing, to sleep.
The sudden explosion of sound from his phone startled him from his now near meditative trance of staring at the ceiling of his new apartment. He scrambled around in his bed, looking for his phone, finally finding it exactly where he left it on the night stand.
“’Ello?” He blurted as quickly as he could after pressing the accept button.
“Mason?” Questioned a stern, yet feminine voice on the other end.
“You got ‘em.” He stated as nonchalantly as humanly possible.
“Giordano’s. Thirty minutes.” Then the line went dead.
Giordano’s, as it turned out, was an extremely popular pizzeria. Roman had thought at first he stood out, wearing a nine hundred dollar medium grey suit, until he noticed the restaurant’s patrons. Persons from every walk of life, from near poverty stricken urchins to apparent corporate big wigs were present.
Before he could be seated, a strikingly beautiful, blonde haired, blue eyed woman wearing the kind of provocative skirt suit usually seen in men’s magazines, approached him.
“Mason.” she stated rather than asked. “I’m Monica. I’ll be your handler.”
A slow smile crept across Roman’s lips. “I’m gonna like this assignment.”
She narrowed her eyes at him and fairly purred in response, “That remains to be seen.”
Roman noticed over their dinner, a deep dish pizza he had to utilize cutlery to eat, that Monica had a very easy sense of authority about her. It wasn’t so much like the mantle one wears after years of struggling up ladders and over barriers to achieve a position. Rather, she wore her authority as easily as she wore her own skin. It was flawlessly natural, and something about that unnerved him a little. He wasn’t intimidated by women with power, quite the opposite, but the thought of someone who would do anything to maintain the power she was born to have brought sudden images of History Channel documentaries and lessons of numerous wars flooding to the fore front of his mind.
“Your task,” she continued from a conversation he hadn’t been paying attention to. “will be to dominate. Simply put.”
“Oh.” He stated conversationally. “Is that all?” He gave her an incredulous look. “And after that, I’ll fly to the moon, resurrect John Wayne and cure cancer.”
She stared daggers at him, completely un-amused.
“What I mean to say is,” he changed his tone to a more matter-of-fact quality. “These are some of the world’s foremost gladiatorial athletes. ‘Simply Dominate’ may not be the easiest of directives to fulfill.”
Daggers still. If looks could kill, this woman would most assuredly make Hitler look like Gandhi. She could have sold that look to Al Qaida and made a fortune.
“You WILL do it, Mason.” She ordered.
“Don’t get me wrong.” He started, not back pedaling so much as making a verbal riposte. “I’m gonna do it. But just for the record, I am a fan of a few of these guys.”
“Good.” He detected a slight skew to her accent. Russian? “And you know the consequences should you fail?” she arched an eyebrow at him.
“I won’t.”
“But should you…” she trailed off.
“I know.” The anger seethed just beneath the surface of his face. Beads of sweat began dotting his forehead. “You want to leave this conversation.”
Her lips curled into a sardonic grin. “As long as we have an understanding.
The rest of the dinner was in uneasy silence. They finished. She paid. And they went their separate ways. She drove, even offered him a ride in her apparently brand new Mercedes.
Roman walked. It had been ten years since he’d been in Chicago, since he’d started in the business running packages for pocket money. Now he was home, though it didn’t feel like it. This was work, and there was plenty of it to be done.