Disclaimer: I don't own A.T.O.M. and never will. Unfortunately. But I do own the idea of this fic and the new characters I introduced.
A/N: Hello everyone! My name is Sunny and I'm here to present you my newest story, "Hostage". This is my first A.T.O.M. fic, so I'd really appreciate your comments and opinions! They help me to improve my writing.
This story is set in season 2, somewhere after episode 6 or 7. A teenage student from Landmark City University gets captured by Lee and the Mu-team… Accidentally. Let the madness begin!
Hostage.
Chapter One.
Nighttime was falling on Landmark City, driving some of its inhabitants to their homes and others – to places not so quiet. It was a typical Friday evening, when everyone rejoiced at the end of the week and at the upcoming weekend. This was especially true for the Landmark University Campus residents, who were not only eager to get involved in as much parties and drinking contests as possible, but were also seeing forward to a two-months break from their studies. After all, summer vacations are summer vacations.
However, that particular Friday night there were some campus residents who were left out of the partying business. Those were several students from economics, as well as bio-tech, faculties who were drop dead tired after two weeks of none-stop exams. And by the moment the campus hall clock stroke eleven, everyone, except for two, had already disappeared to their rooms.
The said two students were both form the economics faculty, having had recently suffered, and not for the first time, the horrors of preparations for the June exam session and the horrors of the session itself. The situation was especially horrible for these two, since they were among the top students and preferred to keep it that way.
"So, do you think you've made it?" asked an eighteen year old girl with brown straight hair and pale green eyes, addressing her friend, a girl of seventeen with black eyes, tanned golden-peach skin, and long curly hair, originally dark, but now of a very light color due to prolonged exposure to sun. The girl laughed.
"Well, I hope it's an A!" she answered. Her friend laughed in return.
"Say, Sophie, is it true that your father is actually paying you for your grades?" the green-eyed girl asked.
"Yep, it sure is," Sophie answered, "but it's not as it sounds: we don't have any tariffs or anything. It's just my constant good grades earn me a constant access to quite a large portion of our family funds."
Both girls laughed.
"And you, Krista? What about you? Which exam was the hardest to prepare for you?" Sophie asked, resuming their conversation.
Krista gave her friend a questioning, yet bored look.
"Isn't that obvious?" she asked darkly.
"Business accounting?"
"Wow! Nice guess!" Krista cheered sarcastically. Sophie laughed again.
"You hate the subject," that was more of a statement than a question.
"And who doesn't?" the words came before Krista thought them through. Sophie inclined her head to the right a bit and put on a bored expression of her own.
"Ahem."
"Oohps, sorry, I forgot," Krista put her hands up in mock defence, "it's one of your favorite s…"
"It's NOT one of my favorite subjects!" Sophie exclaimed in an annoyed tone.
"Ok, ok, but you are still among a few who can tolerate him. He's such a bore!" Krista answered, referring to their business accounting teachers. The girls laughed again.
The clock in the main hall chimed a quarter past eleven. Krista yawned tiredly.
"Ok," she said sleepily, "I think I shall go now. I'm way too tired from all of this."
"Yeah, me too," answered Sophie.
"Goodnight then," Krista called turning around and leaving for her room, which was on the next floor.
"'Night," Sophie answered. She turned around and pushed the nearest door open to reveal a small but cozy room with a bed, a night stand, wardrobe with a few drawers and an office table opposite the window, piled with books and different papers. Near the table stood a small garbage basket half filled with papers.
The lamp on the table was turned on, dimly lighting the room. Sophie closed the door and looked around. Everything seemed to be fine. She walked to her table and started sorting out books and putting them away. After that she decided to turn in for the night. However, something else caught her eye: a roughly but thoroughly crumpled piece of paper lay behind her table, right under the window.
''Must've not noticed that earlier,' the girl thought as she walked around the table and picked up the litter. Sophie started to carefully unfold the piece of paper, which turned out to be quite a large one. She did it out of a habit: she always looked her papers through before throwing them out. What if she threw out something important?
Meanwhile, the piece of paper turned out to be a page from a broadsheet newspaper, "LC Daily". The page was in fact the front cover of a month old issue, dated May 17th. The first thing Sophie noticed was a large photo of a man with short blonde hair in a business suit, wearing wide glasses. Above the picture was a heading:
'JANUS LEE A GENIUS DEVIL?
As reported by witnesses, yesterday afternoon industrialist and scientist Janus Lee has left his office and mansion with a strange creature claimed by some rumors to be one of his employee's clone'.
Sophie's grip on the paper tightened as she read further:
'Mr.Janus Lee, a renowned and well-respected business man and scientist was reported to have left his mansion right before an underground level of it was destroyed by a mysterious explosion. It is also said that Mr.Lee had put himself under a dangerous and seemingly unauthorized experiment, which has gone wrong. His behavior was reported inadequate and hostile.
'A speaker from Lee Industries board of directors made an official announcement, in which he declared that Lee had been making unauthorized research in cloning during the course of the year and is believed to have succeeded in producing a clone of one of his former employee's, Axel Manning.
'Lee was officially stripped of all his authority in Lee Industries and all of his property has passed to the local government…'
Enough was enough. Sophie felt rage and frustration building inside of her up till the level when she wanted to smash something… Something, like the face of a man who had written the article. Once again, Sophie crumpled the paper, crushing it in her hands as though it was made of finest steel. She now knew how this paper ended up on the floor behind her table: the first time she read that, she tore the page out of the newspaper and stood crumpling it for a long time and then finally threw it into the wall with as much force as she could.
This time, however, Sophie managed to contain her emotions to the level where she had enough patience to let the paper end up in a garbage can. With that done, the girl changed and went to bed without any further hesitation, her heart still filled with anger and frustration, and her mind – with memories.
…She memorized well enough the moment when she first met him. The top students of LC University were carefully monitored by Lee Industries' special Training Program. It was aimed to encourage young teenagers to undertake senior education, enter universities and work their hardest, since they were later taken in by Lee Industries on coaching programs and later – on real, well-paid jobs. But only very few students, not more than seven out of two-three hundred, were actually lucky enough to be taken on an "excursion" around LI and meeting Janus Lee himself having not yet reached at least the fourth course.
She was in the middle of the first one, and she was invited…
And then she was introduced to him as a most brilliant first-year student on Economics&Business faculty. She considered herself the luckiest person in the world. It was the first bright moment of her life ever since her parents had divorced a year before, and she moved in with her dad, as they both left for Landmark City.
She was the one who spoke to him most during their stay at LI. Other students were simply amazed at how she managed to talk the man in. But she had a privilege: she was smarter and more grown-up than anyone else. And Mr.Lee was actually amazed with that. He told her that he will ask the manager of the Program to keep a close eye on her, so that when she entered her last course she would be also taken in by Lee Industries to be trained by the specialists.
She was charmed and fascinated by the man. Ever since then she almost turned into his fan, idolizing him like she idolized her father, watching out for every piece of information she could get on him…
And then, in the middle of May, the city nearly exploded with the news of "Lee being pure evil and madman". Upon learning that, Sophie became furious, frustrated and finally empty. She tried to find anything to justify the man's actions, but she knew that as hard as she may try, she would never be able to persuade others.
So she had to live up with the harsh and painful truth that even if she did enter Lee Industries in three years, she would most probably never see Janus Lee himself again.
A/N: So… What do you think? blushes shyly" Please let me know!