Sign Here Please
Chapter Two

May 29th

Dear Diary,

The person next to me is asleep, so I have some time to write. I'm on the plane now. Am I glad I set up enough alarms in the morning; I swear I could have missed the plane if it wasn't for that last one. I need to get my sleep schedule under control; after all, the job will probably require me to wake up properly every day. I still don't know.

Anyway, the good news is that I will finally get to meet our boss. I do wonder what they're like. I've always admired people who have good relationships with their bosses, but to be honest, I'm not expecting much. Looking back to three years ago, sure, they were fair. My pay was always on time and I even got bonuses every so often for doing well (probably should have saved up some instead of wasting it all on video games and overpriced coffee ugh), but knowing what kind of jobs the Rare Hunters were doing, well… I'm really not expecting them to be too kind or friendly. But hey, it's been three years, people change, right?

I wonder if there's anyone else on this plane heading to the same place. I doubt it though; most Rare Hunters I knew were all from the states, just like me. Unless any of them moved to England as well, I'm probably the only one on this plane. That's not too convenient – I was hoping to just follow someone to where I need to go. I do have a map, but I don't feel very safe and comfortable being alone in a completely new country where barely anyone speaks English.

I should be landing in a few hours. I got some sleep earlier, couldn't stay awake for too long after just 4 hours of sleep. Besides, the trip is long, I don't have anything else better to do, since I left all my books back in the apartment for my roommate and I don't want to completely use up my phone battery, in case I get lost. Which I hope I don't, ugh.

The seatbelt sign dimmed down and everyone started undoing their seatbelts, including Ingrid. She waited for other people to move a little and got in line herself. She made her way to the passport check and went to get her bag. Soon after, the bag belonging to her showed up on the conveyer, so she grabbed it and dragged it along with her out of the arrivals zone.

"It must be so nice to have someone pick you up after a flight." She thought, looking at families and friends being reunited. Some even came to pick up their loved ones with flowers. She smiled looking at the happy faces and with the corner of her eye she saw someone waving. She thought the person was waving to someone else, but when she looked up, she saw them holding a piece of paper with the words "Ingrid Bryn" on it.

"Someone came to pick me up? Wow, hello!" she said to the man who was waiting for her after walking up to him. He was fairly tall and had semi-short dark hair.

"Ah, I'm guessing you are Ingrid then, miss? Our boss sent me to pick you up. You seem to be the last one!" he told her, making her notice his thick Irish accent.

"Oh, I'm sorry? Am I really late? My flight was delayed by only about twenty minutes though?"

"No no, you're not! It's just that the flight from the states had arrived earlier, then one person came from Germany, and finally, your flight. Everyone else is already in the office. I'm here to drive you there. Please, let me help you with your bag!" the man said and Ingrid handed him her bag, thanking him. She was glad that someone picked her up, even if it's formal, at least she wouldn't have to struggle with the map. She followed him outside and to his car, having a small chat with him.

"Oh I must apologize, I completely forgot to introduce myself. My name is Steve, I'm one of Marik's recruits as well, but I came here about a month ago, to help him with planning."

"Marik's? That's our boss, right?" Ingrid asked.

"Yes, that's him. I'm surprised you didn't know that before, didn't you work with the Rare Hunters like the rest of us?"

"Oh I did, but I have never met him before. And as you can see, I didn't even know his name. I actually didn't even know he was a guy up until now! I was mostly operating deep downtown those three years ago, with the 14th squad. We were quite disconnected from the rest of the Rare Hunters, to be honest we were just doing what we were told and didn't ask questions, which is why I don't know much about our boss." the girl explained, as she sat into the front passenger seat and heard the engine roar.

"Well that explains it," Steve said while starting up the car, "I was working quite close to our boss, as security mostly. I didn't get to see many things the other Rare Hunters did anyway. But as far as I know, the rest of them are from the 3rd squad. I'm surprised that Marik chose someone so far from the main operations, really! Not to be insulting or anything, I don't mean it in that way. You must have shown some very good skills for him to make a decision like that."

"I did my best and it looks like it paid off," Ingid smiled, "but that reminds me – why only six of us? I figured you might know if you've been here longer."

"Well, that's as many skilled recruits we could get. We called around 20, hoping to later recruit 15 people, after some sort of a skill test. But the problem is that most people couldn't handle the fact that they had to move to Egypt for this. Only you and a few others gave us a green light almost instantly, others still needed quite some convincing to join us. So this is all we have for the time being. We might call in some less skilled past recruits later and train them for the job, but before we do that we need to see if this business idea works out." Steve explained.

"Oh, by any chance, do you maybe know what we will be doing? When I got the call, all I was told is that there's a well-paying job that needs employees. And I said yes. I still don't know what I'm going to be doing, it would be about time I found out, since I might want to get ready if it's something unusual."

"To be honest, even I don't know," Steve shrugged as he kept talking, "all I know is that it has something to do with the police, which is odd, comparing to what the Rare Hunters used to be. I just hope the boss knows what he's doing. The last thing I want is a criminal record on my name. Oh, by the way, we should be arriving shortly."

"That's good to hear." Ingrid said, continuing their chat, "Hey, since you were Marik's right hand man, or something like that, do you have any idea what happened those three years ago? I was so far from all the action all I got was a letter saying we're all fired. Just like that. It was really upsetting, it would be nice to know what happened."

"Sadly, I know just as much as you do. Marik was gone for days and when he came back, he just said that it's all over. He literally told us to pack our things and go home, as well as to forget everything that happened. So we disbanded."

"Looks like we're getting back together then. I just wonder how different it will be." Ingrid said while eyeing the building they were parking next to. It didn't look like a standard office; it was more of a large house with quite a few rooms inside. Ingrid got out of the car and looked around. The first thing she noticed was the obvious police station in front of the building they parked next to. "Looks like we really will be dealing with the police then. Hmm." She thought. It was a tad worrying. Other than that, it was a regular small city street – there were a few shops down the road, as well as some take-away place. On a corner of one of the houses, there was also something that looked like a bar or pub.

"There we go, got your bag, miss." Ingrid stopped looking around and turned to Steve, who was locking the car, "Best we go inside, the others are probably waiting already."

Ingrid nodded and followed Steve. The front door was unlocked, he opened it and let Ingrid go first.

"It's nice to see there are still some gentlemen in this world." She laughed, making Steve smile.

"Ah, well, you should be thanking my parents for that. Wish they raised me to be less of a troublemaker though! Now then, I will leave your bag here with the others." he said, placing her bag next to other similar bags – looks like there were 5 more of them there, just like she thought. "So it's seven of us then with Steve, and eight with the boss. That's a fairly small company for whatever we'll be up to." She thought.

"Alright, everyone else is in the lounge – that's upstairs, first door on your right! Everyone else is waiting there, so you can go on and meet them. I will leave you to it and go tell our boss that everyone arrived, and then call you all to his office and he will explain everything. To be honest I'm pretty excited to find out too."

Ingrid nodded and looked around once more. It was a big hallway sort of square room, with large stairs in the middle and a bunch of rooms on the sides, as well as one behind the stairs. She made her way upstairs, which was quite similar, only it had a lot less walking space due to the stairs. Right in front of them there were large doors, while the rest of the doors around looked exactly the same as downstairs. The house was mostly decorated in white/grey and had some flower pots around as decorations. Ingrid wondered why there is no smell from the flowers, but as she walked by them when making her way to the lounge, she realized what's up – they were plastic.

Ingrid walked up to the lounge door and heard laughs and a lot of chatting inside. She took a deep breath and turned the door handle.

"Time to meet my new co-workers."

AN / yep. Named him Steve for the joke.
Wild Marik appears!...in the next chapter.