The Limousine was dry and toasty with a beautiful woman in front of him, which was everything Roger could ask for. He sat back looking at the beautiful debutante. Immediately, he tapped his knees unsure of what to say.
"So Roger," Carpathia smiled her red lips, redder than cherries; her eyes attentive only to him. She grabbed the clip board that was strategically placed next to her apple shaped bottom. She crossed her legs, with those daring black tights tightly wrapped around them. If she wasn't looking he'd take in those legs for days. Carpathia unwavering in his attention, pulled out a thick gold pen with the same company name and logo on her lapel. "Any immediate family?"
Roger thought about it, no one really. His father is dead, his sister Rhonda practically disowned his family when she married up; His brother Simon is also living alone in the bachelor's life (much more successful than him at it) and his mother. He blew out air, then answered nonchalantly, "Only my mother and my brother Simon. "
"Good!" She exclaimed, she scribbled more on the chart. "Your blood type?" She looked hopeful to him.
"A-positive."
She just scribbled onto the document. "Height, weight, where do you see yourself in five years?"
"6,5; 130 lbs, and hopefully written a bestselling novel and maybe a high position in this company." Roger adjusted, suddenly uncomfortable. What did this company do anyway?
"Do you know what this company does?" Carpathia looked up, Roger shook his head. Her expression showed that she wasn't surprised; she expected this answer.
"Pharmaceuticals."
"Pharmaceuticals?" He questioned, immediately after he felt like a dullard asking, but he didn't want a job that was boring.
"Yes, and don't worry you won't be one of our scientists, you'll have a job with more travel, course you'll need to be in tip top shape. With all that running around."
"Like a pharmaceutical rep?"
"Not exactly."
"But it'll be as just as interactive." She peeped, her mood was elevating. He would call her absolutely titillated. "Now how long can you run?"
"It's been a while, why-"
"Oh company marathons and such, you know like walks for charity; I suppose like those runs that Avon Company sponsors. For the job I'm planning for you you'll be running around, socializing, aiming for success! Now-" She froze staring at him, her cheek to cheek grin unsettled him a bit.
"Oh!" He realized she was waiting, "Like I said it's been a while, I once ran 1 K when I was a teen-"
"Good enough," She muttered, "We can work on it you know and measure how long you run, it won't be too hard." She scratched the pen onto the paper. "Are those prescription?" She pointed her gold pen at his thick rimmed glasses.
"Yes," He instinctively took them off, wiping the lens with his shirt. "I've had them since I was twelve." He stuck them back on, Carpathia began to dig in her purse; pulling out a small grey machine. It was a peculiar little thing that fit in the palm of her hand. It was a rectangle with another square with its edges sloping down its back. A plastic screen jutted out of the side with a yellow bullseye type cross in the middle. He could hear the hum of the machine; a purple light popped up on her end. He could hear clicks as her fingers pressed into the grey block.
"Take them off," She came over to his side, sliding in close to him. He slid them off letting everything far away turn to fuzz. She then, with a doctor's calm, came into his view crystal clear, or just enough to see the details of her face. And to feel her breath on his neck. Carpathia grasped his jaw line; firmly holding him in place. She gazed into his eyes, intent on examining them. After minutes of this she finally held the plastic shield to his eye and a green light flicked on making Roger flinch. Or at least he would've if he could move.
"Hold still," She whispered, to herself really. The machine sounded as if it was going through its process with a deeper hum than before. Thin lights ran over his retinas going their horizontal and vertical ways. The task in itself didn't take long, she held it back a few inches. It blinked a blue light taking in its results, she smiled pleased with herself. Carpathia then repeated this process with the other eye.
"There," She grabbed the glasses tossing them behind her. "You don't need these now." She went back to her seat without another word.
He was immediately puzzled. Didn't need them anymore the? The hell was she talking about? His answer came flooding in, his vision blurred. He could feel things popping and reconnecting in his head. The world spun and his vertigo was off, and all he could do was keep his head in his hands to steady himself. It didn't work.
"Don't worry the effects will wear off." He could hear the scratching of the pen, it felt like he had a hangover or at least it sounded it like it. Every stroke sounded like an explosion.
But then his vision cleared, completely. No farsighted blurs, he could see her face clearly. "Stunned are you?" She sounded delighted, "Now it takes some time to get used to, but with your help HCF can create these modern miracles for everyone."
He looked around, he didn't remember the last time everything looked so good. He looked over to Carpathia, she looked better than he thought. Roger gulped, his mouth became dry, and his hands became clammy.
Wiping his hands on his pants to keep them dry; he writhed his hands together to keep busy, looking towards the limousine floor, keeping composure. She didn't notice.
"Any mental or physical ailments right now or ever in your family?"
"Nope, not now or ever. Unless you count a great great great grand cousin who died of yellow fever."
"Hm," she went on, "How much do you bench?"
"How much I bench?" He scoffed, "Nothing."
She let out a disappointed sigh, but her face gave way again; showing that she wasn't surprised. "Your social?"
"I'd rather write that down."
There was an unspoken oh brother moment among all the other occupants of the limousine. Carpathia took a slip of paper and gave him the pen. He scribbled it down, trying his best not to soak the slip. He handed it to her almost dropping the pen in the process.
She took out a handkerchief wiping the pen down; taking up the clipboard once more. "Have you ever used a gun before?"
"...No." He must have let the confusion filter onto his face.
"Oh! This is just a standard question! Like if you drink or do drugs," she leaned forward, "By the way! Do you do drink or do drugs?" She chirruped.
"No. Don't worry about it." He assured her. He'd be the person that freak out on the smallest hit. The last thing he needed was to chase the purple dragon.
"Last employers?"
"Mcdonalds; I worked in a Target once and I was a waiter with Apple Bee's when I was in college." He began to worry what job she was setting up for him, he had all these crappy menial jobs and yet it seems he a gave million-dollar answer.
"Perfect." She nodded, "How much math can you do?"
"All of the math you need actually, I had perfect grades in college and took advanced calculus. In high school I wasn't really a mathlete, but I really took it up." Course these were all lies and he didn't even have good grades for math in college. A strong C at best. She didn't even seem interested anyway.
"Good. Do you adapt to weather well?"
"I believe so." He didn't see any evidence against him for this. A crack of thunder boomed in the distance, and he started to watch the little rivets of water run down against the dark window. Big fat drops pattered on the roof causing Roger to relax.
"How well do you work with others?"
"Good-I work well with others," He stuttered, no one ever complained to him. Nor did he ever fight with anyone at work.
"Hm, well that seems to be all," She flipped through pages on the clipboard, "But we you still need to take a questionnaire when we get to the company building."
"When will we see Mr. Kennedy?"
"Oh due time." She shrugged, placing the clip board to the side.
"What job am I going for?"
"You'll know when we get to the facility, oh I should tell you this now. You will be taking a mandatory drug test and having a physical." She rummaged in her purse whilst telling him this. Replacing the eye machine inside and taking out a slick half mask.
"What's that for?" The doors mechanically locked, making him jump. He seemed jumpy throughout this whole conversation. He got a bad feeling in his gut, as she placed the mask over her mouth and nose. Leaving her green eyes open, he could see them go hard and calculated.
"No worries Mr. Hue," She kept her whole cheery tone of voice while her whole demeanor changed. She straightened her back. With one hand she lifted her hair, then with her other hand clicked the masked closed. She looked like any other debutante. No emotion in her face, as she pulled out another black device. It was small and looked like little perfume bottle. She held the trigger and a purple mist sprayed. "Let the gas take affect and we'll be at the facility in no time."
It happened so fast, he didn't have time to answer. He let the gas into his nose, it smelt like nothing, but it kind of burned. Giving a numbing affect, immediately he blacked out. The last thing he felt was slamming his head into his lap.
Claire shivered, she was laying on something hard. She would try to get up, but she had no strength. Everything felt bare, but there was a thin plastic sheet draped tactically over her naked form. It didn't save her from the piercing cold. When she opened her eyes she saw nothing but darkness. She heard nothing, but some computer hums and light music; every piano clink sounded far away. Her limbs hurt, it felt like she had been prodded everywhere.
Claire wasn't ready when a small spotlight blared into her eyes. She flinched; inflicting pain in every inch of her being. "Hgn," She let out a pained whimper. It turned out she was in a stainless steel cage that was too small for her; She was stuck in the fetal position. The pain was too much to bare, she would've blacked if she moved again.
"Oh dear heart don't tell me they hurt you." Wesker hissed, all the cruelty burned in her ears. He walked up to her cage with the formality of a general. "I wouldn't want a perfect specimen like you in pain. You know what they say, no one likes damaged goods." He reached through the bars lifting her chin.
He made a face of approval, "No permanent damage so far." He purred, "But, that ugly bruise on your forehead-tsk tsk tsk." He ran his knuckles against her collar bone; he liked how it poked out, yet that bothersome white sheet covered her ample breasts.
"Just kill me." She croaked.
He laughed giving a wolfish grin, "Oh I'd love too," He put some relish into love, "But I need you. My little center piece," He traced his thumb up and down her jawline, it was to taunt her; it was working. She felt sick to her stomach.
"Plus you're a good bait." He dropped her head; it landed with a sickening thud. "Now I can get revenge against that damn brother of yours, two in one." He gave a delirious laugh. His shoes pounded out of the room, the light switched off; without anything to do she slipped back into unconsciousness.
Chris slammed the door shut behind him, the search was futile. They found nothing else of use. She was just spirited away without so much of a 'howdoyoudo'. Leon was trying to keep up with Chris, but he was no match for his long stride. They snuck out of Claire's complex with no problem; the land lord was knee deep with a lint epidemic in the laundry room. They were now back at the Hue guy's complex.
Chris approached the door with no other thought he kicked the door open. It was empty, abandoned probably. They probably tipped him off. "Calmed down Chris I know what you're thinking, he probably went out for something." Leon chimed in not far behind. "We just have to wait for him outside-" Leon saw the broken door, "Or you could break in." He poked a broken hinge.
"He took her. And this bastard was an informant!" Chris snapped.
"We don't know that." Leon protested.
"How do we know he didn't!?" Chris began to turn the apartment upside down. Nothing but useless shit. His mind raced through thousands of images of Claire and the thousand ways she could be suffering right now.
"And is it smart to trash some guy's apartment? We don't even know if he did anything."
Chris's head bowed into his hand, "I suppose you're right." He peeked over to Roger's laptop. "Well let's take that at least." He pointed to it. What Roger gave them was probably a Trojan he thought grimly.
"Sounds good to me." Leon grabbed the laptop. Leon didn't feel like fighting Chris. It'd still be detrimental to steal an innocent rando's laptop, and he'd make sure this Hue guy would get it back.
"Well let's see if we can find anything."
"We already looked at this place-he has literally nothing. Unless you count the comics."
"Yeah and I doubt a copy of She hulk will help anything." Chris sighed. He looked around the room. He kicked the first stack of comics he saw in anger.
Leon let it slide. They both exited the residence with a sort of helplessness. "So where should we start?"
"Well I'm going to call Jill and the others, we need as much help as we can get with this." Chris took out his cell. Leon only nodded in agreement.
"We need to track Wesker's movements see if he's gone to any specific bases lately," Chris dialed out Jill's number. "And we work on from there." He put the phone to his ear, they descended the steps out the door. "Jill? It's an emergency."
He woke up to the limousine coming to a smooth halt, but with little give from the brakes. They sounded wet, which wasn't surprising. But something wasn't quite right, chilling really. Seriously chilling, he was freezing. His head had this minor throb, he could remember nothing. Roger shot up, and was greeted to Carpathia. She was examining her nails: blood red.
She smiled; a failed attempt at a nice warm smile, trying to mirror a mother smiling to her child but it came out hollow. "How did you sleep? I was interviewing you and after you just kind of zonked out."
"Oh," He rubbed the back of his head, "Fine I guess. Sorry, that was very rude of me." He bashfully said.
"Don't be it's a long drive." She uncrossed her legs in one lithe movement, "We're here by the way." She took out a compact then a tube of lipstick to re-apply to her already fresh face.
Roger clicked the window button, the window itself was foggy and the air that rushed in was bitter. The window stuck; it went down to a little past eye level. But, it was enough to show a nondescript grey building. Its windows were tinted black. And there was no HCF logo on the front. And snow was everywhere! There were pine trees covered in it, and the sky which coincidently matched the building: grey. It seemed like it was ready to snow again.
"Did I miss something!?"
"Calm down, just go inside the building."
"But where am I?"
"The company building." She crossed her arms like the foreign land wasn't supposed to be surprising. She looked especially annoyed when he continued on.
"Well, we're obviously not in New York! There's snow everywhere! And its freezing! Where am I?" He barked, she just stared.
"Go inside the building, everything will be explained when you get inside. Do you want to be late for your physicals?" She handed him a coat.
He took the thick dark yellow coat; slipping it on, it didn't seem like he had any choice. He thanked Carpathia for the ride and opened the door. He now could see the full view of the building, it showed some tasteful topiary making it seem slightly inviting. A shoveled stone path led to dark double glass doors.
Rubbing his hands together he strode his way to the door; chilled to the bone. Around him he could hear the wood land chatter: some robins chirruping out a lovely tune, rabbits making a dash, deer gracefully prancing.
His breath came out in a thick vapor. The coat wasn't exactly helping either, if he touched a man made out of ice right now he'd say that guy was warmer. He wished he asked for something more in the limousine; he could hear it go back down the drive. Its wheels crunching the snow beneath.
"Go on." Carpathia, unfazed walked up from behind. He hadn't realized he stopped in the drive searching his surroundings. He blew in his hands to warm them. "Well you'd be warmer inside." She reminded him.
He continued on to the door, grasping the metal handle; he didn't know what he'd expect. But he met a warm lobby with yellow lights gracing it. It was a cozy temperature of 70 degrees. The wood floors were lacquered making them shiny. There are plain white lounges off to both sides of the reception. In bold black letters was the HCF name in cursive and the logo above the reception.
At the reception desk was a homely black woman. She sat there typing away on a windows 95' computer. Attentive to her work, she had protruding eyes with bags underneath from years of hard work. Her red shirt looked too formal for the robust woman, no coffee or any type of stain was there. Her hair was pulled back with grey streaks here and there. A gust of wind from the open doorway caught her attention.
Roger timid in his inclinations, walked to the reception desk with Carpathia wrapped around his arm. "Abena I have a new recruit here." Carpathia gave a playful tug.
"And what's his name?" Her accent was a thick British, she grabbed Carpathia's clipboard giving her another one in return.
"Roger," She giggled, "He's up for the new job." She feverishly filled out the clipboard, like she's done it a thousand times over.
Abena made an excited 'O' with her mouth, "Well in that case you go to the door on the left. Carpathia and I will finish up here."
"Alright." Roger said without another thought, he turned towards the white double door with gold handles. This door led to a long hallway with tacky red floors. He heard Abena press a buzzer as he let the doors shut behind him.
"Recruits door at the end of the hall!" Some unknown speaker buzzed in his ear. Regardless of whether or not the man was invisible he followed the disembodied voice's commands to the end of the hall to another white door.
It was another waiting room; all white, every last inch. From the furniture to the marble white floors. The room like the last room was in was a decent temperature. But no one was in here, not even at the white desk. It was odd.
The furniture was shabbier except for that white desk; which looked like a white slab connected to the ground. The name plate on it read: Svetlana Aminev. And that was it. Two doors were next to the desk labeled in black name plates: Doctors office and Workers Distribution Station. A small white end table contained magazines, the chairs next to it were cruddy plastic school chairs with the hole at the square of your back. After taking in the room for a while, Norman finally decided to take a seat in the hard plastic chair. Glancing at the magazines he rolled his eyes and sighed glancing at the titles: Cat Fancy, Cosmo, and People.
Carpathia examined herself in her compact. The eye shadow she wore now began to fade, sighing she removed some makeup from her purse.
Abena pounded at the keys behind her, "So do you think he'll place in anything. Looked like a weakling." Carpathia could see the tired glaze in Abena's eyes.
"He'll possibly…" She thought about it before sighing, "could get soldier sector C if he's lucky." Carpathia leaned her bottom against the desk, beginning the arduous task of applying the makeup to her lids. She roughly took the black powder from its compartment and applied it lightly to her eyes. Carpathia had finished the base before she continued, "He'll go through the standard medical and physical fitness tests. Then he'll go through conditioning and resistance." She slightly parted her lips. Applying the upper layers to her lid, she did a quick check on other aspects of her face. Her blush could be refreshed.
"That one could easily die." Abena remarked.
"Or if he fails he could be placed into a mundane worker position." Carpathia started to blend, smudging her work with expert ease. Carpathia smudged a little too far out of the perimeter of her eye, so she turned her attentions to what went wrong then turned to her friend. "Either way one more I recruited in, I just may get that raise."
"Mhm, but you'll still have to fight tooth and nail, that Kathy Greene is one competitive bastard. And don't death rates count against you?"
"He'll be fine." She waved it off. "He can run a mile." The two women laughed hysterically at the comment. Underneath their cheerful façade they knew he barely had a chance.
"Do you think he'll cry in the last test?"
"Who knows." Honestly she did think about it. The last test has to do with resistance and loyalty. The participant walks into a room, receives an important piece of information, then methodically gets tortured until either A) he spills the beans and fails or B) they get tired of him and he passes. But that depends if he passes the preliminary tests for their soldiers."
"I honestly think he'll break faster than a toothpick. But then again remember Stenson?" Abena rolled her eyes with Carpathia.
"Who knew that lanky man would rise from Section D to B in a day." She typed another sentence of something into the computer.
The tinkling sound of bells accompanied the chilly outdoor air which caught their attention. A higher up walked into the lobby. His large green boots squeaked on the floor. Anton Klepin was like any other greasy higher up, but worse since he had the habit of making the pretty associates stroke his hubris. Unfortunately, as of late he had targeted Carpathia to peacock around. It made her skin crawl. His designer jacket was opened so he could have the world view his expensive blue suit. His brunette hair was done in a painstakingly perfect classic crown cut. He removed his Calvin Klein sunglasses placing them in his pocket. In Carpathia's opinion this man did not have a good looking face. It reminded her of lumpy cheese and you could see the deep set age marks in his Russian face despite the obvious plastic surgery attempts to fix it.
Anton strode over to the now seething women. "Carpathia," He relished the name on his tongue, then with a bored gaze, "Abena." He turned to Carpathia draping his arm around her; blocking Abena from the squeamish woman's view.
"Hello Anton." She sighed, brushing off his arm. "I was just dropping off a new recruit, and if you excuse me I need to go to the screening." She artfully skirted his moving hands.
"Such a shame," His low Russian voice murmured, she could tell he was attempting to be seductive. Carpathia averted her eyes from the white spittle on his bumpy lips. His loafers scraped the marble floors, "Here." He grabbed the East wing door for her.
Her heels echoed behind her, and she could feel his red hot gaze on her ass. She could only will herself down the hall, but she had keep a cool demeanor. Anything less than perfect, and she'd be viewed as less than competent. 'Oh the wonders of work place sexism.' Carpathia finally got to the end of the hall. She pulled the heavy handle to the next room. The loud sounds of the office blasted her: the sounds of loud keyboards, office banter, and the sound of the printer beeping from being low on toner. It seems like a Nirvana compared to the crusty man behind her, she stepped into the immaculate office. She shut the hefty door behind her, she walked to her closed off office to prepare for her big meeting with the Boss.
