Chapter 2: Lucerne Loitering

It was a cold, wet evening in these Chicago streets. A few hours out before midnight and a very few people were roaming around in the city. I can still see the taxi cabs hovering over me as I ponder whether to take a cab home or not. But out of the blue, I just gave in.

"Come on taxi," I waved a glowing pen in the air to signal a taxi cab to land near my location.

"Where are you heading to, Miss?" The burly looking cab driver asked me. No surprise that he addressed me as Miss or Ma'am and not Mister or Sir.

"Please take me to Lucerne Tower." I told him. The driver nodded and we were on our way to dataDyne headquarters. I had no idea why I wanted to visit the Lucerne Tower at this hour of the night, but there was something inside me that I just made me want to go there.

Upon arrival, I tipped the driver, exited the cab and made my way to the front entrance of Lucerne Tower aka dataDyne Headquarters. The glass doors slid open, surprising me in the process. Like how the hell were these doors unlocked during the night? But my intuition got me, the headquarters were always busy 24-7 from security to product development and research. The front desk was empty and my attention got cut off by male guard.

"Hey you!" The guard in the black suit said. "What are you doing here? There are no visitors allowed after 6pm!" Before I could answer, I was again cut out of conversation by a woman.

"That is enough," A woman in a red suit dress with short blonde hair appeared behind me. She was escorted by a pair of women clad in black 3/4 sleeve leather jackets with the "dD" logo armbands, fingerless gloves, tight white denim jean leggings, and black suede over-the-knee boots with 3 inch heels. Their stature was definitely of 6 feet tall Amazonian proportions, even with the help of the boots' heels. They were none other than Cassandra DeVries' personal bodyguards escorting her personal secretary Anne. "Miss DeVries is expecting to see you."

"Expecting?" My mind went alert. "But how? I just came out of nowhere to visit the dataDyne headquarters."

With that being said, I was escorted by Anne to the glass elevators by the lobby balcony. We were taking it to the top floor, where Cassandra's office would be. But as we were heading to the elevators, I kept my eyes on the personal female bodyguards and their attire, from the ground up and to their exclusively issued dataDyne developed shotguns. This feeling inside me was not about lust for these female elite personnel, but somewhere in my mind, I really wanted to be one of them. Little did I know, Anne was right next to me slightly smirking as if I was really caught in her own little trap, or most likely Cassandra's trap.

"Fantastic job, Anne." Cassandra DeVries commended her personal Secretary despite the constant berating each and every day. But this was the dataDyne CEO we were talking about and she doesn't take kindly to failure, let alone strangers. But why was she awaiting for me? "Please leave us." As Anne and the pair of female bodyguards left the giant and plush office, it was just me and Cassandra. She was donned in her usual blue suit with her white-ish blonde hair worn up in a bun. She stood at an Amazonian 6'2 height, like many of her personal bodyguards. Her face was as intimidating as her personality, all the way down to her midnight blue eyes. Knowing her personality from all my research, I decided keep it quiet until she broke the silence. "I've been waiting for you, J. Mitchell."

"How did you know my name?" I inquired. "How in the world did you learn so much about me."

"You know the saying, 'What goes around, comes back around.'" Cassandra explained. "You have done quite the hell of research of my company, down to the most classified bits. And I couldn't help but return the favor. Born male out of Maguson Medial Center, located in Chicago's outer city limits, on June 17, 1987 before a bombing incident occurred. Resulted in the entire medical center being demolished, leaving you as the lone survivor. Born with no family, no federal document records proving identity or birth whatsoever, you have basically been a 'ghost' to many in the city until now. It's amazing what incredible amounts of in depth research can do and how much you can really uncover these days, especially with someone like you."

"What do you want from me?" I asked, with a giant chill down my spine. "You want to kill me after all the research that I did on your company?"

"I would normally kill you, like many others who would try to uncover anything and everything about my company," Cassandra said as she decided to give me a chance. "But you are quite an exception out of the others. How about you come work for me?" It was an offer that I would never expect from the dataDyne CEO.

"Work for you as what?" I wanted to know.

"Work as one of my Personal Bodyguards," Cassandra smirked evilly as her dark blue eyes locked onto mine. "My squadron of Female Bodyguards. I saw the look on your face as you inquisitively eyed the pair that escorted you and Anne on the way to my office. You actions don't deceive me at all, I can tell that you wanted to become part of them and work for me."

"You can't be psychic, can you," I was very skeptical.

"No, my dear," The blonde woman explained. "As a powerful female CEO with extensive contacts and surveillance around Chicago, it's amazing what you can do to target a single person. And let me ask you this: would you rather remain a 'ghost' in the city, or work for a place where you and I both know belong to?

"It never made much sense to run away from here to begin with," I said out. "Since you have me dead in the process."

"And quite frankly, you would never want to run away from me in the first place," Cassandra retorted as my eyes slightly widened. "Yes, I can read your actions like a book. I know you want to work for me and become one of my personal bodyguards. And you damn well know that this is where you belong."

"But how can you make me one of your personal bodyguards?" I frowned. "I'm still born male."

"We have ways to change that," Cassandra firmly stated. "And since you basically 'do not exist' in this world, this makes our job much easier. There's at least one thing that you've failed to uncover in your research of my company."

"And what is that exactly?" I asked.

"Genetics..." The dataDyne CEO replied.