Chapter 3: A small feeling of suspicion

The cars outside were fancy high class Central Bentleys; I'd never seen one except for on posters. We got into the cars in groups of 3, one Fringe, one Central and one Society, as directed by Pierce. As we got in I shot him a dirty look; I didn't trust him. I got into the last car with Skye and the lanky guy who'd tried to stop that leno from earlier. I was slightly grateful; at least he didn't try to egg him on. Sitting in the car was a woman with fiery red hair and cat like eyes. She was enchanting but obviously dangerous, like fire. A quick glance at her arm proved my thoughts, she was Fringe. The boy sat next to her, while Skye and I sat opposite her.

"Hello, my name is Miss Rushman, but you can call me Natalie." She sounded well educated, like that of a Central. Either she'd taught herself, or an exile from Central had taught her. "I am one of the programmers from Shield Incorporated, the company who have given you this wonderful opportunity." She sounded false, as if she was reading from a script. "Would you like to tell me your names?"

Skye, being the perky thing I was beginning to get to know her as, spoke first. "Well, I'm Skye, I'm 15 and I'm from Society." She then looked at me. I rolled my eyes.

"I'm Alexis and I'm a Fringe." That was all they were getting out of me. I looked at Natasha, expecting her to want more information, but she was looking down at her phone. Central tech, orcea she was confusing. The boy cleared his throat and she looked up quickly. Her mask had slipped, and on her face was a look of calculation and assessment. She looked round at us quickly, and then quickly slipped back into character. She gave us the falsest smile I'd ever seen.

"Please continue; it's important that we all get to know each other seeing as we'll be working very closely in the near future."

"Well, my names James but everyone calls me Bucky. I'm 17" A flash of recognition shot across Natalie's face.

"You're the one Steve asked to be employed aren't you?" Bucky nodded.

"He's by best friend. When he got the job he didn't want to leave me but this was his best job offer."

Natalie nodded. "Well it's great that you know someone else on the team."

We all settled into a slightly awkward silence. Natalie started messing about on her phone, and Skye kept staring out the window. Seeing as they can only go to the Fringes, Society's don't travel much. I looked over at Bucky and he was fiddling with a pendent of some sort. He saw me looking and quickly shoved it in his pocket.

"You're going to want these." I looked over and Natalie was handing out ear pieces. "I'm going to be your team manager, so I'll use these to contact you." I put in my ear. It was no different to wearing one headphone. Wonder if I can hack it to play music?

"So we're going to be a team?" Skye, not getting what Natalie was saying, asked.

"Yes you are. We decided to promote equality so each team has one person from each district." That was definitely a Central term. From the sounds of it we're going to be working in Central.

"So what is this job? We didn't really get much info when we applied." Bucky asked. It was a question that had been bouncing about in my mind, but I didn't want to ask.

"We're developing a new type on multi server program, and we needed 5 teams of testers. We came to the conclusion that having testers from different districts would provide a variation in the data." Natalie sounded like a preprogramed hologram. Something was off about the whole thing. Wonder if they have a server I could 'collect information from' (in other words hack)? Considering it was a programming job, they were surely going to give us access to laptops.

"What's the program for? And what has Pierce got to do with it? He's military, not software development. That's Mr Fury." I challenged her. Dad had made me learn the names of the politicians and what their roles are because, to put it in his words, it's best to know your enemies before they know you.

"Mr Pierce has requested this program to be developed for the military. Mr Fury has agreed for him to have control over the project."

The car rolled to a stop and Skye shouted out "We're here!" I looked out the window and saw a towering marble building.

"It's called The Centre." Natalie said. "It's the centre for all technology. Only the elite get to work here."

Skye had her face plastered to the window but Bucky and I held back. I looked him and mouthed "Something's not right". He nodded at me. A man opened the door and Skye fell out. Bucky and me laughed, him with a rich booming one, me with a small walrus-like chuckle. Natalie just smirked, and gracefully stepped over Skye who was lying on the floor. I jumped out and helped her up. She stood up and brushed off her knees.

"That was fun!" I grinned and ruffled her hair. Bucky clambered out of the door, he was a bit too tall to just slide out, and came and stood by us.

"Enjoy your trip?" he asked, and gave us a cheeky grin. Skye smiled back at him, and I just raised an eyebrow.

"Seriously? Is that the best you can do?"

Skye looked at me, frowning. "What do you mean the best you can do?"

Me and Bucky shared a look over her head.

"That was an extremely cheesy joke and it wasn't even funny." I said. Bucky blushed slightly. "Don't worry; I can't make jokes to save my life. I rely on sarcasm."

Natasha glared at us from up the pathway. "Come on, we have work to do."

We all looked at each other and ran up the steps. Behind us, we could hear some of the other groups arguing, especially the leno. From the sounds of it, he was picking on the Fringe from his group. I turned around and saw it was one of the boys, Peter from my science class. He was the best in our class and I was second. He was quite shy and couldn't stand up for himself very well. I debated just going inside but I couldn't let that bully get away with it. I stormed down the path and called out, "Oi, irrumator, back off!" He stopped his punch hallway and turned to me.

"Come back for more have you, meretrix? Didn't get enough earlier?" He began to walk towards me, walking like he owned the place.

"No I've come to give you some." I stepped forward and swung a punch at him. I heard his jaw crack and he fell back. I walked over to Peter, helped him up and then walked back to Skye and Bucky, who were whooping from the lobby. When I got there we all high fived and then looked guiltily at Natasha.

All she said was "Next time hit him where it hurts."

Leno=pimp