The Experts

By Tudor Balus

Mike is an average man that stumbles upon a less ordinary situation: a secret organization that's been operating under everyone's nose, directing humanity.

Due a great lack of luck, Mike is drawn into this organization, learning about a few of the astonishing and terrifying secrets that it holds. But the more he stays, the dire the situation becomes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365298981

Book preview

The Experts

The Experts

Contents:

1. Curious circumstances

Average Joe journalist here (name's Mike). Nothing could be more boring at this stage in my life. I have a nice job, a nice wife, and I'm living the steady life: not much stress or problems; no health issues or anything. While many are content at this point, the routine gives me the chills.

I wake at seven every day to eat in the next fifteen minutes, get dressed in another five, talk and have a coffee with the missus, Anna, for another ten and off I go. I'm at work at eight (maybe 8:10) and start scavenging the town for some exciting news. The day passes fast (either I do nothing or I get a story or two that keep me busy for the day) and I'm back home at eight, where I cook with the wife, maybe work out, maybe watch a movie, maybe visit a friend for a beer.

I guess I can't really complain, but I've always been the lively bloke of the group that always wanted to go swimming, finish a nice puzzle game, play a sport he sucks at, etc. Hell, I loved challenges and I always found energy for everything in life. Not being the sedentary kind, I decided to dedicate at least three days (Mon, Wen, Fri) to jog around the block to ease my adventurous soul.

Today was a bummer day: a lot of leads on a stupid robbery and revenge story that seemed dull but the boss said that it's the only thing happening now so I'm covering it. It was roughly 9 PM when I got home. On the flip side, the wife also got delayed so I decided to go for my jog while I wait for her to get home. I normally go for a good 5-10 km run (depends how tired I feel at the 5 km mark) and I have my special route that passes through a park, a popular (but not too busy) pedestrian street and a very quiet neighborhood before finishing in a straight 3 km line towards home.

I'm in the middle of the park when my phone starts buzzing. Anna calls really panicked that she fell down the stairs and lost the keys to her car. I tell her to try looking on the floor below because maybe they bounced off the stairs and ended up lower. We go back and forth on the subject and eventually she finds them on the lower floor. She gives a sigh of relief and starts joking about the matter and her day. We laugh a bit but I interrupt her and tell her that we should continue at home since I'm freezing. We hang up and I check the time: 10 minutes. DAMMIT! I've lost my pump and am sweaty and in the cold; got to hurry and make up for it!

I start jogging again but I don't go more than about ten meters because I hear something strange. I look around and I see a man running wildly on the grass, in a diagonal line towards me.

Waaaaait! he yells.

I stop in my tracks and look curiously towards him as the distance between us closes. By now he's roughly 300m away from me. The man was pretty slim and fit and was running like crazy. Right behind him I see another man that seemed to be a bit taller than him and a bit more muscular running towards him. The second man looked like a professional jogger with each of his moves in perfect synchronicity, in comparison to the first guy who was gasping for air on every step, his face red with all the blood rushing to the surface.

By now the distance is 150m or less and things don't look good. I decide to start running towards the two but I quickly stop in my tracks as I see the second man reaching for something in his jacket's inner pocket. I freeze thinking it's a gun and he's going to shoot us both.

The second man pulls out a small metal rod and flicks it; it was a telescopic baton. He swiftly lowers his head slightly and increases the frequency of his movements. He catches up to the first guy in 2-3 seconds and hits him over his right ankle making him fall over.

I decide to run towards them since the pursuer has a bat and I might be able to overpower him somehow. As I reach them, the pursuer takes notice of my presence by looking me in the eyes for a second. He didn't seem bothered by me and had an eerily expressionless face. He reaches for the other inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out a fully black gun that had a white circle on its handle. I freeze again and I feel a thrill going through my spine.

I can't take the pressure of dying randomly here so I look away from the guy with the gun and gaze towards his victim. The guy on the ground had a face of utter despair and his eyes were gleaming with fear. He was roughly twenty- twenty five years old, dressed casually, and generally had a pleasant figure.

He starts begging and pleading:

Who are you? Please don't kill me! What do you want? Here's all I have! he checks his pockets and throws his phone, wallet and his watch to the feet of the gun man.

The gunman is immobile. I look at him to notice someone who's roughly twenty five – thirty years, about 1.90 meters, and extremely fit (his muscles were showing through his clothes) but he wasn't a meathead. He had a very developed jawline, was cleanly shaved, and his hair was very short all over. He had black tennis shoes, grey jeans and red shirt. I felt the strange need to pay attention to all the details I could regarding my future killer.

His eyes showed that he was relaxed yet focused. He was looking at the pitiful guy at his feet begging. Without any words, gestures or expressions, he shoots him in the chest killing him. I don't make a sound but I start crying.

His gaze turns to me and he takes a few steps forward. His complexion is taking up all my field of view. My mind is racing and the world around seems to disappear as I focus on the only thing that I can see now: his face. He clearly wasn't expecting me there, but his attention didn't falter as I could see no expression on his face.

What seemed like a few hours were actually a mere 2 seconds in which he look at me from head to toe once. He swiftly and precisely pointed his gun at my heart and asked just one thing:

Did you see anything here tonight?

My lips trembled as I answered: Who are you?

A second later his face drops to the ground and while I don't have the time to look down to see what he is doing, I feel a quick and strong hit at the back of my knees which sends me falling on my back towards the grass. I don't get to feel the grass because I feel a bump to the back of my neck. I realize that it was his gun and poof!; everything goes black.

I have a weird dream about children playing on a sunny day in our neighborhood. Me and Anna are sitting at the window and are watching them play. I realize that one of them is the son I've always wanted. I look at him and smile. Suddenly I go sad and say to Anna It's too late.

She looks at me giggling and tells me It's never too late silly.

All of a sudden I'm awake. Above me stands a white ceiling with neons. As my blurry vision focuses, I start having more control of my body and look around. I'm on a red velvet couch that can easily hold 4 people. I look to my left and see there is a vase on a night stand next to my couch and an identical couch next to the night stand. The 3 were perfectly aligned and covering that wall. I glance around to find the rest of the room resembling the combination of a classroom and a laboratory: benches, a black board, some sort of chemistry corner, and a small electronics corner.

I notice the others in the room: five people, all dressed in white shirts, black jeans and black tennis shoes. Four of them are seated at benches, while the fifth is standing near the blackboard. I don't recognize the four that are looking at me but the one near the blackboard is unforgettable. It was him!

I start remembering the scene before I blacked out. My heart starts racing as my vision narrows down on the only scary, yet familiar face in the room. Our gazes meet and he has that same uninterested look as last time.

I notice my lips are dry and instinctively lick them. At this point I notice that I'm shaking a little. My attacker crosses his hands and keeps looking at me. The pressure of this situation is making me tense, so I start looking around the room. The only new thing that I see is that there's a door right next to my couch.

I pretend I didn't notice it and keep looking around. I feel like I'm thinking hundreds of escape plans every second yet there's nothing in my mind. I see nothing that might help me so I decide to go for it.

I bolt for the door. It takes no more than two seconds to get there and I instantly grab on the door knob. I feel the cold metal in my hand for a moment before a small object passes by my head and hits the door. I clench my fists, raise them and turn around angrily. I'm sick of being afraid and I wanna fight back!

They're all in the same place, the only difference being that my assailant has his hands in his pocket. I look to the ground; a piece of chalk is lying there. I ponder the situation and realize that all he did was try and catch my attention.

I start relaxing and look at all of them. One of them raises a pen. I turn towards him. He lowers his pen and tells me:

Have a seat at one of the benches.

I'm hesitant but I do it. There's not much I can do in this situation but cooperate. I sit down at a bench that's 3 rows away from the rest of them.

The guy at the blackboard briskly comes up to my desk. I dunno when he got it, but he now has a small black plastic bag in his right hand. He stops at my desk and without a word puts the bag in the middle of the desk, right in front of me and then proceeds to sit at the desk to my right.

I look at him, he looks at me. I look at the bag in front: it's a relatively small bag, the size of a cat; it has an oval but irregular shape and it stinks of burnt skin. I'm starting to think it's human remains and I worriedly look at him. His features don't change, but he motions with his head towards the bag.

My eyes widen as I start to wonder what he wants me to do. I look at the bag in front of me for what seems like an eternity. It's roughly one palm length, half a palm width, and as thick as a spectacle case. I put my hands on the desk, but far from the bag. I'm scared but curious. As I start pondering what I'm gonna do, I see blood slowly flowing from under the bag.

My fingers are slightly twitching and I'm biting my lower lip. I wanna get up and get away from that damned desk. I don't have the time to lift myself from the chair as I notice with my peripheral vision that friend that was staying in the bench next to me pulled his chair so close to mine that our shoulders are almost touching. He keeps switching his look from the bag, to me, to the bag again. As our eyes meet again, he locks in on me. We look at each other and he can see that this is freaking me out, yet his expressionless glare doesn't change.

I don't care anymore and I look to the bag and simultaneously touch it. It was mildly warm. For some unknown reason (probably my brain got tired of so much stress), I calmed down. I gently put my other hand in the bag and feel something wet and mushy. I'm no chef but I'm pretty sure it's meat at this point.

I hesitate for a few seconds but decide to close my eyes and pull it out. Nothing happens. I open my eyes to see a piece of meat with some skin still attached to it. The piece was briefly passed through fire, which burned the hairs on the skin and gave it that damned smell. By the texture of the skin I could tell this is pork meat.

I give the guy a puzzled look. He puts up the shortest smile I've ever seen, gets up and goes back to the blackboard. I look at him and at the rest who also seemed very keen on observing the scene. I ask them:

What's this? What do you want?

The guy with the pen calmly but swiftly says:

Good job.

They all get up and head for the door. I'm getting pissed:

What are you doing? Is this some sick joke? What's going on?

The group and my friend continue heading towards the door while the guy with the pen branches off and heads to my desk. He reaches me and confidently extends his hand towards me:

Hello. I am called C. You will also call me C. You did well. We have matters to attend to now and I advise you to stay put and calm down. Shortly someone will bring you food and will cater to whatever needs you might have. We will meet again. Have a good day.

As he finishes talking he lets go of my hand and walks towards the door.

Hey wait! What does this all mean? What do you want from me?! I yell as I rise to go catch up to them.

I catch up to C. and were at arm's length.

Hey wait! I put my hand on his shoulder.

As I feel the material in his shirt, he turns left with an unimaginable speed, lowers my hand with his left hand and I feel a painful sensation in my neck as if 4 iron balls hit me. I look down to see his right hand slowly retracting.

Michael, I advise you one last time to stay put and calm down. Have a good day.

I fall to my knees from the pain and can't speak. I watch them leave the room and lock the door behind them.

About an hour passes before the pain subsides. I've been sitting on the couch this whole time. I looked around only to see that there are no windows in the room and that my cellphone has no signal whatsoever. I obviously tried the door only to discover what I already knew: it's locked. I didn't dare to try break it just in case they're watching me and decide to kill me for being disobedient.

I go around the room looking for something useful and that's when I see it: what seems to be the gun of my friend was laying on the desk that's nearest to the blackboard. I rush to it and grab it. I check if it's real: it's damned heavy, it feels like metal, it loads like a gun. I check the magazine: 4 bullets. I'm smiling.

As I decide to holster it somewhere behind my back, I take one last look at it. That's when I notice it: the white circle that I saw in the park on his gun. I find it to be a curious marking so I look over the surface of the weapon some more. Right under the circle was a small 4. engraved in the handle that was of the same color as the handle. I look for any other markings but find none.

Good day, sir. Someone is knocking on the door.

I get a bit nervous but I answer back: Hello?

I've brought you your food sir, may I come in? He replies.

I hide my gun, prepare for anything and yell: Come in!

A slim 40 year old man opens the door slowly but firmly. He's dressed like a steward and has a lidded serving platter in his right hand and a towel over his bent left hand. He's looking very pompous and professional.

Our eyes meet and he gives me a warm smile: Dinner is here, sir. This is the first time since I came here since I remembered that there's this thing that we use daily and take for granted: time.

It's evening? I was a bit baffled; but it made sense since there were no windows or clocks in the room. I decide to check my phone. I look at the screen and I'm left perplexed: the time was 62 : 88. At first I thought my phone went berserk.

I look at the waiter with my puzzled face. He smiles again as he sets up the towel on one of the desks and starts arranging the platter in the center. I take a defensive position as I pull out my gun at him.

What's going on?! Where am I?! What are you planning to do with me?!

He stops for one second, looks at me, looks at the gun and then continues to arrange my dinner.

Say something! I yell.

Please calm down, sir. There's no reason to be agitated. He tells me.

I dunno why, but that actually worked and I started breathing slower and stood with my back straight, in a more natural manner. Maybe it's his own calm behavior that's inspiring me to be like him.

What's wrong with my phone? I ask as I lower my gun and stand up straight.

Nothing is wrong with it, sir. Dinner is ready. he replied as he finished the arrangements and took a firm position by the side of