Occidis Read online

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  Lund tugged at the cuffs of his crisp, gray suit. “I’m here to supervise you,” he said in a deep, mature voice. There was some kind of European accent, but it was so slight it was impossible to pinpoint to a specific country.

  Sophia’s heart dropped. None of the members had been individually supervised within BASE for…well, a while.

  Sophia straightened her back. “Why?”

  Lund didn’t reply.

  Sophia’s brow furrowed. What was wrong with him? Didn’t he have anything better to do than just stand there…and stare?

  Suddenly, the elevator doors at the end of the hall slid open.

  “Hey!”

  A lanky, Asian boy ran down the corridor. He was young, barely 18. His wrists were clad in leather bands, and his ripped t-shirt had a skull and crossbones on it.

  He enveloped Sophia in a hug and kissed the side of her head.

  “How are you doing?” he asked gently.

  “I’ll be fine, Davey,” said Sophia, hoarsely.

  The man pulled her arm through his and turned to Lund. “I can take care of this,” he said.

  The handler’s brows knit together. “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve been cleared to supervise. It’s okay.”

  Lund let out a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a cough. “I don’t think so,” he sneered.

  “If you would check your messages once in a while,” said Davey. “You would know.”

  The sneer disappeared from Lund’s face. He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a silver smartphone. “Damn,” he muttered as the screen lit up.

  Davey gently led Sophia past Lund and down the hall. “I hate that man,” he muttered.

  Sophia let out a small laugh. “Tell me about it.”

  She stole a sideways glance at her companion. She had known Davey a relatively short time compared to the others; he’d only come to BASE two years earlier, added to help replenish the dwindling number of Members.

  To the best of her knowledge, Davey had been recruited by The Org after achieving notoriety in the criminal underworld. A child genius, he’d used his smarts to become a highly successful drug dealer, pulling in $800,000 a month through a partnership with the Cartel and Hell’s Angels.

  But all that money was gone. And now, he was here. He accepted The Org’s offer to join Program Occidis with little hesitation, mostly due to the fact that, in the beginning, he was unaware of the full purpose of the program, and also that he was intimately familiar with the life and work of the head of The Org, Norbert Alexander.

  Norbert Alexander was an illustrious Danish billionaire, famed for starting one of the most well-known tech companies in the world—and for having a string of supermodel wives. What the public didn’t know was that he was corrupt and involved with a number of illegal business operations worldwide.

  The mere thought of him left a sour taste in Sophia’s mouth. But she pushed him out of her mind and asked the question that puzzled her, “How’d you swing this?”

  “What? Taking you off of Lund’s hands?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, they just have me locked up here hacking and killing tech all day,” chuckled Davey. “It gets boring. They have to give me something else to do.”

  “But that means Norbert trusts you.”

  A few seconds of silence followed, and Davey sniffed awkwardly as he pressed the button for the fourth floor.

  “I suppose it does,” he muttered.

  The elevator doors slid closed. Sophia rubbed her arms. The environment at BASE always seemed to match its cold aesthetic.

  “You okay, Soph?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Do you wanna talk about it?”

  Sophia didn’t reply.

  The doors slid back open. When they stepped out, the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling lit up.

  The fourth floor of BASE was peculiar. It was where all the strictly necessary rooms were, and it was desperately grim. The room immediately outside of the elevator was reminiscent of a post office. A sheet of square metal boxes lined the walls, all with a small black screen in the bottom right-hand corner.

  “Look, Soph,” said Davey. “We can’t tell Kristin.”

  Sophia froze.

  Davey continued. “She hasn’t been doing so good; they’ve been taking her jobs and giving them to Ilya. If she finds out why Simon hasn’t come back, she’ll go crazy, and then she’s screwed.”

  “What are you talking about?” snapped Sophia. “She deserves to know.”

  Davey shook his head.

  “She can’t know until they deem it fit to tell her. She needs to get better first. You know how obsessed she was with Simon. Do you remember all the therapy you went through after Colin—“ Davey stopped.

  Sophia felt her hands go numb.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” replied Sophia, her words overlapping his apology. Why was everyone dredging up Colin? This wasn’t at all the same situation. Colin chose to leave.

  She went to a metal box in the second row from the top, third from the left. She pressed her thumb on the black screen, a green light flashed, and the metal box popped open.

  The only item inside was an 8x12 manila envelope. Sophia could feel Davey’s gaze on her as she eagerly pulled out the contents.

  All of the Members received fresh information on their family—if they had any—every week. Sophia’s eyes scoured the pages inside. Photos, medical progress reports; all were thoroughly read.

  Davey leaned against the metal boxes. “How’s your mom doing?”

  “She’s doing good,” replied Sophia, her focus still on the papers. Her parents had been in a car crash when she was nine, leaving her father dead and her mother with brain damage. Then she’d been given a choice: join Occidis, or let her mother die.

  She could still remember the disgusting, bleached odor of the hospital. The cold emptiness of the room. Norbert’s hand on the pillow…

  “Now, I don’t think you’ll need any additional encouragement, Sophia. But if you refuse…”

  Sophia discreetly wiped her eyes. Of course she’d decided to join the program. She couldn’t let her mother die.

  Sophia’s fingers found their way back to the pendant around her neck; it had been a gift from her father. He’d worked in one of Norbert’s labs. That’s how they had found her. That’s why she’d been given the choice…

  She could still feel Davey’s gaze on her. She loved Davey, but the amount of staring done by the people at BASE was bothersome.

  Sophia put away the papers and tucked the manila envelope under her arm. “You already checked your box?”

  Davey nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Everyone good?”

  “Yep.”

  Despite Davey’s openness to talk about almost, well, everything, he would never talk about his family. That was how most of the Members were, though. They were transparent until you tried to talk about the incentives keeping them in Program Occidis; that’s when you would hit a wall.

  Sophia fingered the manila envelope beneath her arm. She always read everything through twice. A wide shelf in her room was crammed full of the manila envelopes that had ended up in her mailbox over the years. She’d run out of room, though. With this one, she’d start a new shelf.

  Understanding shone in Davey’s eyes. “You want me to walk you back to your room?”

  “Yes,” said Sophia. “Thank you.”

  Arm-in-arm, they stepped into the elevator.

  3

  Sophia looked down at her plate: two chicken breasts, a small salad with thinly-sliced watermelon radishes, and a small helping of fruit.

  Davey gently kicked her leg from across the table. “You gonna eat?”

  They were on the first floor, which had the most welcoming atmosphere in the whole building. No walls separated the kitchen, living room, and dining room. The floors were pale wood, and windows
comprised the far wall, giving a view of vast, dark desert. But the comfortable ambiance did nothing to ease the knot in Sophia’ stomach.

  “I’m not hungry,” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to eat. She’d skipped lunch, and food—which she had flushed down the toilet—had been promptly brought to her room.

  “If you don’t start eating when Kristin gets here,” said Davey, “she’ll know something’s wrong.”

  Sophia leaned over the table. “Well, Simon’s not here, is he? She’s gonna know something’s wrong whether I eat or not. Also, have you looked at my cheek recently? Cause there’s a pretty big bandage on it.”

  Davey’s fork clattered onto his plate. “Just tell her that Simon got sent on a job immediately after.”

  Sophia’s cheeks flushed with rage. “I can’t lie to her, Davey.”

  The sound of the elevator doors sliding open cut their conversation short as a red-haired, lithe girl with a pixie-cut walked into the room. Followed by—

  Sophie arched a brow. Ilya. The golden boy.

  “Great,” she could hear Davey mutter under his breath.

  Ilya had only joined a year ago, added, like Davey, to replenish the dwindling number of Members. He seemed older than the rest of them. Sophia didn’t know for sure, but she guessed he was around twenty. Soon after he joined, it became clear that he was Norbert’s favorite. He was almost never on BASE, always on a job somewhere.

  From the little she’d seen of Ilya, Sophia had decided she didn’t like him. The familial bond she, Davey, and Kristin shared was not extended to him. He never talked to them—he hardly ever even looked at them.

  Ilya walked past them to pick up his plate, and Davey let out a snort as the man settled at the far end of the table.

  Sophia scoffed. Typical Ilya.

  The red-haired girl settled in next to Davey. “How are things going, Soph?” she asked. Her jaw dropped as her gaze settled on Sophia’s cheek. “Wow. What happened?”

  Davey’s urgent eyes pierced into Sophia. “Don’t tell her,” he mouthed.

  Sophia reluctantly started picking at her food. Maybe he was right. Maybe now wasn’t the time to tell Kristin.

  “Things are good,” said Sophia. “There was some really rough terrain. I fell…how have you been?”

  “Oh damn, that sucks,” said Kristin, between bites. “I’ve been good, I’ve been good.” The food portions on her plate were twice as large as Sophia’s. “Haven’t had much to do,” she continued. “Just a lot of training sessions. I think we’re going to start dialect classes soon. To really open up my job capabilities. Did you know there are more than 56 dialects in the British Isles? Lived there half of my life, and I didn’t even know.”

  The knot in Sophia’s stomach was growing. When you were grounded from missions and only given training sessions, that’s when you knew you were in trouble.

  “I, uh, no. I didn’t know that,” said Sophia. What was she supposed to say to that? What was she supposed to say at all…she couldn’t talk about Simon, but he was at the forefront of her mind.

  Thankfully, Kristin kept talking. “Apparently, they might start giving me flying lessons. I mean, I asked for pilot lessons. And they said maybe. So you know, there’s that. And…”

  Sophia’s focus drifted away from her friend. Ilya was watching her. His blue eyes held her gaze for a moment, before acknowledging her with a nod of his sandy head.

  Sophia blinked at him. Ilya never went out of his way to acknowledge anybody. And now he had nodded? Why did he have to be so awkward…

  Kristin’s voice pierced into Sophia’s thoughts. “You’ve barely touched your food.”

  Sophia turned her head back to Kristin.

  “You okay? Is something wrong?” asked Kristin. “You usually go at your food like a horse.”

  Sophia bit her lip. Shit. Davey had been right. She could feel his foot digging into her shin.

  “Everything’s fine,” said Sophia. “I’m just not feeling too well.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sophia feigned a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine, really.”

  Kristin shrugged her shoulders. “Alright, then. How did your job go? Where was it, Majorca?”

  “Uh, no,” said Sophia. “Massachusetts.”

  “Pfft,” scoffed Kristin. “Sounds boring.”

  “Yeah, it kinda was.”

  “How did Simon do?”

  The blood rushed to Sophia’s cheeks. Before she could reply, Davey chimed in, “From what I heard, he did pretty good.”

  The corner of Kristin’s mouth went into a half-smile. “That’s good. I’m glad,” she said. “I knew he could redeem himself.”

  “Of course he could,” said Davey. “And he did. Total turnaround from last time.”

  Sophia’s eyes narrowed. Davey was laying it on a bit too thick. It was better to skirt around the issue of Simon rather than weave a web that was just going to crush Kristin even more when she found out the truth.

  “Did he come back with you, Soph?” asked Kristin.

  The words struck Sophia like anxious needle pricks. She was going to have to take Davey’s advice, and lie.

  “No, actually, he got sent on another job,” she said.

  “Really? Do you know where?”

  “I think he said somewhere in the Mediterranean.”

  Kristin leaned over the table; her large, green eyes studying Sophia’s face.

  An awkward silence fell. Silence usually preceded fireworks with Kristin. “You’re lying.”

  Sophia shot a quick glance at Davey, expecting him to say something. But he stayed quiet, his eyes wide.

  “Kristin, I— “

  “Soph, don’t bullshit me. Where is he?”

  “He’s…” Sophia’s voice drifted off; she racked her brain for the right words. A vein was starting to pop out in Kristin’s forehead.

  “Damn it,” said Kristin. “Did he fail again? Did they get rid of him? They got rid of him, didn’t they?”

  Sophia sighed. Now was the time. “He’s dead. I’m sorry. There was a bomb…someone had gotten there before us. I tried to find him, but I couldn’t.”

  A full minute of silence followed. Kristin’s eyes were tearless, despite the tremble in her lip.

  Sophia apologized again. She didn’t know what else to do. “I’m so sorry, Kris.”

  “Bastards,” muttered Kristin. She turned her head, furiously scanning the room.

  “What are you doing?” asked Davey, his voice filled with alarm.

  Kristin stood up. “They did this to him.”

  She went into the kitchen, scanning the cabinets, counters, and ceiling. Finally, she seemed to find what she was looking for, a small black dot on the backsplash above the sink.

  It was one of the kitchen’s security cameras. A chill went down Sophia’s spine. “Kristin, maybe you should— “

  “Bastards!” screamed Kristin.

  Sophia stood up. “Kristin, stop whatever you’re—“

  Before Sophia could reach the kitchen, Kristin had grabbed a glass from the cabinet and thrown it at the black dot.

  “Stop it!” cried Sophia. She knew whatever treatment Kristin was supposed to go through had just been made that much worse. Sophia ducked as a glass flew over her head.

  “Stay away from me,” said Kristin, her voice low.

  “Kristin—“

  A plate flew and crashed behind Sophia. It narrowly missed Davey, who was now standing a few feet behind her with a face that showed he was at a loss as to what to do.

  Much help he was. Sophia clenched her fists. “Kristin, you’re just making it worse for yourself. Please stop.”

  As glass after glass crashed into the wall, Sophia slowly inched her way towards her friend. She’d have to grab Kristin’s arms and restrain her on the floor. The longer this went on…the worse Kristin’s therapy would get.

  But before she could act, Ilya’s sleek frame bolted past her. His hand closed around the back of Kristin’s
neck, and she collapsed back into his arms.

  Sophia’s jaw dropped; she couldn’t see, but she was pretty sure Davey’s had dropped as well. Ilya had just used pressure points...wait, why did he care?

  The blond man carried Kristin out of the kitchen and gently laid her down on a couch in the living room. The shock Sophia felt froze her, gluing her feet to the ground.

  Ilya turned, his eyes shifting back and forth between Sophia and Davey. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it.

  Sophia knew she should say something, probably thank him. But she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Thankfully, Davey was able to.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Sophia could tell by his tone that he was just as surprised as she was.

  Ilya’s eyes were boring into her—and giving her chills. Did he expect her to thank him, too? She had to say something. “Thank you,” said Sophia, her voice barely above a whisper.

  The corner of Ilya’s eyes crinkled with a slight smile. With a wave of his hand, he left the room.

  4

  Sophia fell back on her bed and pulled a braided leather band from the drawer of her nightstand. To everyone’s surprise, Norbert had arrived on BASE shortly after Kristin’s fit. But Sophia had barely seen him for more than a minute. As soon as his helicopter arrived, the handlers and Dr. Roth had ushered Norbert onto the fifth floor— his private floor. Sophia had promptly been brought onto the private floor just long enough for Norbert to hand her a job file and tell her that she was to be shipped out at exactly 1 a.m.

  “You can sleep on the plane,” he told her, as his eyes coldly looked over.

  She really hadn’t expected that, so soon after they’d lost a Member. In the past, operations had always halted for a few days after a Member’s death.

  But here she was, due to be flown out in approximately four hours. Sophia traced the intricate patterns of the braid with her finger. She pulled the band onto her wrist; it fit perfectly.