Jessica Strong

Antagonist Secret Location

                   Antagonist Secret Location
                      “The Newest Employee”


     Kevin Mason and Olivia Keys stand at the bullet-proof glass
wall looking down at what they call the hole below. It looks
like a large squared hole two floors down with an open ceiling
and a small overlapping edge that hide some of the employees
working below.

     The employees they can see are busy at work. About fifty
are looking at three monitors with the middle one for a computer
in front of them. The other two are also computer monitors, but
they also have multiple camera screens. Four are in a square
rotating desk hole watching the others there. These four are the
supervisors for that part of Secret Location.

     “Everything appears to be okay,” says Kevin as he looks at
Olivia. He returns his gaze at the hole too.

     “We both know nothing is ever okay with Secret Location,”
says Olivia. She never takes her eyes off the others below.

     Just then the phone on Kevin’s desk begins to ring. Kevin
goes over to it and picks it up. He looks out the glass wall
behind his chair as he talks to a female voice on the phone, but
he can’t see anything below from that angle. “Hello… Good… Send
him up as soon as he can see again.”

     Kevin hits one button on his phone to end that call. He
hits the third one away to it. “Tiffany Thoth, Patrick Vaughn is
here. Please, come up here to greet our newest employee.”

     After hanging up his phone, Kevin returns to Olivia. Kevin
gets there just in time to see one of the four supervisors get
up and walk out a corner exit between desks. Tiffany looks up at
Kevin and Olivia as she disappears from their view. Both Kevin
and Olivia follow her path through their floor to the center of
their office as though they can see her walking beneath them.

     A few seconds later a large square in the center of the
office rises as a clear elevator rises beneath it. Only Tiffany
isn’t in that elevator. It’s Patrick. After he steps out of it
he looks behind him as it returns to the floor below. Patrick
walks over toward Kevin and Olivia who are still looking in that
direction as the elevator returns with Tiffany on it this time.

     “Hello. You must be Patrick Vaughn.” Kevin extended his
hand to shake Patrick’s hand. “Welcome to Secret Location.”

     Olivia also shakes his hand. “I’m Olivia Keys.” She looks
over at Kevin. “This is Kevin Mason. We are everyone’s superiors
here at Secret Location.”

     Patrick glances at each other of them twice. Then he looks
between them as he talks to them. “Where are we? How did I get
here? What is Secret Location?”

     Everyone who comes to work here asks us those very same
questions,” says Olivia. “Especially the one of who we are.”

     “You may get to know the answer to that question someday,”
continues Kevin. “Right now, only a few know that answer.”

     Patrick can’t see too much beyond the glass wall behind
Kevin and Olivia, but he does try to look between them through
it. “What is it that we do here? You have been very vague about
that so far.”

     “I think I can answer that question,” says Tiffany as she
steps up to stand next to Patrick. Patrick doesn’t seem to have
noticed her until then.

     Tiffany walks up to the edge of the glass wall and looks
down. When Patrick doesn’t join her, she gestures him to do it.
Patrick walks up to stand next to her. Tiffany points to an
empty computer desk in the hole below. “That is where you will
be working.”

     “What will I be doing for you?” Patrick asks. “You all have
been very vague about that too.”

     “According to your application you are fluent in several
languages: including Russian, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Is
that true?”

     Patrick looks at Tiffany. “I know those four plus six other
languages. Is that why I have been hired here?”

     “It is,” says Olivia as she steps up to stand beside him.
Keven joins them next to Tiffany. “You will be using all ten of
them with this job, but the first four I mentioned you will be
using the most.”

     “What does that mean?” Patrick asks.

     Kevin speaks first. “It means part of your job is to listen
in on these other countries. If you overhear something that is
important, you will tell us about it.”

     Patrick looks shocked as he glances at each one of them.
“What have I joined. Is this a spy organization of some kind or
is it something criminal?”

     “All of that will be explained later,” says Kevin. “Right
now, I just want to get you to work.”

     “Have you checked out your living arraignments yet?” Olivia
asks.

     This time Patrick looks confused. “What are you talking
about? I’m not living here. All I am doing is working here, and
I’m not even sure I want to do that anymore.”

     “You have no choice,” says Olivia. “The contract that you
signed says that you are working for us until we decide to
terminate you.”

     Tiffany quickly changes to subject. “If you haven’t been to
your living quarters, where have you been?”

     “I haven’t been anywhere yet. Just as I got here they sent
me here.”

      “Well, the first thing I will show you is where you are
going to be living when you’re not working. Then I will give you
a tour of this place,” says Tiffany.

     Patrick is starting to get mad. “I don’t want a tour. All I
want to do is get out of here.”

     “That isn’t going to happen. Once you sign that contract
you are here to stay. The only way out of here now is death.”

      “Don’t try to scare me,” says Patrick. “I can leave here at
any time, and you can’t stop me.”

     Kevin, Olivia, and Tiffany start laughing. It’s Olivia who
response to Patrick first. “How are you going to do that? You
don’t even know where you are.”

     Patrick thinks about that for a few minutes. “So, that’s
why you temporary blinded me.”

     “It’s better than a blindfold. Some can see under or over a
blindfold. A few can even see through them. Besides, if someone
sees you walking around with a blindfold on they will probably
get suspicious. They won’t if your blind.”

     Before Patrick can say another word, Tiffany grabs him by
the arm and practically drags him to the center of that room.
Tiffany stops just before getting there to step on a red button
on the floor to bring up the elevator. After the elevator gets
there and they get into it, it returns to the lower floors.

     Just before the elevator leaves that floor, Olivia and
Kevin walk over to their desk to sit down behind them. As Olivia
is doing that she glances through her glass wall at the hole on
her side of that place. Once both are seated they tap a button
on their computers to bring up a large display of an audio/video
monitors. They each tap one that zooms in to fill the screen. On
that monitor, it shows Tiffany and Patrick walking down a hall.

     “We should be able to hear everything that they say,” says
Kevin. “Too bad we couldn’t put a Medical Bug on him before
Tiffany dragged him out of here.”

     “We’re on the tenth floor,” remarks Patrick. “How big is
this place?”

     Tiffany looks at him but keeps walking. “It’s very big.
There is a little bit of everything here.”

     “Not only do we have the living areas, but we have several
clothing stores, food stores, and entertainment centers. We also
have several…”

     Patrick stops her speech by stopping and looking at her.
“What kind of entertainment are you talking about?”

     “We have several movie theaters with the latest movies
playing in them, a few bowling alleys, things like that. Not to
mention big screen television almost as big as the movie screens
in each of our living areas with all your local channels plus
several hundred more.”

     “Local channels! Really!” Patrick’s smile could barely be
seen by Kevin and Olivia.

     Tiffany shakes her head sadly. “I know what you are
thinking. You think that because it’s your local channels that
we are somewhere near where you live. That isn’t right. We all
have our own local channels.”

     Patrick sighed. “What other kinds of entertainment do you
have here?”

     “What over kinds are you looking for?” Tiffany asks.

     After thinking about that for a few seconds, Patrick smiles
big. “What about sex?”

     “That depends on what you are talking about,” says Tiffany
without a shocked look on her face. Also, barely seen by Kevin
and Olivia.

     “If you are talking about prostitutes, we don’t have any of
them here. It’s too dangerous to bring them in unless they stay
here permanently too.”

     Tiffany starts walking again. “If you are talking about
just old fashion sex, it isn’t discouraged here. In fact, it’s
encouraged.”

     “What about children? Do we have any children here?” asks
Patrick.

     “Of course, we do. There around a hundred of them from
about forty couples and individuals.

     Patrick stops again. Only this time he doesn’t look at
Tiffany, but up at the camera, at Kevin and Olivia. “How can you
do this to children. It’s bad enough you force us to live here
if we don’t want to, but children are innocent. They shouldn’t
be forced to live here too just because of being born here.”

     “I have heard enough.” Olivia pushes a button on her
computer that turns off that monitor. Another button tap sends
her monitors back into the floor.

     “So, have I.” Kevin does the same thing to his monitors.

     They can now see each other again. Kevin is the first one
to speak. “What do you think? Do you think that he’s going to be
a troublemaker?”

     “I’m not sure, yet. If he is, we will eliminate him as we
have done with the others.”

     “What about him being an agent?” asks Kevin. “Do you think
he was sent here by one of the government agencies?”

     Olivia thinks about that before she responds to Kevin’s
questions. “He might be. It has been a long time since one of
them tried to do that. If he is here to find out what we are
doing and stop us, we will kill him like we have killed the
other eight agents to have been stupid enough to send here.”

     “Why do they keep trying?” Kevin asks. “There is no way
that anyone is ever going to find us here. Let along kill all of
us. No one person can do that. It will take an army to do it,
and that will never happen.”


                       Word Count = 1,813