Claws of The Phoenix 1.2
Just moments before the dusk crept all over the city, they arrived at what seemed like a deserted and abandoned warehouse near a seaport. Not a living soul was to be seen around, it looked like a typical ghost town to a commoner’s eye.
As the three walked up the gate, a huge-bodied man appeared before them. He was carrying a huge size of ammunition and he exhibited creepy facial features. He has a pair of tightly sculpted jaws and a big scar that drew a line from the forehead across the left eye to his cheek. The guy stared down at Kurt with a blank commanding stare.
And with a deep voice that sounded like it came from the underground he remarked “So, Raven, this is the guy?”
The girl companion replied “Yes Hawk. Allow us in.” And with her words, the huge guy opened the gate and let them in.
"He does not look like much."
"Again, Hawk, not every guy should have muscles as terrifying as yours."
"Terrifying? A man has to have the guns." Hawk said as he flexed and showcased his big shoulders' and neck muscles.
Kurt shivered and saw first time in real life that some parts of the human body should not have muscles.
Kurt’s eyes were filled with amusement and fascination that no words can express as they entered the warehouse. It was a huge blank space at the opening but on a corner, there are several stations, professionally designed and set up as a big control room. There are 5 more people in the room, each working on a station almost identical to the others.
Big monitors and several CPU systems for each station are attached to another room which Kurt suspected was the server room. He wandered and feasted his eyes on all the top-of-the-line and state-of-the-art computing systems.
Raven took Kurt by the shoulder and stopped him from walking back and forth, with small lights of laughter she exclaimed “You looked like a lost child in the middle of a toy store. You should have seen yourself, Kurt.”
“May I present your nest” she said as she motioned to a vacant station, “Every single operating system, the fastest of the chipsets, the most powerful IDE, and the most reliable connection. Everything you might need to write is here Kurt, ah no, shall I call you Phoenix.”
“Let me explain what we do here."
"But I did not ask...nor do I want to know," Kurt mumbled.
" As I said we work under the national defense department."
"Again, you're not even listening to me. What can I even do to you..."
" We terminate attacks of terrorism in their inception. By intercepting and analyzing data flow from communication every day, e-mails, calls, SMS’s, radio waves, and all that, we are able to filter patterns of messages and codes so that we can categorize if they are harmful or not. "
"Okay...so illegal I assume. I'm out." Kurt softly said.
"We trace every piece of data that falls in the first category and proceed to surveillance and if proven to be legitimized threat, those people connected to it will be apprehended. Have you ever thought about why the terrorists now are so quiet and harmless? Because we prevented them to do things they wanted.” Raven explained.
“I’ve always thought of that. I know people couldn’t just change overnight. If you are that successful then, what do you need me for?” asked Kurt curiously.
“We used to occupy a huge building; we used to have more than 50 great programmers until we were attacked by the terrorists themselves. They had tracked down our addresses and launched a big catastrophe upon us. Now we, we were the lucky ones. We were out of the building at the exact time. Hawk was fortunate to be alive after having a fistfight against some of them too. We were so effective that we began to be careless.”
Kurt listened to her with sympathy and looked around the people working there. And to his observation, he came to a realization that all of them are of the same age bracket except for the driver and Hawk. He looked at Raven while she was overseeing the others’ works and asked “Why are you all so young?”
Raven gave him a quick glance and chuckled. “Thanks for the compliment, now I know you think I’m beautiful. We are all the same age, we are the NEXTGEN, and we are the new generation of the project Bird’s Eye.”
There are still a lot of things in Kurt’s mind that he cannot seem to settle, like what is he really going to do here, who these people really are and what all this means to him. NEXTGEN? Bird's Eye? What on Earth are all these terms?
He sat and sank into a deep pit of thoughts. His features were painted blankly. He was pulled back to the surface of the ground by a tiny voice from a girl with a body of a young woman and a spirit of a child.
She talked to him in a high pitch with the air of a playful kid. “Hey, what are you thinking old man?” The last phrase rang in Kurt’s ears like bells struck hard by a hard metal.
“And who might you be calling an old man little girl?”
“Who else am I talking to? It’s you Phoenix. You look like an old man when you are so absorbed in thinking like that. You seemed so serious. By the way, I’m The Hummingbird.”
“The code name suits you. And I am not Phoenix, my name is Kurt.”
“You’ll get used to it in a bit Phoenix. I am fond of reading your poems on your blogsite.”
Kurt flushed a painful blush on his cheeks upon the girl’s remarks. “So, you like to read huh? What is a kid doing here anyway?”
“I might look like a kid but I am as old as you in a month’s time.”
“Okay, I see. I think I should be going home soon. This is just all too much for me to handle for a day. I'm getting dizzy.”
“Okay, I’ll see you again tomorrow Phoenix. I’m sure I will.” She smiled at him and began striding merrily back to her station.
Kurt got up and made his way to the door. Raven was there waiting for him. He was just planning to pass her by but she stood in his way and extended an arm as if she was asking for a handshake.
With a gentle smile on her face, a soft and kind personality covered her whole character. Perhaps this is another face of her or this might be her true self, Kurt thought of that for a moment. He extended his arms too to reach her and as soon as they took a grasp of each other’s hand a striking and pricking sensation of electricity ran into his arms followed by a wicked feeling of something being injected into the body.
He withdrew his arm in an instant and exclaimed “What on earth was that? Are you trying to kill me?”
“No, don’t worry it is safe. It is a microchip we all have, to have access to everything around here using our codes combined with the random combinations that chip produce and…” before she could finish Kurt replied
“Oh come on, this is obviously a tracking device.”
The lady smiled at him and said “Of course. As expected from you, Kurt. Assurance and safety, we shall have. I will be seeing you tomorrow then. Let yourself out.” She waved as he walked away from the facility.
He approached the gate and left a questioning look at Hawk. Kurt then rode the car once again and noticed that the old man wasn’t anywhere near them.
“How am I supposed to go home now?” he exclaimed with annoyance suddenly the speaker of the car sounded and as if talking to him said
“Destination: 23rd Macedonia St. Blue Park Village. Code: 087967. Please state your Passcode”
Kurt has never used such technology never even dreamt of having it but here it is right before his very person.
“Passcode? Raven told me nothing about this.” He thought quickly of everything they talked about and analyzed every single detail and said at last with confidence “Phoenix”, as soon as he said the word the engine started to roar, and off they were gone.
...to be continued...
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