Authors: Philip Mcclennan
James slowly opened the door of the basement and made his way out of it. He walked casually through the floors of the building, easily passing for a lawyer of the Miyamoto firm. Many of the other staff that walked through the corridors seemed to be in a rush. They were far too busy to pay James any attention at all. James made it to the 71
st
floor and took Sophie’s pass from underneath the table, just like they discussed.
He now walked to the special access elevator. You see, the upper ten floors could only be accessed via this particular elevator. It required the security pass to be scanned on a panel at the side of the elevator to gain entry. As James approached the lift it opened and an Asian male dressed in a suit, not too dissimilar to his own, walked out. James thought little of it as ninety-nine percent of the people he had encountered inside the building were of Asian or Japanese origin. However upon seeing James, the man seemed puzzled.
The man shouted something in Japanese to him as he walked by but James, who didn’t speak a word of the language, had no idea what the man had said, so he elected to ignore it.
“Who are you?” asked the man, now speaking in English.
James stopped dead in his tracks. “Who me?” he said, trying to play dumb.
“Yes you,” said the man whose eyes looked him up and down carefully. “We don’t have many Westerners in the company. What are you doing here?” The man gazed upon him with suspicious eyes.
I should have learnt the language.
James had considered taking the man out there and then but this is when Sophie’s research came in handy. “Mr Saki hired me personally, I’m sure you’ve read the memo.”
“Memo?” asked the man, who sounded a little flustered. The firm regularly sent company memos out via email to its employees. Although these were compulsory reading, most of the staff found them painfully boring and rarely bothered. “Oh yes the memo!” said the man, clearly pretending that he had read the thing in full. “It must have slipped my mind, my sincere apologies. Welcome to Miyamoto.” The man gave James a handshake and hurried along.
James smiled. He couldn’t believe how easy it had been to fool a lawyer from a company with such a high reputation for having some of the smartest people in the world.
Clearly not that smart!
He shook his head and advanced onwards.
James reached the vault. He was surprised that it wasn’t guarded but in truth it didn’t need to be. Without a valid pin-code, it was impossible to get inside. This was why Sophie was unable to gain access to the inner section of the vault. Only the senior partners or chairman of the firm had access to this. The main hatch of the vault was made up of titanium steel, over ten feet thick in length. James had been selected to try and penetrate the vault due to his freakish strength. Chad possessed more strength than James, however, Sergeant Cooper did not trust him to be discreet in his attempts to enter the vault.
The sergeant knew that Chad would rather have fought his way through the entire building rather than sweep in and out undetected. This was why Chad was saved for tasks that required a less subtle approach, were brute force was required.
James brought out the blowtorch once more, which he had hidden in the briefcase. He attempted to melt the door of the vault. Around ten minutes had past and the blowtorch had barely made a small hole, only a few centimeters in width. He knew this strategy was going to take too long, so he tried a different approach.
Time to take a leap out of Chad’s book.
James threw a punch at the vault door. He removed his fist and smiled. He had dented the metal by several inches, causing more damage to the door with his fist in a single blow, than he had done in ten minutes with the blowtorch. He raised the torch up to his face and gave it a bemused look, then he tossed it aside. He looked at his knuckles on his right hand. They were red but not bleeding despite the blow on titanium steel.
These hands are stronger than any blowtorch!
He unleashed another fierce punch towards the vault hatch.
Sophie, Marty and Arisu left the conference room from which the meeting that Mr Saki had been hosting had concluded. “That was brutal”, said Arisu, referring to the stern telling off that Mr Saki had just given them all.
“Tell me about it, I need a drink,” said Marty who puffed his cheeks.
“Sounds good, we’ll meet after work yeah?” asked Arisu.
“Sure, what about you Sophie?” said Marty.
Sophie didn’t reply. She was still in a world of her own, deep in thought about the ongoing mission.
“Hello? Anybody home?” said Marty, clicking his fingers in front of her face.
“Oh sorry,” Sophie replied coming back to reality. Sophie quickly thought up of an excuse about the meeting getting to her, but nothing could be further from the truth.
They soon reached Arisu’s office. “Ok, I’ve got a ton of paperwork to get through before I finish. I’ll see you guys later?” Arisu went into her office and closed the door behind her.
Sophie and Marty continued on along the corridor. “Is everything ok? You’ve been a little off all day,” said Marty, with a concerned tone in his voice. Marty’s concern was genuine. As mentioned earlier, the two had become involved in a physical relationship and Marty loved her deeply, although he had not told her as much.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” answered Sophie, who faked a smile.
If only that was true…
“You need to loosen up,” said Marty, who began to massage her shoulders as they walked. This brought a genuine smile to Sophie’s face. They reached Sophie’s office.
“Well, duty calls,” Sophie said, with a hint of regret. Truth be told, she didn’t want to part with Marty at this point, but she needed to focus on the mission. Marty put his arms around her.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
Sophie looked around the corridor, slightly embarrassed. “Stop, someone might see,” she said, not really sounding too bothered.
The pair began to kiss and Sophie pulled Marty into the office. Marty kicked the office door shut behind them as he stumbled in. Sophie thought for a moment about sending Marty on his way so she could focus on the mission. She would have done just that if it was any other agent, but it was James who was involved.
Nothing can hurt him; he’ll be fine,
she thought, convincing herself it was ok to continue the passionate embrace as she and Marty slowly began to undress each other.
James gave the steel vault door one last almighty blow, which crippled it. He had forced his way through ten feet of solid steel. His knuckles were bloody now and they stung like mad. Still, he had little time to worry about such things. He squeezed his way through the small gap, which now appeared on the vault door and entered inside. The inside section was what you would expect to find in a room of a mansion. The four huge white walls inside the vault were occupied with papers and objects. They were scattered on various shelves, high and low inside the vault.
James searched the area for several minutes, finally locating the company’s client list in a set of steel drawers. He packed all the documents into his briefcase and began to make his way out. James reached the vault door and began to squeeze through it but then suddenly, something drew is attention. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he spotted a file that was sealed in red tape. A strange feeling began to flow through his body. It was almost as if the file was calling to him. He felt compelled to take it, even though he had no idea what it was. He walked towards the file, being strangely drawn to it as he approached.
James reached into the filing cabinet in which the file was placed and pulled it out slightly to examine it. The files read:
‘Bel Grave Orphanage’
. This was the Orphanage in which James and Chad had grown up in as children. James, without removing the file from the cabinet, flicked through a few of the pages. He was shocked by what he found inside. There was a picture of himself and Chad aged eight years. James lifted the file completely out of the cabinet.
Suddenly, an alarm sounded inside the vault and gas was released from air vents that led into it.
Shit!
James made a hasty exit. He ran through the corridors, pushing several confused employees’ to the floor as he advanced at speed. As James fled, he took out his mobile phone and wrote a text message.
Sophie fastened the buttons of her shirt back up. Marty was still there with her and the pair were breathing heavily from their recent sexual adventure. “So you feeling better now?” asked Marty, who kissed her on the forehead.
“Yeah, I think that’s done the trick,” said Sophie, smiling softly at the man. Marty had raised her spirits for sure. The young Irish girl noticed her mobile phone light up on her desk and reached for it. She realised it was an incoming text message, which read:
‘Get out now!’
Sophie’s happy feeling suddenly vanished in an instant.
Marty noticed a lot of commotion through the large glass windows of Sophie’s office. “What’s going on?” he asked, opening the door. The corridor was chaotic. Security guards were rounding up all of the employees and leading them to the conference room, which was the biggest room on the floor. There was several of these in the building and all of the employee’s were being rounded up in each of them. Sophie walked from her office into the manic corridor to see Airsu had joined Marty. The three of them looked around in confusion as security continued to round everyone up.
“Can you believe this? It’s a sweep!” said Airsu, not sounding at all happy about the situation. Airsu reached out and held Sophie’s arm up to look at the watch around her wrist. “I’ll never make my lunch!” she said.
Mr Saki could be seen at the bottom of the corridor, leading two strange looking women inside the conference room. He then gestured for the security guards to lead the remaining people from the corridor inside.
“What is it?” asked Marty.
“…Mind readers,” answered Sophie, who now had a very worried look on her face.
James jumped down the hole in the basement floor, which he had made earlier with the blowtorch. He landed back inside the depths of the sewer and sprinted away from the area as fast as he could.
Back inside the building, several employees, including Sophie, Airsu and Marty had been lined up inside the large conference room. The room was high up on the 56
th
floor and had large glass walls. Outside of the walls, which were much like windows, the great landscape of Tokyo could be seen. However, at this precise moment in time, the Tokyo landscape was the last thing on all of the employees’ minds. Two old creepy looking women walked up and down the line of staff members, looking closely at each person one at a time. The women looked so elderly that they struggled to walk, each having someone next to them to aid them as they walked. Both of the women were blind and thus wore a pair of dark shades. The two women were sisters who shared a unique skill. Those in their family had been gifted with physic abilities from birth, much like that of a fortune-teller.
The two blind sisters had harnessed their skills over the many years and this enabled them to almost peer into the very soul of a person. They could weave in and out of people’s thoughts; brushing aside any barriers they might put up to conceal the truth.
They walked past every man and woman inside the room, standing directly in front of each person for a few moments as they read their thoughts. Sophie was sweating uncontrollably. She had been mind read before whilst working for the company in the past, but then she had only to conceal her true identity as an undercover agent. In the past, she had always prepared herself for such an event. However, this time was different. She realised that something must have gone wrong with the mission for James to have text her to leave the building. Also, the random mind reading ordered by Mr Saki was a clear indication that he suspected an inside job.
Sophie looked around the room carefully. Her attention was brought to the exit door at the far end of the room. She half thought about making a break for it. Sophie was, after all an agent. She would most likely be able to take on any one of the guards or other personnel in the room in one-on-one combat and come out on top. However, the room was heavily guarded and security swarmed all over the place. To make matters worse, the security men were armed with small gun pistols.
I’ll never make it. There’s too many of them.
The mind reading sisters reached Airsu and stood in front of her. Airsu looked very uncomfortable, shuffling about as the old woman peered into her mind. After a few minutes, they moved on to Marty, who seemed a little more composed about the whole thing. The mind readers looked deep into his heart and could see the feelings of love for Sophie. They could see clearly, the lovemaking between Marty and Sophie from a short time ago, which was still fresh on Marty’s mind.
The sister’s now moved on to Sophie. They stood over the young Irish girl and examined her closely. Sophie tried desperately to empty her mind. She cleared her head of the mission, her secret identity, Marty…everything. She tried to remember her mind resistance training. She could feel the old sisters trying to look deeper inside her and she fought them with all the inner strength that she could muster. This was a mental battle, however. On the surface, everything appeared normal. To all the others in the room, the mind readers were simply looking at Sophie. However, Sophie and the sisters fought an intense physiological war.
The mind readers had stood over Sophie for considerably longer than they had anyone else. They finally moved away from her and concluded their readings. They walked over to Mr Saki and the three engaged in a deep discussion, which no one else in the room could hear. Sophie was pretty confident that the sister’s were unable to penetrate her mental defences and she breathed a sign of relief. As Mr Saki and the women discussed whatever it was they were discussing, Mr Saki peered around and looked over in the direction of Airsu, Marty and Sophie. The three looked at each other in confusion.