War of Gods

Chapter 4

Kal pulls up to a parking garage in the middle of Manhattan just a few blocks from Maya's apartment, his F-150 barely fits through the gate. They don't venture too far in the car park; the sport with Kal Santos is close to the entrance. Pop and Sarah sat in the back seat of the truck so Maya could see where they were going to help her calm down. Kal waited for them to meet him at the back of the truck.

"Headquarters for New York and most of the northeastern coast is over this way. We have stations all over the world." Kal explained as they walked up to an old building.

Maya had walked past this building dozens of times in the past few months. Her favorite Mexican restaurant was just a couple of blocks east. Gray bricks made the foundation of the building like most buildings made in New York at the beginning of the 1900's. A bronze plaque by the revolving door said Build 1901 by The Elite LTD. There was no point in hiding what the building was, only people who knew what it was paid attention to it now. When it was first opened the council had to convince the Mayor that they were a church and this was their school for train ministers from around the world. It was the only explanation they ever had to give, now it's just another office building in a sea of concrete. It was only 10 stories, height wise it was small but it took up two city blocks.

Inside it really did look like an office building, a security guard sat behind a round desk with monitors covering the first half. The man behind the desk stood as Kal entered with three unknown visitors, he stopped them.

"Un Mr. Santos I can't let you by." He had a thick European accent.

Kal lends against the desk, "What, Mr. Layland hasn't called down yet?"

"No sorry." Just then the phone rang on the desk, "Yes, yes Sir yes, I'll do that right now Sir."

"Mr. Layland?" Kal said, pointing to the phone.

The guard nodded, "Yes, I will need a blood sample from the humans so they won't set off the alarms when they enter the building." He put on a pair of blue latex gloves and two little orange rectangular boxes. They reminded Maya of the finger pricks the blood drive people use to test for iron before you give blood. She was exactly right, the guard took her mother's and Pop's hand pricked their finger, took a small drop of their blood and put it in a device that beeps after a minute.

"Anything else?" Kal asked.

Maya didn't understand why she was not pricked, "What about me?"

The guard spoke up, "Mr. Layland said you were Elite."

"She is," Kal said before she could answer, "Your blood will register as Elite and the part that is not is covered why they out your mother's blood in the database."

"Oh." Maya allowed Kal to direct them to the elevators just beyond the guard.

The four of them entered the very normal elevator with the very normal classical music playing as they went to the third floor. This floor was very different from what Maya expected, even though she didn't know what to expect. It was as light as the middle of the day, if she didn't know any better she would have thought it was two in the afternoon not morning. For being so early in the morning there were people all over the place staring at layouts of cities, reading symbols she took as an ancient language. A large table sat in the middle of the room with a topical hologram of Manhattan, blue dots moved through the streets some were following a red dot others green or yellow dots. It was all forgin to her, how is she ever going to learn this world. Finally a familiar face, Jack. He walked up to Maya and just gave her a hug no words were needed.

He looked at her mother and Pop, "And who do we have here?"

"Oh sorry, Jack this is my mom Sarah and my grandfather, Pop. this is Jack." Maya introduced them.