The Company

Chapter Five- Santa Claus Gives Me Flashbacks and I'm Uncomfortable

We met at the door of the lunch block's basement maybe five minutes before the meeting. The people in charge had done a pretty good job of hiding what were doing, because it seemed like there was nothing happening.

I knocked quietly on the door, and a sheet of paper slipped out, reading, "Password?"

I did what was instructed on the flyer and tapped "Shave and a Haircut." The door slid open, revealing a guy maybe a year older than me and an empty hallway.

"How was your day?" he asked, another password.

"Very fine, thank you," both Lionel and I replied.

"Go in and turn down the hallway to the right," the guy instructed. "That's where everyone is. Just keep going straight, then go down the hallway going right. There should be a sign that says 'Storage' outside the door."

We thanked the guy and went on in, following his instructions. Upon being confronted by the door, we met another person with a password.

"What's the square root of thirty-seven?" she asked.

"6.07," I quickly replied. I had done the math previously, as instructed by the flyer.

Man, I thought to myself. This has to be some kind of anti-Hitler-in-the-Holocaust sort of deal if there's this many passwords.

There was actually quite a few people. There was maybe five or six rows of chairs, a projector screen, and a laptop and Elmo set up. The room itself, however, really sucked. It was freezing, the cracks in the ceiling showing previously concealed pipes dripped, and there were decorations, including the one depicting the infamous, creepy, terrifying, nightmare-inducing, inflatable Santa Claus. Granted, no one, including myself nor Lionel was sitting in the chairs near it.

What? That thing is terrifying! Especially when the plug gets pulled and in its deflating path, it falls on you like a big, horrifying mass of Christmas cheer. If that's not the definition of emotionally scarring, I don't know what is.

Anyway, standing behind the podium was none other than Steven, the "Washington" of the operation. He had a serious face on, the kind like...well...the situation. He looked a little weary, but then again, we all were. It was 10:30 at night, we all just wanted to pass out.

"Is this everyone?" he asked, looking over the now nicely-sized crowd. "Awesome. Now it's time to get this thing started. Kara, if you could cut the lights?"

Before that, I didn't think the Santa could have looked any more eerie or terrifying, but I was wrong.

Sorry, I'm off topic. I need to get my head in the game.

The projector turned on, and an image we'd become familiar with turned on: the Austin Research Company logo. It was definitely cliché, I'll give you that. It was a yellow, lowercase, cursive "a" with dark orange outlining. The middle, where there was supposed to be a space, was a white light bulb with five similarly-colored  lines that I guessed symbolized some kind of light.

"This," the Washington announced, using a laser pointer to show what he was talking about. "Is the company that recently came to, and is possibly even taking over our school, not to mention its student body, for its own benefit."

I rolled my eyes. Okay. This is a little hokey. If this doesn't get better soon, I'm going to jump off a bridge.

I think fate wasn't on my side there. He went on for maybe fifteen minutes about the whole history of the freaking Company and what it did. Apparently it was a lot of biological and chemical experiments, starting back to some guy in World War II that worked with the Nazis. He wasn't really satisfied after they got caught, so he escaped and started his own company. He changed his name to Lukas Austin, moved to the US, and continued his research there.