Guinea Pigs

Mr. King

Jeremy got out of the cab and walked into the office complex. He'd double checked the address he'd been provided and the office it directed him to was in a nice part of town. Not the rich upper crust area where only the one percenters did their work, but maybe just shy of that ballpark.

Pushing open the double doors he saw a reception desk that instead of having a person sitting at the other end, instead just had a computer monitor with the image of a cartoon woman's head. Red hair and green eyes, she invoked nostalgia for sci-fi anime of the eighties. The animated woman looked at Jeremy and smiled. "Welcome to Rex Mundi Operations. Please have a seat, someone will be with you shortly."

He slowly nodded. Glancing around the room he saw a line of chairs against one of the walls. Two other people were sitting and waiting. He moved to an empty seat and looked at the two.

The first was a woman, he estimated she was in her early twenties, shoulder length wavy brown hair with brown eyes behind designer glasses. She was very conservatively dressed with a turtleneck sweater and long skirt. A demin backpack sat at her feet. She appeared to be engrossed in a paperback copy of Frank Herbert's Dune.

The other occupant of the waiting room was a slightly over-weight fellow with a fidgety leg. Bright red hair that matched the freckles on his cheeks. He wore jeans and t-shirt under a very old and worn out high school letterman jacket, listing a graduation year almost twenty years ago. Jeremy assumed it was their parent's jacket, a hand-me-down. Looking over at Jeremy he said, "and then there were three."

Jeremy nodded, "Three what though? You guys responding to the same e-mail I got? Has the creepy cartoon lady said anything more?"

The redhead smiled, "Maxette Headron? Nope. Told each of us just to sit. I asked her a ton of questions when I got here, but then it just felt like I was talking to a wall."

"You were." The woman said, not even glancing up from her book.

Jeremy extended his hand, "Looks like we might be in this together. Jeremy."

"Chuck." The redhead answered back, taking Jeremy's offered hand. Jeremy then offered his hand to the woman. It hung there for a few awkward moments, eventually she looked up from her book after turning a page. "Well, we don't know that we'll be together. Just that we're all here now. Cecilia, but everyone calls me Ceci." She said without shaking hands, she just looked back down to her book.

Jeremy took his hand back, and looked over at Chuck, giving up on Ceci being a part of their conversation. "So, you got an e-mail?" Chuck nodded. "it said something about a possible job offer or whatever?"

"Maybe, it was kinda vague, but I guess I showed up. Not sure what it says about me."

A new voice came from across the room, "It says that we were right about you." The three turned to see an impeccably dressed man in his late 30's to early 40's standing in the doorway of a previously closed door. Maybe five foot ten with blonde hair and a neatly trimmed full beard, clear blue eyes, with a black suit with red tie.

"Allow me to introduce myself and welcome you to RMO. I am Ryan King. Here, we are working on developing the next generation of technology and are looking for people to help us test it." He walked across the room and shook each of their hands, even Ceci's, as the stood.

"Ms Hayes" he motioned to the receptionist 'girl', "told me that you'd arrived." Mr King paused, with a slight frown on his face, "I'd actually expected one or two more, but . . . I guess they'll just have to play catch up when they show."