A Conversation

'This is quite a predicament,' Cyrus thought to himself as he continuously looked around the halls taking in as much information as he could.

'Is he one of the servants that work under Alex? If so, then where are the other servants? And why hasn't Alex come to clarify things for us?' There were too many things that were not adding up to the scenario for him.

The last thing he remembered when he reached his house was lying on his bed to rest, he was exhausted from the very eventful morning and evening that he had. Too many thoughts at once were bad for someone's mental state and Cyrus already had his fill of that long before he was chosen.

They had just passed the room where they woke up and continued going down this path. This was the only path that he hadn't checked yet.

He had already gone both up and down the stairs in order to find out more about this place and where to exit from, but it was to no avail. There just wasn't an exit.

Cyrus contemplated whether or not to attack the man leading them now. It might have been the safer option but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched despite there being no cameras in the building. In the end, meeting whoever this person waiting for them was, might have been the best bet.

Or his worst mistake.

As they were nearing the end of the hall they saw a door with a unique design compared to all the rest. The glass on the door was well decorated, so much so in fact that one might think it was made of diamonds. But someone who knew the properties of glass and how it reflects away light could tell right away that it wasn't.

The young man was now standing in from of the door, he gave a soft knock and waited for a reply before he could open it.

Cyrus took one more look at the man before they could go through the door. He made a small mental note of what he could deduct.

Age: 'around 21-28'

Height: 'must be 6'4 or less'

Accent: 'It feels native. Either he was born in the US or quickly adapted to the language and culture.'

Other: 'He wears a flexible suit that would allow for one to before acrobats in with no fear of the suit tearing. He stands quite confident and keen. I am not sure if I could take him alone but I am pretty confident that Vito and I could restrain him. The only problem with that is that I don't have a plan for what I would do next.'

Just then they heard a soft "Come in," from the other side of the door. The three then walked into the room. No sooner had they done so than Cyrus began to dart his eyes around as quickly and unnoticeably as possible given his situation.

'The room is small. There is one small window with bars placed on it as if to signify that there is no escape for us here. And even if we could break out of here there lies another problem. There is a huge wall that surrounds this building, with no gate to boot. I believe they use a helicopter to get in and out.'

'I am going to assume that the glass in this building is either reinforced or bulletproof. This place seems to be the kind of place that makes you want to stay and shows no reason to let you leave as it is filled with multiple rooms to quench a person's interests. One could survive here for years.'

 'And finally, the woman in front of me is a problem. Red curvy hair that slides down to her lower neck, and she is wearing red lipstick. She has on her body some heavy clothing of fur and most of the material is brown. She is sitting upright with her ankle over the knee and maintaining eye contact. Her smile is bright and her body carries quite the enticing features such as good hips, chest, and even facial qualities.'

'This is the type of woman who is used to getting what she wants.'

'This is a dangerous woman. No might not exist in her vocabulary when she demands of you something.'

'The last two details that are on my mind are, one being the woman's accent. I heard it through the door when she said "Come in." This woman is Russian. Age: probably 33 years old or younger.'

'And the second thing that bothers me is the fact that this room has another door in it. Why is that there? We are already in a small room, how much smaller is the one behind the door? And if it doesn't lead to another room then maybe there is something in there of interest?'

As soon as he had finished surveying the room he quickly brought back his attention to the woman who was smiling quite keenly on him. He never left her sight from the moment he entered as if she was trying to intimidate him or make him uncomfortable. After doing so for a while, she then brought her attention to Vito and made sure that he would see her staring at him right through his soul.

There was only silence in the room as the woman continued sizing up to two boys who were in front of her. After getting no visible reactions from them so got a little bored and decided it was time to get into the meat of their situations.

"Cyrus Barnaby and Vito Edward Gotti. Let us have a conversation."

As soon as she spoke those words, the man who was in the room moved himself to guard the door. And Cyrus took notice of that instantly. This was no playing matter.

Before the woman before them could speak Cyrus himself had decided he would ask a question. She probably wouldn't tell him anything about herself, he knew that. But if he could get her to flinch or indicate some type of reaction then he could draw a conclusion about what was going on.

 "Are you with the government?" he asked calmly.

The woman's smile grew larger as she looked at him and said, "Yes we are."

"You are Russian." Cyrus retorted.

"Can a Russian not work with the government? We are friends with the government. We work alongside them on tedious tasks not worth much effort."

"Tedious you say?" Cyrus raised his eyebrow as he looked at her. "You illegally kidnapped us from our homes. The US government wouldn't need to do something like that if only to bring us in for questioning."

"Borrowing. We borrowed you for a little while but rest assured that we will be returning you to your homes after you answer our questions." She closed her eyes briefly as she said these words.

"Can you guarantee that? Or is that merely something you tell around to those who come by this place to let their guards down?"

The redhead turned her head to the side as she looked Cyrus up and down. "That's a nice tattoo on your shoulder. Where did you get it?"

"Is this so important that you kidnapped two innocent kids to ask these questions?" Cyrus asked.

"Innocent? I wouldn't be so sure about that. You see 2 months ago after the prank that was published worldwide, that one special mark had appeared on multiple random civilians between the ages of 16 and 30 years old. And all of them had been involved in strange activities that led them to disappear from our radar for awhile and then later on they would return without it." The woman shuffled the papers she was holding that showed a report of these things.

Meanwhile, in Cyrus's mind, there were a lot of things going on. The major one was that the information he had was different from the one she had relayed to him about the age that was chosen and the time they were.

'Did she say two months ago? That can't be right. I didn't receive this symbol on my shoulder until last month. And what makes this stranger is that during the time we were at the hotel, excluding the servants and Alex, there wasn't a single individual that was above the age of 19.'

'If what she is saying is true then that means that this entire process of choosing the representative had begun a lot earlier than he had expected. The average life expectancy of a male is 70 years old if we take it as 75 years old and that 15 years is equal to a quarter then they were purposefully chosen individuals within the second quarter of their life.'

 'What's more, is that after choosing individuals in this age group, they later cut it down to a four-year span between the ages of 16-19 years old. But why did they do that? What was their method for choosing this? And wouldn't someone older be better in most scenarios?'

This also raised another question in Cyrus's mind. 'If the individuals that had gone off of the radar, regardless of how wide it was were taken to the hotel where Alex was. And if they were all not chosen and sent home, then why did they lose their symbols on their shoulders but Vito and me didn't?'

As Cyrus was processing all this new information and trying to make sense of it whilst speaking with the redheaded beauty in front of him, Vito had chosen to remain quiet during their entire conversation.

He was reasoning with himself about why he shouldn't talk. Right now there was too much information he didn't know of or could try to make sense of but all he did know was that Cyrus had purposefully withheld any information about Terra being chosen to represent the planet and if he had done that then it meant that these people might try to use certain means to replace Terra with one of their own. Unbeknownst to them, Terra had already left the planet.

But Vito had already made up his mind. He didn't want Terra to be chosen at first, he wanted to be chosen instead, but since he wasn't he decided he would live with it. He wasn't going to let something bad happen to his friend or colleague or whatever they were at the time. He felt bad for what he did and knew that nothing would be enough to apologize deeply enough to Terra, not even death. And yet still more, he was willing to go down that route if it meant that nothing bad would happen to the people Terra knew. He wasn't going to snitch.

He kept calm and let Cyrus do the talking.

"Did you say prank? Do you mean to tell me that the issue relating to the thing that called itself Cassius was merely a prank? Are these the lies you tell children so they can sleep at night?" Cyrus spoke with a cold stare.

The woman's smile was ever so bright. So much in fact that it was intense. Anyone that had ever gotten on her nerves wouldn't want to be in this room anymore. The man guarding the door could feel that on one side of the room, it was like the atmosphere was freezing and most people would be able to speak whilst on the other side it was as if fire itself would burn you down in order to get an answer out of you.

"Yes, it was indeed a prank." She said. "How could anyone have the power to destroy an entire planet? Even with nuclear power, we could at most destroy cities but there is nothing we have that could shatter a planet. At least we believed it was a prank. After the strange symbols had appeared on people's bodies we did some investigation on our part and we were shocked to find the answer."

"We believe that this may be the work of a terrorist organization and if that is so then it would explain what this strange message was all about. We as the government have to silence these evil individuals to keep our world safe."

"And if you happened to be involved in this terrible activity then it would mean that our families would be at fault as well. Guilty by association. And you two kids seem like such nice children, you wouldn't want to cause trouble for your families would you?"

The woman then placed her hands on the table and leaned in forward to make her point. Her smile was gone and a serious expression had replaced it, one that would bring other's dread at the look of it. The look of someone who doesn't see you as human.

"So," she asked, "Are you terrorists?"