1 Scavenger: The Intro

It's 6 AM, the alarm goes off. Brad tries to reach out to snooze. He rolls when he sleeps, he was too far away to reach it. With one eye closed, the other eye blurred he looks at phone. He has to turn it off or wake up. The sound is annoying. Brad struggling to wake up, turns off the alarm. He drags himself to the coffee pot and starts brewing the coffee. Sips the first sip and feels awakened. By the end of the cup, he feels warm and happy. Next 10 mins he does a quick shower, gets ready and hops onto his old pickup. The pickup is from his uncle and as old as him. It doesn't start initially; few tries and it starts. Brad works in a warehouse and has a uniform grey in color with big name tag on front and back. It always reminds him of the big guy in the muffler shops. He turns in the radio and tunes to 93.3 FM listening to his favorite show – Rocket and Teresa.

He drives to the entrance of the parking lot, scans his badge, waives at the security guard and drives in. The parking lot has over 2000 parking spaces. Over 15,000 personal work at this warehouse. Brad parks his car, walks waiving at people while he reaches the entrance of the warehouse about half a mile. He doesn't know most of them, as they don't either. They all know some guy works at the warehouse. Brad scans his badge again, enters the warehouse and walks to one end aisle. Brad scans the badge again, the door opens; selects 13 and the door closes. The elevator starts moving and stops. Doors open and Brad gets off. He enters a room where a body scan is performed. Everything looks good, he changes from the uniform to suit and tie. Brad walks into an office, it is sophisticated almost everything is made of glass inside the office. In the center, a huge painting of the founder is located. He looks on the top of the painting, an office is centrally located, a big tunnel runs from that office to some unknown place. Brad always wanted to work in the founder's office, but he has a lot of work to do to go up the chain of command. He walks to his cubicle and logins into his machine.

After few hours of working, Brad prints a few papers and walks to another office. Brad knocks the door and waits.

David from inside the office "Come in"

Brad walks in and waits. His supervisor David is on a phone call and continues to talk, finally hang-up the call. Brad and hands over the papers.

David: "This world is cruel, we are crueler. Such a waste for a good talent." Brad is confused and looks at David. "We had to get rid of Rick. He made a mistake, that'd lead to finding us. That's why I say, don't drink and blabber. He freaking never listened to me."

Brad: "You mean Rick? The guy who sits next to me?"

David: "Yes. So unfortunate." Brad is shocked and he is just dumb-struck. David continues "You know how secretive our organization is, we cannot afford even a single mistake." Brad realized that he forgot to turn-off the tacker while working earlier – while posting the bids. He turned it off later, but, this had to be incognito mode. He is sweating, but he tries to get his act together. He starts … "Sir, we received the bids. From Gold Tier, Storm, Rowdy and Nick responded. We did receive bids from Silver and Bronze tiers."

David looks at the paper … "Who quoted the least in Gold Tier?"

Brad: "Storm. But he quoted 10 times more than highest bid from Silver Tier."

David: "This is high profile case. Send bid award to Storm and the details of our target."

Brad: "Yes, Sir"

Brad walks out of the office. Brad walks to his desk briskly. He is clearly shaken, looks at Rick's desk and cannot believe Rick is gone. He is terrified, but he has chosen the job knowing the risks. He holds his head and slowly gets in control of his emotions. Brad follows the orders of David, sends a note to Storm. At a diner place, a flip phone vibrates, the receiver flips the phone to see the text "Notice to Proceed: Yes". The receiver (Storm) smiles and closes the phone, continuing his diner.

Brad works for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, he does the same process of body scan, changing into uniform, taking the elevator, walking down the aisle and to the pickup. Brad has too much on his mind today with Rick's episode. He doesn't turn on the radio, just drives home.

Around 4pm, the tunnel in the founder's office opens and the founder walks in. No one has ever seen the founder, always covered in the mask. The founder is strong, lean and build and refers as "Negative". Negative is ruthless and a tyrant.

To be continued… Chapter 2: Storm's kill