Our Version Of Events

I was never really a warrior, not that I ever did enjoy fighting but I always stood for what was right. After my last tour I decided I needed a change of work environment, there's just so much death a person can see before they begin to break. A young girl like myself was sure I didn't need to see anymore but coming back home was never really a smooth transition. I still have nightmares, sometimes even when I'm awake I could still smell burning corpses.

My dad got me this gig in a Pharmaceutical company, it was a nice gig though I never was one to complain, that was of course before everything went to s**t.

It all started a few months into the job. They were 2 shifts, myself and 5 others always took the day shift ranging from 8 in the morning till 6 in night then another set of people took the night till the morning; they were more guards working the night shift, the explanation being that the nights were long. Kelvin, who worked the security cams always spoke of missing tapes from the other guy's shift but no matter who he spoke to the reply was always the same "if someone is stealing drugs then they probably desperately needed it".At first the logic kinda makes sense, I mean why else would anyone be stealing large supplies of drugs, the company didn't manufacturer drugs that could be abused or so I thought; not that anything was ever reported missing anyways. But at that time that was the only reason I could think of why there would be missing work hours from the security tape. Then one evening after my shift I went to a bar, I met this guy who never did tell me his name. Infact the only information he told me about himself was that he was a teacher, he told me so much about the company I have been working for. At first I didn't want to believe, I mean how could I, but then he made reference to people in the company, people I actually knew and then went ahead to give exact dates of which activities I was unaware of, activities that would have been happening in the very building I work. The dates coincidentally matched the days with the missing tapes, he was just so convincing and scary at the same time. He told me he was trying to save lives and he needed my help, of course as any sane person would do I left as quickly as I could, there was nothing to believe. To think he was sane enough to think I would believe a Pharmaceutical company is secretly abducting and experimenting on people. After that day I went back to work but with a different point of view, I began to see things happening that I never took note of. Firstly was the fact that the workers never interacted with us the day guards but seem to know the night guards by name. Secondly was the timing of production and distribution, it was perfect in fact it was too perfect, never was there any delay. And then it happened again another missing tape, luckily Kelvin had found a way to store a backup remotely so tapes were not easily lost. The man was a genius and he never ceased to amaze me but what was more amazing was what we found in the missing footage. I saw a bunch of kids bonded and being dragged into the building's elevator, we fast forwarded the tape but they never came out the elevator, not on any floors and just when it was an hour to my shift the guards came back out the elevator. The kids had vanished somehow. I needed answers and unless I wanted to disappear like the mysterious kids I couldn't go ask my boss, I told Kelvin to give me a copy of the tape and keep quiet about what he saw. Kelvin trusted me, he did what I asked.

The next day I took a leave of absence, I went back to that bar hoping to meet the teacher. I had been there for more than 5 hours and was already loosing patience, then I saw him stumble in. He walked right up to me, took a seat and order a drink

"Give me the usual" he told the bartender.

"You came back" he said, this time he was addressing me.

"You said you wanted to save lives right?" I asked.

"Of course" he replied.

"What you're accusing J & J of, you need actual evidence to throw such an allegation. You know that right?" I asked, I needed to be sure he wasn't just some wack job spreading conspiracy theories.

He looked round trying to make sure no one was eavesdropping, the bartender brought over his drink which he took and then thanked him. As he took a sip from the drink he reached into his chest pocket with his left hand and brought out a photograph, he dropped it on the counter and slid it over to me.

I looked at the photograph, it was a bunch of people burning something unrecognisable

"Do you recognise the logo?" He asked.

"What are they.......is that?" I've seen enough burning corpse to know what one looked like through the flames, even though the photograph was old and worn out I could still see it clearly. I dropped the photograph back on the counter and reached for my drink. I barely remember when last I drank that much but in seconds I had empty the glass and asked the bartender for another "something more stronger this time" I said.

I pulled out my phone and showed him the tape.

"What do you think they are doing with the kids?" I asked him.

"The best guess is human trafficking, but personally I believe they are experimenting on people" he said.

"But here's the problem..." I said as I fast forwarded the video for him.

"....the kids never made it out the elevator" he took the final sip from his glass as he watched the tape.

"There's a floor in the building even you are not aware of" he said.

"That's where all their illegal activities takes place" he stated.

"That's impossible I've been to every floor in the building" I said.

"No, you've not. Trust me"

"So now what?" I asked, wanting to be part of whatever action he had in mind.

"Go back to work, Helen" he said as he got up. He handed me a folded piece of paper after which he paid for both our drinks and left. I opened the paper and written on it was a phone number, written above it was Professor Tea.

"Is he really a teacher?" I muttered to myself.

The next day I went to work as instructed, Kelvin didn't show up. Must have gotten scared or something, I tried calling him but his phone was off. I asked around if he said anything yesterday about not coming to work today. I didn't get any real response to that question, at that moment I realised that I had involved Kelvin in some dip s**t. I ran to the only place I could get a little privacy, which of course was the women's toilet. Ran through my bag pack and pulled out the crumbled piece of paper, I pick up my phone and called the number. It only rang once before someone picked up

"Hello, who is this?" the other voice asked.

"Please, I need to speak with Professor Tea" I whispered, I couldn't speak out I was unsure if I was being watched.

The line went quiet for a while, in that short while my eyes were fixed on the entrance. I was expecting someone to rush in and grab me, my right hand held tightly to the phone on my ear and my left to the pepper spray I had on my utility belt.

"Hello?" A voice finally said, it was his voice.

"It's me, Helen" I said, my voice was beginning to tremble.

"What's wrong?" He asked, acknowledging the fear in my voice.

"I...I think...I need you to check up on someone" I finally said. I didn't want to panick just yet. Even though it was strange for Kelvin to miss work and have his phone switched off at the same time, I didn't want to just assume the worst.

"Who is it?" He asked. I gave him every information I could after which he promised to call me once he hears anything.

After he hung up I composed myself and went back out. The companies building consist of 10 floors, there were working restroom on each floor. The top floor were offices, people there were more of marketers than scientists, the research team followed next I think. I honestly didn't follow up on what was what, but I knew boxes of drugs to be supplied were stored on the ground floor.

I was stationed outside, a few metres from the main building, there stood a gate with a security post. The gate only opens when a security operative approves of it, I was the security operative in charge of giving that order. Other than that every other thing in between the gate and the main building was just parking space, not that there were a lot of cars anyways, but if they were any, they were always parked closer to the fence so there never was traffic when the trucks arrive.

I waited in anticipation for a call, I hoped to hear the words "he's alright", but that call never came. It was almost time for my shift to end, now all I stood waiting for was for someone to relieve me of my post.

A truck began approaching me, at first I thought it was the pickup truck but the timing was wrong and I remember they were here earlier to pick today's shipment. I slowly felt around the booth I stood in for the panick button; it was right under the counter but I couldn't tell where exactly because I never actually used it. As my finger finally found the button the truck got close enough, the driver was the Teacher from the bar.

"Helen, wassup. You mind opening it up for me?" He asked with a smile, there was someone sitting close to him. I couldn't see who exactly, the truck was a bit high, the teacher had to stretch out his head so I could see him.

My mind kept running through possibilities, one was that he was armed and was working with the company. In other words he probably ratted me and Kelvin out already and he's here to take care of me.

Second was the possibility that he was here to actually expose J&J, but what if he has ulterior motives. There wasn't anything I could think to do, if he was here then he came prepared for anything.

"Helen?" He said noticing my hesitation.

I took my fingers off the panick button and pressed the Mic button that was above the counter.

I spoke into the Mic "Open the gate", the black gates screeched open. The teacher gave me a soldier's salute and drove in, immediately the truck entered I abandoned my post and followed them in.

They drove straight to the main entrance of the building, almost blocking it entirely, I saw some workers coming out to inquire what they were doing back here since a truck already stopped by earlier. The teacher jumped out the truck and was trying to say something but started to speak in what I believe to be Spanish. As they continued exchanging words the doors at the back of the truck swung open and a bunch of people who were dressed in camouflage jumped out. They were all armed, one looked in my direction and fired twice. I quickly ducked and when I looked up he was still approaching me but was no longer pointing his gun at me, I then turned back to see who or what he actually intended to hit and it was actually Marcus; he was the one who controlled the gate opening, the one I told on the Mic to open the gate.

"You're Helen right?" He said, he was standing right in front of me. I looked passed him, he's colleagues had started rounding up employees and getting them to seat grouped together. Some people on the ground floor who saw them had quickly gone for either the stairs or the elevator and they were being pursued.

"I ask again, are you Helen?" This time he now had his gun pointed at me. I noticed none of them had any heavy fire power with them, they were either holding pistols or revolvers.

"Yes..... that's me" I said quickly before he decided to do away with me. This guys were definitely not military and if they were this was definitely not sanctioned.

He stretched his right hand to help me up. I took it, not like I had any other choice

"My name's is Thorn, you're with me alright?" he said. He had blue eyes and apart from the camouflage pattern painted on his face he really had no other outstanding features.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked.

"You called us to check on Kelvin"

"Yeah?"

"Well he's dead we found him hanging from the ceiling fan in his living room. I'm sorry" he said. My mind went blank for an instance then I started hearing more gun shots.

"We have to move " he said as he gestured me to follow him. We got into the building and he decided to take the stairs, we went to the 8th floor. There the teacher stood with all the hostages gathered in one corner as done in the ground floor, they had two men pointing their guns at them so no one would try anything. The teacher stood there changing into his gears, I got there just in time to see him put on a bullet proof vest.

He looked at us walk into the hall,

"Thorn what's the time?" He asked.

"5:48" Thorn replied.

"Helen when exactly does your shift ends and when exactly do the other guards start coming?" He asked me.

"The guards are already here, they arrive 30 minutes before our shift ends" I said. This information dropped like a bomb as I heared someone cursed out loud

"Then where the f**k are they?" Someone asked, immediately another round of gunshot fires ensued.

"F**k my life" the same voice said again, I looked who it was. He had a buzzed cut almost perfect white hair and probably did a lot of workout.

The gun shots kept firing

"Biggie, talk to me" he spoke to a radio he had on him.

"We've encountered resistance, Sir." the person in the radio said

"What floor?" Teacher asked.

"Top floor" he said then there was more gunfire before the radio went silent.

"If you're not guarding hostages I need you on the top floor!" He yelled in the radio before putting it away, he brushed past me and told me to wait with the 'others'.

I didn't see the battle, I only heard the gunshots go off. The fact that the guards had actual weapons with them would have been shocking if I hadn't seen the tapes myself. I stood there probably thinking somebody would burst through the doors and just end us all, I looked over at the hostages sitting at the corner. In that moment I locked eyes with Mr Cranshaw, he was a chemist and a really nice man with 2 kids. I started to contemplate on what I have done, what if truly there was nothing going on here that warranted all this deaths, what if there's actually a reasonable story for the tapes.

"No, what I did was right. It had to be" I said to myself. I had to convince myself in that short moment that truly Kelvin was dead even if I hadn't seen any proof.

The gunshots had started to die down now, I could tell it was over.

"Thorn, get Helen up here now" a voice said from the radio that was on Thorn

"Let's go " he said as he gestured to me to lead the way.

About 30 seconds later we were in the top floor, honestly I had never been here myself, I had no reason to. It was a large office with a lot of lockers covering the walls, most of the lockers were open and in them contained ammos and arsenals.

The had 4 of the guards at gunpoint, kneeling with their hands behind their head.

"Alright fellas, this is how its gonna work. You take us to the underground floor and you live to tell the story" The teacher said; at this point I was beginning to realise this was probably a codename.

"I don't know what the f**k you're talking about" One of the guards said. The white haired fellow immediately crushed the guard's nose with his right knee.

"We've got a longtime before anybody here will be reported missing, I could do this all night" the teacher said.

"We already alerted the police" the same guard said as he tried to wipe the blood running down his nose.

"No, you didn't. If you did they would have been here 10 minutes ago" he retorted, he had taken off his glass and was wiping it with a white handkerchief he pulled out his pocket. The white soon got tainted with blood stain, that's when I realised that I didn't really see any bodies only blood, except that of Marcus.

"Were they hiding the body from me so I won't freak out? I couldn't tell or was I probably going crazy?" I thought.

"There....there was a gun fight" I finally said stuttering

"Where's the bodies?" I asked.

"They took the second elevator and disappeared, we were only able to get this 4 because they didn't accompany their compadres" teacher said.

"Disappeared where? The building is surrounded" Thorn asked.

"That's what they're about to tell us." Teacher said.

"You can go to hell I am not saying s**t" the beaten up guard said. The white haired fellow immediately went back to inflicting more pain on him.

"Sir, may I speak with you for a moment" One of the men placing the guards on gunpoint said, the teacher nodded and they walked over to a corner and spoke for a while then he left the room. The man walked back to us, he looked very young possible in his early 20's. He pulled out his gun and shot the already bleeding guard straight in the head.

"Yo, Boy what the f**k was that?!" The white haired man yelled.

"Sorry P, Prof told me to round up things here" he said and shot at the second guard. He pointed to the third and the guard immediately began begging.

"Wait, wait. Please I can get you inside" the man slowly pulled the hammer on the revolver, quickly turned to the last guard and shot him.

"Very well then. Get us inside" he said, putting back his gun in his holster.

We all walked back to the elevator with P leading the way; which I now believe is the name of the white haired man.

"So is he the final contestant?" asked the teacher, he was waiting by the elevator leaning against the wall.

"You better not be wasting my time or so help me....."

"We can only get in through the second elevator" the guard cut in, he was still a bit shaken. I could tell watching 3 people you knew die right in front of you leaves that effect.

"What's wrong with this elevator?" P asked, already irritated.

"This elevator was built years after the other, it only covers the floors you can see not the one beneath us." The guard said.

"And how many are beneath us exactly?" The teacher asked.

"There's just one directly under this building but its connected to a labyrinth that probably stretches back into town" the guard said.

"Let's go then" the teacher ordered and we started walking the other way. The second elevator was located near the stairs and were always out of service, nobody actually used them due to the fact that once a floor is selected it doesn't stop on any other floor no matter what buttons were being pressed.

We got to the elevator there were two men already there probably waiting for anybody else to appear.

We all got in the elevator, we were 8 in total and that's including the guard.

"Alright push the magic button" P said.

"Its not really a button otherwise anybody would be able to access it." The guard said as he began pushing different floor's button, the sequence was '1,3,6,3,6,9,2,5,1.'

It seemed I wasn't the only one watching him push the buttons as nobody was sure what he was doing.

The elevator soon began descending and I watched the screen read 0 and then Z, just Z.

Teacher quickly passed me a Glock

"Hope you still know how to use that." He said.

"Everyone get ready!"

The doors sprung open and everyone rushed out to avoid being easily targeted by incoming bullets but surprisingly there weren't any. The light in the room were dim and they kept flickering so it was difficult to see, not until I tripped over something and fell right over a body. I yelled and everyone rushed in my direction. The floor was littered with the bodies of all the remaining guards.

"What the f**k" P muttered.

"Hold on I think I got something here!" Someone yelled, immediately the lights got brighter and steady. It wasn't just the bodies of the guards they were other people laying on the floor including children.

The teacher pulled out his gun and pointed it at the guard.

"What the f**k is this?!" he asked.

"I...I don't know alright. I just started a few months ago, I was told it was medical research" he said.

"I saw you guys dragging the kids here, what sort of medical research is that?" I asked.

"I was told the drugs had deadly side effects so they couldn't run tests like they normally did. It had to be off the records and on people no one cared about or would bother to look for" he said.

"You expect me to believe that s**t?" the teacher said pulling back the gun's hammer.

"That's all I know alright, we are given a name. We find the person and bring them back here, that's it. They said we were helping them find a cure for cancer or something." he said, he was beginning to fidget.

"Well this people definitely didn't die of cancer" P said.

"The civilians were shot, but the guards. I have no idea what can do that" the boy said.

"The guards were all killed simultaneously" The teacher said lowering his gun.

"What makes you say that Sir?" Asked the boy.

"Their bodies are scattered across the room but they all form together like a circle" he said, walking to the centre of the room.

"This is where the weapon must have been positioned" the teacher said.

"Weapon? Prof, they look like they had their necks snapped individually. What sort of weapon could do that?" P scoffed.

"Unless we do a proper autopsy or you have xray vision, we can't just assume cause of death. Chances are a sort of deadly gas was released." The teacher said.

"If it gas then why are we still breathing?" The boy asked.

"One is missing" the guard said

"What?" The teacher asked.

"The kids, we brought in 7 kids, there's only 6. One is missing" he concluded.

"One guard is also missing too" I said.

"Any idea who?" asked Thorn who was always standing next to me.

"Cecilia" the guard said, you could feel his voice tremble.

"She....she couldn't possible have done this" he said.

"I thought you were the only lady working as a guard" P asked.

"No, there's another but we hardly ever spoke." I said.

"So what now, Sir?" The boy asked.

" First we need to leave before anyone else shows up. Get every piece of the good stuff on them and in those lockers upstairs" the teacher said.

"What about them?" The boy asked pointing to me and the guard.

"There is also the issue of the hostages we've gathered" Thorn jumped in.

"Take the hostages to the top floor....." The teacher paused, he realised this had become a mess, more than he probably wanted it to be.

"They've already seen our faces " Thorn added.

"No, we can't kill everyone" I said, trying to force reason into them.

"Then what? Let them walk away knowing who we are?" P asked.

"Yes that's what exactly is going to happen" the teacher replied.

"What?" P asked in shock.

"They've never seen us before today and everybody's gonna have different version of what really occurred, plus if there's no building what can they really prove? " the teacher gave a really weird looking grin, which I never really got. The others seem to understood what he meant because as soon as he gave the grin the huge man standing by the elevator turned on his radio to talk with the rest above. He gave orders to release the hostages, set the building on fire and find their way out of there but that was after he told them to empty the lockers.

"Wait, what? How the hell are we going to get out?!" I asked.

"Relax, this place is an endless labyrinth. Then there's probably another way out, right?" the Teacher was addressing the guard.

"Yes, I think so" the guard replied.

"Alright, let's move out!" The Teacher said as he signalled the guard to lead the way.

"You coming or what?" Asked Thorne as he brushed pass me.

"Yeah, I just need a sec" I said. He nodded and kept following the others I took a deep breath and followed the procession, I guess this is what I have to follow through on.