Part One

In a room filled with people, it was oddly quiet. Silent enough to hear a pin drop. The people were seated in black leather chairs at a large round table. Multiple screens were on the wall, showing different images at various locations.

No sound came out of the screens but a person would still be able to tell what was going on.

A door opened, as a lovely figure walked into the room. All of the people seated at the table turned their heads.

It was an older woman with long black hair tied in the back. Wearing a black and red striped uniform that clung to her body showing off her womanly curves. Her expressionless face hid any sort of emotions she may have had, but they did not hide her beauty.

In her small white hands, she was carrying a stack of papers.

While walking over to the round table her black eyes glanced at the screens on the wall for a moment. There were news reporters standing outside of a roped off area, and behind them was a destroyed building.

The reporters were talking about an explosion occurred and how many people had died in it.

“I believe you can all guess why you are here.”

She spoke to the people sitting down breaking the silence.

She set the papers down in front of a bulky young man with short brown hair. He grabbed the stack of papers in front of him and took one sheet for himself before passing it on to the next person.

“Dir. Campbell, what am I looking at?”

A young man with light blue hair asked her, as his blue eyes swept over the paper in his hand.

Dir. Campbell tapped a button on the desk next to her, causing the monitors to change. Instead of showing news reports, it showed profiles of the people caught in the explosion.

“What you have in hand is a file containing the details of what was going to happen at that place. It was going to host an auction for one of the Wells projects, as to what the project is, no one knows.”

Dir. Campbell told the young male, but the curious look in his eyes did not go away.

“That is not what I was referring to. I mean why have we been given this file? Something like this falls under the jurisdiction of the police department. There is no need for us to lay our hands in another person's pot.”

“Taylor, under normal circumstances this task would fall into the police department hands, this is not ‘normal’. For appearance sake the police are taking the front end of this mission however, the Wells has called for another group to take part in it.”

Dir. Campbell sighed.

“A family such as the Wells will not be inclined to hire us to settle this matter. If anything they would go straight up to a higher authority. If my thoughts are correct, the person they passed this task on to has either found no traces of the cause or they do not want to be bothered.”

Fred spoke up as he set the paper in his hand down on the table.

Dir. Campbell gave a light nod of her head.

Shadow was not formed to handle a task of investigating the cause of an explosion. For the Wells to go straight up the chain skipping over the correct channels to use, must mean something else was going on.

If it was a simple error on their part that caused the explosion the police would have been the right ones to go to. For them to contact another group meant that was not the case. If it was some sort of organization that wanted to harm the Wells family they would have handled it themselves.

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“They contacted the Special Forces, but due to the Wells withholding information about the subject, they tossed the task to a subunit. Your task is to find out what occurred before the explosion, then notify me if the task the Wells handed to the Special Forces is good enough for them to take.”

“So you want us to be some lapdogs?”

Nick asked her.

He had his arms crossed in a relaxed manner.

Personally, Nick was not that interested in the Wells family. They may be one of the ten families in the States, but at their core, they were a bunch of scientist and manufacturers.

Out of all the ten families, their combat abilities ranked the lowest, but what they lacked for in brawn they made up with their brain.

They were always in the limelight, every chance they got they were on tv. Out of all the families, they could be considered one of the most well-known.

Dir. Campbell looked at Nick.

“No. Not at all.”

Dir. Campbell paused as her eyes moved to the screen in front of her.

That explosion caused a lot of deaths. Even people unrelated to the topic at hand were caught in it.

As a person who swore to protect the lives of civilians from any harm, Dir. Campbell felt hurt. It was not that kind of hurt a person feels from a cut or a bruise. Instead, it was the kind that dug deeper into her heart.

This explosion happened in her district, as far as she was concerned this was an attack on her. She would get to the bottom of this! Even if the Wells wanted to skip over the details, she would not.

“This… this has happened in an area that falls under our district. The Wells are very careful people, I highly doubt an error would have occurred on their end. They do not want anyone to know what was actually going on, but we will find out. Illiana, your squad will go examine the scene of the explosion. Fred, your squad is to find out anything about the scientist that died.”

Hearing Dir. Campbell, Fred raised one of his eyebrows.

“You do know if there was anything, it would be secured right?”

Fred asked her.

“One of them were bound to keep something related to this project in their homes. Find it, but stay out of sight.”

Fred nodded his head.

Dir. Campbell gave orders to the other squads before dismissing them.

Nick stretched his body as he got up from his seat.

He walked over to Dir. Campbell.

“Need something?”

She questioned him.

Nick pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and passed it to her.

“You know anything about this?”

Dir. Campbell grabbed the paper and opened it. A picture was inside and almost fell but she managed to catch it. She tilted her head a bit as she read the contents of it.

“No, but it does not surprise me that she would do something like this.”

Dir. Campbell said to Nick.

When she read it for a second time she squinted her eyes. The letter seemed off to her.

Dir. Campbell went over to her desk and started typing on the keyboard.

Nick stayed silent as he watched her work.

“Who gave you this?”

Dir. Campbell questioned Nick.

“It was sent to my house, my mom says my sensei sent it to me. That they were looking for me a fiancee and finally found a perfect candidate.”

Spinning her chair around she looked at Nick and passed him back the letter.

“I may have heard something about that from her, but she never gave me a notification that she has found anyone. Considering that she treats you as her own son the person she would recommend would be almost perfect.”

“The fiancee thing does to matter to me much, it is just the suddenness of it. She did not mention it the last time we spoke, nor hint at it.”

Dir. Campbell read Nick's eyes.

She crossed her leg and fixed her position.

“What about your mother?”

“Happy about it. There was not anything wrong with her, I checked after Klyde left. Seeing as they both support this girl i’ll go through with it. Not like it would hinder my plans, besides she is beautiful.”

Nick explained a bit to Dir. Campbell.

She is cute if you leave her picture with me I'll find out what I can about her for you.”

“Alright.”

Nick nodded his head.

There was no need for him to stay here any longer, there was work to be done.

Watching Nick walk away, Dir. Campbell could not help but shake her head.

As she thought to herself, ‘What are you up to?’