Present day...

On the other side of the doors the corridor continued roughly the same as before only this time instead of white lino on the floor there was a soft blue carpet. Identical plain-looking office style doors lined the walls every several metres. At the end of the corridor stood one white door. The old man led the way. The group followed with Alex and Mark bringing up the rear. Amanda noticed Cat sidle up next to her.

“If he’d done any research about who we were he wouldn’t have to ask us those questions. And why take our weapons but not bind our powers?” Cat hissed at Amanda.

“Power binding is much harder,” Amanda whispered back but silently she agreed. The questions they had been asked were weird and taking the weapons was not very useful when she still had her powers. It wasn’t unusual for security checks to involve questions about family, but it was the way they’d asked that was unusual. It was like some manager had gotten a little overzealous in their need for some procedure, any procedure. Maybe they just wanted to check with the information they already had? It also annoyed her that the old man still hadn’t introduced himself.

They entered the next room which looked much like an ordinary office except all the desks were stacked in one corner. It looked like they used it more as extra storage. Along the walls were more brown doors. On the other side of the room in the corner was once again one white door. There was nobody else in the room.

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“What’s with the mix of brown and white doors?” Cat asked, not expecting him to give an answer.

But he did. “They’re to rooms, the white doors are the main ones.”

Cat raised an eyebrow. A part of her was tempted to quip back ‘in case you can’t remember which way to go?’, but she was afraid he would answer again, and she didn’t really want to know.

“So what are we here for?” Sirius asked, ever the pragmatist.

“Err…” the old man began but was interrupted.

“Bradley” another old man called out, having just come through the opposite white door. He could have been Bradley’s twin, apart from the darker thinning hair. He walked toward them then stopped facing Bradley.

“I can take it from here” he said in a tone which suggested Bradley need not stay. Indeed it implied he should leave.

Their new guide turned to them. “Good Afternoon! I’m Fredrick but you can call me Fred.”

“Are you going to tell us why we are here? Give us a briefing of sorts” Amanda asked before he could say anything else. “And there’s the little matter of payment.”

“Oh I assure you you’ll be paid quite a healthy sum.”

“That’s not what I mea…”

“We’ve sorted that out with your boss and as for the job itself well you’re not the first we’ve called…”

“What is it and how do we kill it?” Cat interrupted.

Amanda groaned inwardly. Cat was always way too impatient. Then again, they only had a few days.

Fred looked serious. “We’re not sure.”

“What happened to the others?” Falco asked.

But once again Cat interrupted before Fred could answer. “Wait, you’re not sure what it is or you’re not sure how to kill it?”

“Um, both actually” Fred replied.

“Better get started then” Amanda said.

“Good. Follow me.”