Crap. I thought as I reran the computerized ID card I held in my hand back through the scanner for the third time. "Invalid Entry" blared the computer screen next to the scanner. I reran it for the fourth time in a row, and sure enough as promised, an alarm went off directly at the center of the richly decorated lobby of Credit Dauphine Bank. I cursed audibly this time, becoming more frustrated. Thoroughly exasperated, I turned to be faced with two tall uniformed guards.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what is wrong with this thing. It worked fine the first two days." I sighed, turning to them, holding the card up for them to see.

"Ma'am, that is not the correct recognition card for Credit Dauphine. Where did you get this? I don't remember you being an employee here." The taller of the two men replied incredulously, grabbing the card out of my hand, his intense blue eyes looking me over suspiciously.

I took a nervous swallow. "You don't remember being introduced to me just the day before yesterday? I just started here last week. I transferred as IT staff from Arvest, remember?" I asked, thinking surely the attractive man would remember me from the first day I began work there only a few days before.

"I'm sorry, but we're going to have to clear you with one of the supervisors. Please come with me. This way," he replied, directing me towards a hallway on the far side of the lobby as he followed me. I had never been down this particular hallway before. I hadn't any reason to. It was supposedly the hallway to the bank safety deposit vaults, and I was only an IT consultant for the time being. I had been hired to the staff in a part-time position to revamp the entire bank computer system.

"What offices are back here? I wasn't aware there were any." I asked, completely unknowing of what was to come next for me. The guard quickened his pace and passed in front of me.

"You're a perceptive woman, Ms. Sawyer." He replied glancing back and smiling at me as he continued on down the hallway and suddenly taking a hard right. An odd chill ran down my spine. If he knows who I am, then why are we looking for my supervisor?

I took a nervous glance behind me before I rounded the corner. The stark, white walls of the narrow hallway seemed to close in on me the further I went. This was starting to feel dreadfully wrong. I stopped in my tracks, hoping I could just turn heel and run the other way without the guard noticing, but I knew that wasn't possible as he turned back to me looking quite chagrined. "I'm not going any further until you tell me why we are going this way." I replied defiantly, my eyes meeting his own ice blue eyes in a cold stare as I backed away.

"I'm not at liberty to say, Ms. Sawyer. Just come with me." He demanded, the edge of his mouth twitching in annoyance. He suddenly grabbed me by the forearms, using his large frame and brute strength to force me in front of him as he tried to push me down the hallway. I fought back with everything I had, scratching and kicking at him, screeching...anything at all so that maybe someone would hear my screams, but no one came. I finally broke free of his grasp enough to knee him in the groin, then throwing a right hook that caught his nose. He doubled over at the impact of my knee and blood came streaming from his nose to the floor, but before I could push past him, he grabbed me around the waist from behind, dragging me back into his ironfisted grasp that seemed nearly bone crushing. I tried to scream as he continued dragging me down the hallway, but I simply couldn't. His arms around me squeezed the air from my lungs. I gasped, digging my fingernails into his skin as he pulled me backwards into what was apparently an elevator. The metal doors closed us in, and I began to feel the tug of gravity as we descended. The man's grasp around me seemed to lessen and I was finally able to take a substantial breath. A shiver went through me as I realized I felt his warm blood dripping into my hair. I could feel his chest heaving against my back with his labored breathing.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked with such a calm to my voice that it surprised me considering my current predicament.

"You will find out soon enough. I must warn you that resisting me will not help you, but you are not in danger." He replied coolly.

I laughed snidely. "Somehow I find that a bit hard to believe."

"Shut up." He commanded gruffly, tightening his grasp about me again. I dug my fingernails into the arm that was wrapped around my chest again, hoping he would slacken his grasp enough to allow me a breath. Instead, he picked me up off the floor and slammed me up against the right elevator wall, pushing my face against the cold metal. I gasped in a mixture of surprise and sudden pain. I was fast beginning to think that this elevator was going to be the last thing I ever saw as warm tears began to stream down my cheeks in stark contrast to the coldness of everything I felt around me. Numbness tingled down my legs as they hung freely.

"Keep your claws out of my skin. Do you hear me?!!" He screamed directly into my ear. I grimaced at the pounding headache from the powerful adrenaline surge caused by everything I had endured in the last five minutes.

I sobbed, pleading for what I believed might be the last few moments I had left. But the elevator came to a gentle halt. The man let my feet back down to the floor, and for once, he let go of me completely as the doors opened. The only thing I could see before me was encompassing darkness.

"Go." He demanded, pushing me out of the elevator as I stumbled forward into the room, falling down in the darkness. The guard traipsed in behind me. I cringed, expecting to be manhandled once more, but instead he helped me up from the cold floor with a gentleness I didn't anticipate. Suddenly blaringly bright red lights flashed on all around me, startling me out of my wits.

"Agent recognized." Blared a computer-generated voice. Automated double doors slid open in front of me and the man pushed me into another long hallway. My heart continued to race, cold sweat breaking on my forehead as he followed behind me, pushing me forward with every step towards a clear door at the end of the hall. I could see people walking back and forth inside the more I neared. My heartbeat seemed to slow as I realized that in fact this was an office, but what kind of office it could be was beyond me.

"Go!" He growled angrily, taking me by my arm and shoving me forward again.

"Alright!"

The doors slid open and he pushed me inside. A tall, attractive gray-haired man standing directly to my right chuckled as he laid eyes upon the man who brought me.

I looked up at my captor, suddenly feeling a pang of guilt for what I had done to him. For the first time I realized the full extent of the damage I had done to the guard's face as I turned momentarily to look back at him. His blue eyes were now bloodshot with rage, blood was still oozing from his bloodied nose, and apparently at some point I had given him a good hit on the left cheekbone, for it was turning a purplish red.

"You never were very good about these interventions, were you Agent Simms?" The man asked with a faint smile crossing his distinguished face.

"Very funny, Jack, please just take her off of my hands. And you better watch it, I think she broke my nose." The man replied, letting go of my arm. I shook out it out, rubbing and wincing at the shooting pains that radiated throughout it.

"See you later, Bristow. I better go get this looked at." The guard replied, smiling as he turned to leave.

The man who was apparently Jack Bristow turned to me, offering nothing more than a stare I couldn't discern. He had soft brown eyes and was tall and broad-shouldered, standing at least ten inches more than my petite five foot four inch frame. Intimidating, but at least a bit more kindly to the eye.

"I'm sorry if he scared you, Ms. Sawyer. Sometimes Agent Simms has a manner about him that can come across as being quite violent."

"Quite violent?! More like of the psychopathic variety, I thought that elevator was going to be the last thing I ever saw." I laughed, amazed he could term this "Simms's" manner so lightly.

"Yes, well, I don't blame him for losing his temper if you had already done that to him." I thought I saw a faint remnant of a smile break his stony façade if only for a second.

"What is all this about anyway? I mean, why was I forced down a hallway, slammed up against an elevator wall, and brought here? Now I know you couldn't be management." I smirked looking up into his eyes, hoping to loosen him up a bit, but it seemed to have the opposite effect instead.

The smile from his face was extinguished into a blank, emotionless expression once more.

"Come with me." He replied icily, motioning me to walk with him, to which I complied. I tried my best to straighten myself up as we walked, trying to wipe the damp blood stains from my cream blouse, but I only spread them to my hands.

"Do you happen to have a place I could clean myself off or something? I don't think I'm very presentable to anyone."

Bristow looked down at my blouse, taking note of my gory appearance. "Yes. In fact there is an adjacent restroom to the room I am taking you to. You can clean up there."

"Thank you," I replied, as we passed the four rows of desks in the large, darkly modernistic office space. Several of the men and women glanced up at me from their desks, oddly examining me with a certain lack of surprise as to my appearance. A tall, pretty, dark-haired woman who seemed just a few years older than I stopped Bristow before we went inside what looked to be a conference room. She gave me a soft smile and extended her hand. "I'm Sydney Bristow," she said lightly as she pushed a wisp of brown hair behind her ear.

"Alyssa Sawyer. Nice to meet you." I replied back, smiling courteously and shaking her warm hand.

"Sydney is my daughter." Jack replied, but oddly enough his voice didn't convey the usual warmness a father had for his daughter.

"Oh, I thought I saw a bit of a resemblance," I said gently, smiling at Sydney.

"Well, we had better go inside so you can clean up before you meet Sloane." Jack urged, opening the door and directing me into the room. A large rectangular gray table took up the expanse of most of the room. Flat screen monitors sat on the table in front of each chair, and at the front of the room was a large screen. Sydney took a seat and Jack directed me to a door on the right as being the restroom, to which I hurriedly took advantage of. Once inside I gazed at my mascara streaked face in the large mirror over a pedestal sink, wondering why the many people I had passed on my way in didn't show any surprise as to my ghastly appearance. It's almost like they expected it.

I threw cold water on my face, wiping the streaks away as best I could before digging through the purse I had somehow managed to retain on my person despite my violent struggle to get there. Sorting through my womanly supplies, I found my make-up and applied a fresh coat of everything before being satisfied enough to leave the confines of the restroom. I still wasn't able to get the blood of my captor out of my hair, but as far as I could tell, it wasn't too visible. When I came out, Jack and Sydney had taken seats on opposite sides of the table and were discussing someone by the name of Marshall. But both directed their attention to me and ceased their conversation as I came to my seat, making me a bit self-conscious. Jack got up to pull out a seat for me next to him.

"Thank you." I said softly, blushing as I sat down.

Sydney's eyes met mine in a bit of a stare for a moment. She seemed to be surveying my features, her eyes lulled me over like she couldn't place my face, but her stare broke from me as a slender, salt and pepper haired man in a crisp suit entered the room and briskly walked to the chair directly across from me. He leaned over the table and extended his hand to me.

"Hello. You must be Ms. Sawyer, I'm Arvin Sloane. Director of Operations."

He seemed affable enough. There was nothing intrinsically menacing about him. Wire-framed glasses enhanced his brown eyes and his beard gave him a fatherly appearance of sorts, so I commenced with my own questions as he took his seat.

"Sir, please excuse my ignorance, but can you tell me what you are the director of operations of?"

Sloane laughed in a low, raspy voice. "I'm sorry. I was under the impression you had been briefed on our organization's operations." He looked at Jack questioningly, then continued, "This may come as a shock, but we are a black ops division of the CIA. Credit Dauphine Bank is only a cover."

I broke into a nervous laugh. "If this is your idea of a joke, I don't really find it funny," I replied, quickly getting up from my chair thinking this couldn't possibly be true, but Jack suddenly grabbed me by the forearm forcibly.

"Sit down." He commanded coldly, spitting out his words. I could tell he meant it by the hard look in his eyes, and I did so promptly.

Sloane smiled, seeming to realize his comment would most certainly invoke such a response. "I mean it, Ms. Sawyer."

"You're serious?" I asked, simply in disbelief.

"Very."

I glanced to Sydney and Jack, seeing if there was any sign of mockery in their facade. There wasn't.

"Then what do you want with me? Why am I here?"

"I have a proposition for you."

"What kind of proposition?" I asked softly, gulping down my nervousness and trying to ignore the churning unrest in my stomach.

"We know how you make the money to pay off your tuition every year, Ms. Sawyer.

"What?" I asked, my voice cracking as a violent chill ran through me. "How could you..."

"We have our ways" and we also know that if you were ever prosecuted, you could be put away for years. Hacking into major accounting firm networks is quite a risky hobby isn't it? Aside from breaking an abundance of federal offenses, the payoff is what makes it worth it, doesn't it Ms. Sawyer?"

Suddenly Arvin Sloane was not seeming so fatherly. He seemed to hiss my name, as if to say "we know what you do." I couldn't say or do anything to discount his allegations either. They were true. I had always played around with hacking, seeing if I could play a practical joke or two on college administrators by messing with temp controls on the dean's office and such, but the previous year I began to use my skills for something more. A friend of mine, a crony from school had introduced me to a man who wanted certain files from an accounting firm. He didn't specify why he wanted them, and I had known then that I was getting into some very illegal territory, but Sloane was right. The money was unbelievable. Soon, after successfully doing that job word apparently reached certain members of the business community. I started working at Arvest bank so I could skim accounts for clients, and the same task had brought me to Credit Dauphine. It was the perfect setup because no one would suspect me, the friendly, flirty little college student who does IT work part-time of being capable of skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars off of accounts. More money, and a thrill of adrenaline soon had me itching for as many jobs as I could get, despite the risks. I gained notoriety among my friends which was a feeling I had never achieved. Only now, it was getting me into more trouble than I could have ever imagined. Coming back to the reality of the moment, I looked deeply into the eyes of the man who held my fate in his hands.

"We are prepared to offer you a deal." Sloane paused for a moment, seeming to let me digest everything before he went on. "Your skills could greatly benefit our operation. We want to train you as an agent. You would be carrying out a variety of missions. Some of them will require the use of the skills you already have, and others will entail the use of our training. All of this will be in exchange for your freedom."

"So in other words, you own me, or I get a nice cuddly prison cell," I answered defiantly, glaring back at him but feeling a tug of guilt deep inside.

"Basically, yes," he replied.

"What would my training entail?"

"Well, we specialize in the recovery of certain historical and technological artifacts vital to the U.S. government. You would need to learn procedures, necessary languages, self-defense techniques, instruction on weapon use, etceteras."

"I take it this won't be a stay at home job then."

"No. It certainly won't. You will be doing a lot of traveling, and by the way, we would prefer you to hold off on your schooling for the next few months."

"Why? I graduate in just five months, it would be crazy to stop now! I have my senior thesis almost done."

"We feel it is imperative that you dedicate yourself fully to your missions," Sloane continued.

Suddenly Sydney broke in. "Might I suggest an option?"

Sloane looked to her, seeming a bit miffed. "I suppose."

"What if she were to transfer to USC? I could oversee her progress and ensure that her studies wouldn't interfere with what you want to do," I wasn't sure, but it seemed like she accentuated the word you to convey the message that she didn't agree with what he was doing. Good, at least I have one friend.

"That could be an option eventually, but for now I do want her studies ceased. She needs to focus on her training. That is, if she chooses to be employed by us."

Sloane turned back to me. "So, the cuddly prison cell, or do I own you, Ms. Sawyer?" I sighed heavily, amazed at the tangled web laid before me. What on earth had I gotten myself into? Tears began to well in my eyes and suddenly trickled down my cheeks. Hurriedly, I wiped them away not wanting to show such emotion, but the tears continued to stream despite my best efforts.

"I'm sorry." I said softly, apologizing for my unceasing emotions, also uttering those words for a sense of repentance of my deeds that had now come to haunt me.

"Ms. Sawyer, please answer Mr. Sloane." Bristow ordered. I looked over at him, sensing he really didn't feel the same as he let on. There was just something in his voice that said otherwise. He seemed to wince as he felt my gaze on him. I got the impression that Jack Bristow was uncomfortable seeing me cry.

I wiped my eyes and looked Sloane straight in the eye, putting whatever questions I had about Bristow aside for now.

"I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"I guess you don't." He said quietly, giving an arrogant smile, his eyes now twisting into the face of the monster I saw in my mind.

"Then it is our understanding that when you leave this building today, you tell no one of this meeting. For whomever you tell will pay for any such carelessness with their life. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." I replied, my jaw clenching in fury and more than a bit of fearfulness, but I certainly was not going to let him relish in it.

"So when do I start?"

"Tomorrow."