Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Perfect Life For Large Price: Chapter 1

Noah Coleman was good at his job. He didn't enjoy his job, but he was good at it. There is a very large level of discretion involved in his line of work. Noah is probably one of the hundred smartest people on the planet, and he ended up in this job by chance. When he was much younger, he attended Harvard for four years, followed by another six years at Oxford. It was during his time at Oxford where he met his flatmate, and eventually close friend, Desmond Patterson who would later turn out to be his boss. Noah was probably more intelligent that Desmond, but it was the Patterson name and family history that provided the funding and ability for the men to do the things that they have been able to do.

Noah sipped on his coffee as he watched the second hand tick, tick, tick around the clock in the room. Today was a special day. Today was an eventful day. Most days were pretty boring, aside from the ones when he got to meet with potential clients. On an average day in the office, Noah spent his time reading report after report that his employees assembled for him. These reports were biographies on various millionaires in the world. These are not just any biography, they are extremely detailed lists of every major event in their lives. These major events were the selling points that Noah would use, if he decided any of these people were worth moving to the next level.

But today was an "event day" as they referred to them in the office. A client had already been approached, and an offer had already been made. The client had accepted the offer, and The Centre had already received payment. Noah remembered in the early days, when Desmond used to come down and witness the events. By this time, they had done so many successfully that it no longer interested Desmond, he just wanted the money deposited and didn't want to get up in the middle of the night to deal with things, he valued his sleep too much.

Noah valued his sleep too, but he had no choice. This was his job. Luckily, he had a very large and very comfortable couch in his office and would be taking a long nap in about fifteen minutes. The second hand moved upward and meet the minute hand at the twelve. The hour hand was sitting at the four, and Noah took one last sip of his coffee before he stood up, straightened his tie, picked up a glass of water and left his office. He took the elevator up to the lobby and met today's event: Nick Webber.

Nick Webber was a multimillionaire. Twenty-four hours earlier he was in his ocean-side mansion in Miami, sitting on hi massive deck, overlooking the flowing water in the moonlight. He had three beautiful naked women with him, and large amounts of alcohol and drugs in his system. Nick had been divorced three times, and never really loved any of the women he was married to. He was the heir to a Texas oil company, and never really had to work a day in his life. He had some serious regrets in his life, and by this point realized that he was an epic failure to his parents and grandparents. Nick had decided it was time to change his life, but he wanted one last night of debauchery before he made the life-changing choice that he did.

Noah shook Nick's hand and said, "Mr. Webber, are you ready to change your life?"

Nick nodded his head. Noah took a capsule out of his pocket, and handed it to Nick, along with the glass of water, "I just need you to swallow this for me."

Noah and Nick walked to the elevator, and proceeded back down to the fourth level of the basement. Noah had two offices in this tower that sat at the corner of 39th Street and 7th Avenue. One was on the top floor, where he could easily look down 7th and see the busy lives of thousands of tourists heading in and out of Times Square. His second office was four floors below the streets of New York City.

"I'm still a little confused why we're doing this at four in the morning." Nick stated, almost in a question form.

"Trust me Mr. Webber, we've got our reasons, and we know what we're doing," was the response Noah gave him.

"You've really done this before, right? You're not just pulling my leg? Or trying to rob me, are you?"

Noah was still a little tired, and now a little annoyed. He didn't feel like answering the moronic questions, so he just remained silent. This didn't ease Nick's anxiety, and he began talking more and more, to the ire of Noah. The elevator ride felt three times longer than it should have. The door finally opened, and Noah walked as quickly as he could out into the long hallways, with its bland white walls and bright fluorescent lights. Nick trailed behind him, mumbling to himself.

As annoyed as Noah was, this was not the worst client he had even had, and he prayed that Nick wouldn't end up vomiting all over the nice walls and floor, like Mrs. Dennison had done a few months earlier. Suddenly, Noah only heard one set of footsteps, and he stopped to turn around and see Nick frozen, as if he'd seen a ghost.

"I don't know if I can do this..."

Noah rolled his eyes and walked back towards to his client to give him this word of advice, "Mr. Webber, we already have your money. We've told you it's non-refundable. You made this commitment. You walked into my office and you told me that you felt like your life was waste, and that you had disappointed everyone in your family for not taking an interest in your family business, and instead chose to spend thirty years blowing money on women, booze, and drugs. I remember the look in your eyes when you told me that you wanted me to change your life, and make you something that your family would respect."

Noah paused for a second, and looked Nick in the eyes.

"If you don't come with me, and allow me to do what you've paid me for, then you're just going to go back to the pathetically wasted life that you have. I remember the look of shame in your eyes, and I've got a horrible feeling that if I don't make your life better, you will eventually put a gun to your head and end your self-loathing of this embarrassment of a life that you live."

Another pause, just for more dramatic effect. Noah knew the next punch he was going to take, and it was going to be a whopper. At this point, Noah almost wanted to see if he could make this man cry. Sadly for Noah, he wasn't going to get the chance.

"You're right. Thank you. Let's do this."

The two sets of footsteps were once again going down the hallway, and eventually reached the door to The Chamber. Noah opened the door and ushered Nick in. There were three employees sitting at various computer stations surrounding a circular platform with wires running to three poles that were on various sides of the stand.

One of the employees walked up to Nick and took him by the arm, moving him towards the platform, "Please just stand in the middle and be as still as possible."

"Is there any preparations or anything?" Questioned Nick.

"Sir, we've done all the prep work that was needed, all we need now is for your to stand perfectly still, and open your mind".

The employee, Ridley, ran back over to his computer and started punching away at buttons.

Nick stood on the platform and scanned the rather vapid room. There was nothing aside from the platform, poles, and computers. With every passing second, Nick became more and more scared. Then he heard some type of electric humming sound, and it got louder and louder. Suddenly, hi head began to feel very light, as if his skull was getting bigger and taking any and all pressure off of his brain. He tried to open his eyes, but they had fallen closed and he seemed to have no control over them anymore, it was just darkness as the humming got louder and louder, and then Nick heard a sound so piercingly high-pitched that it honestly felt like his eardrum exploded. At that exact same second, all the darkness Nick was seeing was replaced with an intense white light, so intense that it felt like he was starring directly at the surface of the sun. It felt like his eyes were melting.

And then it was over.

Nick's body collapsed on the platform.

Noah looked at Ridley, who gave him a nod.

Nick was obviously disoriented and confused, "Where am I? Hello? I can't see anything..." Nick repeated these phrases a few times, as he propped himself up, and eventually sat on the platform, waving his right hand around in front of him, and using his left hand to rub his eyes.

When Noah finally got to the platform, he starred down at Nick's confused body. This was the discreet part of his job that he hated the most.

Noah pulled out his 9mm Beretta 92FS from under his jacket and put one single bullet into the skull of Nick Webber.

As the three employees walked over to the body, Noah Coleman headed out of the room, and towards his office. It was time to take a nap before he had to go up to his other office.