Vanessa Vaughen
Bzzz... Bzzz... Bzzz...
The young woman groaned as her lengthy arm reached up from her warm covers and over to the irritating sound of her phone vibrating beside her bed.
Squinting from the rays that were peeking through the curtains, she quickly turned on her notifications and almost immediately her phone began to chime.
Two missed calls from Mama at 6:21 pm, one new text message from Gi-Gi at 7:08 am.
She opened the text and started blinking as her eyes slowly adjusted to the light.
Gi-Gi: boss has something new for us? did you hear about this??
Quickly sitting up, allowing the cool air to crash against her body, she read the message again, this time tapping on the screen for a reply.
Vans: no, why? is it bad?
She looked around her small room, squinting as the sun was still trying to blind her. She let herself stretch a bit before another text came in.
Gi-Gi: idk, no info was given. I'm just as nervous as you are.
Vans: who said I was nervous? I'm not nervous.
Gi-Gi: well you don't seem too happy about it.
She rolled her eyes even though nobody could see her. Quickly shooting a "cya later" and climbing out of her once toasty covers, the cold hardware floors sent goosebumps to the rest of her legs. After she brushed her teeth, stuck a comb through her hair and ate half a toasted bagel, she quickly jumped into her black monochromatic outfit and added some accessories for a little bling.
"Hey Siri," she spoke to her phone as she dabbed some of her new perfume on her wrist, "set a reminder to call Mama after work."
The little robot inside the glass box did its job, notifying the reminder would be set at 2 pm this afternoon. Taking one last glance in the mirror she pressed her lips together so the gloss would smooth over. She was still deciding on whether she should leave her hair up or down. Playing around with some brunette strands, another chime came into her phone and she realized the time.
Hair down... Ah, I don't have time for this, I'm going to be late.
~~~
"Goodmorning Vanessa, how are you?"
"I'm doing just fine, Darla. How are you?"
The chatty desk assistant replied with the same routine script. She handed her a coffee cup filled with some sort of espresso. Taking it as usual and heading down the hallway, Vanessa put on her morning-friendly face. Waving to her co-workers and saying a bunch more hellos, she made it to her corner office and closed the glass door behind her.
Taking out her laptop and placing her file folder beside it, she opened it and checked her emails.
What was Giselle talking about? I didn't get anything...
"Good morning Vannessa!" As if right on time, the perky best friend entered the office with two yellow folders plus a struggling coffee cup in one hand and a laptop in the other.
"What were you texting me this morning? I didn't receive anything in my emails."
Giselle's face dropped as she stood in front of her friend's desk. She put down her coffee cup on the table and handed the 'too-busy-to-notice-you' brunette one of the folders.
"No need to say good morning back, but here."
The sharp hazel eyes met her irritated glance, Vanessa sighed. "I'm sorry, Gi, good morning. I just didn't get anything and don't want to stress out."
"Well, this is what we got so far, it was on my desk this morning."
"What's in it?"
"Nothing quite yet, as usual."
Vanessa exhaled. "As usual," she repeated.
"Hey, don't worry, I'm sure it's nothing like that last assignment," Giselle suppressed a rising giggle.
Vanessa just looked at her, still peering at the bright folder.
"Don't you dare bring that up again, that was traumatizing."
"Yeah... for that poor guy, you smashed an umbrella into his head!"
"It was an accident! The description said dark hoodies, black hair."
"It also said that he was about six feet and was twenty-two! You whacked a poor grandpa!"
Vanessa held her hands up in surrendering the awful memories of her last mission.
"Alright, I thought we promised not to talk about it."
"Okay, fine."
Suddenly a chime went off on all of the electronics in the office. Giselle took out hers and read the message.
"Sounds like he wants to see us now."
"Yeah, and it sounds urgent," Vanessa's heart began picking up pace. She inhaled another shaky breath and grabbed the yellow folder.
"Alright, shall we?"
She looked at her best friend, her round brown eyes allowing her to crack a wimpy smile.
They walked into the board room and two men were already standing inside.
"What's Charlie doing here?" Vanessa whispered as they were about to enter through the doors.
Her friend just shrugged and gave her an odd look.
"Bourne, you wanted to see us?" Vanessa called, holding up the yellow folder in her hand.
"Oh, good, you showed up," a tall gentleman, known as their boss, stood at the head of the long wooden table and motioned for them to sit.
Mr. Bourne was head of CCPA, and he did things in the weirdest ways. He looked so professional from the outside, but who knew what went on day and night in that brain. At age 42 and unmarried with no known hobbies, the man worked almost 24/7.
Vanessa and Giselle didn't hesitate to sit at the sides of the table. The view they were facing from the windows cast over the large city of New York. Even with being a thousand feet off of the ground, you could still somehow hear the busy streets and noise from the subways.
They both sat across from another co-worker, known as Charlie Huntington.
The six-foot-something, blonde-headed beach-boy from the south came only a couple of years ago and was definitely the most recent rookie in the tech-crew business. His intelligence impressed everyone right from the get-go, but he didn't talk too much about his personal life. Something both Vanessa and Giselle took with respect from the beginning... although the women on floor 24 seem to differ.
"So, what is this about, Bourne?" Charlie leaned back in the chair.
His hair was definitely longer than most and was usually somehow combed back with his hands. He had a little-boy grin with dimples that printed dents in his cheeks whenever he flashed off a smile.
He and Giselle worked together a few times on other projects, and although Vanessa never had the pleasure, from countless chats with her best friend, you could definitely say that Charlie was reserved.
Vanessa looked at her boss expectantly, he just stood with his hands in his pockets. His regular white-button-down shirt had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
"I'll explain everything when our last team member arrives."
"What do you mean? I thought this was it," Giselle sat straight with her shoulders tucked back. Her dark hair was chin-length and framed her elegant face well. She always dressed her best in light flowy colours, the complete opposite of Vanessa's edge-black style.
"Ah, there he is. M.P.B!" Bourne's face lit up when another gentleman entered the room.
"Sorry I'm late, I'm not used to this whole New York subway thing," he entered and shook hands with Bourne.
"No problem, we wouldn't have started without you."
Vanessa eyed the stranger, she had definitely never seen him before. She didn't know what Bourne was up to, but she could tell she wasn't going to like it. She always preferred being independent and these group things always stressed her out, adding a new member that she didn't know was setting off more thoughts in her head.
"Alright, I'm sure you're all wondering why I brought you here, so let's just get into it. But, before we do, I'd like to introduce you to our newest team member, Matthew Perry-Benson."
Vanessa looked at the stranger again. His chocolaty-brown hair matched his deep eyes, he was in professional-looking attire and was fit to look the part. He was definitely quite tall, only an inch off of Charlie.
But Vanessa knew all too well that looking the part was only half of the job.
"Matt, I'd like you to meet Charlie, Giselle and-" he paused, looking over at Vanessa, "that is Vanessa, or Viper, our number one agent."
Vanessa took the man's hand and shook it. She could feel her cold print go into his warm one.
"Nice to meet you, Viper."
The way he said it made Vanessa inwardly cringe at the nickname that was given to her long ago, but she shook it off. She just gritted her teeth and gave the best presentable smile she could.
"So, we have a new mission."
All eyes were on Mr. Bourne, but nobody expected the words that would come next.
"Anybody familiar with Walter Warner."
Sitting there frozen, all of them were waiting for him to say he was joking. Vanessa looked at Giselle, then watched Charlie's glimpse, then somehow got connected with the stranger in front of her. They all looked unnerved.
"You can't be serious," Charlie muttered. All eyes darted back towards Bourne for his response. He pulled out three thin papers of information, a copy of each for everyone. It was the smallest amount any mission had ever received.
"He's up to no good again, this time is even worse because it involves other people who we think are innocent."
Vannessa looked at the few papers provided and stuck her's in the bright yellow folder.
"So what's this guy up to?" Matt's voice rumbled from in front of her.
Bourne stuck his hands back in his pocket and stayed standing. His face gave an uncomfortable smile.
"It's not so much the guy that we're into, it's the mission itself."
Needless to say, none of them expected what was about to come spilling out his mouth next.
A/N *this chapter has been edited 03/22/2022*
Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! More chapters coming up...