ILLICIT #2: Crescent

Leah Morris

I looked up to see the Estelle building in full of admiration. I've been dreaming to work here since I graduated from Harvard. In Harvard, Estelle and Lemiere had been praised by a lot of people for their security and defence technology. Estelle is based in Europe when Lemiere is based in America and Canada.

I applied to Lemiere for a job but I didn't get in. There were a lot of people applying because who doesn't want to work for the Gold Lifes? It's everyone's dream to meet them in real life and actually learn from them.

Instead of giving up, I decided to go to London applying for the job in Estelle. Estelle company is currently run by the youngest Prince of Denmark, Adrian Nielsen. He was known to be smart, strict and ruthless when it comes to his job. I'm completely nervous because this is one of those jobs that really requires skill and knowledge.

I walked into the building with my sweaty hands completely nervous for the interview. I walked to the visitor desk and the woman who was in charge looked at me to say something.

"I'm Leah Morris and I'm here for the job interview." I said.

"Which department are you applying to?" She asked as she pointed at the glass in front of me to put both of my hands on there.

"Security and defense technology." They scanned my finger prints and then she pointed a small camera at me. "Ms. Morris, this is your visitor card. Go to the 16th floor and you will find Mitchell there to assist you." She said and I thanked her. Taking the visitor card with me and walking towards the lift.

I waited on the line because there's a lot of employees working here and I felt a little nervous seeing all of them. They looked really professional and I really hope that I could get this job.

"Excuse me, please step aside." Suddenly I was gently pushed to the side. People were standing against the wall making way for someone. Is it Adrian Nielsen himself?

"I guess you're going for a job interview here?" I turned to see a beautiful blonde woman standing beside me. She was holding 6 cups of coffee and I gave her a nervous smile.

"I'm really nervous." I whispered.

"What department are you?" She asked as she hugged all the coffee cups tightly before someone could squeeze it.

"Security and defense tech."

"Really? That's awesome. Usually that department will work with Adrian Nielsen himself. That's what I've heard. I'm Aubrey by the way." She said in her thick british accent.

"I'm Leah and I hope that's the case." I said and she turned her head towards the entrance door.

"Princess Aria is here, I guess she's coming back to London for good now." Aubrey said and I saw Princess Aria walking into the building. She's a definition of a goddess. She's so beautiful that it really makes my confidence go down.

She was talking to her secretary and guards were protecting her as she walked towards the lift. After she got into the lift, I got into another lift for my interview. I thanked Aubrey for giving a goodluck and she proceeded to walk away with her 6 coffees.

I pressed the 16th button and took a really deep breath. My heart is pounding so fast and I can't even calm myself. As soon as I got out of the lift, I saw a lot of people already waiting for the interview. It was about 40 to 50 people and it made my confidence go down.

"Hello, I'm Mitchell and can I get your name?" I turned to the man who's holding 2 iPads at the same time. "I'm Leah Morris."

"Oh, you're American." He said when he heard my accent. I gave him a smile and he checked if my name was on the list. He turned to his secretary and they both gave me the number 17. He told me to sit and wait until my turn.

I sat down near the window and tried to calm down. I decided to listen to music and just try to practice my speech if the interviewer asks me questions. After 2 hours of waiting, they called my name. I followed Mitchell to a small meeting room and there's 3 interviewers.

I smiled and greeted them politely. They asked me to sit down and started asking me questions. I tried my best to be as professional and as honest as I can be. They were impressed with my resume and the fact that I graduated from Harvard. In fact, Harvard really admires Lemiere and Estelle for being this good in development especially for programming.

I've been working with a lot of big companies too before but I want to really dive into the real deal. That's why I come all over from New York to London. One of the interviewers asked me to wait outside the door for a couple of minutes because they wanted to make a quick call.

I hope this is a good sign because I really want this job. Imagine being able to work in this company, it's just a dream come true. After waiting for about 20 minutes, Mitchell told me to go inside again.

I walked into the room nervously and sat down. I looked at them smiling awkwardly.

"This is a quite rare case, Ms. Morris, but we saw you are one of the top candidates to work here since we received your resume last month. You got the job." She said and I can't help but squeal for a second.

"But.. Here's the catch for you. We will be doing a lot of tests regarding your mental health tomorrow. We want to make sure that you're capable of doing this job and not being a threat to our company." The man beside her said and I smiled nodding.

"I will gladly take the test."

"And one more thing.. you're not going to work in security system development but you will work as a software engineer with Mr. Nielsen himself." I was more than speechless at this point.

"If.. you pass the test tomorrow."

Leah Morris

Yesterday, I went for a really long test with Estelle. I was wondering if all the employees went through all of this because it was a really long and exhausting one. I will get the job if I pass the test and I'm pretty nervous. I bet they have a really high standard to hire someone and I'm not blaming them for that.

Now I'm here again at the Estelle office building waiting for the results patiently. I prayed that I will get this job and be the happiest person alive. I will be able to send my parents lots of money too from this job.

"Ms. Morris." Mitchell called and he gestured to me to go in. I knocked the door before walking in and today, there's only the woman interviewer. I smiled greeting her and she gestured to me to sit down.

"We got your results and we can finally announce that you got the job." She said and immediately tears filled my eyes. I can't believe that I got the job, my dream job for the past 4 years.

"But.." She said and I wiped my tears quickly. She pushed the contract to me and gestured to me to read it.

"Read it and if you agree to all the rules, the job is yours." She said and I looked down to the contract. I started to read it slowly and one by one. Apparently I can't say anything to anyone about my job. I can't even say what I'm working with. I can't even say a word about what I'm doing, what I'm seeing and what I heard in the ILLICIT HEADQUARTERS.

I froze when I saw those two words. I looked up to my interviewer and she gave me a nod.

"Since you're from America, you might not know the ILLICIT that well but let me explain to you shortly. The ILLICIT is the most famous company throughout Europe without knowing who run it. It contains security systems, technology related products, weapons, airlines, textile and many more. This company is owned by some people and the public doesn't know who they are." Honestly, I've heard about the ILLICIT before. Just like the Gold Lifes in America but they're from Europe and no one really knows who they are. People tried to guess but mostly they're wrong.

"This is a very rare case but after we saw your resume, we wanted someone like you to be involved in the software engineering team. So.. if you're done reading the contract, you can decide if you want to get in or not."

"But I haven't read it all." I said and she nodded.

"I'll give you one hour to think and then we will proceed to talk about what's next." She got up from her seat and walked out leaving me in the small meeting room alone. I read the contract again and it was basically a strict rule that I can't say anything about my work.

After reading the contract again and again for about 4 times, I called Mitchell and he called my interviewer to see me. I sat down and she walked in with a pen.

"So.. what's your decision, Ms. Morris?" She asked as she put the pen in front of me. I grabbed it and signed it in front of my answer. I pushed the contract slowly to her and she checked my sign before proceeding to take her phone out.

"Christy, I want you to assist her there." She said and she got up from her seat. "I'll be seeing you more often, Ms. Morris." She smiled widely and I shook her hand before she walked out from the room.

"Take care of her." She said to a woman that I assumed to be Christy.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Morris. I'll be the one who drives you to the ILLICIT HEADQUARTERS." My eyes widened when she said that and I followed her to the lobby. She told me to get into her car and I got in. I put my seatbelt and put my bag under my feet.

"I know you have a lot of questions about the situation, Ms. Morris. You can ask me as we're going towards the place, it will take about 45 minutes of drive." She said and where should I begin.

"ILLICIT, how many people are there?" I asked curiously and she chuckled.

"I might be working with them but I never know how many they are or who they are." She answered in a playful tone.

"So does it mean, Mr. Nielsen is a part of ILLICIT?" I asked curiously.

"Some people assume he is a part of ILLICIT but some people assume that he's owns the shares to the company. Only a few people knew who they are and we won't be one of those people. We will be working with them but I don't think you will know exactly who's the member."

"That's crazy, how can they keep it so private?"

"No one knows why and a lot of businessmen are really going out there telling people that they're a part of the ILLICIT." She laughed.

"They might be telling the truth." I said.

"They won't reveal themselves, Ms. Morris. They will always hide in the dark and you will know why. You'll work with them anyway, you'll understand." She said and I'm starting to get nervous.

"You should prepare yourself."

"Prepare for what?"

"You'll be amazed to see the HEADQUARTERS, it's beautiful and really luxurious." She said and I started to imagine what the headquarters would look like.

"So.. what's the purpose of the headquarters if they never show themselves? Is it just for showing off?" I asked curiously as I thought about how they never reveal themselves.

"If you think they only have one, you're wrong. These people are loaded. They have 5 other buildings in France, Italy, Greece, Denmark and Swiss. I personally love the France one, it's crazily cool." Who are these people? This makes me wonder what it looks like.

"And.. if you end up meeting with Mr. Nielsen. You better not drooling over him, he's really.. charming." Everyone knows that he's charming. It's not a secret anymore that the whole of Europe wants him. We heard about him in America a few times since he came here a lot. Princess Aria actually stayed in America for quite some time.

"I'll try."

Leah Morris

Christy was right. The ILLICIT HEADQUARTERS is just on another level. They bought a really big land to build this and it really felt like it came out from a movie. All I can say is that it's pretty similar like the Avengers Headquarters but more luxurious and technology wise, they're living 10 years ahead.

There's 6 small buildings in this big land. I can't even estimate how big it was but I'm assuming it's as big as Central Park in New York which is huge.

Christy drove her car to the basement and parked it. We took the lift and went up to the lobby. The lobby itself was so big and tall. It made me speechless seeing the inside of this building. This is only the first building and they have 5 more.

Not to mention that they asked for my hand finger prints along with my eyes scanning them. Apparently for security reasons and they record whoever got into the headquarters.

"Ms. Morris, Lia will take you in because this is the only place that I could access." She said and I smiled thanking her. I bid her goodbyes and turned to see a woman standing near the lift. I walked towards her.

"You must be Ms. Morris, I'm Lia." She introduced herself.

"Nice to meet you and I'm really confused right now. Why am I here and who am I meeting?" I asked and she chuckled. "You'll see, please follow me." She walked first and pressed the lift button. We got into the lift and she pressed the 8th floor button.

"You're nervous?" She asked.

"A little bit and this HEADQUARTERS is beautiful." I said trying not.. go crazy.

"It's beautiful but Lemiere's are more beautiful and bigger than this." I was surprised when she said that. She turned to me and smiled. "I saw your record and you applied to work theere before coming here."

"Yeah?"

"We did a background check to all the new employees so that's how we know that you tried to apply there. I used to be an employee there too but I had to go back to London to take care of my parents." She said and I nodded. Pretty interesting and I wanted to ask more but the lift door opened.

We walked out and oh my.. it's so beautiful. It felt like a hotel because of how luxurious and cozy it is.

"Ms. Morris, good afternoon." I turned to see another woman walking towards me. "This is Reese and you need to hand her your bag."

"I can't have my things?" I asked as I gave her my bag.

"Safety reasons and you will get your bag back after you're done talking with Mr. Nielsen." My breath got hitched when she said his name.

"Let's go." Lia led me to a big door. She knocked on the door opening it for me. She gestured to me to get inside. There I saw him for the first time, he was looking on his iPad next to the window. His side profile was just.. perfect.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Nielsen." I said and I can hear that my voice was cracking. He turned to me and he raised his eyebrows.

"You're the new software engineer?" He asked as he turned to me fully. Christy was right, he's drop dead gorgeous. I found myself couldn't find my voice.

"Sit down." He gestured to me to sit in front of his desk. I walked towards the seat and he took out my resume. He looked at it and then turned to me.

"Interesting." He commented and he leaned back to his seat.

"I saw your resume and really wondered why did you resign from your previous job?" He asked and I can hear my heart beating ten times faster. Not only because he's Adrian Nielsen, the youngest Prince of Denmark, but he's looking at me straight into my eyes.

"I– I– This is my dream job, Mr. Nielsen. I've been wanting to get into Estelle and after saving money to move here, I finally got the chance to apply." I said truthfully and he looked down to my resume one more time.

"You already signed the contract and you'll be working under me with 8 other people." He said as he threw my resume to the side.

"If I may ask, what kind of project that I will be working on, Mr. Nielsen?" I asked and when he's about to answer, his phone rang. He picked up the call right away.

"I'm in London and I won't be going to Paris anytime soon. I have to go to LA for some meeting tomorrow." I heard him saying. "Very well, I will." He ended the call and then he turned to me again.

"You read all the contracts, right? I bet you already know what you can or can't do when you're working in this company." He said in a really serious tone.

"Yes, Mr. Nielsen." He got up from his seat and he gestured to me to get up. I walked towards him and he pointed on a building. "You'll be working there on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. You don't get to meet all of the 8 people. You will only see 2 of them at a time." He said and I found myself nodding.

"Yes, Mr. Nielsen."

"You will start working on Thursday." He said as he turned around walking to his desk again. He called Lia to bring me out and show me the building where I'll be working.

"Thankyou, Mr. Nielsen. I won't let you down." I said and he just gave me a small nod. I walked out with Lia and I let out a long sigh. Me and Lia walked to the lobby and walked to the building.

"The building that we're in earlier was building A and this is building C. That's B, D, E and F." She pointed at all the buildings one by one.

"Let's go." She said as we're going to building C.

"You'll be working here on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Wear work attire and never come late." She said as she pointed at my body. I nodded and she smiled.

"Let me show you what's inside."