OLYMPUS

New York City, USA

The moment Megan opened the door to her apartment, she knew her night wasn't going to be a usual one. Not that she had usual nights to begin with, to be honest.

A psychologist by profession, Megan was no stranger to the unusual. From dawn to dusk, in her little ground floor corner office, Months Counseling, her clients always included a range from awkward college students, to stay-at-home parents, to overworked office goers, even sometimes to the high and mighty but still radically depressed elites of the city. They all brought with them their own batch of weirdness factor to dump on her lap and leave there when their session was complete; and truth be told, she didn't mind it one bit.

Thing is, Megan had discovered from her childhood that she had an uncanny ability to read people. Whenever she met a person, even before they opened their mouth to speak a word to her, she would realize that she was somehow able to place what the person was feeling, and sometimes even thinking, with just a glance; and she was rarely ever wrong.

To channel that gift the only way she knew she would be able to actually help people with it, she became a psychologist; and while she had to admit that it didn't always pay well, it still always gave her a sense of achievement whenever her clients walked out of her office feeling better than they came.

The money wasn't that bad either, it had to be said, at least not for a thirty-year old woman living alone in a one-bedroom apartment in New York.

Unfortunately, the somewhat downside to Megan's work was that it usually followed her home after hours. She could be home, sitting down in her favourite reading chair at the corner of the living room, her blonde hair tied in a topknot like she liked it whenever she was in her comfort space, a good book in one hand and wine in the other while a cool classical music played on the stereo; and her mind would suddenly go back to the session of the day.

That woman that didn't look as happy as she'd hoped, that student that still had that angst hanging all over him when he left, that man that said he now knew what to do but there was still an iota of uncertainty in his eyes. She would wonder if they were okay at that moment, and she would continue to do so all through the night till the sun rose on the next morning.

But despite as unusual as those nights were, Megan felt tonight was going to be far more unusual. She switched on the light.

"Good evening, Miss Months?"

Megan screamed. Searching frantically for the pepper spray she always kept in her purse for emergency, she looked up and came to a stunned stop.

A man was in her apartment. Green eyes behind a pair of glasses, dark hair greying at the sides, and a clean-shaven face belonging to someone at fifty. He was dressed in a black suit, sitting in the corner of the living room in her favourite chair with a book opened in one hand even though it was obvious he wouldn't have been able to read a single word of it in the darkness.

"Who are you?" she asked, fear and surprise making her voice come out in bated breaths. "How did you get into my apartment?"

"How I got in is of little importance in this encounter, Miss Months," he replied, Megan realizing then that he had a British accent that was almost academic to the ears.

He stood to return the book in his hand to the shelf, making sure that it was appropriately placed before he let go. "My name is Arthur Dean," he said, not turning back as he began to peruse through her collection. "I'm the Principal Officer in charge of the United Nation's Covert Affairs Department for Threat Assessment and Response."

"I've never heard of the United Nations having any department like that." Megan shot him a suspicious look.

"That's what covert means, Miss Months," he returned, smiling a little even as he still didn't turn to face her.

Megan finally gave the man in front of her a long deserving stare.

The vibe she got from him was a dark one, but the usual everyday type one would get from a street villain or their likes. Whoever Arthur Dean was, he wasn't a danger in itself, and certainly not to her at that very moment.

But he is a man who can be dangerous, she reminded herself.

From the way he carried himself, Megan deduced he was someone who was used to wielding authority and have people listen to him. In summary, a man of power, and of the shadows too.

"What do you want, Mr. Dean?" she finally asked. "I mean, last I checked, my apartment wasn't listed on the UN's "must go to" places."

"I have a job for you." He turned as he removed an envelope from the inner jacket of his suit and handed it to Megan.

But she declined it. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dean, but I already have a job," she replied, "and I have no intentions of leaving it to go "covert.""

Arthur smiled. Somehow, he found what Megan said to him very funny. "How's your stepfather, Miss Months?" he suddenly asked.

Now, this is danger, Megan recognised immediately. Arthur Dean was in his dangerous form. "Why do you want to know?" she returned, very cautious now.

"Have you spoken to the old man of recent?" he asked again. "Have the both of you spoken about the truth of that night?"

Megan didn't know when her heart tripled in pace and she began to sweat. It was the middle of November and she was sweating. That was how much that line of questioning terrified her.

"That was a long time ago," she said to Arthur. "It was an accident."

"I don't think your mother and brother will agree, Miss Months," he returned, smiling. "Or do you?"

"I was a child!" Her eyes were glistened with tears.

"Then tell the old man," Arthur dared her. "Go back home, Megan. Drop the false pretenses and tell your stepfather everything about that night. Let's see what he does."

Megan dropped her bag, removed her jacket, and draped it on the hanger like she had thought to do before she opened the door to her apartment and her unexpected visitor that was Arthur Dean. Then, she walked over to him with the last fire of determination in her eyes. "Tell me what you want me to do," she said.

Arthur smiled again. He had won and he knew it. He dropped the envelope into her hands and said, "The details are in there. Make sure to read it after I'm gone."

And with that, he draped his suit properly over his body, buttoned it, adjusted his glasses, then his cufflinks; and then he left without saying another word to Megan.

The moment the door closed behind Arthur, Megan sighed and kicked herself mentally for her ability at sensing things. She had felt that her night wasn't going to be usual; and just like always, she wasn't wrong.

Location Unknown

The elevator came to a stop with a silent hiss and Megan stepped out of it. Going with something from a shady source was a bad idea, she knew, but there she was doing exactly that.

As it turned out, the envelope left by the strange man from Megan's apartment the previous night, Arthur Dean, Principal Officer in charge of the United Nation's Covert Affairs Department on Threat Assessment and Response- she still couldn't bring herself to believe that was a real thing- contained not actually a job offer but a set of instructions.

Go to Grand Central Station, it said. Enquire about which trains leave to the farthest parts of town at exactly 11:15am. Which was exactly what she did.

The moment Megan spoke to the receptionist, a Chinese woman whose name tag identified her as Jen, of her enquiry, she smiled. "Of course, Miss Months," she said, surprising Megan that she even knew who she was when she hadn't made an introduction, "there's a brochure here for you." She handed her a leaflet.

The leaflet contained another set of instructions for her to follow. Go to the line supplying the Bronx. Walk down the service tunnel till you see a door marked 12A. Open it.

At this point, Megan began to feel uneasy. The "covert" in the situation was starting to become a little too covert for her. This is exactly how people get abducted never to be seen again, she reminded herself.

However, truth be told, she was also curious about what laid at the end of the proverbial tunnel Arthur was sending her down; and knowing fully well that he would most definitely pay her another visit- which would be even less pleasant than the first- if she didn't comply, she followed the leaflet's exact instructions. She went to the Bronx supply track, walked down the service tunnel until she found the door marked 12A. Authorized Personnel Only, and opened it.

The only thing that greeted Megan on the other side of the door was pitch blackness. There was absolutely nothing for her to see. I really I'm about to get abducted never to be seen again, aren't I? she wailed inside.

Just then, a torchlight came on, revealing an even smaller tunnel than the one she had come through. "Miss Months?" A voice came with the light and her eyes adjusted to see a man of about seventy years old, with full grey hair and beard, wearing a blue and white-striped polo t-shirt and denim jeans, walking towards her.

"That's me," she replied, purposely leaning back against the door behind her in case she had to bolt at a moment's notice.

"I'm Earl," the man introduced himself. "Please come with me. Your ride's waiting."

Megan, after some minutes of thinking about it, followed Earl and he led her down the tunnel to a speedboat on what looked like an underground stream under New York. Earl got in and started the engine.

"Where are we going to?" she asked.

"I'm not at liberty to say, ma'am," he replied. "My instructions are to take you to your destination. Nothing more."

Now, that's exactly what a shady organization would say, Megan thought to herself, which, truth be told, Arthur and his covert affairs threat department or whatever they were about fit right under.

She checked with herself what vibe she was getting from Earl and what came back was silence and impatience; the latter which even a toddler could deduce with the obvious look the old man was shooting at her like he would like for her to get into the boat already but was just being too polite to say it.

However, nothing threatening was coming from him and that was what she termed the most important thing. "Alright, let's go," Megan finally said and got in with him.

Earl, silent as Megan had predicted, drove the speedboat down the tunnel with the expertise of a sailor. He weaved through the tunnels without hesitation, picking which road to navigate like he had done so a thousand times before; and she suspected that he had.

The ride went on for about an hour, around which time Megan lost a sense of where she was; she wasn't even sure if she was still in New York or not. The turns were endless and they were all underground- she didn't even know how it was possible they hadn't come up into the light once- which meant that there was no sight on the way but the tunnels to tell her where they were or headed.

"We're here," Earl suddenly said out of nowhere and docked the boat at a shore that was quite identical to the one they had left.

Perhaps we actually went in circles and I just didn't know, Megan thought to herself.

But the shore wasn't the same one they had left, as she herself soon confirmed the moment she highlighted from the boat, which turned back immediately and returned the way it came, and she walked up to what she realized what was a large steel door in the wall.

"Hello," she called.

Immediately, what appeared to be a green light emerged from a point in the door and ran across her from head to toe, as if scanning her. "Please input your password," an AI voice commanded and a virtual keypad appeared on what she realised was an unreflecting glass component of the door in front of its steel one.

Password, Megan thought to herself, confused. Arthur didn't tell me anything about a password.

But out of nowhere, she suddenly remembered the only numeric combination she had encountered on her crazy journey to the place and everything clicked into place. 1...1...1...5, she inputted onto the keypad and immediately, it disappeared and a hand scanner appeared in its place.

"Confirm your identity," the AI said and Megan placed her right hand on the scanner. "Welcome, Megan Months." The door slid open to reveal an elevator.

She stepped in, the door slid close after her, and the elevator descended to deposit her where she now was.

At first glance, the place where Megan stepped into looked everything like an ordinary office building, but she soon recognised that it was anything but.

For starters, the building was less of a building and more like a giant glass structure enclosed inside of a rock. The walls were surrounded thickly on all sides by rocks, like the latter had been hewed to accommodate them. The only opening to the outside was at top of a dome opening in the roof where the sunlight came in to allow the sight of the blue afternoon sky.

Then, the building, divided into two floors by a glass floor had men and women in suits, all looking to be under the age of forty, in various parts of it. Some were on Bluetooth earpieces talking to someone in almost every language on the planet, others flipped through tablets, watching videos and typing responses as they walked from one end of the building to the next without breaking a stride; and yet others just stood on a spot, watching the others work with neutral expressions on their faces.

It was like business, science fiction, and military had been rolled into one enclosure and Megan felt confused as to how she was supposed to fit into the middle of it all.

Just then, she sighted what she thought to be the receptionist desk- the woman behind it was the only one she could read a calm and helping vibe from in the midst of the organised chaos around her- and she walked over to it. "Hello, I'm-"

"Megan Months." A man in a black suit suddenly appeared at her side. "Arthur told me to expect you."

To Megan's uttermost surprise, the man looked to be in his late fifties; presumably the only one in the entire building who was. He was bald, African- she guessed West African from his accent- and quite muscularly sound for his age. He radiated power just like Arthur did and for a second, the fear she had felt at the latter's sight came flooding back to her and she cowered a little. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Dennis Ahmad," he replied, extending a handshake. "I'm the Director of UNCADTRE's paramilitary response's division, or as I like to call it, Olympus."

Megan didn't know how to respond and she froze for some seconds. The covert affairs, the environment, Olympus; they were just too much information for her mind to process all at once she feared that she might pass out from them.

Dennis wasn't giving her the chance to relax and and faint though as he took her hand just then and forced her back to the present when he turned and begun to walk with her in tow; she having to shake herself off to keep up with him.

"I don't know what I'm doing here, Director," Megan said as they walked, deciding to go for the truth there and then.

"Well, that's what Arthur sent you here to find out," he replied, still not breaking his stride.

"But can't you just tell me that right now?" She forced him to a stop.

Dennis looked at her and sighed. It looked like he had a lot of things on his mind to say but was deciding to keep mute about them. "Look, Megan," he left her hand to touch her shoulders and she felt a wave of sincerity coming from him, "I know that things are little disorienting at the moment, but what you're about to do is going to change the world. You just have to wait and see."

With that, he pressed his wristwatch, which Megan realized then was actually touchscreen, and a section of the wall- both glass and rock- slid open to reveal an elevator. "Tell me, Miss Months, do you believe in superpowers?" he asked as they stepped into the elevator.

"On TV, yes." She shot him a curious look.

He smiled. "That's good enough," he pressed the only button on the wall and the elevator began to descend, "at least for now."

The elevator deposited Megan and Dennis on the sub-basement level of the building; the doors sliding open to reveal a long, narrow, empty corridor ahead.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Where the magic happens," he replied, smiling.

Dennis stepped out into the corridor and the fluorescent lights above became lit as if in response to his presence. They revealed that the corridor wasn't quite as barren as Megan had first thought.

On either sides of the wall were large numbers written boldly in red paint; but as she soon realised, the paints weren't just paints. Thing is, whenever Dennis got close to them, they came alive and began to shimmer, reacting to his presence just like the lights seemed to have some minutes earlier.

The entire area is one giant, intelligent technology, Megan realized; the entire building even, if she was being honest.

The techs, the people, the secrecy. Whatever Olympus was about, a lot of resources had obviously been put into it to ensure that it was a success. And here I am, dumped in the middle of it all, she thought.

Just then, Dennis reached the part of the wall marked 14. "Here we are," he said, tapping on the number and immediately, it disappeared to reveal a virtual hand scanner.

"Confirm your identity," an AI voice just like the one Megan encountered outside the building said.

Dennis placed his right hand on the scanner. "Dennis Ahmad, Director."

Immediately, the wall responded and slid away to reveal an entrance. "Welcome, Director," said the AI. "Please proceed into the laboratory."

The laboratory, as the AI had called it, was unlike any Megan had ever seen before; not that she had seen that many laboratories, truth be told. But even at that, she knew that the lab was unlike any other.

For starters, it was very large; like it was so spacious that three passenger aeroplanes could easily fit inside it and still leave room to spare. From one end to the other of the room, workbenches long enough to accommodate fifteen people standing side by side, lined its length in neat rows.

About eight scientists, all dressed in lab coats and surprisingly, looking under the age of forty just like the people in the workspace above, manned the workbenches. They chatted away on topics Megan recognized ranged from Chemistry to Microbiology, and advanced combination topics like Biochemistry, Astromicrobiology, and others that she couldn't exactly pinpoint under which subject they belonged.

To the side of the room, various equipment used for different diagnostic and monitoring activities in various scientific fields lined the wall; and there were some that Megan couldn't recognize or guess what it could be used for.

It's like one big, very inclusive, very expensive science fair in here, she thought.

"This is incredible," she voiced out, unable to stop the awe coursing through her at the sight of the wonder before her that was Olympus.

"You haven't seen anything yet, Miss Months," Dennis assured her before waving to a bearded man who looked to be in his late thirties at the front workbench and he came forward.

"Let me introduce to you Edward Barnes, doctor of physiology from New York University," he introduced the man where he arrived. "Doctor, meet Miss Megan Months. She's a psychologist."

"Nice to meet you, Doctor." Megan shook hands with him.

"The same here," he replied.

From the look and the jovial way his body was around her, Megan realized that Dr. Barnes wasn't at all surprised to see her in the lab or hear who she was. In fact, if she was to guess, she would say that he had been expecting her to see her come in with Dennis. But how could he have known of my coming when I myself only received the invitation last night? she contemplated.

Arthur Dean, the response came to her almost instantaneously. It looked like the man had informed the whole of Olympus of her arrival before he even asked her. No wonder he had to threaten me into it, she mused.

But then the question rose again in her mind. Why? Why did he go through all that trouble just to acquire an everyday psychologist like me?

"So, how's the subject today?" Megan snapped back to the present when she heard Dennis ask the doctor.

"He's doing great," he replied. "His vitals are good, his physio excellent. We're about to run some base test on him now if you care to join us."

"Of course." Dennis signaled Megan to walk with them.

At this point, Megan was confused again, which was really saying something because nothing had made sense since she left her house that morning.

But the thing was that tests, diagnosis, and "subject" discussion were things she believed were more likely to be encountered in a medical environment than what she thought the lab should be fitted to do. Why will a covert, threat-response organisation concern themselves with medical procedures? she wondered.

Anyway, Megan followed Dennis and the doctor to the end of the room, past the medical equipment.

Immediately they approached the wall, it slid open to reveal a smaller room. This one was much darker, with only three scientists manning three different monitors that displayed what Megan discovered to be vital life signs: heart rate, breath rate, room-body temperature, glucose conversion rate, energy levels. It was an intricate survey of a person's body and bodily functions; and it was live.

"Whose charts are these?" she asked.

"His," replied Dr. Barnes, pointing forward.

Immediately Megan looked up, a light came to up to reveal a see-through glass on the other side of which was another room with a boy. He was a teenager, presumably sixteen years old at the most, Black, crew cut hairstyle, and the look of determination in his eyes.

The boy wore a silver turtleneck suit made of a fabric that Megan couldn't quite place because it glinted in the light like metal but also looked flexible enough to be cotton, or wool, or any other fabric that everyday clothes were made of. The suit shimmered with every movement he made and she realised that whatever tech was present all over the building was also present in it; possibly the reason why the doctors could so intricately monitor his body too, she considered.

Megan tried to get a reading on the boy then but to her surprise, she got nothing.

Well, not nothing nothing. He did have some emotions coming from him: determination, excitement, the usual thrill of a situation that most teenagers had whenever they were about to embark on something new.

But none of those emotions, she knew, truly linked him to Olympus. There was absolutely no emotion from him about the people who watched him or what they were about to make him do; and that made her apprehensive.

"Who is he?" she asked Dennis. "What does he have to do with Olympus or threat assessment?"

"Patience, Miss Months," he replied. "You'll find out soon enough."

He nodded to the doctors and the sound of a speaker coming on sounded in the other room.

"Hello, Jay," Dr. Barnes said, his voice carrying even though he had no obvious mic on him. "Are you ready to go?"

"Hello, Doctor," he replied, jumping up and down, and shaking his hands and legs like an athlete before a race. "I'm locked and loaded."

"Then go."

That was the only command Jay needed as he tensed his muscles and his vitals began to change. His heart rate picked up, his breathing and the room temperature too; his glucose conversion rate went up, and his energy levels began to build.

And then, in full view of everyone, Jay lit on fire.