Nicole Taylor Recruitment

#### Empowerment and Recruitment of Nicole Taylor

It was well over 2 in the morning when Nicole arrived at the factory. As she parked the car, cold winter rain pouring on the windshield, she habitually grabbed the packet of cigarettes still in the glove compartment. Almost lighting one, she reminded herself she quit again three weeks ago.

Quickly she spotted the patrol car that called in the disturbance. “Another weird one for you, Taylor”, her sergeant had said. It’s been like that the last three months, getting all the odd and remote jobs. If she were paranoid, she’d think someone was trying to discredit her.
It’s not like she thought there was actually a ghost at that murder site - just that there were some weird flashes in the corner of her eye, and strange noises, that should be investigated further. But regardless, that was in the past - there was a job to do, so out in the rain she went.

Arriving at the car, she cursed under her breath when no one was to be found. “Why can’t they ever keep to protocol?” she asked herself. There was no sign of activity to be seen, from the constables that called it or anything else.

Taking a moment to call in her arrival, there was a lot of noise on the line - damn London rain - but there was a faint “Roger” on the other end of the line, so it was time to enter the premises and find the missing policemen.

As she entered the abandoned factory, Nicole’s skin started to crawl - somehow, this building seemed wrong. The feeling was strangely reminiscent of that night three months ago, which did nothing to ease the dread. The electricity was out - of course it would be - so her torch came out. The building was clearly abandoned, although the previous owners didn’t clear everything out; a lot of old machinery and boxes were still present on the main floor.

Suddenly, she heard a sound from the corner of the building, almost like a whisper. As the torch illuminated the area, there was a glimpse of a person there, before they vanished into the now visible stairwell. Trying the radio, Nicole found out the signal was now totally gone. She quickly considered going out for backup, but decided against it - it’d take too long for them to arrive, and there should be two policemen here to link up with.

At the stairwell, there were more noises from downstairs - footsteps, mixed with odd murmurs, sounding at once far away and nearby. There was no mistaking it now; this was what she heard earlier, but louder and clearer this time. She didn’t have enough time to panic about that, however. The body of Cooper lying down the stairs took care of that.

Her first aid training kicked in as it should, but without proper equipment, her options were limited. Cooper was still alive - barely - but there was a wound on his neck with quite a lot of blood. A strange wound, too - almost like an animal had torn it open. Cooper didn’t seem to have a lot of time left - he was losing a lot of blood. And her first aid kit was all the way back in the car.

Procedure would be to call the injury in, and so call in she did, as by automation. This time, to her surprise, she actually got a signal - and this time the signal was perfectly clear. “Roger Taylor; let’s think this through”, the voice on the radio sounded. For a brief moment Nicole wondered why she didn’t recognise the dispatcher’s voice. She continued, “Do you have any cloth around to bandage him with? Clothing will do in a pinch if nothing else can”. Nicole looked at Cooper’s shirt, and noticed a flaw in the fabric - a place where she could easily tear off a clean piece of cloth. “I got it” Nicole said, as she fashioned the cloth in a makeshift bandage. Once applied, the rag quickly turned red, but the bleeding seemed to slow down significantly. “I hope this holds”, she said over the radio. “Don’t worry”, the dispatcher replied, “You did a good job. I’m sure it’ll hold”. As she spoke the last words, the radio’s noise sharply increased, and once again Nicole found herself without radio contact.

With Cooper stabilized for now, Nicole snapped back to the situation at hand. There was still one missing policeman, and some other person active. There was one hallway on this floor, so that would be a good place to start looking. The door creaked as it was opened, revealing another unlit corridor, one that somehow managed to look even more old and abandoned than the factory above. Nicole’s feeling that something was wrong here got stronger and stronger as she proceeded, cautiously scanning her surroundings for activity.

Quickly inspecting the rooms she passed, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, until a figure suddenly stepped out of a room further in the corridor. Nicole let out an audible gasp, as the figure she illuminated with her torch was in a terrible state. In fact, it seemed dead, yet it was shambling along slowly, carrying a box down the corridor. The figure didn’t seem to notice Nicole, and turned into a corridor to the left after a while.

Proceeding to the crossing, Nicole was about to look around the corner when her radio suddenly sprang to life again, shouting “Ambush!”. Surprised, she jumped back as a bullet impacted her torch, and cried out in pain as it was thrown out of her hand. Quickly composing herself, she took cover behind the wall. “How did you know that?”, she whispered into the radio with surprise. “Don’t worry about that now”, the reply went, “try to see who shot you”. Nicole quickly peered around the corner. Behind the shambling corpse - moving forward as if nothing happened - she vaguely saw a figure on the far end, slowly advancing to her position. The figure called out “I think I hit her, I’ll go check” - a young woman, by the sound.

Thinking over her options, Nicole cursed under her breath that she postponed the Authorised Firearms Officer certification. “Did you notice any weaknesses?”, the voice on the radio asked. “Her stance is unstable, and she’s not holding her gun right; I don’t think she’s trained for this”, Nicole replied, almost before she could think about it. In fact, she wasn’t even sure how she noticed it - but it was clear in her mind. The radio replied, “Pull her arm to the right, and advance” - and as she listened, Nicole visualised how the figure would buckle under the assault. She waited until just the right time, and fell upon the enemy. She fell over, just as she predicted, with the gun falling to the ground.

The woman - dressed in a black dress, almost like a robe - didn’t give up quickly, however, and dived for the gun. Nicole quickly dove to restrain her, but the woman turned out to be a lot stronger than she looked, and got a hold of the gun. While they were struggling for control, the woman got a few hard kicks into Nicole as well; things were not looking well. Nicole had the edge in agility, however, and soon she found an opening to turn the gun around for a brief moment. “This is my only shot”, Nicole thought, and with a fierce determination and desire for survival, pulled the trigger.

As the gunshot rang through the halls and blood poured from the woman’s chest, her look of rage turned to surprise. “What… what did you…” she stammered. Nicole, briefly stunned, quickly dropped the gun when she found out her opponent was down. There was no bandaging this wound, however; the wound was clearly fatal. The woman cried out, “Master, my love, I’m sorry. Please…”. Nicole replied, “What master? What’s going on here?”, but it was no use - the woman was gone.

Standing up, Nicole’s vision blurred. “She’s dead”, she thought, “and I killed her.” While she’s confronted death before, this was the first time she had taken a life, and feelings of remorse washed over her, unburdened by the necessity of the situation. Remorse turned to nausea, and before long she was heaving onto the floor.

Taking a moment to compose herself, she considered the gun - a small revolver. She wasn’t supposed to have it, of course, but circumstances being as messed up as they were, she figured she’d take her chances with the paperwork rather than going unarmed. Still, she’d wrapped it up and stashed it in a pocket - it was for emergencies only.

Looking to the corridor, the corpse was still standing there with the box, seemingly oblivious to what happened. Then, suddenly, she took her radio; “Wait, did you just call it a zombie? And how did you…”. Nicole paused when she saw the signal indicator - 0/5, no signal at all. Putting the radio away, Nicole cautiously approached the zombie. The zombie was illuminated by the same purplish glow from before - although it seemed to have gotten brighter. Although, “brighter” seemed the wrong word; there was an odd feeling about the light. Somehow, it felt as if the walls of the world were getting weaker there - she didn’t even really know what that meant, but she knew it was bad.

The zombie gave no response as all as Nicole approached. In fact, as she got close she could see it wasn’t moving at all - no breathing, no muscle tremors, it was standing perfectly still. Looking on the floor, there were many sets of footprints, and most of them seeming to come from someone of a similar stature to the zombie. With a flash of insight, she ordered the zombie “Bring the box to master”. At that sound, the zombie indeed responded, shambling into the corridor to the right.

Following the zombie along, she reached a second stairwell at the far end. The ascending stairs had collapsed - or been demolished, perhaps - but this stairwell went down into a sub-basement as well. Two flights down, another corridor led inside.

While following the zombie into the corridor, the voice on the radio spoke once more; “look closely to the right. Do you see that?”. Nicole briefly glanced at the radio first - it still showed 0/5 for signal. Puzzled, she then looked to the right. “It’s like there’s something there”, she replied, “but I can’t really see it. And how are you talking to me anyway?” “You have polaroid glasses, right? Try putting them on - the filters might make it more clear”. Nicole complied, as silly as she felt, but indeed - the vague distortion became an outline. She had to tilt the glasses a bit to make it more distinct, but there it was - a young man. A translucent young man.

As Nicole noticed her, the man - ghost? - noticed her in kind, and asked “why are you here? Are you with the bad man?”

Nicole whispered back, “I’m here to find out what’s happening. What’s your name?”

“I’m David. I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s a man in there”, pointing to a door on the far left, “and he hurts us.”

“How does he hurt you, David? What does he want from you?”

“I don’t know what he wants, but he’s doing something big, I can feel it. He’s been - I don’t know. Taking pieces of us.”

“Why are you here?”, Nicole asked.

“He… he called us, I think. Forced us to come. Most of us are gone now, but he’s making some of us fight for us. You should run!”

With that, David followed his own advice and ran away towards the stairwell, vanishing just before reaching it. The zombie, meanwhile, opened and walked through a door to the left - the same one David pointed to.

Nicole approached the door and peeked inside. Inside was a large room with various machines laying about. It was illuminated by a small generator powering a set of lamps - and in the middle was a man dressed in a black robe similar to the man before. He was standing next to a black slab, on top of which lay the body of a man dressed in police uniform. While he seemed unarmed, a pistol could be seen on a nearby chair. “Bring that back upstairs”, he ordered, apparently speaking to the zombie. As it was preparing to leave, Nicole entered the room, with her hand around the revolver in her pocket.

The man spoke, “You moron, why did you tell the thing to… Ah, I see. You’re with those two”, indicating the man on the slab. Now inside, Nicole could see the lifeless body of Cooper’s partner Jackson.

Nicole started, “You’re under arrest. You do not have to say…”.

Interrupting her, the man said, “Yes, yes, your friends went over that already. It’s good that you came; it appears I underestimated the amount of blood I need. Subdue her”.

Nicole didn’t see who he was ordering at first, but suddenly a dark, transparent figure sprang upon her. It struck at her, but Nicole managed to ward it off. The dark figure seemed taken aback by this. The man, too, reacted with surprise, and quickly went to grab the nearby pistol.

Still, as Nicole retreated behind one of the big machines, she found herself unable to strike the figure attacking her - and while she could defend against it, she couldn’t hold that up forever. Suddenly, however, she saw a blast of energy coming from the entrance of the room, striking the creature. As it did, the figure cried out in pain and vanished. Nicole looked at the entrance with surprise, where she saw a man and a woman covered behind the door, dressed in a strange orange jumpsuit. The man was holding some strange weapon, looking almost like it came from a science-fiction movie.

As the two appeared to be on her side, Nicole took the gun in her pocket and moved to take position against the robed man. Her hands trembled as she took the first shot, however, missing the man; he followed up with a number of shots forcing her to take cover.

This left an opening for the pair at the door, however, and the man dove to Nicole’s side. “Don’t bother with the gun”, he said, “it won’t hurt him. Peter, by the way”. He extended a hand.

As she shook the hand, half by habit, half by sheer confusion, she replied, “Nicole. Em, who are you exactly?”

“I told you, Peter. That’s Kylie.” He casually opened fire with his blaster, forcing their opponent to take cover.

“I mean, what are you doing here, who are you with?”

“Not important right now. At the moment we’re trying to stop, well, this guy.” He opened fire again, as to point out who he meant. “We noticed something happening to the barrier between the worlds.”

“So, what do we do about it?”

He asked, “You can notice it too, right? That’s why you’re wearing those mirrorshades. You can help us.”

More ghostly figures appeared on the side of their enemy, and the three were forced deeper into cover.

“Take that device behind you”, Peter said, “you can use it to bring the barrier up again. We’ll take care of the va- I mean guy over there.”

As Peter and Kylie started covering her, Nicole looked behind her, and indeed, there was a suitcase behind her. Strange, she didn’t see that before. She opened it up, and saw a strange device inside. Still, it somehow seemed familiar to her.

Trying to figure out what to do, the voice on her radio started up again, “Right, let’s get that barrier up again. This will work, you just need to input the right frequencies. Look at the monitor for the input, use the keypad to the right.”

Nicole looked at the tiny monitor, which was whizzing past a bunch of readings. The number appeared to be taking on a life of their own, as she saw them transformed into a set of formula, resulting in a set of numbers.
As she put them into the keypad, she thought in her mind - not even bothering to say it out loud anymore - “Okay, what next. And will this get rid of the ghosts?”

“Yes it will”, the radio replied. “Just crank the handle on the left”.

Nicole did so, and the results could be felt immediately. The dark figures warped out of sight, and the whole room suddenly seemed to become less ominous as the strange purple hue faded away. Now without assistance, the man quickly found himself outflanked by Peter and Kylie. While he held out for a brief moment, he was no match for the two and quickly fell. Strangely enough, as he did so, the body started to crumble away.

Looking at the aftermath, Nicole asked, “So, what now? Is it over?”

Kylie replied, “Almost. The barrier isn’t quite where it should be yet, although you got it there enough not to be critical anymore.”

“And what about you?”, Nicole said, “Will you tell me who you are now?”

“We can’t get into details yet”, the reply went, “but we’re the ones protecting the world from people like him”, pointing at the decayed body.

“So, was the radio voice in my head because of this too?” She almost regretted asking such a insane-sounding question.

Peter chuckled, “Not quite, but that’s a long story. The voice is part of you, spurring you on to do great things.”

“I think the organisation we represent could use someone like you,” Kylie went on. “There’s great instructors who can help you figure out what’s going on. But that’s for later. We’ll take care of things here; I suspect there’ll be people arriving soon to do the same on the outside.”

“Talk to Frank Green - black suit and hat”, James added, “You can trust him”.

#### Epilogue

Nicole looked back at the night her world changed. It was only six months ago, but it seemed like a different life.

It took a while for the new life to catch up to her, of course. She found her sergeant waiting outside, looking worried - although she got the disturbing feeling he wasn’t worried about her or her colleagues. An ambulance got on site quick to take care of Cooper - they remarked on how unbelievable it was that the temporary bandage held as long as it did. And in a dark corner, she saw a figure with what seemed like new-age symbols watching the scene.

Frank Green was there too, just as the pairs had said. At first, he seemed dismissive, trying to convince her that what she had seen was a hallucination, “chemical vapors from a drug manufacturing site gone wrong”, he said. But after her story was told - without the sergeant present, at Frank’s insistence - his demeanor changed. At first, he seemed disturbed, but that turned to cautious enthusiasm. He implored her not to speak to anyone else about what happened, for herself as well as society at large.

So she did - in fact, it was almost as if she had no choice. The sergeant’s official report was a whitewash as well; as it turns out, he wasn’t with Green’s people, but had his own reasons for not wanting the news to go out. Green remarked that vampires and their minions, loathsome as they are, were occasionally useful.

Things hobbled along for a few weeks as she took administrative leave. But things were different. She noticed herself predicting odds inside her head, almost as if she was influencing them, and the strange sights and voices on the edge of her consciousness became more frequent, and at the same time less disturbing. Even the strange police radio returned, although now most often in dreams.

Then, suddenly, she found a pair of men in a strange uniform at her door. They had an offer for her. She had a special gift, they said, and they could help her develop it, give her the training, understanding, and support to help humanity. They promised her a whole new world of wonders. And, sitting here in the Copernicus Research Station, orbiting a different star, they delivered.