Charlie's Angels... of DEATH: Chapter 8 -- Help Wanted

     Charles sat at his desk looking at the resume in his hand for a good five minutes before he set it down and looked at the man on the other side of his desk:  brown hair with a slightly graying beard that gave him a distinguished look, inquisitive eyes that were subtly noting his surroundings, serious for the moment, but he looked like a guy with a good sense of humor...  the type that you'd want to sit down with and exchange stories over a couple of pints.  Charles leaned back in his chair and smiled an easy smile.  The man across from him relaxed visibly.

     "So, Mr. Burkhard," Charles began, "your work history is very... varied.  Door-to-door bible salesman, food blogger, corn-cob pipe carver...  What made you decide to answer our ad?"

     "How could I not?" the man said with a slight Texas drawl.  "It was the weirdest help wanted ad I've ever seen.  I figured you weren't looking for an ACTUAL cat herder, so I had to respond and see what this was all about."

     "You're right, this position does not require you to, literally, herd cats.  But... sometimes it will probably feel that way.  Tell me, Mr. Burkhard, how well do you relate to teenagers?"

     The man shifted in his seat uneasily.  "Please, call me John...  I...  am not really a fan of kids.  I do better with teens once they get a little older, and I am better at dealing with teenage girls than boys.  Boys do such stupid things at that age...  I should know, I was one of them.  At least you can talk and reason with girls though.  There's a slightly better chance they'll listen."

     "I couldn't have said it better myself," Charles smiled.  "Well, John, I pride myself on my ability to judge a person's character.  I can tell by your resume that you need variety in your job.  Perhaps you get bored if the work becomes too routine and you're no longer challenged?  I can also tell by the types of jobs you've held and the variety that you're a free spirit.  I promise as long as you are working for me, you will never be bored.  I also appreciate your candor regarding your feelings about children.  I am not looking for a yes man.  I have spent the past 16 years devoting my time and energy to finding young women with unique talents who were, in some cases, misguided and misunderstood.  I have raised them in my home, some of them since they were barely able to walk, and they are all like daughters to me.  They are all very gifted in their own ways, and I have spared no expense in helping them develop their gifts and realize their highest potential.  It goes without saying that their happiness and safety are my highest priorities.  I hope you are the man for the job."

     "So..." John thought carefully about how to ask his next question.  "You mentioned that you've been nurturing their 'unique' talents.  What kinds of talents are we talking about?  Are you a patron of the arts?  And what is your end goal?"

     "Well..." Charles began, thinking carefully how to answer John's carefully thought out questions.  "I suppose I am appreciative of talents that manifest in many different forms."  He looked at his watch.  "It would probably be easiest for me to show you, and then I will share my mission statement..."

     Charles swiveled around in his chair and pressed a button that raised a 50 inch flat screen monitor from its hiding place in a long mahogany cabinet against the wall.  The screen flickered to life, split into six separate video feeds showing six different girls engaged in six different activities.  Charles motioned for John to come closer.

     "Here," Charles pointed to the top left frame, "is Mira, the first one I brought into the fold.  She's 16 now, but I adopted her when she was just a toddler..."

     John watched with fascination as the sweet-faced teen with the rosy cheeks engaged in a full-on sparring match with an instructor, weapons included.  His mouth dropped open when he saw the instructor whiff a katana blade past Mira's ear that sent a thick lock of hair floating to the ground.  "Oh my...  Those aren't training weapons!  Aren't you afraid she's going to get hurt?"  John gripped the arms of his chair anxiously.

     "Not at all," Charles said calmly.  "In fact, I give the instructor about 30 seconds before Mira strikes the decisive blow in this match.  She'll not take kindly to the impromptu haircut.  She's been trying to grow it out for months."

     Sure enough, Mira's eyes narrow in fury, and her movements only became faster, sharper, and more precise.  The instructor was backed into a corner in less than 15 seconds.  John shuddered.

     "Mira's very attached to her hair..."  Charles turned his attention to the next frame.  "This is Candy, 18 years of age.  We discovered her when... well, actually, to be completely honest, she discovered us."  The slim Chinese girl was grappling with a burly opponent three times her size... and winning.  In a flash she had him immobilized on the ground.  She got up to grab her water bottle and take a swig, but the large guy on the ground didn't move.

     "Is he... dead?" John asked quietly. 

     "No," Charles said.  "Just out for few minutes.  Napping.  Candy just took him down by activating a series of pressure points.  Have you heard of Dim Mak?  I know she looks like a quiet, conservative Asian girl, but don't be fooled.  She knows 214 ways to kill a man with her bare hands, and an additional 37 ways to do it with her feet."

     "Her feet?" John pondered this for a moment, but Charles was already moving on to the next frame, in which a vaguely familiar-looking girl appeared to be doing vocal drills with a piano accompaniest.  John relaxed. 

     "Voice lessons?  At least that's not dangerous," John said mildly.

     "Oh, yes.  Jen, 17 years old, came to us 6 years ago, fortunately at a young enough age that her vocal chords were not yet finished developing.  We tailored her training to continually expand her range both higher and lower.  Lucky for us, she had a spectacular range to begin with.  Are you familiar with acoustic weapons?"  John's eyes grew wider.  "Anyway, she's just warming up right now, so there's not much to see there," Charles continued.  "Moving on..."

     "This is Meiling, 19 years old, a Texan like yourself," Charles began, motioning to the slightly built girl of ambiguous ethnicity.  "She was quite the athlete before a career-ending injury.  My team of surgeons fixed her up, and now?  Well, it's not really fair for her to participate in athletic events anymore, as you can see..."  The slim young women was landing punches and kicks against a thick wall in front her that crumbled before John's eyes. 

     "She's punching holes in it like it's swiss cheese!" John said in amazement.

     "Reinforced concrete," Charles replied.  "I guess you could say that Meiling is... a bionic version of her former self."  He smiled.  "In a way, it's sad though.  She does love participating in rodeos, but she had to stop because she was injuring the bulls..."

     "Next up," Charles continued, "Shannon, 17 years old.  Our mad scientist."  They watched the pretty young women concentrate as she expertly milled a fine powder under the bio-containment hood, even with thick gloves covering her arms, which were, in turn, attached to a thick sheet of plexiglass separating her from her work.

     "What is she making?" John asked in a hushed voice. 

     "I'm not sure what she's working on at the moment," Charles replied.  "Weaponizing something, obviously.  Smallpox?  Ebola?"

     The color drained out of John's face.

     "Don't worry," Charles chuckled.  "I had a BSL-4 built specifically so she could conduct her research without having to worry about anything nasty escaping." 

     "Oh..." John said, not sounding completely convinced.  "That's... good."

     "And lastly," Charles motioned to the frame in the bottom corner, "Lauren, 20 years old.  She's a bit different from the others."

     "It looks like she's... just listening to her iPod and reading a book," John said, confused.  After noting how all of the other girls were trained killers of some sort or another, he didn't know what to make of this girl that looked like she was a regular college student.

     "That," Charles said, turning to face John, "is precisely what she's doing.  Only thing is, she's listening to mp3s in Chinese while studying up on string theory."

     John still looked perplexed.  "Well, as impressive as that is... it's still... not what I was expecting after hearing all the ways in which the other young women are all uniquely... deadly."

     Charles smiled and nodded in agreement.  "I can understand your confusion.  Lauren is like... our mole.  She has been able to quickly pick up languages, and given a week or so of prep time, she can study up on just about any subject and talk intelligently about it with experts in the field.  Her talent is her ability to blend into any scenario and obtain information to enable the rest of the team's mission...  And don't get me wrong.  It's not always studying for her, all day, everyday.  Other skills that she's picked up in order to enable some of our more bizarre missions have included flying trapeze, automobile repair, poledancing...  and she knows a couple lethal moves she can pull out if she was ever in trouble and needed to diffuse a situation.  Her value for this team, though, lies in her ability to obtain information and facilitate the mission for everyone else.  It's not the exciting part of the job, but it is vitally important for our success."

     "And..." John shook his head.  "Sorry, I'm still processing all of this," he said with his Texas drawl.  "What kinds of missions do you do?  Who are you working on behalf of, and what are you fighting against?"

     "Let me ask you something, John," Charles started out.  "Have you ever tried to bring about some major change that will benefit everyone tremendously only to get monumentally frustrated by the amount of bureaucratic red tape you have to get through to make ANYTHING happen?  We... operate outside of the red tape.  Very few people know about us, but when people in high places need to make something happen QUICKLY, and don't have time to wait for some congressional committee to agree on a course of action... Well, that's when they call us.  We take the jobs that we want to.  Some big ones, like assisting special forces in neutralizing terrorist cells, and some smaller ones, like neutralizing no-talent, fame-seeking reality TV personalities." 

     Charles studied John's facial expression and body language.  "So, my turn to ask you a question:  are you interested?"

     "Sign me up," John said without hesitation.