As job interviews went, this one seemed to be progress very well indeed. The lady seemed to like me, seemed to believe in my marketable skills, and definitely enjoyed the respectful yet unformal social skills I laid upon her as we conversed at the little café. It was one of those joints that had very few seats inside by the bar, but had a larger amount of seats outside on the street in the pedestrian zone; the dozen or so tables effectively screened from the bustling crowds by three sides of waist high glass fences.

                All the tables were taken up by chatting, smiling individuals, and it seemed to be a good blend of locals, tourists, students and pensioners visiting the charming, rustic corner café.

                On the opposite side of the cobblestone street, jagged-topped stone structures lined the road in both directions, walling off this part of the pedestrian zone from the busy highway beyond. The sun was playfully hiding behind small tufts of cloud that were few and far between, and did nothing to dampen neither moods nor temperature on this fine spring afternoon.

                An enjoyable smell of dark roast coffee was in the air, and the conversations between other patrons and passers-by were but dull ambience in my ears as I spoke with Leah Henderson, the representative from the company to which I had submitted my résumé. The position they were offering were, well, I didn’t know what they were offering exactly. The company ad I found on the online newspaper was vague, but enough to attract my attention, especially since they were looking for “tech savvy” individuals whom were new to the city.

                Along with a very general, very uninformative list of desirable skills, the ad stated the company were looking for “young, creative people with a drive to be different”, and that “males are urged to apply”. It didn’t really go into detail as to what the job was really about, but I figured, why not, and sent along my qualifications via the company’s website. Two days later, Leah had called me and expressed the company’s desire to set up a meeting, preferably as soon as possible. So, the following day after I had finished my temp job as a driver for a local bakery, I met with Leah.

                She had sounded hot on the phone – being a man/boy in his mid-twenties, I could not help but take notice of that – and she was indeed a vision in real life.

                She had that corporate look down, wearing a black, pinstripe blouse tucked into a black, knee-long skirt cinched at the waist by a smart leather belt. She wore simple yet elegant dark high heels, and she had ornamented herself with a delicate silver armband and matching hoop earrings.

                She had thick black hair arranged in a ponytail wound in a grey scrunchy, with one bang hanging exotically down the right side of her face. Her ice blue eyes were a stark contrast to her dark hair, and her fair skin told those who cared to look that this was a woman who worked more inside than under the scrutiny of the sun. Not that she was indignantly pale, rather, her skin looked smooth like marble.

                Her outfit didn’t reveal much about her form, but it did present her smooth legs below the knee, and the way the hem of her skirt hugged her betrayed that she had a very narrow waist. It was obvious she carried a pair of breasts that were far larger than double Ds, but – unfortunately – her blouse was buttoned all the way up, displaying no cleavage for my viewing pleasure, although I did my best to remain professional and not let my gaze wander down at all. Of course I failed in that endeavour.

                She had a beguiling, sweet face, and whenever she smiled the rest of her seemed to beam along with her perfect, white teeth. She looked to be in her early, perhaps mid-thirties, but despite possibly being as much as a decade older than me, that did not rob her of any beauty.

                She was extraordinarily beautiful, charming and funny. The whole package.

                Her company, Hamilton Industries, she explained, was a rather up and coming  business that pioneered in the world of technical marvels for every household. Being deliberately enigmatic, she didn’t want to say specifically what they were working on just yet, but she was quick to commend me for my qualifications, which admittedly were self-taught, at least in the computing and writing departments.

                But, Leah explained, what they mostly looked for was creativity in someone young, someone with the necessary brain-wiring to let his imagination work free of constraint, and someone whom the company could guide and keep, should he decide that the job was something he could picture himself doing for a long time. Imagination and passion, she explained, were the two biggest contributing factors any employee could bring to the table.

                Asking her directly what the job really was got me no satisfying answers, but there was something about her and about the way she promoted this position that kept me firmly on her hook. I didn’t know what it was I wanted to know more about, but I knew I had to find out more.

                “So, no family or friends in town?” she asked me, taking a sip of her second cup of jet-black coffee. There was no barb to her question, she simply wished to get all the obvious fact stated. And she was right about that, for I had alluded to as much earlier in our conversation.

                “Nope, but that’s how it is when you, you know, move away from your old life in order to start fresh.”

                “Oh,” she said, raising an eyebrow as she put her coffee down. “No infighting or trouble with the old folks, I hope?”

                I made a grimace, letting my head slowly pivot from side to side a couple of times. “Not as such, but I needed a break from that side of my life. Most of my better friends moved from town a few years ago in search of greener pastures, leaving me behind, so to speak. I figured it was time to see a little more of the world myself.”

                “But being a driver wasn’t your ambition, I hope?”

                I shook my head, taking another sip, draining my cup. “Not at all. After I finished my final contract with the military, I just felt like I needed a change. Right now I don’t know just what I want to do, but I know just getting away from the old city and the old apartment is helping me get a fresh perspective on, well, everything.”

                “Ah yes, your military service. That was actually a big deciding factor in our decision to contact you,” Leah said, again with clinical, matter-of-factly weight behind her words.
                “Oh yeah?” I laughed under my breath. “Got many firearms for me to play with?”

                She flashed me an enticing smile. “No. But given your post and recent, mutual termination of your service, it was safe to assume you are still in peak physical condition, which is one of our biggest priorities for your intended position with Hamilton Industries.”

                “Really? Heavy lifting and rigorous physical examinations, then?”

                “In a manner of speaking. A lot of our equipment and prototypes require extensive testing before they are ready for the marked. Many of which can be quite taxing to operate over time.”

                Leah pushed aside her cup of coffee and picked her small, black and probably crazy expensive handbag up from the ground next to her feet, leaving a small bundle of cash under her cup, more than enough to pay for both of us.

                “I think it is safe to say that you are the right man for this job,” she said as she stood up, prompting me to do the same. “If you accept, you start tomorrow. Then, and only then, will we tell you just what the position entails. For now, all I can tell you is your salary.”

                She handed me a note from her purse. Unfolding it, my eyes nearly fell out of my skull. It was a full two figures more than what I made a month at the bakery.

                “I accept!” I didn’t think my answer through, but at the same time, what was the point? For that kind of money I would probably be content to sit and watch paint dry for eight hours a day.

                “Good, I am glad,” she said with a smile, offering me her hand.

                I took it, and we shook on our agreement, then she handed me another note. “Meet me at that address at 9 am tomorrow. Then we will get you situated and orientated.”

                The address was somewhere around the city limits, but I wasn’t familiar enough with the city to know what was there. No matter, it would be a relatively short bike ride from my studio apartment close to the heart of the city.

                “That’s a deal, Miss Henderson,” I grinned, looking forward to going straight to the bakery to quit. Luckily, my employment there was not covered in any contract, as the forgetful boss hadn’t yet written me up one, so I could easily cut them off cold turkey without ramifications.

                “See you tomorrow, then.” She fished out a pair of slender shades and put them on, and despite their simplicity, something told me they were as expensive for sunglasses as the purse had to be.

                “And it is Mrs. Henderson,” she added with a smile before taking her leave, her heels clicking on the stone ground as she departed.
                “Well damn,” I muttered.

                It irked me that I didn’t really know what the job was about. I was a structural man, a man of routine and system, traits I had gotten long before I started in the military. Not knowing just what it was I was going to was close to driving me nuts, but the exciting prospect of it all, not to mention the money I would be making, had a way to tell my worries to shut the hell up.

***
 
                That did not mean I didn’t have to fight myself to sleep that night. I was excited, nervous, eager and apprehensive all at the same time, and these confliction emotions kept me awake until at least three in the morning.

                When I finally woke to the sound of the damned alarm, it was immediately clear that I needed a few more hours, but there was no time. Dragging myself out of bed and into the shower, I completed my morning routine and breakfast with time to spare, but there was no sense in hanging around. Dressing in a t-shirt and denim pants, I slipped my tardy but cost-effective beige shoes on and jumped on the bicycle, doing the trek leisurely, enjoying the still morning and the sun starting another lap of a mostly cloudless sky.

                Fifteen minutes later the stillness was gone, as traffic started to congest. People rushed to get downtown for their jobs, but as I was headed in the opposite direction I was, blissfully, mostly headed away from all the noise. Shortly after, I arrived at the right block.

There was no question that it was some kind of industrial zone, but not the kind with huge factories with tall chimneys spewing pestilence and pollution. The area seemed to be made up of such things as assorted manufacturing plants, wholesalers, vehicle depots and, the largest structure of them all, a machining centre.

The smaller streets through the large structures and shops were relatively busy with lorries and vans with myriad company logos on their flanks navigating them, heading off with deliveries or arriving to pick up goods.

My destination looked nothing like what I had expected. There was no impressive sign reading Hamilton Industries announcing the company’s presence among the other grand names on other structures, no executive carpark, no discernible main entrance, nothing that told anybody around that this was a profitable, pioneering business. In fact, it was little more than a two-story brick building which looked to have been abandoned years ago. The only thing missing, in my mind, was boards nailed up to cover the windows.

It occurred to me that the site might have just recently been passed to the company and therefore it did not yet have a proper façade, and I also remembered that Mrs. Henderson hadn’t told me that this was the location of Hamilton Industries. Perhaps this was just where we’d meet today, perhaps other employees were being picked up here and then driven elsewhere. The possibilities were many, and I went through a few of them with a puzzled expression as I locked my bike against a lamppost.

Apart from a few vans driving past, the place seemed completely deserted, prompting me to double check the address on the note Leah had given to me and confirm with the GPS-app on my phone that it was actually the right place. And the app told me that yes, the address corresponded with this building.

Still having my doubts that this was the correct location, I mentally shrugged and went for the plain white door on the front of the structure, directly beneath a window on the upper floor. There was no light on inside, and the windows that were at street-level had blinds on the inside preventing anybody from looking in.

At least the door was open, but the creaking joints told me it was most likely not used a whole lot. Tugging the heavy metal door open, I found there was at least a light on inside, so I stepped in.

It was a plain corridor, long enough that it appeared to cut nearly to the other side of the structure, with plaster walls and ceiling and industrial flooring. Fluorescent lights overhead cast the room with a bright, clinical glow, and at the end of the corridor was yet another door. Again there was nothing actually confirming to me that I had the right place, but the lights were on, and so far it did not seem much like a crack den. I headed for the next door.

Through it was a large chamber about the size of an average gymnasium. The large space was all concrete walls and floor, the morning sky spilling light inside from the three large windows in the ceiling high above. The chamber looked to have, at some point, been the heart of whatever the building had housed at some point. It was certainly large enough with enough space to accommodate a lot of large machinery and equipment, with room to spare for a busy staff to operate them.

At the far end there was a closed garage door, suggesting some kind of loading bay on the outside.

There was only a single item in the room now, and the footprints on the dusty floor showed it had been moved in here recently. It was a chair, not dissimilar to a dentist’s chair; a reclined, padded plastic chair standing on a rod – that could extend or retract and swivel – connected to a heavy base.

In the seat, leaning against the padded back, was an envelope with my name on it.

Guess that means it really is the right place, I mused, but the location still failed to live up to any sort of expectations.

“Oh well,” I muttered, walking towards the chair in the centre of the concrete hall, my steps echoing in the empty space. Unfortunately, my excitement about this new job was rapidly decreasing based on what I was seeing.

Picking the white envelope up, I found it was not glued shut, so I pulled out the piece of paper within and read the contents, my scepticism alleviated somewhat by what was written.
 
Good of you to come, Jan!
You will arrive before we do, and while I am sure you feel underwhelmed by the location I have asked you to get to this morning, I assure you this is not the actual site of Hamilton Industries. Think of it more as a meeting point before we adjourn to the actual, and brand new, location a short car-ride away. This is one of our affiliate locations, however, and people like you will help us turn it into a bustling hive of activity once more.
Please have a seat and test this new ergonomic massage chair, and we will get there as soon as we can!
-Leah
 
Nodding to myself, musing on this information with a returning sense of excitement, I returned the letter to the envelope, wondering why Leah hadn’t just sent me a text with this information instead. No matter, I resigned myself to waiting, wondering just what I would be doing whilst employed by Hamilton Industries.

I would have to remember to do something about my bike before we left, in case we weren’t coming back here at the end of the day.

Seeing as there was nothing else to do – the door I had come from was the only one leading into the room – and deciding that a sit down would be welcome after my morning bike ride, I sank down in the dentist-massage chair and leaned back, lifting my feet up onto the footrest.

It was far more comfortable than a dentist’s chair, I would give it that much, and the leather paddings was in that perfect state between too rigid and too soft. I put my hands on the armrest, expecting to find buttons to operate the alleged massage-function of this chair, but found there was nothing.

Instead, just as I exhaled and closed my eyes, taking a second just to remember how it would have been nice to stay in bed and sleep in, the chair not massaging me but massaging my sleepiness, my limbs were abruptly assailed by straps.

Initially not understanding what was happening, cognition soon gave way to panic as I realized black, latex-looking restraints about twice as wide as a common belt, had shot up from underneath the armrests and footrest to pin my arms and legs against the pads. The straps, flung up and over my limbs like a hook dragging the line in an arch into the water, had with impeccable precision hooked onto the opposite sides and locked in place, keeping my legs bound across my thighs and just above the ankles. My arms were only restrained just over the wrists, but the strength and tightness of the restraints was more than sufficient to keep me from being able to fight my way out.

Breathing and heartbeat quickening, I fought uselessly to slip my arms free of the bonds, to kick my legs free, but the latex-y, leather-feeling restraints remained unimpressed with my efforts. That did not stop me from trying, however, and it took many grunting and panting attempts for me to face the fact that no amount of cursing and trying would undo the bindings.

Wondering if this was some kind of sick joke – not finding it funny in the slightest – my fear gave way to anger.

After a few minutes of frantically looking for any clues around the vacant chamber to confirm that somebody was fucking with me, the door in front of me, the door I had come through, opened, and I was ready to let my anger vent and demand that whoever was appearing release me at once.

“Hello there, sorry to keep you waiting.” It was Leah Henderson, all smiles, wearing a wine red suit jacket buttoned over a white shirt and black tie, with a knee-length skirt that matched her jacket. She was wearing a different pair of heels than the ones she had worn yesterday, but these too looked both expensive and uncomfortable to wear at length. Hanging by a delicate strap over her shoulder was the same handbag she had carried yesterday.

Despite her chirpiness and melodic voice, I was in no mood to be toyed with.

“What the hell is going on here? Release these things at once!” I said with as much force as I could muster, still holding back a little as a minute part of my brain didn’t wish to raise my voice at her.
“My, so bossy today,” Leah smiled sinisterly, her ponytail bobbing behind her as she approached.

She stopped in front of me, placing her hands on her hips and adopting a lecturing demeanour, still smiling. “I am glad you got into the chair on your own. For some reason I was expecting I would have to persuade you into trying it. Do you like it? It isn’t as much a massage chair as it is a restraint chair, with a few automatic features.”

 “Yes it’s a blast. Now let me out.”

“Let you out?” she feigned confusion. “But this is for your own safety.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, my voice little more than a menacing growl. “What the hell do you mean?”

“For when we transport you to the facility. We can’t very well keep a captive in the front of the van, can we?”

My heart sank a bit, and once more, the fear was starting to vie for control. “Captive?”

“Yes. I’m afraid the job interview was but a pretence to screen potential candidates.” She was walking gingerly around the chair as she spoke, forcing me to turn my head to follow her. “Of course we had to write some nonsense about qualifications and desired age group, to make it look like a genuine job offer, but in truth we were only looking for three things, all of which you qualify for.”

She stopped in front of me, raising her index finger. “First, age. At 26, you are neither too young nor too old.” Her middle finger joined the first. “Second, physical form. That was the only real reason I needed to meet you face to face, to evaluate your physical wellbeing first hand. All the talk about the prospected position was just for show.” She raised her ring finger. “Lastly, that you had few, or preferably no friends or family in town. You don’t need me to tell you you passed with flying colours on that point as well.

“Well, there is a fourth thing, really, but that issue can be confirmed later, in a more private setting. For now, let’s just say my rule of thumb tells me you will be of sufficient size.

“We brought you here to, well, in the unlikely event that someone comes looking for you, all they’ll find is a dead end. We will move you to the actual location, and for good measure, your bike will be “stolen” in a little bit.

“All in all, everything is set for you to be moved to the facility.”

I was sweating, and I felt my fingers tremble. She sounded dead serious about everything she was telling me, and yet most of me did not wish to believe it.

Before I could respond – before I could form any questions at all as to the sudden shock of her revelations – the garage door behind me slowly opened, the grating, groaning sound more than enough evidence that it was not in frequent use. A van was backed all the way against to the opened gate, the size of the van blocking any view from the outside into the structure.

“Oh, well, I guess there is one thing we still have to do before we move you.”

Summoning up and focusing on my anger, any thought of not raising my voice to Leah gone like a speck of dust in a hurricane, I took a deep breath and looked up every vulgarity in my mental dictionary, fully intending to give hear an earful.

But even that was denied me as she stepped behind the chair and, with both hands, promptly shoved something rubbery in my mouth and secured it tightly by its straps around my head.

“A ball-gag isn’t going to keep you completely quiet, but nobody is going to hear your muffled cries over the sound of the car’s engine. Besides, gags look so good on captives.”

Tripling my efforts to free myself as I tried as best I could to tell Leah just what I thought about her and her ludicrous idea that I was her captive, I failed to impress anything at all upon her. Smiling that tight-lipped, superior smile of hers, she retrieved a small remote from her bag. At the depress of a button, I got a good start when the chair started moving, initially giving me the sensation of falling.

The chair, clearly having wheels under its base, whirred and jostled a little as it travelled over the uneven floor at walking pace, carrying me towards the open maw of the van’s cargo space.

“I can’t wait for you to experience what Hamilton Industries is actually all about,” she smiled at me again, directing the chair into the van. “Unfortunately we won’t see each other again for a while. To start with you will be spending most of your time with a lovely blonde a couple of years younger than you.”

When the chair, unhindered by my continued failures to tip it over or otherwise free myself of my bonds, got into the middle of the cargo space, Leah stopped it. Then the cargo door started closing.
“Just remember to give her a tough time. She loves to teach lessons.”

The last thing I saw before the light was cut off from the cold interior of the van’s cargo space was Leah’s malicious, grinning face, and soon the only company I had was the reverberations of my own pleading voice bouncing off the interior walls of the van.