Open Internship Enrollment

Its a warm summer day. Middle of August, coffeeshop in the city. Truly nothing out of the ordinary. Ms. Elena Vexus has been inactive on the world scene for quite some time now. It seems her name has died out of the mainstream media, and the MetaHuman community only hears whispers of her. She was itching to rekindle the fire. She was being a little reckless, out in public as herself. No clone in place, no bodyguard on standby. But with not having being targeted by nearly anyone in some time, she figured an appearance would do the conspiracy theorists something to blab about. With her laptop open on a table, her fingers sped away typing up a code. It was minimal security, but she had placed a privacy film on her screen preventing anyone who wasn't within about three or four feet of the screen from seeing anything on it. Working on viciously illegal codings in a public setting was a preferred pastime.
In order to rekindle her name, she needed a few bodies, preferably living ones. Elena was working on what she called an internship program. It would be open enrollment, so to speak. The code was available to just about anyone, as long as they managed to read it properly. Vexus made homage to an older movie she used to enjoy, dealing with everyone living in a robot controlled fantasy. The code scrolled down vertically on a black screen in bright green characters. Each individual character was perpetually changing, but always reading he same syllable. Spaces were indicated by numbers, also changing. The characters were switching between languages at random, the same tongue never neighboring each other. Now, this is where it got entertaining. The scrolling code could not be captured. Anything it was saved on would be corrupted, a photograph taken of it would appear black. And of course, not all the languages of the code originated on Earth.

The message read:

Simple, casual, and to the point. She didn't want to sound as menacing as she always has. It would scroll constantly, on repeat, and would appear to go on forever to confuse those at first. She folded up her laptop and headed to her designated location. One World Trade Center. Elena was going to 'borrow' a floor. Many of the higher floors were still available and unoccupied, so it was not too difficult for Vexus to procure her meeting place.
Floor #90
Those who managed to read the message would more than likely find themselves at the One World Trade Center, however locating the proper floor was the challenge. Vexus put a perception filter on the elevator button, meaning someone who was not looking specifically for her floor number would never notice it was there. This prevented any non-metas from accidentally finding this location. If someone does manage to hit the right button, the elevator doors would open to reveal an empty elevator shaft. An architectural error perhaps. Emptiness straight down, and nothingness straight up. This was a very thorough illusion, with some hallucinogens involved. A drug is ventilated into the elevator if the floor 90 button is pressed, and if an individual steps forward they will experience a sensation of falling into a black abyss. Most would pass out by this point, and just be sent back down in the elevator. However if an individual remains conscious through the trip, they'll soon find themselves in a dark nightmare-ish hallway with only one door at the end. An eerie light seeping from underneath. The remnants of the drug will make it feel as if the hallway keeps extending.
Of course there will be plenty of MetaHumans completely unaffected by any of the above, and will simply find this dark hallway with no trouble whatsoever.

Vexus has managed to extend the pocket universe that also houses an office room in Taipei 101 to encompass the 90th floor of the One World Trade Center. Here superhuman abilities are rendered null, teleportation in or out of the floor is impossible and time has been completely suspended. Common side effects of entering a pocket universe include, but are not limited to, vomiting, dizziness, lightheadedness, headaches, migraines, loss of consciousness, burry vision, etc. The list goes on.
The room itself was well lit, a very large window stretched across the length of the room giving a breathtaking view of the city. There was a large table, chairs lining each side and Vexus with her laptop sitting at its head. Casually reclined with a glass of wine, and enjoying the view. Here bodyguard at her side. Simply waiting for a few visitors.

"I suppose it's about time I send out the invites."

And in a classic Vexus fashion, every digital screen on the planet flashed to her coded matrix. But only for an instant. It lingered in the background for all the hackers, conspiracy lovers, an governments of the world to track down and figure out. It would be them who would filter it to the masses for her. In a matter of minutes the code would be as easy to discover as asking Siri directions to your nearest Starbucks. Though, acquiring the directions to Vexus was a different challenge.
Finding Vexus aligned with discovering the fountain of youth. An overflowing wealth of knowledge and power, that comes with catastrophic drawbacks. However, working for her was different. Working for Elena Vexus would keep you preserved, alive. If you are useful to Elena Vexus, then there is nay a force in all of this solar system that could bring harm to you.

"What do you say, my General? Let's mess a few things up why don't we..."

huh a that wasn't what I clicked on she looked at her computer confusedpaid internship oh that's interesting, a riddle huh is it some kinda Hary Potter deal floor that doesn't exist, tallest building in western hemisphere

it's signed vexus, huh why does that name sound familiar? Jeannie thought she might have worked for this person before but she's taken so many jobs it's hard to keep track sometime.

after a google search of buildings, she finds One World Trade Center to be a good choice for the tall building part. so she found her way there.

the next problem came in the form of the elevator which one does one push for doesn't exist. how about this one she not sure why but she had a good feeling about it like it wanted her to push it.

huh weird did I get the right one?
she was surprised by the dark emptiness maybe that's what the riddle meant by not exist somthing smells funny if I find some one have to tell them they might want to check for gas leaks feeling a funny dizziness she tries to get find something other than shadows wondering toward the end of the hallway.

they might want to check the lights too will good thing I can see in the dark.hello? anybody here I was interested in the internship ad

Flick had been watching the latest episode of Burnistoun on iPlayer when the crazy code appeared on his tablet screen. Rather than attempt to work out what was going on, the Scotsman had to instead rely on the immediate internet reaction to see the encoded message.

Curiousity struck Flick and he couldn't resist making the short trip to the rumoured building. Upon arrival, the mercenary frowned as the puzzle of the missing floor stumped him. As the elevator doors closed behind him he pressed a button on his power belt and allowed his armoured suit to cover him. He then shrank to the size of a grain of rice and climbed the wall, waiting on someone with a better idea of how to solve this puzzle to latch on to.

A number of individuals made the attempt, but all left in frustration. Flick was close to giving up in boredom himself, when suddenly Jeannie entered the elevator and pressed a button than he was sure didn't exist a moment ago! This woman must know what she's doing, he decided.

Flick dropped onto Jeannie's shoulder, undetected. His insignificant weight and stealthy suit were designed for this sort of infiltration. His helmet's rebreather protected him from the toxin - something he'd recently learned a lesson on after a chance encounter with Scarlet Web.

As Jeannie entered into the hallway, she unknowingly carried Flick along with her. He smirked at first, realising he'd tricked his way passed the puzzle and illusion, but his feeling of smugness was soon replaced with wary dread.

Why the hell am I doing this? He thought, as the ominous and dark corridor extended up ahead.

huh? Jeannie felt something on her shoulder she thought she smelt someone but wasn't sure if it was just the funny gas in the roomhello? any one here? how long is this halway

There at been responses to her message much faster than she had originally anticipated. This was wonderful news. Maybe the MetaHuman community had stepped up their game a little bit in the recent times. There were two individuals who had made their way down the halls and found her hidden level in the tower in New York City. Hopefully these two would be worth her time, it was terribly expensive to rent out extra space in a pocket dimension. Not to mention ridiculously uneconomical in energy costs.
"Welcome you two, congratulations on figuring out my little riddle..." a girl entered the room she recognized as Jeannie. She could not immediately see or detect the second one. But her count of life forms in this realm was at plus two, so there still was someone.
"I know there are two of you here. Please deactivate whatever technology you have keeping you from being seen from us."
Vexus typed away on her lap top a little bit, seeing what other individuals may have surfaced from her tiny experiment, but it did not seem to be pooling much. Elena let out a deep and obvious sigh.
"So I've got you two...?" she stood up from her chair.
"This may be offensive and I'm-no. Actually no, I'm not sorry for this."
Her general shifter his gaze to her, thinking she might lash out at the two.
"I put some time and effort into trying to summon hackers of the world, crazy conspiracy theorists, and powerful meta humans. I clearly need to put more time and more effort into my messages if this is going to be the turn out."
Elena moved from behind her chair and started to pace the room.
"Truly I'm at the point where your bodies would be more useful to me dead on an experimentation table than they are right now warm and breathing."
Vexus let out another sigh as her pacing slowed down. She returned to her chair and took a seat again.
"Clearly my patience is dying away with my youth. The both of you I'm sure have potential. If you all manage to survive the next little bit, maybe we'll meet up again. This was a waste of all of our time. Good luck kids."
There was a slight flash of light from Elena's left eye as she activated her Celestial Eye turning herself and her General into Technomatter and essentially teleporting from the scene.

What she had mentioned about surviving what was to happen next, escaping from the building. Since the room exists in another universe that was inhabiting the current universe, it was using Vexus and her General as an anchor. Now the the two of them have left the universe was collapsing. Escaping an imploding universe was a feat that Vexus has yet to encounter. The whole space around them visibly began to crumble. There were cracks in the air itself, like a mirror shattering. It appeared as if someone was crumpling a piece of paper between their hands. The walls were shrinking, the hallway was narrowing. If the two of them failed to make it out on time, they would be obliterated into a singularity like the rest of this pocket dimension. Simply plucked out of existence.

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(elsewhere)
"Madame Vexus, is it wise to continue with your plans despite not having any reinforcements?"
"You think those kids will have figured out that LSD laced elevator is the only way out? I doubt either of them have trans dimensional abilities that would allow them to breach the fabric of space..."
"It's quite unlike you to worry about the weak, madame."
"No, I would say its more like curiosity on how the last episode of that television show went."
"Very good my lord. However, I do suppose if one of them did have trans-dimensional abilities, you'll be reuniting yourself with them sooner than later."
"That you are correct about, my General."

Vexus and her bodyguard, both cloaked in dark robes that reach the ground, slowly walked down a dusty road along a cliffside leading to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex...

-----topic exit----

Flick woke up in the elevator, confused. Was that a dream? Probably. He tried to work out what might have happened, but he'd already spent way too long in this elevator. The mercenary departed.

Jeannie found herself in the elevator again. huh, rude she came all this way and the blinky lady didn't even ask her interview question of anything she just poofed away.

huh, the little voice she heard was gone too. well guess this one was a bust, I'm hungry Jeannie wanders off to eat some ice cream and get being depressed she apparently wasn't wanted by the blinky lady.