Satyr Play 03 Pt. 01

She looked up at the building and admired the architecture. Turning her head in either direction, she smiled as this was close to some of her favorite shopping areas. She had good memories here.

Lorelei realized she was procrastinating, so she stepped up to the doors and walked inside. She glanced up at the high ceiling in the lobby and approached the reception desk, and a pretty, young woman looked up and smiled at her.

"Hi, I'm Lorelei Reichenbach. I have an appointment with Greg Wilson." She realized she was about twenty minutes early. She supposed this would be their first test, how they reacted to her poor timekeeping.

"Certainly, let me call him for you. One second," the receptionist said.

She spoke quietly into her phone, then hung up and smiled at Lorelei. "Greg will be down momentarily. Would you like to have a seat?" She gestured to some comfortable looking chairs.

Lorelei nodded and moved over to sit and watch the traffic crossing the lobby. The people, employees she assumed, seemed happy and content at first glance. She resisted the urge to sing a little tune to identify humans and non-humans.

Less than a minute passed before a short man with dark, curly hair and a friendly smile arrived at the desk carrying a tablet in his left hand and was directed over to see her.

"Ms. Reichenbach? Greg Wilson," he said, holding his hand out.

She shook the offered hand. "Please call me Lorelei. Sorry, I'm a little early."

He gestured that it wasn't important. "No problem at all. If you'd like to follow me, we can speak in the garden room. Any allergies to plants?" he asked with a grin.

Her eyebrows rose as she looked at him with a smile. "No. It's really a garden?"

His grin widened. "Yes, it's a lovely place to have private conversations."

They walked past the elevator bank to enter a door on the corridor's right side just before the building's rear doors.

They stepped into a mountainside jungle.

Lorelei's feet slowed as she gazed in wonder at the tiered garden that took advantage of the high ceiling height for its man-made slope. Eight intimate seating areas were scattered up this hillside, taking advantage of the room's vertical dimensions. A path connected the seating pods and led to their current position, next to some large rollup doors leading to a patio with more plants, picnic tables, and an artificial stream.

"This is so nice!" she said in wonder, and Greg nodded happily.

"It feels like a perk of my job to meet clients here," he agreed.

He guided her up the path, and she saw another small stream following the trail. This was connected to a trickle feeder for the plant life decorating the slope. They stopped fairly close to the top and took seats at a small table. Another investment manager was with a client in the seating area a short distance downslope. They were laughing about something, but the sound was being gobbled up by the plants and the gentle trickle of the watering system.

When she looked back at Greg, he'd set up his tablet on the table and had it turned so they could both see its screen.

He smiled at her. "You know, we're not all razzle-dazzle." He waved a hand to indicate their surroundings. "Let's see what we can do for you."

She nodded, and they began the discussion.

When Lorelei finally leaned back in her chair, her earlier dread was entirely gone. She knew part of the appeal of VRL was this peaceful room, but mostly it was how relaxed and friendly their people were and the simplicity of the services they offered. Greg added no pressure. There was no sales pitch, just a clear and straightforward description of what they could offer her to help protect her money and make it grow.

When she decided to move her investments to the company, Greg set her up with an account, which enabled her to log into the meeting room's free WiFi. She downloaded their app for tracking her investments. Once more, she recognized the flow in the interface, which matched what she'd seen on their website during her research.

Greg also assisted her with transferring the investment funds from the bank to her new account at VRL.

As they finished up, she sighed and breathed in the fresh air. "Thank you so much, Greg. I feel so much better than I did when I first arrived."

"Glad I played a part in that!" he teased as he shut down his tablet. It looked brand new.

"VRL certainly has an impressive grasp of technology. I love that tablet!" she said.

Greg's face lit up. "Oh my, yes, but that's due to our new CIO! He's a freaking savant with technology! Actually, it's because of him and our former CIO, who was his brother. Stanley was also a tech savant."

She noted the past tense references and picked up a little sadness in his tone. "Something happened to the former CIO, and his brother took over?"

Greg nodded. "Stanley arrived to save us from a technology disaster. Replaced the entire server room, the network, and all of the workstations in almost no time. Then he went to Ireland to meet his brother and died in a car accident. His brother is also brilliant, and VRL hired him to take the CIO position. Henry expanded on Stanley's foundation and made huge improvements to our network and tools. These tablets were his idea. It made this chamber that much better."

She gave him an impressed look. They stood, and he led her back to the lobby, where they shook hands again.

"Welcome to VRL! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. If I'm not available, one of the less personable investment managers will be glad to assist you," Greg joked.

"Thank you very much, Greg! You were amazingly helpful!" she said with a smile.

"Also, feel free to use our website's feedback page to say nice things about me! Our head of HR, Ms. Gunderan, who's that lovely woman standing by the entrance, reads those comments."

Lorelei was smiling and nodding, but her attention was caught by a gorgeous hunk of manhood who'd just walked by them towards the tall blonde. She was surprised by her reaction to him as she hadn't been attracted to men since— for a long time. She struggled to understand what was so appealing about this one, aside from his physical attributes. There'd been... something in his eyes as he smiled shyly at her before he passed by.

Greg caught where her eyes were tracking and saw them widen unconsciously. He resisted the urge to snort. "That's Henry Gable, our new CIO."

Lorelei's attention snapped back to Greg. She blinked at him. "He's so... young!"

Now he couldn't withstand the urge to snort. "Yeah, young, handsome, and smart, if you're into that. Still, he's got a magic touch with tech." Greg glanced at his watch and saw the day was over. He smiled at his new account and saw she'd taken a step away and was staring at Henry intently. He shrugged and headed back to the elevator bank.

Lorelei watched the tall couple speaking to each other by the front door. The lobby was much busier now as the employees were heading home. She glanced behind her and saw Greg had left.

She looked at the beautiful man once more, and a burning curiosity captured her. She sang a variation of her identifying song. Humans would make a subconscious gesture of touching their shoulder to flick away imaginary lint. They wouldn't register the movement in themselves or others. Non-humans would tilt their heads left and right as if stretching the muscles. Again, it would be subconscious and wouldn't register. She sang the tune gently as she watched as a majority of the people in the lobby touched their shoulders in unison. A few stretched their neck muscles.

The gorgeous man and woman did neither!

Lorelei almost cried out in surprise. This was the first time since she'd discovered her ability that it hadn't worked. She knew the deaf and those wearing earplugs or noise-canceling headphones weren't affected, but these two were within the range of her song and clearly weren't deaf as they were speaking to each other.

When they joined the others leaving the building, Lorelei followed. She needed to understand how they were able to ignore the music.

She also wanted to get closer to this man.

-=-

"Boss! We have an anomaly!"

Roy left his office to join Pete, who was working the surveillance system with Kirk. Both members of his pack had an uncanny ability to remain alert for extended periods watching the screens. Roy couldn't do more than one or two hours before his brain hurt.

"What happened?" he asked.

Kirk rolled the lobby camera back and froze the image. Pete explained. "Ms. Gunderan is in the lobby. Mr. Wilson is there with a woman who may be a new client. Employees are beginning to leave. Watch what happens when Mr. Gable stops to speak to Ms. Gunderan." He nodded to Kirk, and the video began again.

Roy watched the screen and jolted when he saw the simultaneous shoulder touches and head wags. "Again!"

Kirk re-cued the video and played it again. This time Roy watched the potential client. She was watching Henry and Sigrid, and her mouth was moving. His friends didn't react, but everyone else did. Then she followed Henry and Sigrid from the building.

"Roll it back and include the audio," he said.

While it played, they heard the familiar movement sounds and muted conversation tones from the people leaving then singing. Pete and Kirk rocked their heads side to side, and Roy felt an impulse to do it too, but he could resist. His two pack mates looked to him in question.

"You didn't feel yourselves rocking your heads side to side like the people on the screen just did?" he asked them.

Pete and Kirk frowned at each other and looked back at him. "We didn't see anyone move their heads like you're describing."

Mary arrived and smiled at Roy until she saw the concern in his eyes. "What's wrong?"

Roy looked to Kirk. "Roll the lobby footage back to 5:05 PM and play it without audio." He looked to Mary. "Watch the entire group."

She squeaked a little when everyone moved in unison, except Henry, Sigrid, and the tall woman. "Was that one of those flash mob things?" Mary asked Roy, who looked to Pete.

"I still don't see what you're talking about," the man reported.

"What? Everyone touching their shoulder or tilting their heads, and you didn't see it?" she exclaimed.

Roy's expression was grim. "There is something in the audio like music with a post-hypnotic message. I think that woman is trying to filter out the Humans from the Hidden Races, and she can do it without detection unless it's captured on video. These two brought it to my attention when they watched it without the audio. The moment we played it with the audio, they did the head movements and now can't see the actions or recall doing them."

He looked to Pete. "I need the name of the woman Greg Wilson was meeting as his last appointment."

Pete pulled up the calendar app with a worried look on his face and searched Greg's calendar. "Her name is Lorelei Reichenbach. Boss, I recall asking you to come see the... anomaly, but I can't recall what it was."

"Same for me," Kirk agreed.

Roy looked to Mary. "I'd be curious if you would be affected by the audio."

"DON'T YOU DARE! I don't want to have something removing memories from my mind," Mary snapped.

Roy held up his hands in surrender, then he looked to Pete. "Please make a clip of the lobby footage between 5:05 PM and 5:07 PM and send it to my account. Don't worry about the memory block. I'll see if I can't get it restored."

He looked at Mary and gestured for her to follow. He ducked into the supply room and handed Mary seven packages of earplugs. "Get Team One. Three vehicles for the return trip. Take a pair of these for yourself and hand the rest out. Earpieces will be useless due to the nature of her abilities. We'll need to use hand signals only. I seem to be immune to the sound... magic. You might be as well as I suspect it might be due to the Wild Magic but just in case, wear them." Her eyebrows rose then she hustled away. He called Camila.

"Hi Roy, what's up?" she said.

"Hi, Camila. Where are Henry and Sigrid going tonight?" he asked.

Camila snorted. "Aren't you taking your role as Henry's dad a little far?"

"We have a situation. Where are they?" he asked again.

"They're going to the Met, then out to dinner."

"I'm taking a security team to meet them," he explained.

"Shit. I'm coming too." She disconnected.

He nodded to himself as he'd expected her to say that. Roy went back to the surveillance desk.

Pete turned to look at him. "We just watched the video of us calling you over to see the anomaly. It's disturbing that we can't see what we were talking about or remember it."

"Yeah, it's tricky shit. I need to show Camila. Did you send me the file?" Roy asked.

"Yes, boss!"

"Good. We're heading out, so I'll see you two later," he said, looking into their eyes, and they nodded. He didn't like the unease he saw there. He was going to do something about that.

He marched out into the lobby and met Camila. They took the elevator down to the garage and saw the SUV's ready to go. They had VRL drivers for each so the vehicles would remain nearby for the extraction. Team One was in the second and third vehicles, so Roy opened the back door of the first, and Camila entered and slid over behind the driver as he entered and closed the door. Mary was in the front passenger seat and turned to face them.

"Where to?" she asked.

"The Met," Roy said.

Mary used her radio to pass that along to the other two vehicles, and they started driving.

"What's the threat?" Camila asked.

Roy described the events in the security department with the video. He gave her his working theory. He pulled his cell out and played the clip for Camila, turning the sound off first.

"What caused them to all do that?" Camila said, then frowned as she scanned the video back to watch the reaction again. "It didn't affect Henry or Sigrid."

"The woman sings... magic. Her song didn't affect Sigrid or Henry, and it doesn't affect me either. Well, I feel the compulsion, but I can resist it," Roy explained. He gestured to Mary. "I think Mary might also be resistant, but I don't want to take any chances."

"So, who is this woman?" Camila asked.

"According to Greg Wilson's calendar, her name is Lorelei Reichenbach."

Camila's expression clouded with a frown. "That name... seems familiar. I've read it somewhere." She shook her head as it wasn't coming to her. "Shouldn't we call Sigrid? Warn her?"

Roy shook his head. "As they aren't affected by the woman's ability, they shouldn't be directly at risk, but we are talking about someone with significant power. We were lucky her little test didn't have a more severe action. There's a high risk for collateral damage and drawing the attention of the Hidden Races Council."

"What kind of race has this kind of power?" Mary asked.

Camila thought about that, and there was only one she could think of... and they didn't exist any longer. Her eyes locked on Roy's in shock.

"Aye, tis the witch again, if I'm right," he sighed to Camila quietly.

"Hello? Is someone going to answer my question?" Mary said in annoyance.

Camila looked at her. "Do you recall Mab's party? In the main hall, the waiters and waitresses were Fae disguised as Djinn and Naiads. That was Mab's direct jab at the Hidden Races Council, who were directly responsible for the genocide of these two races when they refused to hide from the Humans with the others. Naiads were said to have the ability to control people with their singing."

Mary blinked at Camila. "If they're extinct, how—oh! She's like Henry! Baba Yaga pulled her through time?"

"Yeah, it's highly likely, but I suspect she isn't connected to the Wild Magic. The biggest threat she faces is the Hidden Races Council, who'll probably want her dead," Roy explained.

Camila beamed a delighted smile at Roy. "You're protecting her like we protected Henry and Nate!"

He looked uncomfortable. "Look, you were right about those two, so you're probably right about this one. I need her to reverse what she did to Pete and Kirk."

"How do we approach her?" Mary asked. "The Met is a pretty public spot."

"If she panics, she could cause some severe trouble and chaos with the Human patrons. This is a first contact mission. We'll keep her under observation and look for an opportunity to establish communication with her. The team will remain out of site, roughly encircling the target, one gallery away at all times, maintaining line of sight communications. There may be other observers, so we'll need to watch for that as well. If Hidden Races Council operatives are identified, we'll need to get the target out as quickly as possible, and that's our highest risk scenario."

"Are we putting Henry at risk? Are you sure we shouldn't be contacting them?" Camila asked with a frown.

"Henry has no training at surveillance and security work. He's an innocent, and he's safer remaining unaware."

-=-

Sigrid giggled at Henry's attempt to act like the worldly and sophisticated double oh seven spy.

He arched a brow while maintaining his role, cooling surveying the large chamber they were currently sauntering through. "There's always a master thief or a foreign spy at the museum. One must maintain a high level of observation, or one will get caught up in their intrigue, be that an international smuggling ring or... a threat to world peace!" he said with a soft voice in a terrible imitation of a British accent.

Sigrid's giggles burst into full laughter, and Henry's impression of the world's deadliest spy cracked into a happy grin. He'd won the prize he was after. He loved seeing Sigrid happy.

He glanced around at the faces turned in their direction. It seemed not everyone was as pleased to hear the joyful sound of laughter. One set of eyes connected with his, and he felt an almost physical jolt at that. She must have felt it as well, as the tall beauty quickly looked away with a flustered expression and returned to looking at the portrait she stood before. Henry swore he saw a blush on her cheek before she turned away.

Henry looked back to the sweet smile on Sigrid's face. She also seemed a little embarrassed at her outburst. She playfully slapped his arm.

"Thanks for making me look silly at the museum!" she growled with a grin.

"You're welcome for bringing out your sweet and adorable side," he returned.

They locked eyes, and he felt her hunger for him. He wondered if they were going to make it through the gallery and dinner.

They continued to move from room to room, soaking in the culture and building the delicious tension between them.

-=-

Minkah was pleased by the serendipity of being able to enjoy the Met while observing her target. This venue wasn't a good candidate location for apprehending him as there were too many witnesses. She noted there was a significant number of patrons in the museum this evening.

When laughter burst from the tall blonde beauty, Minkah's eyes were drawn to the couple. From the genuine smile on her target's face as he watched the woman's joy, she knew these two were a couple or had at least shared intimate relations. He seemed far more comfortable around her than others she'd witnessed him interact with. The way they touched revealed that as well.

When she saw him cast his gaze around the room, Minkah immediately focused her attention on the painting nearby but picked up an odd squeak sound from the woman next to her. That young woman quickly turned her face from watching her target as well. Minkah saw her blushing and contained a snort of her own. So, the young lady was attracted to Henry—her target. Minkah understood why—stop!

She forced herself to focus on the painting before her though she found nothing appealing in it. While allowing her eyes to defocus, she tried to re-establish her emotional distance from her target. The problem was, the more she observed him, the clearer her picture of him became, and the more intrigued she was becoming. His personality matrix deviated from what it should have been for someone with his boldly masculine physical appearance. Something significant had happened to him to rob him of the confidence he should be displaying.