The Alternatives

1 | Sitting Beneath The Flames

Ronnie Logan was never nervous.

If fact, she wasn't nervous, ever. In the thirteen years that she had lived, she's never felt nervous. Not through all of the bombings, not throughout all the fear. She felt unaffected. Unaffected by the war. Unaffected by school. Unaffected by her classmates and teachers. Not scared of any one of them.

Until today.

As she sat on the sleek blue and white bus, she tapped her fingers on her phone. She had the new 3-D projection technology. She had her list of homework in one space, and her list of empty incoming calls. Still no call from her dad.

He probably just forgot. She thought. This is an unusual situation for him.

This was the first time ever that Ronnie had visited her father's workplace ever. Plus, it was Wednesday, and her father always made sure that Ronnie never missed school, she was never sick, she was always okay. Never cared if she was happy, or excited. But he always made sure that she was getting by. Just, okay.

The bus jolted to a stop and Ronnie leapt from her seat and hopped off the bus, onto the clean and polished pavement. She was familiar with this part of town; this was where everyone was scared to make a mess. Even the people who actually wanted to side with The Hexagon.

She only had to walk a few blocks from where the bus dropped her off, and she possibly couldn't get lost; she could see the GPWZ Skyscraper everywhere she went, the building felt bigger the more closer she got to it.

Made entirely of one-way glass, (so the employees and workers could see every inch of the city, yet pedestrians and others would not have a clue what is going on in there) the structure was a twelve foot ground floor with four towers looming over it, that twisted and enter-twined with each other, each one finishing upwards. Ronnie knew of the satellite that is always directly above it, storing all of the top secret government information that is studied and concentrated in the GPWZ offices.

Ronnie still couldn't decide whether it was absolutely beautiful or absolutely terrifying.

She was greeted by a two doormen in suits, who beamed, said hello, and opened a pair of doors for her. Inside the building were all marble floors, portraits hung on the walls, black marble reception desks and people mingling on couches in a restaurant. Men were dressed in suits, with close-cropped haircuts and women with their hair in ponytails or buns and wearing blazers and pencil skirts. Everything was so sleek, clean and polished. Ronnie instantly felt out of place with her thick blonde hair falling around her face and wearing her jeans and tee with an anchor on it, rucksack on her back, converse on her feet.

She strolled up to the reception desk where a lady wearing a headset greeted her.

"Hi, I'm looking for George Logan's office?"

The lady replied, "Yes, his office is on the thirty-seventh floor in the fourth tower, go straight ahead, turn left at the coffee machine, then you take the sixth door on the right hand side. That is his common room, that'll have a map to where his office is."

Ronnie was extremely baffled. "Um... is there a simpler way of getting there? Like, could you write down the directions?"

The lady tilted her head. "Wait- are you by any chance his daughter? Veronica Logan?"

"Yes, I am. My dad insisted I come here because there was some kind of internship available?"

The lady was silent for a few seconds. Then she stood up, taking her headset off. "I'd better show you where you need to go." She whispered to her associate, who nodded, and then she walked around to Ronnie's side of the desk. She was shorter than Ronnie, even though she was wearing heels. She had on a dark uniform, black tights and her golden hair was tied back into a ponytail. Ronnie saw her nametag clipped onto her pocket. Lea. "Follow me." She said, quietly.