Olympus

Chapter 26

The ride had gone on for about ten minutes before Ricardo suddenly coughed and Megan looked at him. "What is it?" she asked with a look that said that she had been expecting him to say something all along.

"Well," he looked a bit unsure on how to proceed, "I want to say that I really appreciate you saying that I could be trusted. I know the director would never have allowed me to continue on this mission if you didn't vouch for me."

"But I didn't vouch for you, Mr. DiSanto," she returned, her tone cold and impassive, "I only said that you're a man that'll do whatever it takes to stay alive, which is about the only truthful thing about you."

"That's not fair, Megan." Ricardo turned to glare at her for longer than she was comfortable with it and for a split second, she feared he was going to crash them. But he didn't and returned his attention back to the road.

However, it didn't look like he was done with the conversation yet and he piped up again. "You know, for a psychologist, I have to say your understanding of people is awfully unbalanced," he said.

"What are you talking about?" She was genuinely curious.

"This situation," he returned. "For some reason, no matter how much I try to prove myself, you keep insisting that you can't trust me, and yet, you trust them even with the obvious nature of their deception."

"What "them" are you talking about for Christ's sake, Ricardo?"

"Olympus!"

Ricardo's yell and the abrupt way he had suddenly shifted the conversation to include Olympus stunned Megan and for a few seconds, she didn't know what to say. "What do you mean?" she asked when she could finally string a sentence together without her mind shutting down halfway, her demeanour extremely serious.

Thing is, Megan could see that Ricardo was on to something important; and she didn't even need to be a psychologist or have her uncanny people-reading ability to see it. It was written all over him so vividly that a toddler would probably be able to spot it at first glance.

Ricardo stole a glance at her by his side and his expression became guarded. Whatever he had found- or more likely, still finding- he was pretty apprehensive about sharing it with her.

But is that because he's afraid of or for me? she asked herself, unsure of which one would actually make her feel better.

Just then, he sighed and his expression relaxed. He's made a decision, she realized.

"Tell me Megan, did you apply to Olympus or did they find you?" he asked.

Strange question, she thought, but still replied, "They found me. Why ask?"

"That's not the right follow-up question, Megan," he returned. "A better one is, why did they choose to find you out of all the psychologists out there in the world? And there's probably a long list of those they're actually already affiliated with before you, I'm sure you know."

Megan furrowed her brow as she began to think. Thing is, she had been too concentrated on figuring out what she could do for Olympus that she hadn't stopped to consider why they would even think that she could do it in the first place. I mean, they had to blackmail me into working with them for Christ's sake, she thought.

And she wasn't the only one. She remembered Kei told her that there had been people before her blackmailed into leading the Supermen team, until the latter exposed and sent them packing, that is.

So, why them? she wondered. Why me?

Megan looked to Ricardo and for a second, she considered telling him about her situation, but she quickly kicked against it. I can't tell him about the incident, she reminded herself, I can't tell anyone.

"I think you're overthinking it," she finally said after a while. "I'm good at my job and they probably heard from someone who had come to my counseling firm and was also in affiliation with them so they decided to try me out."

He gave a short laugh. "I think it's never that simple with these guys, Megan," he replied, "and I think you think that too."

Just then, the GPS announced, "You've arrived at your destination," and the conversation got interrupted.

Ricardo looked through the window and saw the warehouse they were looking for just in front of him, but he drove a couple of blocks more before he pulled the SUV to a stop; Jay pulling the second SUV to a stop in front of him.

The comms device in the car came online and Adolf's voice came through. "What now?" he asked.

"I'm watching for movements in the warehouse but so far, nothing," Ricardo replied. "Still waiting though."

"It also happens that there's a back entrance to the building," Megan said, zooming in on the image to be sure. "We'll split into two teams and approach from the front and back, cut any escape route."

"I've also done a preliminary energy sweep of the place," Jay chimed in, "looks like our bad guys may not be around but their stuffs still are."

Among of which may be Item 13, Megan immediately got the point he was trying to make. "Alright, this is what we're going to do," she said as she took another glance at the image to make sure that she was making the right call. "Ricardo, Adolf, and I will approach the warehouse from the front. Kei and Jay, you guys take the back entrance. Give us a two minutes head start so that you can also double as our backup should the bad guys actually have a trap set for us inside. Cool?"

"Frosty," the teenagers replied all at once and burst into laughter over the comms.

Megan too began to smile when she looked up and saw that Ricardo was actually laughing beside her. Okay, Megan, maybe this one time, you can allow yourself to trust him, she told herself.

And perhaps even more than trust him later too, her mind supplied but she quickly brought it back to the mission at hand. "Be careful, everyone," she said and looked up at the warehouse where everything could come to a head. "Let's go stop some bad guys."