“Hey Kim, do you have those balance sheets from 2011?” a woman in a cubicle next door asked.

“Yeah, here you go. Sorry if I was a little late.” Taeyeon apologized as she handed over a big stack of papers.

“Thanks kid, you’re a sweetheart.” Her co-worker went back to the cubicle and Taeyeon resumed her work by checking if anybody was watching her and went back to reading comics on her computer.

Taeyeon was working as an assistant accountant for a big retail business in Korea. She’s only worked there for a year since graduating college, but it felt like she’s been there for years. Day in and day out all she did was compile documents, read boring financial papers, and give reports to her boss. It was the same thing over and over again.

Her entire life seemed like the same thing every day: wake up, go to school or work, go home, eat, and then go to sleep. It was a droll life for her. It wasn’t until she picked up random comic book lying around in a dental clinic. At first she thought it was funny how these grown men and women would run around in their underwear in broad daylight, but after a couple of pages she was engrossed in the entire book. She kept looking for more comics in that waiting room, wanting to read more about the heroic adventures of those heroes.

All of them had some type of ability, some worse than others, but they used their abilities to help people; helped to improve the world they lived in. It felt like a switch inside Taeyeon’s head and a yearning was eating her from within. She was wishing she was like those heroes in those stories. She wished she was different from everyone else and she wished she could make more of an impact than reading income statements for a living.

But as always, Taeyeon was forced to throw away her dreams again and get back to work. She wished Tiffany worked right next to her, then maybe her work wouldn’t feel like actual work.

“Hey Kim,” her colleague popped her head into her cubicle, “why don’t you take your lunch break early? Looks like some woman wants to meet you.”

“Meet me? Would she happen to have an American accent and smiling eyes?” Taeyeon got up from her chair and started heading to the lobby.

“Naw, I never seen her before. She had light brown hair and was wearing a black suit. Looked like a government worker. Probably found out about your illegal stash.”

“Oh, shut up,” Taeyeon stuck out her tongue. “It’s probably about my taxes or something.”

She made her way down the elevator to meet this mystery woman. She didn’t really know that many people so she just assumed it was a government worker. In any case, she was just happy that was something out of the ordinary from her normal day to day schedule.

She saw near the entrance a woman who wore a full on black suit and tie standing at attention as if she was in the military. The smile that appeared on her face as she approached showed that she was her target.

“Kim Taeyeon?” she approached her.

“Yes, that’s me,” Taeyeon was a little flattered.

“Jessica Jung. It’s an honor to meet you,” she said as she stretched out her hand.

“Oh,” Taeyeon was surprised for a second, “pleasure is all mine, I think.” She shook Jessica’s hand rather lightly before pulling away. “I was told you were looking for me? Because if so, I’ve been paying my taxes promptly every year,” she tried to explain.

“No no,” Jessica waved her hand, “I’m not a debt collector. I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes. Would you mind walking with me around the block?” Jessica motioned Taeyeon to walk with her outside and Taeyeon nodded as she strode next to the professional looking woman.

“You probably don’t know this Taeyeon, but you’re a very special woman,” Jessica looked down into Taeyeon’s eyes.

“Umm, thanks.” Taeyeon felt embarrassed as she let out a nervous chuckle. “You seem special too, but I think we just met. I wouldn’t want to rush it.”

“Oh you,” Jessica snickered. She playfully shoved Taeyeon’s shoulder. “You really are a cutie.”

“N…no. I’m not really cute. You’re more than me, Ms. Jung,” Taeyeon had her palms on her cheeks as she was feeling shy.

“Haha, well even though you’re cutie, that’s not why I’m here.” Taeyeon followed her to a nearby park where she saw a lot of people taking an afternoon walk. Jessica found an empty bench and motioned for Taeyeon to sit next to her.

“It’s starting to get chilly now since autumn is coming,” she said to the air as Taeyeon sat down.

“Yeah, it is.”

They both sat there for a moment, admiring the orange and yellow leaves falling from the trees.

“I think it’s time we start getting to business,” Jessica straightened up. “Before we begin, I wanted to tell you that you’re special Taeyeon.”

“Umm, thanks,” Taeyeon felt embarrassed again. She didn’t know how else to respond to that.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I wanted to talk to you about your dream.” Jessica was only looking at the sky, but Taeyeon’s eyes shot open and was looking at Jessica in all seriousness.

“My dream?” Taeyeon was in awe. “What dream are you talking about?” She tried to test Jessica to see if she wasn’t pulling her around.

“You and I both know what dream I’m talking about Taeyeon. I had a few questions I wanted to ask you.” Taeyeon was at a loss for words. The only person she ever told about her dream was Tiffany because if she was to ever tell anyone else, they would automatically assume she was crazy.

“Who are you? You don’t work for NIS, do you? The national intelligence service of Korea?”

Jessica gave her a grin. “No, and I’m not like those agents from Men In Black who wipe out people’s memories in order to find aliens. Let’s just say that I want the best for you and I want to help you.” Jessica repositioned herself to look directly at Taeyeon. “Now can you please tell me about your dreams? I’ll try my best to explain myself later.”

Taeyeon didn’t sense anything threatening for the woman, nor did she see any reason to hide it from anyone. She thought it would be nice to share it with someone besides her best friend. Maybe Jessica would be able to understand her.

“Well, for the past few months I’ve been having this really vivid dream.”

“Would you say you’ve had it every night?” Jessica asked in curiosity.

“No, it wasn’t consecutive. At first it was once every two weeks or so, but then they started to become more frequent. Eventually it would happen so often, I was thinking that it might be a sign.” Taeyeon was starting to get excited again. That rush of adrenaline she got whenever she remembered the tall building was making her feel excited.

“And this dream that you have,” Jessica pondered, “what exactly happens?”

“Well, it always starts out with me standing on top of a building. I would always feel so tall and so powerful. This feeling of being responsible for the world would keep running through my head. Then after marveling over the city below me, I would take a leap of fate and just before I would hit the ground, I would find myself hovering for a bit before taking off into the air!” Taeyeon rushed to say with a lot of passion. “I’m sorry. Whenever I talk about my dreams, I get a little excited.”

Jessica waved her hand away. “Don’t be. I think it sounds like an amazing dream.”

“My roommate doesn’t seem to think so. She’s been convincing me to go visit a shrink. The dreams were becoming so frequent that I was actually beginning to consider visiting a psychiatrist.”

“I would have to admit, you’re the first of us to have such vivid dream. Some of us discover it by accident,” Jessica thought out loud.

“Us?” Taeyeon looked confused. “What do you mean, us?”

“This may be hard to believe Taeyeon, but I’m from a group of special people,” Jessica placed her hand on her chest. “We’ve been observing you for a long time and we think you would be perfect to join our ranks.” It sounded like Jessica was spouting nonsense like she was part of some secret movie organization, but that made Taeyeon all the more intrigued.

“Wait, are you saying you have an ability? That there’s more special people out there? Does that mean I can really fly?!” Taeyeon grabbed Jessica’s hands in exhilaration. She was beginning to shake from her wild conclusions.

“Heh, I can’t really tell you yet,” Jessica let go of Taeyeon’s hands. “Between you and me, I’m not even supposed to talk to you until much later.” Jessica leaned back on the bench and continued to look above her. “This world is changing very quickly Taeyeon and a lot of people can see it. My organization exists in order to keep that change moving forward. It’s our duty as citizens of this planet to make sure we see a better tomorrow. Don’t you agree?” Jessica turned to look at Taeyeon again.

“Of course,” Taeyeon nodded. “We’re all humans so we should all be helping each other in order to live a bit easier.” The smile on Jessica’s face disappeared and was replaced with a frown.

“Humans,” she whispered softly.

“Did you say something?”

“No no, it’s nothing.” Jessica straightened herself up again and checked her watch. “I believe your lunch break is over Taeyeon. You might want to head back.”

“Oh really?” Taeyeon checked her cell phone. “Shoot, your right.” Taeyeon hopped off the bench. “It was nice meeting you Jessica. It’d be interesting to join your guy’s club in the future, but do you really think I’m special just like your organization?” Taeyeon wasn’t sure what to believe anymore, but it was nice to talk to someone who didn’t think she was going crazy.

“From our experience, we would recommend you to try recreating your dream. If you could figure out which building you were standing on and remake your dream, you might discover yourself.”

“Thanks Jessica, I’ll take that into consideration.” Taeyeon was about to walk away before she turned around again. “By the way, how did you know about who I was, where I worked, and my working schedule?” Thinking about it now, Taeyeon was a little creeped out about how Jessica knew so much about her.

“Like I said before, we’re keeping a close eye on you Taeyeon and we’re very interested in you. Don’t worry, we’re not spying on you while you take a shower,” Jessica winked. Taeyeon waved back shyly and was walking at a brisk pace back to her office.

When she thought Taeyeon was far enough, Jessica pulled out what looked to be a Bluetooth earpiece. She placed the device into her ear and pressed the button, waiting for a signal that she was connected.

“This is Ice Princess. I have your signal loud and clear. I have met with the target and everything is on standby. Relay your progress, over,” Jessica said robotically as if she was a drill sergeant. She got up from the bench and was walking around in order to see if anybody was listening into her conversation.

“Oi Sica! I told ya you don’t have to go all commando whenever you talk to me on this thing. I already know it’s my little ice princess on the other side of this channel, I mean come on! Who else would be listening onto our channel?”

“Damn it Black Pearl, would you just take this thing seriously for once?” Jessica was getting angry over the other care free person in her earpiece. “We were taught to speak in code, just in case somebody hijacked our frequency.”

“Chill out Sica. Oh, then again I’m pretty sure you can do that in seconds. BUAHAHA!”

Jessica almost threw her earpiece in frustration, but refrained from it since it was her only connection to whoever she was speaking to. “Fine, whatever. You’re the one in charge,” she said through gritted teeth.

“And don’t worry about rank, Sica. You can just call me Yuri. Or maybe if you want to try reverse roles, you can call me Unni,” Yuri squealed in a cute tone, but Jessica felt sick to her stomach.

“Look, I don’t have time for your games Pearl. Just tell me what happened with that Seo girl.”

“Oh yeah, her. About that…” there was long pause. “She kind of got away with her friend.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you stop her?!” Jessica was getting angry. “Don’t you ever use your ability?”

“You know I don’t like to use it, but thats beside the point. I did learn she has a cute friend with her. She almost looks like me Sica! You should come with me next time I see her. I swear it felt like I was looking in the mirror.”

“I swear to god, Pearl if you weren’t my partner and was working under me, I would knock some sense into you and drag you back to HQ,” Jessica threatened harshly into her earpiece.

“But you’re not and that’s why you gotta follow my lead,” Yuri said smugly. “You know, now that I think about it, Juhyun does look a bit like me too. I wonder if we can pass as triplets.”

“Earth to Black Pearl! Stop getting side tracked! Do you even know if Seo discovered herself yet?”

“No clue, I didn’t want to invade her privacy. Though I admit I was a little curious about her friend. Plus, you don’t have to keep using code names, Sica. I know who you are.”

“Fine, whatever Yuri. Do you have a plan to get Seo on our side?”

“Best bet is to wait for something to threaten her and see if that sets her off. Once that happens, we go in and get her.”

“Same for Kim.” Jessica was walking out of the park and was few blocks away from Taeyeon’s work building. “I’m guessing she’s going to discover herself soon enough.”

“But intel still isn’t positive on what she is. Isn’t it possible she isn’t one of us?”

“Possibly, but if she is, she could be a real asset to the family.”

“Maybe. I’ll get back to you about Juhyun. Let me know if you ever want to plan a dinner date and we can discuss all about our future. And maybe Taeyeon.”

“Oh shut up,” Jessica muttered without humor. “Over and out.” Jessica forcefully pressed the button on her ear piece and placed the device back into her pocket. She chose to walk to a coffee shop near Taeyeon’s building and proceeded to drink coffee as she stared at the giant building.