The next morning, Gabriella was feeling a little less overwhelmed as she sat down at the computer for her first training module. She’d brought her own coffee today, so she had a large iced coffee on one side of the keyboard and a notebook and pen ready on the other. After a solid night’s sleep, this was feeling more like the first day of college than her entrance to a job that might potentially kill her.

James had told her to expect the modules to last an hour each. He’d also warned her not to try and rush through them. Despite the fact that there were a hundred of them, the orientation manual emphasized the fact that the information in these modules was critical to working for the Foundation. She’d have other reinforcements and practical training, but some of the information she’d learn here on the computer might mean the difference between life or death someday.

Today’s schedule, as Robin had informed her, would be four modules in the morning. After that, Bradley would get her set up in the gym. While she wasn’t exactly looking forward to four hours of classes, Gabriella dreaded that part just a little more. She hadn’t seen Bradley since yesterday morning and she was sure he hadn’t started feeling any friendlier toward her in that time.

But for now, it was nine o’clock in the morning and she was sitting at one of the computers in the living room area, waiting for it to boot up. The morning sun was coming in the bay windows and someone on the overnight shift last night had left one of the side windows open, letting in a cool breeze. According to her weather app, it was going to get hot today, but for now it was comfortable.

The fluffy calico cat she’d seen the other day came strolling into the room as the computer whirred and the screen remained black. As the cat sat down and peered at her, Gabriella leaned over and held out a hand. “Hi there.”

The cat looked at her with big yellow-green eyes, then walked a few steps closer. Gabriella clicked her tongue, but the cat stayed where she was, clearly assessing the danger of her presence. Gabriella tried one last time, then turned back to the computer. The screen now showed a blue background and a message box.

ENTER PASSWORD

Crap, she didn’t have one of those yet. Hopefully James or Robin would be in soon so that she could get one.

“Good morning!”

Amelia walked into the room and the cat went straight for her, rubbing herself on Amelia’s legs. She reached down and scratched the cat behind the ears. “You met Fang?” she said.

“Kind of,” Gabriella said. “She seems a little shy.”

Amelia ran a hand down the Fang’s back and the cat started purring. “She’ll warm up to you, don’t worry.”

She walked over to the computer and looked at the screen. “Oh, did you get your password yet?” she asked.

Gabriella shook her head. “Hang on,” Amelia said. “I’ll go get Bradley.”

Before Gabriella could tell her it was fine, she’d just wait, Amelia took off back toward the other end of the house, calling for Bradley. Turning back to the computer as though it might change its mind, she waited awkwardly in her chair for a moment as Fang looked at her.

A minute later, Amelia was back and she was being followed by Bradley, who was carrying a stack of notebooks. “They told you to do your training, but they didn’t give you a password?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

Gabriella shook her head, feeling her face get hot again. This wasn’t fair. She felt like she’d done something wrong and she hadn’t even done anything at all yet.

Bradley motioned impatiently for her to move over. She slid aside in her chair and he stood by the computer, opening some kind of administrator program. The computer moved slowly, but a moment later he had the program open to a submission form.

“Choose a password,” he said. “Make it hard enough that no one can guess it, but easy enough to remember. Don’t forget it.”

“What happens if I forget it?”

“It’s gone forever.”

“Bradley has to set up a new one and it takes thirty seconds,” Amelia said, now holding a purring Fang in her arms.

“Bradley has better shit to do,” Bradley muttered as he moved aside to let Gabriella enter her password.

She chose something quickly, watched it turn to asterisks on the form, then moved so he could come back. He typed in a few more things, then closed back out of the program.

“Try it now,” he said.

They all waited for an uncomfortable minute while the spinning hourglass rolled on the screen. Just as Gabriella was ready to scream from the awkwardness, the message box popped back up. She typed in her password and a second later, a Welcome screen appeared.

“You’re in,” Bradley said.

“Thanks.” Gabriella said.

He shrugged. “You should have had that yesterday.”

He walked away, nodding to Fang as he went. Amelia rolled her eyes, then smiled at Gabriella. “I’m going downstairs to do my workout, but let me know if you need any help with anything.”

“Thanks,” Gabriella replied. “Um, I’ll let you know.”

Amelia dropped Fang, who took off past Robin’s closed office door and toward the back of the house. Then she turned and walked downstairs. Once she’d left, Gabriella turned back to the program and clicked on Module One.

WELCOME TO THE FOUNDATION FOR PARANORMAL STUDIES. WE’RE GLAD YOU’RE HERE!

A clip art man shakily slid onto the screen, giving her a thumbs up. Then the monitor whirred for a second as he settled into place.

IN THIS FIRST MODULE, YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT THE MISSION OF THE FOUNDATION.

The screen blinked, and Gabriella felt a bolt of panic slide through her. Then it came back into focus.

YOUR LOCATION HAS BEEN PINPOINTED AS NEW BEDFORD. WELCOME TO SOUTH COAST PARANORMAL, A BRANCH OF THE FOUNDATION FOR PARANORMAL STUDIES.

Gabriella glanced outside. The same cheerful suburban neighborhood of Leominster she’d been in this morning seemed to smile back at her. No sign that she had been transported to the coast without realizing it. So apparently their GPS was about eighty miles off base.

The module continued much the same over the next hour. A PowerPoint presentation of the history of the Foundation, along with some fuzzy pictures, slowly chugged across her screen. Gabriella had a feeling that the problems were a combination of both the old computer and whatever out-of-date software they were running this module on.

The screen blinked out again as the focus shifted to the individual branches of the Foundation. But since the only line that made it on screen was, “New Bedford is historically a fishing port, meaning you’ll likely deal with some cases on the water,” she wasn’t sure she was missing anything important.

The front door opened as she was logging back into her module in an attempt to finish it. Robin made his way up the stairs and headed toward her. “Good morning!” he said, his cheerful voice grating slightly on her frazzled nerves. “How’s the first day of training going?”

“Not great,” Gabriella admitted. “The computer keeps having problems, and it thinks I’m in New Bedford.”

“We traded the South Coast branch for that computer,” Robin said, setting down his briefcase on the coffee table. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you anything area-specific that you need to know later.”

The computer made a grinding noise as the screen reappeared, then froze. “I have my laptop with me,” Gabriella said. “Can I just do the modules on there?”

“Sorry,” Robin said far too cheerfully. “Foundation policy is that you have to use their equipment. There’s too much sensitive information to be opening on anything they aren’t able to protect.”

Gabriella was pretty certain that if anyone even thought about installing antivirus software on this computer, it would just melt. But she said nothing, and Robin clapped her on the shoulder. “Just try your best,” he said. “Take your time.”

With that he walked away toward his office, leaving Gabriella staring at a screen that was now blinking at her.

***

“So if there’s anything more important than the training modules, it’s your fitness routine.”

Bradley and Gabriella were standing outside the gym, looking over a binder of exercise routines. The pages in the binder were old and contained graphics of buff men lifting weights and running in short shorts. After three hours of fighting with the training modules, Gabriella was dressed to exercise and ready to work out some of her anger on the treadmill. But apparently Bradley needed to give her a full orientation of the gym or something before she could do that. And based on the sour look on his face, this wasn’t his idea.

“Nobody gives a shit what you look like, it’s not about size,” he continued. “But it is about how limber you are. How fast. You need to be able to get away from a dangerous situation. And you need to be able to get your teammates out of one too. Do you have any kind of workout routine going already?”

Gabriella nodded.

“Good,” Bradley continued. “The Foundation requires us to follow these to an extent. But as long as you can do the things they need you to do, you don’t need to actually follow them line for line every time. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

He pushed open the door and they walked into the tiny gym. As they came in, Gabriella saw James was already in there, running on one of the treadmills. He was sweating through his tank top and had clearly been there a while. Even though he was wearing headphones, he looked up and gave them a wave.

Gabriella waved back. Bradley either didn’t notice or ignored him. “Equipment is all here,” he said. “You can do your workouts during work hours, but don’t leave the property to go for a jog or something like that. We need everyone on call when they’re on the clock.”

Gabriella nodded. “And make sure you actually do the work,” Bradley said. “There was a guy in the Foundation who died a few years ago on a case. He got caught under the corpse of a creature his team killed and wasn’t strong enough to lift it off of himself. The thing’s mate came by and tore him in half.”

Gabriella felt the blood drain from her face. She was about to ask for more details, then immediately start bicep curls at thirty pound free weights. But then she heard James laughing from the treadmill.

“Are you really telling that bullshit story?” he asked, only slightly breathless as he slowed down and stopped running.

He got off the treadmill and came over to where they were standing. “Bradley’s down here telling ghost stories,” he said to Gabriella. “Just do your workouts, stay in shape. You’ll be fine.”

“You won’t be saying it’s bullshit when you get your head ripped off.”

“You’re the one telling the Foundation’s oldest urban legend.”

“Go wipe the treadmill down. It’s got your sweat all over it.”

James smirked, but he went over and pulled a paper towel off the rack and sprayed it with cleaner. He started wiping the treadmill he’d been using as Bradley walked over to the other one. Gabriella wanted to get started with her workout, but didn’t want to be running side by side with Bradley, who was already speeding the treadmill up to a run. So instead, she walked over to the mat and began to warm up.

Maybe the story was bullshit, but it was certainly motivational bullshit.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 6