Natasha drove her old Ford Focus through the Sirius Software security checkpoint, parked it at the temporary office, and walked inside.
The air conditioning blasted her with cold air as she entered.
She stood still for a moment, letting the cold air wash over her.
Aaron's office door opened, and he stepped out, dressed in his signature black leather suit.
He gave her a small smile that sent a shiver down her spine.
"Welcome Ms. Parker. Follow me," he said, and led her to a pair of spartan gray concrete lodge-like buildings.
Natasha's curiosity grew as she followed him into the left building, and was assaulted by the smell of fresh paint.
There was a large break room with a table and a few chairs, and a pair of staircases leading up to the first floor.
Aaron led her up the stairs, to reveal a corridor with a series of doors, secured with hand-print locks.
Natasha gasped as she saw her name on the first door. Aaron gestured for her to open it.
With a trembling hand, she placed her palm on the hand-print lock, and the door opened with a soft beep.
Inside was a small but cozy single-bedroom apartment, with a small kitchenette and a bathroom.
The walls were a freshly painted white, and the furniture was still covered in plastic wrap.
"You will find your uniform and equipment in the closet. Gear up and report back at the Temporary Office in 30 minutes," said Aaron, leaving her alone in the apartment.
Natasha sank onto the bed, trying to process what had just happened.
She was used to unexpected situations, but this was something else entirely.
She had applied for a security guard job, thinking that it would be the mundane activity of patrolling corridors, checking IDs and monitoring security cameras.
The kind of boring job that had a four-hour shift, paid a few bucks an hour, and was a good way to stay in the background while gathering intelligence.
Instead, she had been put through a tactical skill assessment, and was given a fully furnished apartment instead of needing to bunk with 8 other employees in a cramped dormitory.
With a sigh, she got up and opened the closet.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" she exclaimed, as she saw the uniform nestled in the closet.
It was constructed from thick black leather.
Not the thin delicate stuff used in haute couture, or the fake stuff used in mass-production - this was pure cowhide leather.
Tanned jet-black, polished to a high sheen, and smelling decadent.
The uniform had an over-bust corset with heavy boning instead of a shirt.
A high-waisted pencil skirt cut to mid-thigh, and a pair of thick black pantyhose with reinforced toes, heels, gusset, and waistband was the bottom half.
The shoes were thigh-high leather boots with wickedly gleaming 8 cm metal stiletto heels.
A single-breasted blazer with a nipped waist and a stylish peaked-lapel collar was supposed to go over the corset.
Finally, the uniform featured gauntlet-style leather gloves that extended to the forearms and had sharp metal spikes on the knuckles.
"What the hell is this boy thinking? Am I supposed to be some kind of fetish model or cosplayer?" she growled in indignation, grabbing the blazer.
Her hand stilled as she felt its weight.
Her fingers probed the inside, and felt metal under the satin lining of the blazer.
Anger gave way to curiosity as she carefully pulled it out of the closet.
She placed it on the bed and spread it open.
"Armor plating?" she asked herself as she ran her fingers over the lining.
She felt the contours of a back protector, along with shoulder and elbow pads.
Pulling apart the Velcro flaps inside, she lifted out a flexible segmented metal plate from the back protector pocket.
"Don't tell me that the armor is titanium!" she said incredulously, recognizing the metal.
She carefully put the plate back, and set the blazer aside.
She pulled out the corset and skirt. The corset's satin lining also belied the presence of some kind of chain-mail armor.
The skirt had a similar lining in the crotch and seat, and featured an integrated waist-level gun belt.
With a shrug, she changed into the pantyhose, corset and skirt.
After zipping up the boots, she experimented walking around the apartment.
The boot heels made a menacing click on the floor, and she found herself walking with a confident stride, her hips swaying slightly.
There were reinforcements in the heels, toes and ankles that made her feel planted and stable, despite the 8 cm heels.
In fact, they were even more comfortable than the low-heeled pumps of her army dress-uniform.
She stopped in front of the mirror and gasped at how good she looked.
"Why does this fit so well?" she murmured, as she examined her reflection.
Bracing herself, she carefully lifted her right leg as high as she could.
The skirt yielded effortlessly to her movement, with darts and vents opening up to allow her to easily lift her leg till she was in a standing split.
The titanium toe-box, instep and heel of her left boot giving her the stability to hold the pose.
"I just did a standing split in a pencil skirt and stiletto heels," she chuckled wryly, as she lowered her leg.
She picked up one of the gloves and examined the metal on the knuckles.
"Titanium knuckle-dusters? Of course, why not?" she chuckled, pulling on the gloves and flexing her gloved fingers.
"Whoa!" she exclaimed as her thumb pressed a switch hidden in the palm of the gloves, and electricity crackled through the titanium spikes on her knuckles.
She finally pulled on the blazer and buttoned it closed.
"Making a tired old woman who's pushing 40 dress like some comic book femme fatale for a security guard job! You are one sick individual Aaron Zakhrov," she said, as she examined her reflection in the mirror.
The uniform seemed to have taken 15 years off her age, and she looked like a cross between a dominatrix and a villainess rather than a nondescript security guard that was meant to blend in.
She started to equip the rest of her gear: two 9 mm handguns with built-in LED flashlights, 4 magazines of low-velocity non-lethal rubber bullets, a pair of 30 cm long titanium knives, a zip-tie dispenser, and a baton.
With a final look in the mirror, she walked out of the apartment and headed to the temporary office.
---
"This thing is definitely not built for covert operations," chuckled Natasha to herself, hearing the leather creak, and her boots click with each step as she walked across the compound to the temporary office.
She entered the office, grateful that nobody had seen her yet.
While she appreciated the look and the functionality of the uniform, she was still a little self-conscious about it and still felt it was more costume than uniform.
"Natasha Parker, reporting for duty," she announced into the intercom outside Aaron's office.
The door opened, and she entered the office.
"Any issues with the fitment Ms. Parker?" asked Aaron, gesturing for her to sit down.
"No sir, however I do have some questions," replied Natasha, sitting down in the chair, masking her surprise at how well the uniform yielded despite being loaded with gear.
"Go ahead," said Aaron, leaning back in his chair.
"First, why this kind of get-up? This hardly looks like a normal security guard uniform," she asked.
"Let's just say it is a test-run for the eventual kind of security I intend to replace my contracted guards with," said Aaron with a smirk.
Natasha folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.
"This office and compound are not in their final forms, Ms. Parker. Your uniform might look out of place now, but once my headquarters are finished, those aesthetics will blend right in. And as you have no doubt assessed, there is function behind that form," replied Aaron.
"That may be true in the future, Mr. Zakhrov, but right now, I feel like a cosplayer, not a security guard. I appreciate the engineering, but why couldn't I get a normal guard's uniform?" asked Natasha, unimpressed by Aaron's answer.
"Reason number one. I refuse to compromise on my aesthetic vision and control. All that does is allow the riff-raff obsessed with blandness and uniformity disguised as equality get a foothold in my company.
Reason number two. Image based intimidation is the first line of defense, particularly against social-justice obsessed vermin and their political backers who are my chief enemies. The more they are provoked, the better.
Reason number three. When I saw your application profile and your performance in the skill test, I decided that I wanted you not as a random security guard, but as my personal bodyguard, head of security and as arm-candy deterrent against honey-traps and gold-diggers. And I like my arm-candy to reflect my tastes," said Aaron, as Natasha's eyes widened in shock.
"I'm almost old enough to be your mother, and you want me as arm-candy? I don't know if I should be flattered or furious." muttered Natasha, blushing crimson.
"So what will it be Ms. Parker? Are you going to embrace that uniform and everything that comes with it? Or are you going to go back to the safety of the ill-fitting polyester skirt-suit and pumps you arrived in? You've got 30 minutes to make your decision. If you decide to accept my offer, report back here in uniform. If not, I expect you off my property by that time. Dismissed." said Aaron, turning back to his computer.
---
Natasha leaned against the closed door of Aaron's office, her mind reeling from the conversation.
Aaron's audacious and blatant reasons should have had her storming out of his office, or even earned him a punch or slap in the face. Instead, they spoke to a part of her soul she thought that she had already made peace with - the idea that she'd never serve a higher purpose in an organization where she felt valued.
Her stint in the military had been short. She had been disavowed by the CIA after barely a year of service, and had been working as a private investigator for Senator Clarke and now Monica Goldberg for the better part of a decade.
As a private investigator, she had watched as corrupt politicians used the information she gathered to silence rivals, destroy lives and careers, and cover up their own nefarious deeds.
Aaron himself had been a tragic victim of those machinations: Senator Clarke had used the GitHub information Natasha had acquired to farm moral outrage over a piece of fiction, and Aaron had been expelled from St. Ignatius Academy and disowned by his family.
Yet, here he was, forging his own path, building a company that had again attracted the ire of the same corrupt politicians and oligarchs that had ruined his life. And yet again, she was being sent to gather information that they would use to destroy him.
Guilt threatened to eat her alive. It was one thing to be a regular security guard and just passively gather information. That kind of role she was able to rationalize that whatever ramifications her information gathering had, it was not her fault or responsibility.
Information by itself doesn't do squat until somebody uses it.
This was different. Aaron wanted her to be his personal bodyguard, run interference against honey-traps and gold-diggers, and be his head of security - meaning she would be responsible for training and vetting whoever else he hired as security or even as normal employees.
More than that, she would be close to Aaron, and would be privy to his plans and ideas. She would be responsible for protecting him from the very people she had been sent to spy on.
Could she still continue her mission knowing that she was betraying his trust in her?
He wasn't some Middle-Eastern warlord with a harem and an oil well.
He was a barely-legal kid who had clawed his way out of cancel-culture hell, and was trying to build something of his own.
What would happen if he finds out the brutal truth of who had hacked his GitHub account four years ago? What would he do if he found out that she was here to spy on him?
Her CIA training kicked in, and she forced herself to calm down.
"What do I want?" she asked herself. Her confusion was replaced with a single burst of clarity as the memory of Aaron's 13-year-old self flashed in her mind.
"That's right. Monica Goldberg can go to hell. I want what Aaron's offering. And if worse comes to worst, I can make peace with the fact that I'm doing the right thing this time around" she thought, as she straightened her back, dried her tears, and buzzed the intercom.
"Mr. Zakhrov, I have made my decision. Permission to report for duty." she said, her voice steady and firm.