Chapter 4

*Rin*

Okay, I'm going to admit. When Lin said they weren't just grabbing anyone from off the street, I thought that meant there wasn't going to be that many extras.

But what I'm seeing was ridiculous.

Picture this. As I drove in there were orange cones that were set up to direct those participating. These cones took me all the way to the back of the lot.

Along the way there were no activity in any of the surrounding area. Strange to me at the time, but my attention was taken away by the cones leading directly to the parking lot.

And believe me when I say, I was surprised, I mean that in the pure definition of the word.

There was a whole parking lot of cars. Like, supermarket parking lot filled with cars. Even more surprising was the amount of people that seemed to be waiting in front of their vehicles.

In front of that huge parking lot was a warehouse. Presumably one used for movie sets and such but this was bigger then any other of the buildings here. The front of which had doors that were about as big as the building itself.

Doors that had started to slide open just a little as I got to a parking spot near the left corner of the lot.

Checking the time, it was 5:20 already. Grabbing my phone, I got out the car. In front of the warehouse was a group of people that looked to be part of the film crew yelling out for people to start coming in. Words I hadn't heard because of how far I was to the left.

I pulled up my messages to text Lin, but there was already a text from him.

"We are calling everyone in dude."

I replied with a simple okay, and started to make my way over also.

Looking around there were a sizable amount of us going inside. There was a variety of us it seemed, old and young. Some seemed to be teenagers, even kids. All the kids and teens I saw seemed to have more then one guardian with them.

"Maybe, we are gonna be doing a lot of public space shoots in this series?" I thought to myself entering the warehouse with the last of the crowd.

There were probably well over 100 people here. Maybe 200? I couldn't tell. All varying

Still it seemed like we could fill up the space of maybe half of the warehouse at most if we all spaced out a bit.

Only reason we didn't go farther in the warehouse was because of the giant wall covering the rest of the warehouse behind this small circle stage in the middle.

I chose a space in the center closer to the stage. Along the way I heard people talking all around me.

"Do you know what this is for?"

"No. It's a very weird situation though."

"Oh? What do you mean."

"We were told it to come to this location only. We weren't even restricted or told what to bring."

"Oh yeah, that is weird. I didn't think about it and just came here the same way I usually do."

Thinking about what everyone was saying, it was true. The email didn't really say what to do aside from just coming to this location.

As I was wondering about that email, I felt a tug on the bottom of my shirt.

I turned around to look. When I saw no one I was confused until I looked now and saw a kid. She was maybe four or five years old?

She was a small little thing. She stood only up to my knee. That would make her around 2 to three feet tall since I'm only 5'8"(Yeah yeah, I'm short.)

She looked like doll actually. She had a bit of curly hair down to her shoulders, and had lighter skin color then my darker olive skin. She had thin eyes and a chubby face which made me think of Lin's Korean half sister on his dads side. Her eyes were deep pools of black seemed like they were shining brilliantly.

This was the kid that you brag about to your work friends about how they got their looks from you.

Said little girl was staring straight at me as I turned around.

I look back up from her to scan around for a guardian, but I couldn't see anyone looking for her.

Looking down back at her I smiled and asked, "hey there! Are you looking for your parents?"

No response was given. Just a shake of her head. That's when I saw it. When she shook her head, I saw that she had something on her ear when her hair moved.

"She's deaf," I thought to myself, seeing the hearing aid. Her hand was still holding onto the bottom of my shirt while she was looking at me.

I had just started to open my mouth, when I heard, "Reyna! There you are!"

A slightly frantic gruff voice sounded from behind a group of people. Moving through the crowd a bit, was an old man. Around his 60's or so. He had greying hair on his head and his beard. A different contrast to his dark brown skin. He reminds me of a younger Morgan freeman when he was at that age.

Seemed like a clean cut old man. He was dressed up in some nice looking clothes and had a watch. Even a cane. Seeing the cane had made me notice that he did walk with a slight limp, that was barely noticeable if you didn't look.

He gave a little exasperated laugh before he came up to us. The little girl, Reyna, looked at the old man. Seeing the old man, she let go of my shirt and walked over in a quick little shuffle and gestured to the old man to pick her up. To which he obliged.

Holding her she leaned her head on his shoulder, as he started to talk, "I said you can walk around but not to go too far," looking at me with a knowing look, "kids."

Laughing, I responded, "that's right, I'm glad you came fast enough, she didn't respond when I asked her where you were and I was worried that her hearing aid was out of sync or something."

"Ahhh it's nothing if the sort, she is just too shy," he said before looking me up and down in interest.

Continuing to speak he then said, "although… just the fact that she came up to you must mean something though."

Giggling a bit, because while laying her in his shoulder she started to play with his beard. He didn't seem to mind.

"She probably just grabbed me randomly, when she was looking for you," I told him.

"Maybe," he responded with a hearty laugh.

"You came here for being an extra?" I asked.

A shake of his head no, he said, "my little granddaughter is here to participate. I'm just here as her guardian. One of the requirements was for there to be at least two guardians here for child actors."

"Two?" I looked around, "is the other guardian here?" I asked noticing he wasn't with anyone else.

He smiled and shook his head. "She's here but she's a little busy. We will be going inside to meet her in a bit. We just came out to the holding area to see everyone else."

Catching on to what he said. I asked, "do you already know what's going on?"

He said he came out to see everyone, so does that mean the other guardian is part of the film crew? Does that mean the little girl isn't an extra?

"A little bit. I'm not so caught up with everything but Reyna here is going to be-, oh hold on a second," he said as he grabbed his phone from his pocket.

"I have to take Reyna inside now," he said as he turned around.

Feeling that this was a little sudden as he was just about to respond to my question. I was just about to call out to him when I saw someone walking up to the stage in the middle.

"Welcome Everyone! Thank you for waiting." As he said that, I turned around to see the old man walking with Reyna in his arms towards the side of the large stage where there was a door to the side. Last thing I saw from them was Reyna waving her little hand at me.

Paying attention to the stage now, I saw that the man standing there was speaking into a mike that came up from the stage. The man was wearing jeans and a black collared shirt with a tag of some sort on his chest.

In his hand was a clipboard of some sort, and after reading through it real quick he started to speak.

"Again. Hello everyone! I'm sure every one of you are wondering the same thing. Those of you that are veterans in being extras in movies and such must be even more confused then those that are new."

Murmurs of agreement were heard throughout the area.

He continued, "I am Matthew Lauren, and I am part of the the assistant directors team, and even I must say that this is entirely new to me. Even after being part of the Extras orientation team this whole time. But it is time to break convention and say that for those of you that signed up to be extras, I must say you all have struck gold."

Dramatic silence ensued. Which is why he stopped (I'm being sarcastic here.)

"This project is the largest most ambitious project yet in the industry. All of you here, are people chosen to be part of a whole new world of television!" He stated excitedly.

"Before I even continue to explain with what I must say this," he paused. "This comes straight above even Amaze Studios."

With a serious face he stated, "those of you that want to leave can leave at any time. Including now. Just know that once you hear and see anything from beyond this point, that will truly be the point of no return. Because if you leave after this point, be it because of your own choice, or because we let you go, if you reveal anything, or go against your NDA in any capacity, we will make sure that you will lose everything. Yes, this is a blatant warning to all of you. Will it be a case of a corporate giant against one family? Yes it will, and it will be done with the most vicious consequences allowed by law. So again. Continuing beyond this point will mean you still agree despite all that has just been said by us or signed by you. I will give you time now if any of you want to leave."

After that long threat basically, I was surprised myself that I didn't leave. It seemed a little too much for a volunteer extra position. Even more surprising was that no one left. I was pretty sure that everyone had the same thought as me at that point. "It's just being an extra," was the General consensus to us also being okay with it anyways.

After the little wait, Matthew returned to his chirpy self, and continued.

"You all made a wise decision. And now we may start on the new chapter in television history." He turned around and dramatically spread his arms.

"Lift the wall!" He yelled.

And to everyone's amazement. The wall actually rose. Loud sounds of gears turning somewhere, could be heard with the grinding of the wall rising to the top like a huge garage door.

What lay on the other wall was confusing to say the least.

Someone next to me said it out loud first.

"Office desks?"

That's right. Office desks. All of which seemed connected to each other in rows. Some desk spaces seemed to be larger then others.

That's when the sides of of the warehouse started to make noise also. There was a catwalk with stairs that lead up to it on the side of the warehouse but I hadn't paid attention to it. It seemed like on the upper level of this warehouse, there was a partition that had blocked the activity that was happening behind the side walls. There were a lot of people. All of them were on desks that could be seen through the wall and they were on computers and such.

On the catwalks that stretched across the warehouse behind the wall that had lifted up there was people walking around it doing things.

All that activity was happening and there was barely any notice of it because of the sound of all 200 to 300 of us talking as we're waiting.

The center stage which Matthew had gotten off of a long time ago, was currently in the process of being moved by a forklift that had come in from the back doors of the warehouse that moved along the sides of the warehouse.

When Matthew looked back at the crowd, he said, "welcome to your work space everyone!"

Seeing the confusion on our faces he said, "I was expecting a bit of wonder and amazement admittedly but yes it's because," he turned around and seemed to notice the office desks himself before turning back and laughing awkwardly, "I forgot."

Looking to the top left he made a motion, and then we saw the desks light up.

Looking at the crowd afterwards he yelled out loud, "if you please look at your phones, you should be receiving the messages of your work station in your email. Please proceed to your work station and await further instruction there."

Multiple sounds of notifications were going off as everyone looked at their phones.

Looking at mine I saw, a code that said, "13A."

It was a shown as a link which after clicking directed me to a page where I could find my desk. It was a map of the warehouse and where I was. Following the direction I went over to the office desk.

As I was headed there I saw a message from Lin. A singular word.

"Grunt."