Samantha Manson took a deep breath and attempted to calm herself, trying not to look too frazzled for her first day at her new job as she stepped onto the elevator. It was occupied by only one other person, a tall black haired man carrying an abundance of coffees, she payed him no mind, intent instead on calming herself down.

It was a rather intense affair, her transfer. It seemed that one minute, she was just another agent, investigating white collar crime in Denver. She had been damn good at her job, thanks to a bit of an unfair advantage that she had kept under wraps. Sam had been especially careful about her talents, and no one knew a damn thing.

Or so she had thought.

Apparently someone, somewhere, had taken notice, and then suddenly everything had changed. A whirlwind transfer to a department she had never heard of outside of a town that didn't seem to be on any maps, no questions asked, no protests allowed, no information given. It was all as stereo-typically hush-hush as one would expect, and as Sam had assured herself countless times it wasn't, there had even been men in black suits and dark sunglasses.

Go figure.

And now she was inside the intimidatingly grey concrete building with frighteningly few windows, in an elevator headed down, down, down, and she had no idea what she was getting into.

Or if she had options to get out of it.

It was all getting incredibly stifling, and she was starting to feel claustrophobic.

The elevator kept descending.

Sam was broken out of her thoughts, thankfully, as she would have probably proceeded to hyperventilate if she had not been distracted, by the man she had barely noticed when she got on.

"You're Miss Manson, right? The new transfer?" He asked, breaking the stifling silence, and Sam's eyes snapped up from the floor to meet his blue ones, startled.

There was an embarrassingly long pause before she realized she was supposed to reply.

"Oh. Yes, that's me." Her voice came out in an embarrassing croak, and she cleared her throat uncomfortably.
The man smiled genially and looked almost as though he was trying not to laugh. "Then this would be your coffee." He plucked one of the paper cups from his little tray and heald it out to her.

Sam stared at it for a moment before taking it. It was a nice gesture, and she had been in too much of a rush to get coffee that morning, and she would undoubtedly gulp it down, despite the fact that it almost certainly wouldn't comply to her very specific tastes.

"Half spoonful of sugar, no cream, right?" Sam's attention snapped back to the man, who she found to be grinning mischievously at her. She met his smile with suspiciously narrowed eyes.

"Yes... But how could you possibly know that?" As if things hadn't been strange enough already.

"I do my research." His smile widened and he winked.

Sam raised an eyebrow and eyed the man skeptically, taking a moment to observe his appearance. He was tall, his shoulders were fairly broad, and he held himself awkwardly, as if he wasn't quite used to his own size. He seemed to be around Sam's own age, in his late twenties at most, dressed casually, and with previously mentioned bright blue eyes and messy black hair.

"You do realize how incredibly creepy that sounds?" She stated, finally, and his grin grew sheepish.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah sorry. But honestly, Miss Manson? It gets so much worse." He shook his head at her bewildered look. "I don't even want to guess at what Mr. Foley must have dug up on you by now, and he's not even a psychic."

"A what?" Sam asked sharply, but the man didn't seem to register her tone.

"Yeah, Miss Fenton is our resident mind reader, but you don't have to worry about her, she doesn't go digging around in minds for fun, thank god. If she starts telling you all about yourself it's because she was a profiler before her transfer." He seemed to finally notice the stricken look on her face, and promptly hit himself on the forehead. "Damn, I'm sorry, they didn't tell you anything, did they, Miss Manson?"

Sam mutely shook her head.

"This happens every time. Management is terrible at explaining this type of thing, all about secrets and protocols with no actual idea of how confusing they can be." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, Miss Manson, you've been transferred to the Paranormal Investigations Unit, someone upstairs found out about whatever makes you special and arranged for a transfer. Don't know what team you'll be assigned to, hope for were-wolves, they only have to work a couple days every month."

"Paranormal Investigations." She repeated dumbly.

"Bit of a shock, I know. Don't worry, some people might give you a hard time, but they've all been where you are. At one point or another, they were all pretty blind to this." He waved a hand vaguely, gesturing to open air. Sam noted that the elevator was still descending, and wondered how far down they were. "If Mr. Foley teases you, just keep in mind that he fainted every day for the first week, feel free to reming him too."

"Right." Sam swallowed, her mouth and throat suddenly quite dry.

At least now she knew what she was getting into.

Somehow she didn't feel much better.

The elevator stopped with a ding and the doors slid open.

"Well that's us, enjoy your first day, Miss Manson." The Blue-eyed man waved as he stepped off.

"Wait, sorry, I didn't catch your name?" Sam lurched forward and off the elevator, not her usual coordinated self for once.

"I'm Danny."

"Danny who?"

"Just Danny, Miss Manson." He smiled again, and Sam had the distinct impression that he did a lot of smiling.

"You can call me Sam you know." She called after him as he turned to the left down the green tiled hallway.

He glanced back over his shoulder, and this time his smile almost seemed sad.

"Sorry Miss Manson, I really can't."

And then he was gone.

The underground facility was bigger than she'd expected, and, partially thanks to her nerves, it took quite a few wrong turns and sets of directions from helpful strangers before she found the office where she was meant to check in.
The office, when she finally found it, reminded her of the waiting room at her old school, where delinquents would sit and wait to see the principal in order to discuss their offences. Standing before the ancient woman at the desk, Sam's mind was cast back there, as she sipped her coffee, remembering the countless times she'd been sentenced to wait there because of a protest gone wrong.

Or right, it depended on the point of view.

Who, back then, would have expected her to end up working for the government? She certainly hadn't.

The wrinkled old lady finally handed her a badge, after several minutes of rifling around for the proper documents. "Spirits and Spectres division. Room 324." She rasped.

"Right." Sam cast around in her mind for an idea of where that might be, but found nothing. "And that would be...?"

"Down the hall, second left, first right, at the end of that hall, can't miss it." The woman droned, turning back to her computer. "You're going to be busy, they're understaffed."

"A lot of hauntings to deal with, then?" Sam asked, hoping that she hadn't just said something thick, but with the way the secretary snorted, she guessed that she had."

"Around here? Even with Mr. Mystery Expert, the're swamped. I tell ya, we need an army of him, suspicious as he is." Sam was quickly filing the ancient crab-apple away as a useful source of information.

"Who's that then?"

"Oh Sir Handsome-no-last-name-given Daniel. This building's full of suspicious characters Miss Manson, but big blue eyes takes the cake. Pops up out of nowhere couple of years ago, no transfer, no records, just 'a consultant' and a notice from somewhere so far up the chain of command I didn't even know existed." She seemed to have forgotten Sam was even present, ranting purely to herself, before she pulled her attention back to the violet eyed woman. "Still, he seems like a nice boy. But I'd keep an eye on him if I were you, Miss Manson. Everyone trusts him a little too much if you ask me. Too bad no one ever does."

"I think they should more often, thanks for the info Mrs. Kirscht." Sam's head was reeling from everything that had been dumped on her in the past few minutes. It seemed nothing could be taken at face value anymore. "I'd best go meet my new team."

"You're such a lovely young lady Miss Manson, good luck with your new team." The old woman smiled, seeming younger without the pinched look that she had held ever since Sam had entered her office.

"Please, call me Sam. I'll be seeing you Mrs. Kirscht."

"I should hope so, Sam!"

The black haired woman smiled despite herself as she left the office, deciding that the aged secretary wasn't as bad as first impressions dictated.

Speaking of first impressions, it seemed friendly elevator guy was more than he appeared. So "Just Danny" hadn't just been reluctant to supply his last name to her, he really was "Just Danny".

Well this was shaping up to be a spectacular adventure. Sam felt apprehension and excitement bubble up in the pit of her stomach.
Who knew what lay ahead now? She had been expecting strange and her expectations still managed to be surpassed

And then some.

It was getting to be all too much, and Sam had a feeling there was going to be even more weirdness ahead. Especially with meeting her new team in her immediate future.
Now, where had Mrs. Kirscht said room 324 was...?
Damn.

It was not her fault, she was a perfectly competent adult with an impeccable sense of direction.
The facility was a maze, damn it. How did anyone find anything in this god forsaken underground fortress?
Sam rounded yet another corner into yet another identical corridor, only to find, to her great joy, that the door at the very end of the hall was marked with dull gold numbers reading, thank the lord, 324.
The FBI agent, acting as undignified as she had been all day, practically sprinted down the hall, grinning as she finally thrust open the proper door.

A little short, yes, but I think it makes a pretty brilliant prologue.
Right, hi. I've been inactive for a long time, at least on this site, but I'm back again.
So I have quite a bit of this planned out, a bit fuzzy on the details, and I don't want to give anything away, but I have a better shot at a plot here than I usually do.
The updates might be a bit irregular, because I have a habit of just sort of... sitting down and writing writing writing and then quitting for ages before coming back to it.
Plus I have exams coming up.
Well, Exam. But after Monday and Tuesday, I'm going to have quite a bit of free time, so things might take off then. Who knows.
Yes, Who nose.
Anyway, sorry, leave a review if you can, because it's always appreciated, but just... yeah let me know if you like it. I'm not making a very big attempt at making this accurate to American Government Agency... stuff but I have been reading the FBI's website, so I'm going to do my best to not put my foot in my mouth on policies and stuff. The Paranormal Investigations Unit is almost a separate operation anyway, so I can basically go whichever way I want on this.
Well that's that! I'm on a Danny Phantom kick, so you might be able to expect more from me soon, whether on this fic or others.