Finally, many months after I said it would be finished, can I present the fourth chapter from this story. I hope you enjoy this first draft:
Read from the start here: Chapter One
The number of meetings in the central boardroom Susan had ever attended could be counted on the fingers of one hand. While she no doubt realised her position was one of incredible prestige, the room she was about to enter was meant for meetings of the utmost importance, and the less of them the better, she figured.
The elevator doors opened smoothly, presenting to her a white, conspicuous hallway which she very casually stepped out into. Along the walls in front and to the side of her were various holes, all lined up neatly, and she knew that behind each one was a different scanning device. They would check for weapons, unknown substances, even a chemical presence that could cause minor changes in the atmosphere. No chances were being taken when it came to gatherings of the greatest minds alive today.
This brought her to speculate about what the current emergency was. She hadn’t noticed anything particularly unusual so far today. During the last big meeting, there had been many unusual reports handed on her desk which at least clued her in to something bigger, but with this it had almost been business as usual. At least to her own eyes.
At the end of the hallway, a dead end awaited. Except this dead end happened to be a concealed doorway, and after a series of pleased sounding beeps, the way onward was revealed and beyond the white door there existed a reception area.
“Hi Finn,” Susan greeted the receptionist, a dark haired miserable looking woman. “Could you buzz me through please?”
Finn looked up, barely acknowledging Susan’s smiling face, before pushing a button behind the desk and opening the door to the meeting room. Susan quickly escaped.
Inside was truly a marvellous sight. The room reached far back into the underground building and she imagined it could house a full sized athletics circuit inside it. The table was enormous and oval shaped, with at least a hundred seats around it. It was also highly polished to within an inch of its life, which reflected the image of a giant hovering lighting rig above it made up of a thousand tiny twinkling lights. Susan gave the whole space a nickname; the twilight room.
As she rushed to a spare seat, of which there weren’t many left, she scanned the room for familiar faces. Most of the people here she had met before in an official capacity, but some she had only shaken hands with once when she began her job here before never speaking to again. The departments tended to keep to their own, which bode well for keeping the company a secret. The less you knew, the less likely to accidentally spill the beans, at least that’s how she thought of it.
The room was filled with lively chatter, and sitting next to her were two unfamiliar people. As she settled down, she listened in to one of their conversations.
“Nothing, not one thing. I’m as clueless as the rest of us.”
“Well I think by the fact that almost everybody of any level of security is in here, it’s got to be big news.”
“Good or bad though?”
“Oh definitely bad. I’m thinking life changingly bad. I’m just glad I’m working here if anything does kick off today.”
After the less than reassuring eavesdropping, Susan began to simmer the various possibilities in her head. Terrorists? A meteor collision? What could possibly need all of our attention so badly?
As if to answer these questions, the room suddenly fell silent and from the far end of the room, the set of double doors opened and in walked two shadowy figures. The first she recognised, due to its lumpy figure, it was unmistakably Lionel Crutch, the head of the organisation. He had seen this company from its birth around seven years ago to where it stood today, and was responsible for avoiding every major potential disaster that threatened Natalos since. In the back of her mind, seeing him here reassured her. Whatever was coming, she knew he’d have a handle on it.
The other figure slowly came to light, and it was somebody Susan recognised vaguely but couldn’t place. It seemed this was the same situation with her neighbours too, as they began to quietly express their confusion between themselves. The man was tall, built like a machine and wore a green suit, exuding a raw authority which encroached on Crutch’s own natural aura of dominance.
Lionel finally made it to his seat, and he gestured to the man beside him to sit down. As for himself, he remained standing as was always the case.
“Good morning.” He cleared his throat, while panning the room as if ticking off an imaginary register, noting each person his eyes passed over. There was definitely a lingering look when his eyes reached her own though, or did she imagine that? “This has been a very stressful morning and I don’t believe the situation allows for me, or rather us, to waste much time so I’ll keep it as brief as possible.
“First, I’d like to introduce you to a man you might not know but you should recognise. This is Dougal Smith, the General of Natalo’s Army.”
Dougal stood up for a few seconds and nodded, while Susan instantly worked out where she had seen him before. During his reign as the General, he had taken it upon himself to be the public face of the Army. She remembered him making a massive public appearance after the Rogan led crisis that sparked the creation of this very organisation. Every news program managed to interview him in the aftermath of the disaster, as he used his appearance to calm the nation and tell us everything was under control once more. It was surprising that she had completely forgotten his face until just now and here he was standing several metres in front of her. The reason for why this was intrigued her more than ever now.
“As many of you will know, Dougal here led the army through what was our system’s biggest tragedy eight years ago. It was he who managed to maintain public order for the most part during the aftermath, and thus he will be a very important asset today and for however long it takes us to work on the upcoming crisis.”
All of a sudden, Susan felt the instant pang of unease in the pit of her stomach. Not coincidentally, the atmosphere in the room changed too. The entire seated audience was on edge.
“What I am about to reveal to you is top secret, but due to current circumstances it is inevitable that you all should know. I warn you all that if any of the following details are leaked, the perpetrator of the leak will be punished to the highest extent allowed by law. I trust you will all maintain secrecy.
“Eight years ago, I gathered together a team of genetic scientists from across the various government agencies. Once I selected them, they began research on whether it is possible to track an individual by the unique DNA given off through his magi or wari abilities. This time and resource heavy process took five years to develop into a usable form, and using our already well-established surveillance system, we integrated the former into the latter on a trial basis. We tested it on myself and it works. It’s revolutionary, but a complete invasion of privacy and so we put this technology aside. Suffice to say, we never used it on anyone who wasn’t specifically involved and informed, with one major exception.
“This individual, who’s DNA we had plenty of samples of after analysing their corpse, we decided to keep an eye on for completely ludicrous reasons. This individual was the Rogan himself. We all know he perished in an unexplained manner, but we felt we wanted to keep an eye out for anything with his trace on, even though we knew it would be impossible for that to ever happen.”
The whole room was deathly silent. Everybody seemed to have already deduced the real reason they were here, and Susan was now terrified.
“Which brings us to a very intriguing and yet vastly worrying situation. This morning, only hours ago, we received data that confirmed the presence of that DNA once again on the surface of Gaia, the planet which we stand on right now.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t quite know how to phrase this, but it seems our most feared enemy of all, Rogan, is back from the dead.”
Next Chapter: CHAPTER FIVE
