Mitchell knew one thing: he did not belong here.
Sitting to his left was Hardy A. Stone; a 5-star general, a 6-war veteran, and victor of 7 battles.
To his right, was Dug E. Graves; a man as large as a mountain, hard as steel, and with a large scar across his face from the fall of Earth.
Meanwhile, Mitchell sat between them, like a piece of grass between 2 trees. Small, pathetic, and irrelevant. His seat wasn’t even labeled. No, the seat he currently sat in was reserved for Doctor Mortagast Chambers, Mitchell’s boss of the past few years.
But it was none of these men that Mitchell feared- well, he did fear them, but not as much as Him. The CEO himself. Old black-hands, Hero of Plat Binary, Victor of a Dozen Battles, and rightful ruler of Mankind itself. Mitchell had already met him at least 4-ish times, but each time the man had a gravely-dark aura around him that seemed to suck the life of even the most beautiful flowers that happened to be blossoming within 30 feet of him.
At least that's how he appeared in person- apparently he was once pretty heroic and charismatic in battle once. But Mitchell never saw that man.
Mitchell took a deep breath.
“C’mon, get it together,” he told himself. “I’ve survived worse than this…”
Mitchell took small comfort, knowing men called him the “Sole Survivor” behind his back. Surely the Sole Survivor would fit in with The Black Captain, and The Hero of Men.
Suddenly, the talking and clattering room stopped, with the door creaking.
“Attention!” A voice announced- Mitchell looked up to see a bodyguard standing by the opened door. “To the Senior Executive, Lord Jenson!”
All the men in the room stood up, as if robotically, in custom. Mitchell scampered to his feet, delayed by the room for a second.
He could feel their eyes glowing with disapproval- although Mitchell didn’t see it. Dead last to strand up. God, he was such an amature.
Mitchell could hear the echo of small footsteps entering the room. He felt as though the rumbling front he footstep alone was enough to blow him away like a card in the wind.
“Just look straight ahead,” Mitchell thought to himself. “Don’t make eye conta-”
And that's when he saw her, straight ahead, sitting directly in front of him at the JCJenson executive council meeting: Ellia Jenson, the heir apparent to the Jenson throne, and beautiful as a warm flowered-meadow.
People once said the Senior Executive was handsome back in his prime- and Mitchell could see those looks made an impact; although Mitchell couldn’t see any similarities to note of. Indeed, where The Executive was tall, and his daughter short. Where his hair was blond -or at least was- her hair was dead black. Where his chin was sharp, hers was small. And where his eyes were intoxicatingly blue, hers was brown as soil.
But the one trait she did keep was being absolutely beautiful. Just the mere sight of her gave Mitchell a stomach of butterflies.
“Ok ok ok, not there!” He thought to himself desperately. “Just look normal! Look down!”
Mitchell stared down, his stance as sharp and still as a robot, looking at the brown mahogany table- a small thing, made entirely of wood taken from Earth itself. A reminder of their heritage.
What was wrong with him? She's ENTIRELY out of his league. Just stop thinking about it already.
Mitchell was broken out of his stance by the stop of the omnipresent footsteps. Creaking his eyes up, Mitchell saw the Lord CEO sit down casually at his desk.
“At ease,” The lord made a wave with his hand, and the entire table sat down. Mitchell barely even caught the memo in time.
Mitchell was uncomfortably close to the front of the table. And the Executive’s glare fixed on him immediately.
“Where?” The CEO said, in a voice decisive enough to tell you who and why he was asking.
“Oh uhh- Lord Chambers couldn’t come today,” Mitchell choked on his words. “He’s sick- with pneumonia!” Mitchell immediately regretted the words- sick just sounded like a common schoolboy. “I came in his place, as the deputy secretary…”
Yeah, that was an adult come back.
The CEO looked longingly at him, his one black-blue eye sagging.
“And do you think that you can live up to him, Lord Mitchell?” The CEO said, his voice monotone with doubt.
Mitchell all but pissed himself. “Uhhh- I don’t know your grace…”
What was he meant to say?
“Then pray he lives,” His voice is as certain as fact, and casual and cruel. “Elliott,” he finished, with the wave of his hand.
Ellia stood up, and filed a paper, reading aloud.
“As you are well aware,” She started, her voice young yet energetic. “The Absolute Solver Fabric, which has departed Earth, has yet to reappear on our scanners… As per the 5 week deadline to find the Solver, we must discuss further action.”
She sat back down, and Mitchell needed at least a few good seconds before her words even rattled into his brain.
“Holmes?” The CEO said. Gesturing to a man at the table.
“No new updates, our efforts to search for the Solver have come up empty handed,” Holmes said. “Our spy-sadalights have detected no new messages or spaceships around Copper-9. It’s dead silent.”
“And what of minor signals?” A voice said from further back- this time a man named Tim.
“We can’t say, our equipment just isn’t strong enough to pick small bursts from across the galaxy,” Holmes said. “It’s nothing…”
“So we’ve called this entire meeting just for you to tell me you don’t know where she is?” The CEO said, his voice popish.
“No no no- your grace,” Holmes said. “I was hoping to ask for the 2 additional spy sidelights from the Orion belt…”
“Hold on now!” Tim said. “You already have 12 of our 16 modern spy satellites focused on your pet-project in the Copper-system. We had to remove our scopes on Earth and Proxima just to make it happen- replacing them only with old equipment from 100 years ago. Solver could’ve been on Earth, blasting radio signals for the past 4 weeks, and we wouldn’t know, because the sup-part spy satellites we replaced them with wouldn’t be able to decode it for 8 weeks. If 12 of 16 isn’t enough, then nothing is!”
“We know it's on copper-9!” Holmes protested. “Our new satellites are thorough and modern- she couldn’t have slipped past them. Not unless she hitched herself on an asteroid trip to our hideout, which'd take hundreds of years to travel here, or if stayed on Copper-9, which is exactly what she did!”
“I do want to point out gentlemen,” Graves said. “We have scouts across the galaxy- if they haven’t reported the Solver, it’s unlikely she came back…”
If they haven’t reported anything.
Mitchell remembered it- it was a small report; given to Chambers, but Mitchell read it anyway, given it was his job to sort out which reports were important for Chambers to hear; reporting one particular drone on proxima.
“Well- uhh,” Michell’s voice broke even as he lifted off the ground. “I do have something.”
The entire room fell silent. Mitchell could feel their gazes staring into his soul.
“A report came in- from scouts at the Proxima safehouse,” Mitchell croaked. “They reported encountering a drone -just a worker- wearing a maid outfit, and black hair. It claimed to be Tessa James Elliott. The men blasted her, and chased her away. But not long after, they got into a tumble with some local drones. Then finally, they were attacked by a squad of Murderdrones. Models M, W, and B…”
Mitchell took a deep breath.
“Now, it could be that the Solver is… This drone,” Mitchell said. “It pretends to be Elliott- Now, I may not know everything but- who knows?”
“I doubt it,” Holmes said. “If I had a nickel for every time a soldier saw some weird shit, and claimed it was fairies, I’d be richer than James Elliott.”
“Hmm,” Graves said. “And what proof is there that this happened?”
“Well I don’t have much but, there is footage, from one man,” Mitchell said. “Cause the rest died.”
“More than like it’s some random drone, we know those things aren’t sane anyway,” Holmes said.
“I agree with the Sole Survivor…” Graves said.
As the room began to quarrel, Mitchell strangely couldn’t listen. His eyes were drawing ever closer to the Lord CEO. The Sole Executive’s eye was fixed on a painting, hanging on a wall. A detailed classic, detailing the bloodied floors of Saint Elliott’s martyrdom. Mitchell was never a religious man- he just never cared to learn about it. But the way the Lord CEO stared at it seemed as though it was something personal.
“I will dispatch a team to investigate this rumor,” The Lord said, silencing the room with his speech. “Holmes, you will not get them. We will be needing them.If the Solver is planning a surprise, she could be here in days. I won’t risk it.”
“Hardy, Take the Genesis to location X-9 Bravo. Graves, ready the fleet all hours, including PC munitions. Holmes, keeping looking. Tim, expect a satellite back in about 2 weeks,” The CEO’s voice was final, but more optimistic than previously. His vocabulary increasing. “If we don’t find the Solver soon, expect to send teams to Copper-9…”
Silence fell at the table.
“Anything else?” The CEO said, and upon no reply, he sounded the end of the meeting.
As Mitchell left, a huge weight fell off his shoulders.
Heh, he actually did something useful! Maybe he actually could help. Maybe he even saved the human race- for real this time.
It saddened Mitchell that he couldn't save the patch. When the search parties found him, they took him off without so much as a brief glimpse into the hole.
Just think- if that stupid drone just didn’t throw that blasted patch into the hole, Mitchell wouldn’t be the Sole Survivor, he’d be the Savior of Mankind!
Too late now. Mitchell was almost sad that his team did find something. He begged the Chambers to send a team to hunt the patch down- but was refused everytime. He nearly even asked the CEO, but couldn’t stomach talking to him. At least now, with the team, there was hope it could be found again. Or, if the Proxima-drone really was the anti-christ, at least Michell could do something useful.
But in all, that meeting went well. Maybe he even impressed the princess- or nobody. He didn’t care about her. He didn’t. And he certainly didn’t want to impress her.
“Edmund Mitchell?” A familiar feminine voice broke Mitchell harshly out of his mind.
Freezing like a robot, Mitchell slowly turned around.
“H-hey!” Mitchell said. “Uhh, anything I can do?”
“Yes,” Ellia said. “My lord Father wants access to these reports you’ve read. Says it’s “interesting.’”
“O-o-of c-course!” Mitchell said. “Anything for you- I mean uhh you get it.”
“Mmhhmm, yup, yup,” Ellia said casually, as if not even picking up Mitchell’s dumbassery. “Just email it to me, I’ll forward it.”
“You g-got it!” Mitchell said. “I’ll get on that…”
The conversation ended pitifully, and Mitchell died on the inside as soon as she pulled a corner.
God, what was he doing here?
For the 1st time in Michell's life, he prayed that Chambers just didn’t die.
(Not exactly canon yet, just a writing doodle.)
