“So, what you’re telling me is that this mission was a bust.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And we lost one of our best Olympian power armor along with it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is there even any good news, at all?”
“Unfortunately not, ma’am.”
Daniel remained seated in the chair. Around him the room was a bright white and in front of him was a holographic projection of a woman in a long, white lab coat. It came all the way down to rest just above her ankles. She wore large round glasses and sported a very deep frown. Daniel did his best not to lean back against the chair and savor its comfort. In his present position that would be a very terrible idea.
The woman Daniel was currently answering to had been Ven’s commanding officer. In summary, she had been his boss’ boss. Now, for the interim, she was his boss. The last thing he wanted was for his boss to not take him seriously.
“And the propulsion detector?” the woman asked. “Did you people even use it?”
Daniel fought the urge to look behind him. They had used the device but not very actively. In fact, if he was being honest, its arrival here had been a waste of time and resources. Ven had only used it once. It had mapped an insignificant section of the forest before boosting the hand held surge detector they had used to find the mana surge crystal on the map. All Ven had needed it for was certainty. Daniel sighed internally at the thought. As strict as Ven had been, he had always thought the man too cautious for a captain. They never ventured into any combat zone if he was not at least eighty percent certain that it was necessary.
“Captain Okaza?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Daniel reacted. “We used it for it’s intended purpose and it is currently stashed away in storage.”
“Look at you,” the woman smirked, “reacting to your new title as if you’ve always answered it. Some might say you’ve been waiting for this very moment.”
Daniel kept all emotion from his face. As Ven always said one either showed no emotion or excitement towards whatever mission was given. It was the way with soldiery.
“Would you like the device dispatched back to HQ the same way it came or are our orders to bring it back with us?” he asked, ignoring her words.
His response earned him a frown but nothing more.
“Yes,” she said.
Daniel wasn’t sure he followed, so he asked, “Ma’am?”
“Your orders are to bring it back with you,” she replied, exasperated. “Sending it to your team the way we did was risky enough but the necessity outweighed the risk. I see no reason to put that device through such risk a second time. You have your orders, captain. I will see you and your team on your return.”
“And the red head, ma’am?”
The lady scowled. “What about him?”
“Are we to return with him?”
“Do I look like I give two hells about some guy with red hair?”
Daniel nodded. “Noted, ma’am.”
He reached beneath the glass table in front of him to terminate the connection when the woman on the other end stopped him with a raised hand.
“The last time I spoke with captain Ven, he said something about a problem,” she said.
“A problem?”
“Yes. He claimed the team had a run in with the anti-mages. Is that correct?”
“It is ma’am,” Daniel answered. “One of the local mages held a gathering and it was ambushed by a team of anti-mages. A lot of lives were lost that night.”
“Yes, yes,” the woman said with a dismissive gesture. Lives lost were clearly of no interest to her.
“More importantly,” she continued. “He was of the opinion that they were in your vicinity in search of the mana surge.”
Daniel rubbed his jaw in thought. He couldn’t say he agreed with the speculation. The anti-mages were a group of people who were bound together by their beliefs that humans were not supposed to have magical powers. It was an odd choice to go against humans having magic since it wasn’t something that was a choice. Thus, the group was mainly against growing magic. Their belief was that it was nobody’s fault that they got magic, however, growing the magic was where the fault laid. As far as the anti-mages were concerned, mages were meant to remain awakened and never step into the threshold of the ranks.
It was the reason they used runes affixed to combat gears and weapons to fight. Personally, like most mages would think, Daniel thought it was stupid.
With their ideology, they would have no need for a mana surge.
“I do not feel that I agree with my predecessors’ opinion on the topic, ma’am,” he said.
The woman’s brows furrowed in intrigue within the hologram.
“And why is that, captain?”
“Because the anti-mages would have no use for the surge. We already know that the surge plays no part in technological advancements or rune development. The only reason I can see the anti-mages having that could bring them in search of the mana surge would be to keep us away from it.”
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“Yet, you did not see any of them during this mission.”
“Negative, ma’am. We ran into no member of the anti-mages.”
“And yet, you all somehow managed to run into a death mage and fail to apprehend him, lose your captain and destroy an Olympian armor. Isn’t that something the higher ups will be more than happy to learn.”
Daniel gave no response. Traps. Those were what her words were. To respond was to fall prey to them.
“Daniel Okaza,” The lady added, clearly tired of the conversation. “As of this moment, you will play the part of interim captain to the squad. Whenever a debriefing is required, you will be informed through means of my own choosing. You will answer when called and report in when required. For now, your only order is to return to HQ as soon as possible with the propulsion disruptor. There will be no other instructions for now. You are dismissed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The hologram winked out before Daniel’s response was completed but he saw nothing to it. He was now officially the captain of the team. It was a weight of responsibility Ven had carried since the founding of the team and Daniel wasn’t so certain he was willing to carry it. Interim captain had been a fine title, fitting for himself. Now, even if he still remained an interim captain, he was one that was officially recognized.
“Do I really want to do this,” he muttered to himself as he leaned back against the chair. The seat was comfortable and bore his weight extremely well.
Daniel let out a deep sigh. In Ven’s presence he had played the devil on his shoulders, voicing options that Ven was less than willing to consider, options that most people would call vile or inhuman or inconsiderate. Now that he was captain, he needed someone to play the angel on his shoulders. He wondered who would suffice.
He thought of Kid and discarded the idea. Kid was innocent but innocence was not necessarily good. It was a mistake most people made. He thought of Ronda and knew hers would not be the path of good but the path of emotion. He sat in Ven’s chair for a while thinking through his crew. In the end, he came to a simple conclusion. There was none amongst his team capable of playing the angel to his devilry.
Daniel raised a tired hand to his forehead and massaged it gently. The team was going to be in trouble for a while. At least, until he learned to garner good ideas and learn to discern between which was required at what time.
“Alright then,” he said and rose from the chair. “Time to meet the others.”
………………………………….
The thing about large offices is that for some people, staying in it often felt lonely. Very lonely. It was why Doctor Langly kept two secretaries. One kept their desk in the office and sat with her while the other remained outside with the duty of attending to those who came seeking an audience with her. For those who chose to call for an appointment, her secretary, David, who sat within the office answered such calls. There were rumors that she was having an affair with David but those were rumors she cared nothing for.
She could keep David outside and bring in Iliana, her outside secretary, but she wasn’t ready to make such a commitment. Iliana and David were clear opposites and their differences were the reason David was the one who sat within the office. Despite David’s occupancy of the office to stave away the loneliness, conversation was not the reason for his presence. No. Langly wasn’t one for conversations. She preferred her silence spent in her research and growth. David only occupied her office for the purpose of having another person presence. It was akin to those who put on the television and switch to some random channel in their house even if they weren’t watching it. The simple presence of life and the active existence of motion around them sufficed to stave off the loneliness.
That was the part David played. That and the fact that she could trust David not to share details of whatever he learnt in her office. As for Iliana, Langly always felt she talked too much. The lady could talk all day and not get tired. If a guest was present and had to wait for Langly, Iliana was all the company the guest needed. She could tell stories of any kind and disseminate gossip of every kind.
Langly had found long ago, in her childhood years to be specific, that she didn’t like such people. People who talked a lot were often bad at keeping secrets. Although there were people like her brother who talked far too much but only so that they don’t say the things they were not supposed to say. Such people were the exceptions to the rule. Langly wasn’t sure how that worked but it worked.
Right now, however, she was not in her office. She stood casually in a wide room, staring at a deactivated orb on a simple wooden table in front of her. Around her were a retinue of mind mages working on different computers. The constant typing of keyboards served to keep the room constantly overflowing with noise. Still, it was noise she could handle.
With her conversation with the interim captain of one of the teams she was in charge of done, she was free to return to her office. Sadly, she knew there would be no returning to her office, at least not now. So she stood and waited, knowing what would come next.
It came after five minutes.
“Doctor Langly.”
Langly turned to the mind mage sitting three tables removed from her to the left. The mage was a man with blue eyes and brown hair. He had squared jaws and sported a single dimple that was oddly always there even when he wasn’t smiling.
“Yes, mage?” she answered simply because she didn’t know his name.
“Doctor Shequifa has asked that you meet her in her office.”
“Did she set up a time of appointment?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the mage answered.
“And that will be when?”
“Now.”
Langly nodded, restricting the sigh that threatened to spill from her lips. She’d barely gotten any sleep for the past three days. As a Rukh rank mage she knew her body didn’t need sleep as much as the average human body did, but sleep was still good for the mind.
She walked out of the room of mind mages, giving them the simple instruction of maintaining the communication orb she had used before she left. Most of the Olympians and the teams she was in charge of thought they conversed through a simple holographic projection, some technological advancement of science. But that was not the case. The orb she used, the one they all communicated with, was designed by the head mind mage of the VHF, Doctor Tilda. It bore similarities with the dreamscape technology they used quite often on special children in the renegade project started two years before the second awakening and still going. Its design helped those on the supervisory side of the conversation tell the mental workings of those they were communicating with.
It carried a bit of subliminal mind magic. To compensate for the distance, Doctor Tilda had employed the help of space mages. Langly wasn’t certain of the entire technological implications but she knew the space mages ensured that the mind magic working in the orb was able to transcend the distance to work. With the orb, the soldier she spoke with experienced a psychological evaluation as she spoke with them. It helped the supervisor gauge how the mind of their subordinate worked.
From what Langly had garnered from her conversation with Daniel Okaza, he would be a good fit for her to work with. He kept his emotions close to his chest. He was a man who was antisocial, just as she was, but unlike her, he did as much as he could to alleviate this by communicating with the rest of his teammates as much as he could.
The best part of working with him, however, was the fact that through out the entire conversation, the orb had detected no lie in his words.
If there was one thing Langly hated more than someone who couldn’t keep a secret, it was someone who lied.
Langly walked down the hallway of the VHF building she was in as she headed to one of her many superior officers. Her only hope was that Dr. Shequifa had called her for an update of the situation on the mana surge. If this was going to be another surprise psychological evaluation she might just lose her mind.