Harvey Wilson was royally pissed off. Despite having had some quality sleep in the last few days and staying in world-class accommodations, a dark storm cloud loomed over him. Harvey hopped out of the small jet before the stairs were anywhere near the door, being a good 15 feet away and pushed by two rather confused soldiers, and marched directly to the new meeting room.
The meeting room had been moved from the previously undisclosed location to Bastion Delta; it was the tallest building on the artificial island, standing at a staggering 10 metres high with two functional floors. According to the planning notice which was now under Harvey's arm, the meeting room was made out of a prototype material with minerals mined from the mountain in the other world. It also had some pretty extreme and very strange properties. The meeting room was currently flickering between pitch black and perfect transparency. Harvey glared at Arthur McKinley with murderous intent but was either not noticed or intentionally ignored.
Upon reaching the walls of the building and realising that there was no door, Harvey reluctantly read through the planning notice and the report that came with it properly to find out how to enter. After a few moments, Harvey fished out a lighter from his trouser pocket and incinerated two pages from the report, stomping out the embers as the fire died out. He then tapped a section of glass a few times and stood in shock as it gradually melted away into a perfect doorway right before his eyes. Stepping through, Harvey looked behind him to see the wall grow back almost naturally, like an organism healing a wound. Watching this growth sent shivers down Harvey's spine, but this was quickly shaken off as he continued to march upstairs.
"Quick! Arthur, sit down! Harvey's here!" 'Hissed Duncan', eyeing Harvey through the floor as he stopped to stare at the wall he had just come through. Arthur dashed to his seat and pretended to be reading the document that was in front of him, earning a synchronised head slap from the other men at the table.
At that moment, as Harvey entered the room and saw Arthur reading, he stopped and stared for a few moments before collapsing to the floor in a heap of laughter as Arthur looked up, feigning childlike innocence.
"Arthur... please... stop... pretending!" wheezed Harvey, clutching his stomach. Each word spat out mid-laugh. "It's... painful... to look at!"
Arthur's expression immediately soured as his colleagues at the table with him were trying their absolute hardest to not drop to the floor in tears and laugh their hearts out. It took a while for the men to calm themselves and bring back an atmosphere of professionalism into the room, but eventually it was achieved.
"Alrighty then. I come to this meeting as the Harbinger yet again." Announced Harvey bluntly. "Number 1: The French are coming. A blacklist project discovered Bastion Delta, and guess what, it was because of this bloody building we're in now." Harvey's body tensed as he began his second point. He clenched his fists and walked over to the wall so that his back was towards the table; his tone became ever so slightly more robotic. "Number 2: The expedition team that got sent out are all dead. Except, we believe, Spartan and possibly Deadshot." Harvey rushed over the second point in a feeble attempt to focus on the first, and arguably more important, point.
To his surprise, Arthur, for the first time, looked at him with some concern in his eyes. Duncan was leaning back on his chair out of habit, deep in his thoughts. Nikolai's eyes flickered with a hint of sadness and deep understanding, but this was most probably a trick of the light. The sun was beginning to set as it cast a warm orange glow through the glass walls, and a few small waves on the ocean surface sparkled like rolling diamonds. Harvey was gazing out towards the mesmerising horizon when Zhen Wu spoke up.
"Harvey, it is true that it is a loss. But in the grand scheme of things, it is almost insignificant. Now this isn't to downplay the deaths of these men, but this is the reality of what we do." Zhen Wu silently glided over to Harvey's side and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We ultimately, for better or for worse, send men, good men, to their deaths. It is an unavoidable fact of anything we do. In these uncertain circumstances, things need to be done the hard way, and the hard way is paid for with the lives of men." The orange glow of the sun began to fade into a blood red, casting long, eerie shadows over Bastion Delta. "So don't take this loss too hard, and try not to think too hard about it; leave that to us, my friend."
Harvey's usually perfect posture was now slumped, head bowed and shoulders hunched; he seemed as if he had lost a part of himself a long time ago. "I hope they at least had an easy death." Whispered Harvey meekly.
It was at this moment that Duncan had decided to resurface from his thoughts and impart some of his own wise words. "What were you going on about the French? Start making sense before I wring your neck!"
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It was an uneventful yet rather pleasant ferry trip across the channel. The sea was calm and the wind was tame, the scent of salt filled the air, and some of the water on deck had evaporated and left behind a wisp of crystals. The early morning sun beamed down and danced with the salt crystals, but it shared nothing with the young French woman who was sitting patiently on a bench outside in the late September air.
Her porcelain skin was tinted rose from the chilly air, her lower face was concealed with a bright red scarf, and she wore a dark blue bobble hat. Her eyes were pale grey, almost translucent, giving her an almost undead appearance. Her hands were wedged firmly into the pockets of her snow-white puffer jacket, which covered her jeans to just above the knee.
A soft tap came from the window behind her. It was time to go. Sighing, she stood up and entered back into the ferry, where she followed her escort to the car down in the hull. It took a while to get off the ferry, but eventually, it was rolling hills and green fields shrouded in mist which would occupy the car windows for the next few hours. After that it would be the clear and empty sky.
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It was midday on Bastion Delta when a new face walked through the doors of the meeting room. Harvey shuffled uncomfortably in position as he cleared his throat for introductions. In comparison, he towered over the petite woman next to him, an almost laughable comparison.
"Gentlemen, this is Dr Élodie Marchand; she is the representative for France." Harvey's face looked almost pained as he introduced the doctor, while simultaneously forcing himself to keep a straight face as he absolutely butchered the pronunciation of her name. It had been decided, just a few minutes before, that Dr Marchand would be informed about the portal and a few lower-level details regarding it. Gradually, more information would be tactically released, a 'slip of the tongue', perhaps, to be able to determine the French response.
Despite his outward show of disdain for the French, Duncan has a small soft spot for them and was adamantly against the idea of a gradual exposition, instead suggesting to tell the complete and honest truth. This motion, however, was naturally and unanimously rejected by the rest of the group. Harvey's pained expression stemmed from the fact that it was Dr Élodie Marchand who had been sent as the representative, instead of somebody else; but then again, this was to be expected.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen." Began Dr Marchand. "I will waste none of our time with pointless chit-chat. So, could somebody explain to me exactly what is going on here?" Her accent was distinctly French, softened from years of international experience, sharply contrasting with the harsh and coarse accents of everyone else in the room. She scanned the room, and gathering nothing from the faces of the men at the table, turned to look at where Harvey should have been.
In the few moments of being unobserved, Harvey had silently slipped out and could be clearly seen sprinting away from the meeting room as fast as humanly possible. When the others realised Harvey's betrayal, they each comically lost their temper, making the poor doctor cower away in terror.