Chương 37: Greenland
"BREAKING NEWS: This morning off the coast of Greenland a miraculous light fluctuated above the Earth's atmosphere. . ." A man's voice read the monitor behind the camera.
". . . and if you look here, NASA was luckily able to capture this phenomenon in this incredible photo! I mean look at that!" A woman from another news station reported.
"Although entirely unsure where this light came from or what caused it â€" the world's scientists are collectively informing us that the light is not dangerous!" A third news station continued their report.
Underneath the coast of Greenland, in a secret bunker controlled by the Sirius Patrol, an aged General sat at the head of a table in the middle of what looked like a board meeting. Sat around the large oval table, men adorned in ash gray uniforms with gold cuffs and shoulder guards watched the news reports with palpable tension.
"Well?" The General clicked the television off, "We have about twenty minutes before the United Nations comes barking at our doors." The General groaned.
"So, can someone please tell me what the HELL HAPPENED?!!" The General slammed his fist onto the oval table.
"Sir!" A younger man stood at the middle of the table and saluted.
"What?!" The General barked.
"According to our records, there shouldn't be any military bases or labs near the exposure zone. No matter what simulations we run, we simply cannot conceive what could have possibly drawn such a large light source!" The younger gentleman reported before sitting back down.
"That's it?!?!" The vein in the General's forehead nearly popped.
"Sir! Our Second Patrol unit should be arriving on the scene in under ten minutes! We'll be able to get a visual then!" Another man stood up and reported.
"Ten minutes!!?!" The General roared, "THE UN IS GOING TO BE ON OUR ASS IN —"
Before the General could finish shouting, one of his three Commanders burst through the meeting room's doors while dragging alongside him a disheveled boy with round glasses and a lab coat. The boy clearly wasn't a kid, but he was no adult either; most likely an intern working within the military bases science department.
"Show it to 'em!" The Commander shoved the young man forward and folded his arms.
Meanwhile, the General, along with the rest of the men sat around the table, stared perplexedly at the young man in front of them. They trusted the Commander enough to know he didn't barge in without good reason, but the boy was really taking his sweet time.
Stuttering over himself, the young man shakily raised his arm forward, pushing his smartphone into the hands of the General leading the meeting.
Snatching the young man's phone, the General inspected its contents with curiosity.
"Let me use your phone!"
"Stay away from me!! Don't come any closer to me and my family!"
"I just need to call someone!!"
"GET BACK!!"
As the General raised the volume of the smartphone, incessant shouting could be heard bouncing off the walls of the conference room.
Narrowing his gaze towards the screen, the General saw what looked like a group of pirates or bandits. The men and women wore simply crafted clothes with leather accessories. Almost all of them carried a medieval weapon of some sort and most of them seemed lethargic and defeated.
Scrutinizing a little further, the General recognized the blood stains that riddled their clothes and the shocked, almost non-present expression that was strewn across many of their faces. Most of the people depicted in the video were in the process of dissociating from the events that transpired mere hours earlier.
A hundred people dead. Just like that.
Only thirty-four people were transported into the grassy plains which obviously meant that the rest of them didn't make it. Their friends didn't make it. The people they spent time with and saw everyday for the past however many months didn't make it.
And they did.
Why them? Why did they make it? Not all of them were Awakened.
In fact, a good chunk of them were still ordinary.
Still powerless.
But they lived while many Awakened died.
It completely betrayed the rule of the jungle they had been forced to adopt after being transported to the Land of Trees.
Some of the people who were dissociating felt at fault for the deaths of their new brothers.
If only they Awakened. If only they possessed something extraordinary.
Why didn't they, anyway? Were they defective?
Why didn't they get a power of their own?
They felt weak and hopeless.
And they were right to feel that way, nobody could tell them otherwise.
They'd been useless all this time.
"What's this?" The General finally pulled his eyes away from the smartphone and looked oddly at the fidgeting young man still standing before him.
"Um. . . Well. . . Sir. . ." He struggled.
"That's where the light was." The Commander spoke up from behind.
"According to our satellites, they are standing in the exact position the white light appeared at. Also, the woman recording, Emily Agard, went live exactly two minutes after the light dispersed. At the beginning of this livestream, her son mumbled from underneath the smartphone that these people appeared out of thin air."
The General shot his active Commander an inquisitive glance, "Are you implying that these people came from the light?"
"GIVE ME THE BLOODY PHONE!" A final roar erupted from the smartphone seconds before the livestream was cut entirely.
"John!" The General shouted.
"Second Patrol is two minutes away, sir!"
"Connect the camera!" The General ordered.
He turned around towards the television behind him. Then, it miraculously flicked on and depicted a red truck's hood driving recklessly over the frostbitten hills of Greenland. In the distance, an amalgamation of brightly colored homes stood alongside the ridge of the grassy plains.
Further beyond, white mountains painted the landscape.
"Sir!" A different young man burst through the conference room doors, "It's the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy!"
Sweating bullets, the young man rushed to the General's side and presented him with a phone.
At the same time, John stood up and pointed towards the television. "We're getting a visual!"
The General grabbed the phone and put it to his ear as he spun around in his chair and faced the TV.
"Ahhh. General Holms, so good to talk to you again! It's truly been ages since we've last caught up! Megan dear — can you ask my wife to set a dinner appointment with General Holms and his beautiful wife, Freya? I think that would be quite nice, don't you, General?" The First Sea Lord spoke hurriedly into the General's ear.
Used to the Sea Lord's eccentric personality, the General pinched the bridge of his nose and replied.
"What do you want, Brown?" General Holms cut to the chase.
"Ahhh, right! I did have a purpose in calling you today! Megan! You must remind me of these things!" The First Sea Lord spoke candidly with his personal assistant, Megan — clearly enjoying poking fun at the young lady.
"You see General, one of my Admirals disappeared a while back and finally just called me! Turns out, he's on your island! I'd really appreciate it if you could send him back our way! We could call it a favor between you and I. What do you say?" The First Sea Lord's question hung in the air.
Simultaneously, Greenland's Second Patrol unit pulled up to the gaggle of bandits gathered outside one of their rural towns.
Depicted through the Patrol team's camera, the General watched as a small group of the bandits approached the Second Patrol unit — an old lengthy man with a stern gaze, a pale man with arms covered in solid-black tattoo, a young woman with strawberry colored hair, and a clean-cut young man with straight blonde hair.
"I'd like to speak with your commanding officer." Admiral Adams approached the Patrol unit with his hands raised in the air.
"My name is Admiral Sutton Adams of the Royal Navy and I believe my superior should be in talks with yours this very second." The Admiral concluded.
The General watched this exchange live. At the exact moment the First Sea Lord asked him to send one of his men back to the United Kingdom.
The General's jaw hung open. He couldn't understand what the hell was going on in his own country?!
"General?" First Sea Lord Brown asked through the phone.
"Huh?" The General muttered.
"Oh! Well I. . ." The General's brain operated as fast as it could, trying its hardest to piece together the random puzzle pieces of information he's accumulated over the past hour.
"Unfortunately Brown, I think that might be a tad difficult." The General lamented.
"And why is that, Holms? Enlighten me, if you will." Sea Lord Brown pushed, his playful demeanor cracking.
Suddenly, the double doors leading into the conference room burst open once more. Although this time, instead of a single person joining the fray, a group of men barged into the room all led by a mature and elegant older woman.
Attached to the woman's right breast, on the navy blue dress she wore, a pin depicting the United Nations logo stood proudly.
"To be quite honest with you Brown, I think you might have to go through the UN to get your Admiral back." General Holms advised.
"The UN?" Brown's confused voice traveled through the phone.
Hearing this, the mature woman leading the group of men strode towards General Holms. Holding her hand forward, she patiently waited for the General to hand her the phone.
Unfortunately, all General Holms could do was roll his eyes and place the phone into the woman's hands compliantly.
"Why hello there —" The woman spoke into the phone comfortably, "this is Secretary-General Sarah Barber. To whom am I speaking with?"
The First Sea Lord's face crumpled behind his smartphone.
"This is Simon Brown. . ." The First Sea Lord groaned.
"It would be you Mr. Brown!" The UN's Secretary-General grinned, "And I can see why you'd call. I am looking at your missing boy right now, but unfortunately, I'm going to have to hold onto him for a little while."
The Sea Lord's brows sank, "May I inquire why, Secretary-General?"
"Because in addition to your missing Admiral, he is standing alongside seven other missing persons cases â€" and that's just from who I can see through this screen." The Secretary-General fired back.
She hung up the phone and tossed it towards General Holms.
"Call a General Assembly for tomorrow!" Secretary-General Barber ordered and one of her men in black immediately scurried off into the hallway.
"Now. . . let's go greet them, shall we?!" She grinned viciously.
/////
Thank you WalkingBush, DevilGod_Of_Chaos, and Romance_guy for the power stones! See y'all Monday :)
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TheLostBoy
TheLostBoy so I guess WebNovel turns “—“ into random symbols so if you see it — leave a comment so I can fix it :) have a good weekend
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