Atrophy
Punished GN
AtomicEmperor
Byrd Man
NoriWasHere
xxjessicaxx
Bartimaeus
Fetzen
Director's Office, DOVE/RAVEN Joint Headquarters, White Coast_"... Yeah? Next Saturday? Sure, next Saturday - we'll talk more then. Thanks, bye."
Reed Taylor sucked in a breath of fresh air as he set the phone back down on his desk. Yet another matter of minor importance to address another time.
Nowadays, that was a significant chunk of his job, yet all the same an important one given it pertained to his role as Director over the local branch of DOVE. Meetings, discussions, administrative work, legal matters, etc. After his appointment to the role of Director, he'd made a point to make a regular acquaintance with the BPD, so as to try and keep staff on both sides aware of any issues ongoing in the city that they might stumble across in their work, metahuman-related or otherwise. Then, of course, was the matter of the MISW agent who'd be joining their ranks as part of the foreign exchange program being spearheaded by the Western Nations, a man by the name of Francis Marshall if memory recalled. Judging by the report he'd read of the man, he hoped the British agent would prove helpful enough, but with other matters on his mind Reed couldn't help but wonder how smoothly things would transition.
Whatever way he looked at things, he sometimes felt his ability to multitask stretched to the limit.
At one point he recalled that Javaunt had recommended he re-assign one of the DOVEs on desk work to function as his Personal Assistant, but somehow he found the idea of pulling a valuable pair of hands off the office floor for the sake of his own convenience a little too much to bear, particularly if he could still manage just about. That, and the notion made him feel a man a decade older than what he actually was. Which, as it happened brought him onto his next musing on his list of woes - all too often he'd heard the same comments from detractors, that he was still young and inexperienced for his role. Part of him couldn't help but concede they were right, in some form - at thirty-six years of age, he stood as a very senior figure in metahuman regulation working around the largest metahuman population on the West Coast.
Sometimes he missed his days as an investigator, doing both the field and paper work alike - but there was a bigger picture to it all, in the end. Javaunt had chosen him three years ago and he had no intentions of letting the Chairwoman down, not after everything that DOVE had worked for these last ten years.
Thoughts briefly drifted to the old man, if only for a second and at that, Reed glanced over the desk and couldn't help but crack a thin smile at the Terminator statuette standing vigil at one side of his desk, brandishing an M134 minigun. "What would you do, Arnie?" He mumbled to himself, before hearing a faux-Austrian accent inside his head. Terminate them all. Certainly not the best piece of advice, he decided - though seeing the one of old man's favourite shelf-pieces gave him a brief moment of piece before the realities of management brought themselves back to bear on him.
Of course, the old man never quite had to deal with something like this. Cass was a senior figure in the VPD, respected well enough, but even he'd never had to deal with desk work like this.
Still, he thought, the old man would've been proud.
Realizing that he was distracting himself, he cleared his throat and turned back towards the workstation on his desk. Today would be a long day, with much to do - this speech of his at the rally being just a single part of it.
With a brief, fleeting sigh, Director Taylor set himself back to work.
Waterbridge Airport, Roseview_After two consecutive flights, Frank couldn't help but feel an aching sensation building in his legs after what must've been almost a dozen hours' worth of sitting and standing still without any significant degree of movement. He'd spent most of both flights keeping to himself, erecting a mental barrier between himself and the other passengers and their varying thoughts and emotional states - the last thing he wanted was to be picking up on the stress and unseen terrors of some eight year old girl on her first flight. Once they'd hit solid ground, however, he was glad to be off the plane because, as he would admit, he wasn't exactly a fan of flight either. It was funny, come to think of it - despite all the training and experience with what was once one of the most tightly-run metahuman agencies operating in the West, even he found himself balking at the venture across the Atlantic.
Then again, when one considered the dangerous times they lived in, maybe his reservations hadn't been unfounded.
At any rate, he had brushed through the check-out with relative ease, though picking up his luggage (a suitcase and backpack containing the few belongings he'd figured he'd need) had been something of a headache after a brief dispute with a Chinese tourist over which suitcase was his. Frank, admittedly, had perhaps made an ethical faux-pas by using his ability to mentally subdue the irate tourist with a projection of some calming thoughts, but given how quickly he wanted to be out of the airport and into the city, he decided he could live with that particular dalliance when it was weidged against the many others he'd committed in the name of Her Majesty and the MISW.
On his way out of the terminal, he balanced a hot dog he'd hastily purchased from a vendor stall in one hand whilst the other hauled along with him his suitcase, though by the time he'd hit the exit point he'd already devoured the entire thing, such was his hunger. Then, for about a second he wondered just how he'd go about hailing a taxi, at least until he realised that not too far from the entrance to the airport were a fleet of them parked up, ready and waiting for new customers. Guess I won't need to waste my time with an Uber. Lugging his suitcase and backpack along with him, he quickly caught an asian man in what was probably his late-thirties finishing off a vaping session whilst leant back against a car. Coming into range, he quickly raised his proposition to what he assumed was the driver.
"Eh, excuse me, are you booked up?"
"No, I'm free," The driver tilted his head downwards, stuffing the vape-tube back into his pocket as his gaze turned towards Frank's suitcase, "Want a hand with that?"
"Yeah, please." Frank quickly nodded, relinquishing the greatest of his baggage to the driver who quickly lugged it into the trunk of his cab. The backpack he set on his lap after climbing into one of the rear passenger seats, the driver soon joining him afterwards, "Where to?"
"Uhrm, the DOVE-RAVEN Headquarters site, please - would prefer if we avoided the scenic route and just got straight to it."
"Sure thing." Instinct made his gut clench for just a moment as the driver pulled out onto the right side of the road, before he realised that, among the many differences between Britain and the US (aside from about four thousand miles of Atlantic Ocean) this would be yet another he'd be getting used to.
Still, it couldn't be that bad, he supposed - the weather in this particular state wasn't too different from back home and the food would be cheap and varied enough. He looked forward to the notion of trying one of the local Chinese restaurants or takeaways, at least that would be a comfort staying with him on this venture.
And then, as they passed through the varying districts of the city limits, Frank couldn't help but let his thoughts drift back towards home.
Since he'd set foot on that first plane from Heathrow, part of him wondered whether he'd made the right call, volunteering for this post and leaving the very few people he knew behind to clean up the ongoing mess, but with the situation as it was back home he figured there wasn't much else he could have done if he had stayed. Mass rioting and protests still raged on in London, Glasgow, Manchester and even places like Sheffield that were very close to home, some which he'd seen for himself and had been on the receiving end. Not to mention the fact their government had been puppeteered by these Founding Family types, along with the same organisation that he'd come to regard as the place where he belonged.
He had to face facts - the MISW was a shell, right now. Headquarters had been wrecked in the bombing, a good chunk of their administrative staff killed in the process along with a few of their field agents, the much-vaunted Grayson Williams included. And the new figures in government were regarding them with almost as much scrutiny as the public, if not moreso. The way they saw it, the 'old' MISW was a relic of the Cold War, the 'new' one would be a lot different, nowhere near as heavy-handed as before and a 'kinder' organisation overall. Frank had to agree, they were right, but still... old habits died hard, he supposed. And at this point people back home were still restructuring things, still figuring out how to handle this new threat from the so-called 'BASILISK' terrorist group which had claimed responsibility for the bombing of their HQ.
Maybe some time away could've done Frank some good, he hoped, and give him a chance to learn from the Americans whilst here and bring something useful back home. He owed his people that much, at least, and given the unseen blood that had stained their hands a dozen times over it would be some measure of atonement. Once upon a time, he'd been turned onto what he thought was the right track by the MISW - now was his turn to try and do the same for the organisation whilst it was in its weakened state.
Eventually he took another glance out the window and, judging by the brief research he'd undertaken in the weeks before his journey across the pond, he suspected he was close to his destination. After all, the DOVE/RAVEN Headquarters Building was a difficult sight to miss, and was larger by a wide margin than the MISW Offices back home. Americans always have had a thing for going big, he supposed.
Soon, the car pulled up in the visitor parking area and the driver told Frank the fee, to which the Briton fished a wad of dollar bills out to the exact sum he'd asked. It was only then that he realised the cab driver was half-expectantly waiting for him to, if that sliver of emotion bleeding into his thoughts was anything to go by - yet another US custom he'd be getting used to. Without a grumble, he fished a few extra dollars out and slapped them into the driver's palm. "Keep the change, and thanks for the lift."
