[u][center][h1][color=olive]Jacqueline Freeman[/color][/h1][/center][/u] [indent]Location: Financial District, Gene Co. within the branch office Timeline: Week and few days after the riots (present), Afternoon[/indent] The east board room was a simple design. Elegant yet comfortable for brief meetings, it had all the ideal elements Jacqueline required with the atmosphere to match. The relax mood and uniformed design made it among her favorite rooms within the building for conducting business, mainly was it gave those small creature comforts while she discovered her client’s motives, schemes and ultimately achieved her own. Few rooms offered this type of scenery with their bland off white coloring, wooden finishes and bland setting which often put business associates on high alert for whatever was tossed at them. Since this Dr. Morgan seemed so desperate to see her, Jacqueline assumed there was urgent reason and decided to use this excuse to pamper herself. She deserved time to time after all. Her figure skirted along the off white walled hallway, her hips swayed with a casual, predator movement with each heel click. Her hair pushed back behind her shoulders while it looked down and continued to read the report in her hand. The manilla envelope was wide open in her left hand, her eyes scanned over the detailed information about the SES project she had been supervising. Since a recent project escaped their custody, she had been applying more effort than usually into the maintaining of the facility’s security believing doctor Holley had disappointed her. Despite her directly taking control of the branch, the specimen had eluded all attempts to relocate and reacquire it. Something she found rather irritating in her grand plans. Bodies, male and female, passed her walking figure with their own assigned tasks causing her to lift her eyes from the paper to observe them. They were the inner workings of her company, interns, who busted their limits in order to rise to the top or make ends meet. Each one hired strictly for their harsh worth ethics and ability to accomplish their goals, she realised with a light smirk playing across her lips. As she came to her destination, her legs started to slow and hand reached out to touch the metal knob. Her manicured fingers gripped it tightly while she made a precise, quick turn. The door came open with a soft click allowing her into the pastel teal room, the door thumped shut behind her shortly afterwards. The sound was enough to cause the much older man sitting within one of the seven leather chairs to jump abruptly. Unfazed by his anxiety seeping through his figure, she spared an unimpressed look then inhaled quietly. Her hand snapped the manilla fold shut on her way to his side, her voice a polite, but crisp and businesslike tone. “[color=olive]Dr. Morgan, I assume?[/color]” Mentally she took stock of his posture and was already making well guessed assessments over his personality, clearly in his profession for a long time. On his rise to his feet, she noticed he was dressed in a second handed down, American cut suit which gave his thin frame an unnatural boxy look. There was areas near the elbows and knees where the fabric was starting to wear slightly thin, hidden barely by rather shoddy tailoring. She suspected it was hand or cheaply done. At least the light, bluish grey complimented his African American heritage Jacquelin finding the more positive aspects to appeal to her nature that she wouldn’t completely tormented. Though she had come from the streets, she had developed some vanity toward others over the years which rarely every impaired her abilities. Looking into Dr. Morgan’s face, she noted the wrinkles cracking along the smooth areas like his brow and brown eyes, hidden by thick rimmed glasses. She was suspecting his muzzle was covered in these wrinkles, the evidence hidden underneath his white bushy goatee. The grey streaked hair on his crown was receding causing her to mentally guess his age being somewhere in his early to late fifties explaining his attire to an extent. Dr. Morgan wringed his thin hands in agitation over this meeting, his tongue flickered out to lick his lips then began to reply. “Yes, I’m glad you didn’t postpone meeting me.” “[color=olive]I have a very busy schedule, Dr. Morgan, and other duties to attend to before the evening is through.[/color]” She stated firmly, her words chosen clearly with purpose to remind him he was in no way privileged in this meeting. “[color=olive]Please, skip the pleasantries since your time is limited.[/color]” “Right, yes Ma’am.” Dr. Morgan’s hands wrangled harder, his eyes shifting and nervousness oozed from his pores. Sweat had already started to collect on his skin despite the central air ensuring heat reached but didn’t overwhelm the whole building’s comfortable levels, her eyes narrowed on his figure while he sat down. Jacqueline turned to clasp the leather chair back and pulled it from under the table, wheeling it where she could easily listen. Gracefully she lowered herself into the seat, keeping her posture ridge and settled in with a poker faced expression. Her right leg crossed over her other while her hand placed aside the folder, her other hand straighten her skirt carefully when he began. The conversation itself was long but interesting to Jacqueline. Her face giving little away when he finished as she absorbed his story about Ms. Ruth Garth’s ill fated sickness, her symptoms and autopsy revealing interesting results that she suspected would reveal the location of her missing virus. And most likely its current victim. Inhaling, she gave a little charming smile then rose from her seat to hold her hand in order to thank the man. Looking confused a bit and worried over the matter, he graciously took it and shook, allowing her to lead him back toward the office door. As expected, two thick bodied security staff, males,were promptly waiting outside during the whole meeting. Their images dressed in the identical grey and green colored uniform with the Gene Co logo upon the breast pocket, sneakers, gun holsters equipped with state of the art tasers, and ear pieces connected to the radio at their waist. The blond man, in his early thirties, gestured out his hand to move Dr. Morgan along to the lobby where he was going to be released into the street. Naturally the CEO had informed him she would personally attend to the matter about the woman’s illness to prevent anymore loss of life. It was enough to gain her attention into looking into the recent outbreak incident reports that would be popping up on her desk shortly after her request for them. Meanwhile Jacqueline retreated back to snatch the folder from the table’s surface, shuffling the papers neatly before her departure from the room. Clicking heels lead her all the way to the nearest, but less elegant breakroom mainly used by the employees. Usually she would have Ms. Gibbs bring her usual up, alongside with her lunch, but today had been rather more eventful than she could’ve expected. Her body demanded coffee and wouldn’t be satisfied unless she gave in. She had just walked in to see several staff members huddled around the tiny screen TV, usually left on for those to idly watch until their coffee was through or shut off when not being used at all. Oddly this time it was on showing the local news broadcasting causing Jacqueline to brush off her employee’s particular behavior when she trotted across the tiled floor and reach into the nearest cabinet, retrieving both the creamer and sugar while getting a ceramic mug. She set it down with a soft a thump when she heard something announced by the news anchor toward city wide threat having been made since last night. So far, Jacqueline had been too busy to pay attention as her confusion and curiosity got the better of her. She pivoted in place, forgetting her needs, to draw behind the already too thin crowd gathered there. It just now occurred to her how few of her employees had actually shown up this morning causing her study the threatening video being played for hundredth time that day. [quote] “Hello, world.” A man said who was shrouded by darkness. One could only see his silhouette from a red light that was shining behind him. “Pardon the interruption of your nightly shows. Don’t worry, once this broadcast has ended, you will be returned to your regular programing.” “Our world has been struck by calamity after calamity ever since these metahumans have made their appearance known to the world. There was that mass murderer who was taunting a secret organization called S.T.R.I.K.E. There was the ‘demon’ invasion of Lost Haven. Now there is this entity called Umbraxis that has already started to pile up a death count! How is the normal person supposed to live in a world full of metahumans who can obliterate an entire city block? What can we do about this?” “Well, there is one thing that we, as a human race, can do about this [i]problem[/i]. There is a common saying in American colloquialism that goes like this: ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’ Therefore, I offer you all a gift. A chance to equal the playing field. Our environment is changing and we as a species must adapt with it. Why should these powers be limited to only a select, lucky few?” “Therefore, in 48 hours, a device in Lost Haven will emit an energy dome that will eventually grant superhuman powers upon all those who are within its borders. First Lost Haven will receive this gift, then the Eastern Seaboard, then North America, and finally the entire world! By the end of this week, the entire world shall know what it feels like to be special.” “I already anticipate that there will be those who will object to the transformation process. However, I would like to show you all something.” The shrouded man extended forth his hand in front of him, which was holding a small vial. “Not long ago, my own team of self-created metahumans prevented a terrorist from depositing this substance into a particular water supply near Lost Haven. After further study, this substance would turn normal people into mindless, muscular brutes. In contrast, my gift will not take away your normal intelligence. In fact, in some cases it might raise it!” “My transformation process will affect people differently. Some will immediately receive their powers once they are within the dome, while others will see the effects emerging after a few days. Everyone’s body reacts differently to the effects of my metahuman-inducing serum. And to ease the worries of everyone, the dome has been tuned so that it will only affect regular humans. There is no need to worry about mutant rodents or cockroaches terrorizing our homes. Furthermore, anyone who would otherwise be labeled a ‘metahuman’ shall not be affected by the dome, since why should I give more power to the group with which I am trying to level the playing field.” “Others might ask whether everyone deserve these powers. It is quite obvious that there are those who probably should not receive powers for the public good. Since I have already anticipated this complaint, specific devices have been set up in certain institutions of interest, such as prisons and mental hospitals that will dampen the dome and prevent those, who would present themselves as a danger to themselves and our society as a whole, from receiving powers. Will this prevent all evil people from receiving powers? Of course not. However, I reassure you all that the number of ‘good’ will outnumber the ‘evil’.” “Now, I know there will be those who will try to stop my plans. These are your so-called [i]heroes[/i]. Your champions of freedom and liberty. Yet, they are also the defenders of the status quo, upholders of the current chaos caused by the regular person’s lack of means to defend themselves from the average metahuman, let alone some global threat. They claim to want to protect the world, yet they don’t want it to change. Without change, more innocent people will die. These heroes are hypocrites. They will sacrifice your change at godhood for maintaining their own uniqueness within this world. They would rather have you all be dependent on them whenever some catastrophe happens.” After the man finished his speech, he reached over and pressed a button on something that was on his wrist. Immediately afterwards, the shrouded man began to grow, both in respect to his height and his muscle mass. Once the transformation had completed, even though the viewers could only see his silhouette, it could be clearly seen that he had a similar body build as the Kingpin from the 90’s Spider-Man animated series. The only difference was that his neck was so elongated, just like a giraffe or a sauropod dinosaur, that his entire head was off screen. He then twisted his neck so that his head would be up close to the camera. His head was still entirely human, despite his neck’s length. His entire head was shaven bald, while he was wearing a pair of tinted laboratory goggles. “Welcome to the [i]Pax Metahumana[/i].” [/quote] “I thought last night was a prank, just some stupid little prank.” Said a woman nearest Jacqueline, her voice held a slight trembling in it as her grip tightened around her now cold mug. Nervous glances shuffled from employee to the next, their strength rattle causing the CEO to speak up. “[color=olive]Ahem, I think the best solution is to focus on completing our jobs before giving the [i]heroes[/i][/color],” she held a slight contempt for the word which she barely hid as she continued, “[color=olive] a chance do their jobs. Panicking now will only make issues worse as past events have proven, those not wise enough are often the most foolish. Now, back to work and Steven, a word?[/color]” The sixty year old bent janitor paused in his steps out the door just when Jacqueline requested him, his eyes fixed on her with a puzzled expression. Her tone was deadpan serious the whole time, her arms crossed over her front while ensuring almost all the employees were cleared out of the room. “[color=olive]Will you unplug and store the TVs, radios, and any other public media within the office’s lounges and break rooms?[/color]” “Ummm, yes ma’am…” He stated, his grey blue eyes softened through he started to wonder about her state of mind about what she asked of him. His fingers running nervously along the white sideburns, what remained of his hair, before finally giving into his biggest question. “Maybe I ask, why?” “[color=olive]I much rather not have the employees dwelling all day on what they can’t control. It will only make things worse and stressful for those who decided to wait out this threat.[/color]” “Aren't you going to leave too, ma’am?” The old looked at her and immediately knew her answer before she uttered it. “[color=olive]Absolutely not…[/color]”