Immortals by Jan Kopia

Author:Jan Kopia [Kopia, Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jan Kopia
Published: 2019-06-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

One Week Later

Ethan lit a cigarette and held it up to his lips. The wispy fingers of smoke coiled around his hand and made him feel calmer. He knew it was only a temporary fix, but it beat sitting around those claustrophobic meeting rooms trying to mediate between all the competing egos.

You’d think people would band together in times of crisis, but as far as Ethan could tell, disaster situations only seemed to create more chaos, more confusion and more panic. At least this one certainly had. He took one more drag of his cigarette and then snuffed it out on the railing of the rooftop balcony.

Two seconds later, his fingers were itching to light up another one. “Goddammit,” he said.

“Mr. Richardson?”

Ethan turned to see Midge Avery walking towards him. He didn’t know her very well, but their interactions together had been smooth. Ethan couldn’t say the same of every person he'd met on this initiative.

“You can call me Ethan.”

She nodded as she joined me by the balcony’s edge. Her hair was a dark brown and her face had a distinct pattern of freckles that crossed over the bridge of her nose. Her official title was 'Head of Risk Management'. Ethan's was 'Head of Military Personnel'. He had no clue what either one of them was meant to be doing.

“Needed a break, huh?” she asked.

Ethan’s hand twitched instinctively towards the cigarettes in his breast pocket. He resisted the urge and nodded.

“It’s been a stressful morning,” he replied.

“When I was called in for this… initiative_” Midge paused on the last word, as though she were unsure it was the right one. “I think I imagined something different.”

“Something a little more organized?” he said.

She smiled. “I think today just reinforced the fact that none us really know what to do.”

“Did you understand what Lebedev and Petrov were talking about?”

“All the science jargon goes right over my head,” Midge replied, and Ethan was glad to know he wasn't the only one. “All I know is what I see. And I see the world spinning into disaster. They talk about quantum physics and electromagnetic energy and whatever else they’ve been trying to decipher. But to me, it’s white noise; it's trying to explain the unexplainable.”

“I’m a soldier,” Ethan said. She was the first person he'd actually talked to, out of the entire 'Global Initiative' full of suits. “My purpose is to rid the world of terrorists and enemies who want to destroy us. The word ‘war’ was thrown around in that room this morning… but who are we fighting against? I can see no enemy. I wish I did, because then I would know what to do.”

She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking out at the skyline stretched before them. It was midday. The sun should have been bright in the sky; the glare should have demanded sunglasses. But it felt more like late evening; the rays of sunlight were feeble at best. Ethan didn’t even have to squint when he looked up now.

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