Chapter Text
If anyone asked Chris why he would come into office so early every day, he’d lie. An innocent, white lie that didn’t matter at all, because it didn’t harm anyone.
“I like to get an early start.” It wasn’t as far from the truth as people could suspect it was. Every day was the same, but that didn’t matter. Not in the morning at least.
He’d wake up around five thirty AM, before either the sun or most of the city were up. He’d make himself breakfast, take a shower, and walk twenty minutes to his office. He always stopped at the local coffee place. Around seven AM, he’d enter the building, getting up to the fifteenth floor. He’d enter his office, swirl his chair around to face the window, and just watch.
His window had a beautiful view of the city, and was the perfect place to watch the sun rise. Not his sun, not the sun he had grown up with, but another one that kept his new home warm and alive. He did it to appreciate what he had gotten after everything he knew was brutally taken away, it kept him positive. Looking out over the city as it basked in the sunlight, London slowly becoming alive. It wasn’t that much different from his old life, he needed to remind himself. The only difference was the sudden surge in technological advances and the fact they were walking around on another planet.
The second reason he watched the sun rise was not to forget where he came from. It had been no surprise humans were going to get evacuated from Earth, as the planet’s circumstances had become quite dire. Natural disasters happening more frequently and forcefully, temperatures rising, nature and wildlife dying. Even Chris, eleven years old at the time, understood what was happening. From when he was a baby, until the news got officially announced, there was always that unspoken knowledge that one of those days the government would finally break the news everyone was patiently or impatiently waiting for.
He had grown up with new milestones being hit every year. Faster spacecrafts, habitable planets found and tested for human survival, building cities on those planets, and finally: the migration. No one left behind , that was the slogan for it. Not only a slogan, a promise. After every important person working for NASA, the government, and so forth had been launched into space, names got drawn. A system that, thinking about it now he was an adult, could have resulted in so much chaos. Maybe it had. His mother never really spoke of it. All he knew, really knew, is that his family was chosen within the first month. Chris remembered fussing about it. They had just moved homes, only being settled in Teignmouth for the better of two months, and he was going to move again. More so, none of his new friends were on the same spaceship as him. He had no guarantee he would ever see them again.
Their flight departed early in the morning. Chris got to see one last sunrise, Earthly sunrise, before he entered the ship and flew away from his home. Forever. That’s why he liked getting an early start nowadays. Watching the sunrise whilst drinking his coffee – which, according to his mom, was a disgusting variant of what real coffee used to taste like, but Chris would never be able to compare. It just reminded him of home. His real home.
Mithras was a nice enough planet to live on, and resembled Earth as much as Chris could remember. Although, it didn’t always feel quite right. The science fiction movies he had grown up with felt all too real now. He’d occasionally still watch one, with giant cities on foreign planets and technology that would make your mouth drop, only to turn his TV off and realise he was living the exact life of those people on screen, only less exciting. Not that working for the government wasn’t exciting, just a bit boring sometimes.
With a final sip, he finished his coffee. A glance at his watch told him an hour had passed. An hour of just him, his coffee, and his thoughts. Eight AM was a good time to start the workday, so he swivelled his chair around to face his desk, and booted his computer up. The holographic to-do list hovering at the edge of his desk reminded him of his calm morning. He placed his empty cup out of reach, and got started.
* * * * *
After an hour of work or so, a knock on his door interrupted his workflow. Chris sighed, then invited the person in with a simple “Yes?”.
One of the department secretaries, Michelle, came walking in. She was sporting a high ponytail that swung with her every step and her permanent smile that, more times than not, looked faked. Chris often theorised that Michelle wasn’t really happy with something in her life, and that something was connected to her job. Maybe it was being a secretary, maybe it was the department. Either way, she had worked as a secretary for the better of five years, so either she was too polite to complain about or quit her job, or she was really happy about the pay rate. It was none of Chris’ business either way. “Officer Howard is here to see you.” She wasn’t the small-talk type of person. No good morning or how was your weekend. It wasn’t her style. Chris had gotten used to it, but her first statement of the day caused him some confusion. He hadn’t forgotten about his meeting, but it was scheduled for early that afternoon. Why it had been moved without his knowledge or consent was a mystery.
“Our meeting isn’t until after lunch,” Chris replied with a frown, twirling the pen he had been holding between his fingers.
“Well, he’s here already and wondered if you had some free time right now? Something about not wasting time.”
Technically, Chris had time. The files he had been working on for the last hour weren’t anything too important. “Sure, why not.” He got up from his desk and stretched his arms over his head. “He’s at the reception hall?”
“Yessir,” Michelle replied, and exited the room. Chris followed her out.
“Could you put the Skaro files on my desk, then?” he asked her.
The Skaro files were a very brutal string of events that happened to the South of London – luckily in a desolate part of the planet. Seemingly sentient machines claiming to be from the planet of Skaro, wherever the hell that might be, ready to attack the humans. No one was killed, the machines clearly broken or malfunctioning, but they did show some very hostile behaviour that could have ended badly if it wasn’t for their malfunctions or any officers on sight to shut the machine down. And if something happened that concerned the safety of the planet, it concerned Chris.
The secretary nodded, and they parted ways.
He walked down the long hallway, towards the elevators. He liked retrieving partners personally. In his opinion, the reception hall was a nicer place for a first impression and exchanging pleasantries. An office always screamed business, and whilst they needed to work together, Chris liked to know who he was working with without any added pressure to perform. He quickly reached the elevators and went down to the thirteenth floor, where the reception hall for the security department was.
When the elevator doors opened, Chris’ eyes immediately found the person he assumed to be Officer Howard. Navy slacks that matched a navy jacket, with a white shirt underneath. They might all be on a different planet than they grew up on, officers still wore navy like some sort of honorary badge. And if the colours didn’t give it away, the tag on his jacket reading ISO – Intergalactic Security Office – surely did. Simple office attire, their street uniforms were technically more equipped and designed to protect. ISO agents were the police officers across all three planets the humans migrated to. One system to prevent people thinking one planet got a better treatment than the others. “Officer Howard?” Chris called out when he was some steps away, giving the officer time to turn around and notice him. When close enough, Chris extended his hand for the blond man to shake. “I’m Deputy Director Chris Wolstenholme, very nice to meet you.”
Chris wore his title with pride. Deputy Director of Planetary Security. A job and title he had trained and studied hard for, whilst on the spaceship taking him and his family to Mithras. Of course the ship had a school on board, mandatory for the youngsters to attend. When they arrived on their new home planet, they of course needed the new generation to be prepared for the many jobs they needed to fill. Jobs everyone knew off already, and new jobs that had been created for this new life. Whilst ISO worked across the three planets, Chris only needed to worry about safety and security on Mithras.
Officer Howard shook his hand. “Very nice to meet you as well, Deputy. I hope I can be of some assistance today.”
Chris smiled and gestured to the elevator. “I’m sure you will. Let’s go to my office.” The two approached the elevator, which Chris called up. “So, you live in the city, officer?”
The blond smiled politely. “No, two cities over in Calais.”
That was one thing Chris irritated the most. The cities on Mithras had just adopted city names from Earth. They were currently in London, but the city felt nothing like London from what Chris could tell – he had only visited London twice when he was a child. That was something Chris probably would never be able to let go. His argument would always be “might as well call the planet Earth instead of Mithras”.
“Rode in early this morning. I was supposed to meet with London’s ISO team now but you’ve probably heard about the blackout.”
Chris frowned as the elevator doors opened up in front of them. The men stepped inside. “Not yet, what happened?”
“Quite some systems shut down by an external force. They had other priorities than me meeting the team, so I decided to see if you had a moment of availability, as they weren’t quite sure when the blackout would be over and done with.”
Chris was surprised the news hadn’t reached him. After all, he was one of the main guys when it came to security. He could have helped. “Strange they didn’t inform me.” It probably meant it wasn’t as serious as Chris played it out in his head to be.
The elevator doors opened again, and Chris showed officer Howard the way to his office. “And you, Deputy, you live here in the city?”
Chris nodded. “I do, about a twenty minute walk from here.”
“Is that why you’re so-?” Officer Howard waved his hand up and down his body whilst talking, before he flexed his right arm, indicating he was talking about Chris’ physique. It made the Deputy laugh, and then shake his head.
“Not really, I work out.” Chris had a choice to make when he turned fourteen: what kind of studies he wanted to pursue at the on board school. As a child, he never quite knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. As a young teen, he thought safety and security sounded amazingly cool. An intergalactic police man ? Any fourteen year old thought that was about the coolest job you could get in the universe. A police officer needed to be fit, and Chris was doing everything in his power to get there. However, after four years, the school had quickly decided for him that he shouldn’t let his brain go to waste by just doing the physical stuff. When he exited the spaceship at age twenty, he was placed in a two year internship program following the Director of Planetary Security – one of the important people who had been chosen before departure and was one of the first people to have left Earth. After those two years, Chris became Deputy Director. Add another three years, and he was still carrying that title proudly.
He had grown to like the job more than he thought he would, but even after he was placed in an office job, he continued his workout routine. Not only to maintain what he had built over the years, but also because it was a great outlet for stress. Being Deputy Director was all glitz, glamour and cool-sounding on paper, but it was a damn stressful job sometimes. “Started as a boy, wanting to be an officer like you. Then, I got placed here.”
“Huh, that’s funny, I’d always wanted something more of an office job.”
Both men laughed as they reached Chris’ office. He opened the door, expecting the Skaro files to be ready on his desk, the rest of his office like how he had left it. Instead, he found the bin beside his desk burning and a masked stranger staring at his computer. The mask, metallic and reflective, showed absolutely no facial features of whoever was sitting in Chris’ chair. The stranger didn’t even seem to notice the two staring at them. After a few seconds, Chris spoke up.
“Am I interrupting something, or-?” The person’s head snapped to look at them – how they could even look through that mask was a mystery to Chris – and then their entire body froze. A soft, nervous chuckle could be heard from underneath the mask.
“Gentlemen, good morning.” The stranger stood up from the chair, but didn’t move out of the way.
Dressed in all black, with gloves and the mask, there was no skin or hair visible. Clearly the person was up to no good, judging by the lack of their identity and by the fire in Chris’ bin.
Taking a step closer, Chris noted no folder on his desk. He could only assume that was the thing burning, which made the situation even worse. Systems could be hacked, files leaked, and entire networks shut down. Paper had become a rarity - trees weren't really a thing on Mithras -, something for the utmost important documents they could not risk to lose. Fire was a thing from Earth, as everything requiring fire nowadays was done with electricity. The person in front of them very well knew what they were doing, burning such important documents.
“Deputy Director Wolstenholme, shouldn’t you be down at ISO to help with the blackout?”
Chris ignored the question from the stranger, and responded with his own question. “What’s burning in my bin?” Another chuckle could be heard, but no reply. Logically, Chris knew the answer. Without taking his eyes off the mask, he pointed vaguely behind him. “Officer Howard, could you please call in to ISO? We’re dealing with a masked intruder who’s burning important government documents.”
“On it.”
Before he could hear Officer Howard call out to ISO through his communicator, the intruder made a run for it. They missed Chris’ hands by just mere centimetres, showing their agility, and forcefully pushed Officer Howard to the side as they ran into the hallway. The officer didn’t miss a beat, immediately going after them. Chris followed closely.
The hallways were quite calm, so there wasn’t a lot of dodging and jumping like in most action movies, but Chris could feel the adrenaline pump through his veins nonetheless. The thing he was doing in that exact moment was the thing he always wanted to do since he was a young child, and Lord, he loved the thrill. The intruder had chosen to run in the direction of the end of the hallways, and not the direction of the elevators or stairs. They were running themselves into a dead end, which was steadily coming in sight. With nowhere to go, Chris was certain they had them. That was until the intruder jumped up on the windowsill, and elbowed one of the glass panes so hard it shattered on impact. Chris knew those windows, strong and laser proof. What that person did was physically impossible, and yet. The hole was almost as big as the intruder themselves, who faced both men coming to a halt.
What exactly was that person going to do? They were on the fifteenth floor. If they jumped, they would be embracing death. That couldn’t possibly be their plan. Chris also really wasn’t in the mood to witness someone dying.
“It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen,” the intruder said somewhat cocky. Chris could sense a grin underneath the mask. “Best watch out for changes ahead if I were you.” The person put two fingers to their head, mockingly saluting the two, before letting themselves fall backwards out of the window.
Both Chris and officer Howard lunged forward, wanting to catch a limb or some clothes, but grasped at air. Chris looked down at the person falling, until he didn’t see them anymore. It wasn’t the case of them falling so far down Chris couldn’t physically see them anymore. They had blipped out of existence. One moment, the intruder was falling. The next moment, a white flash engulfed them, and they were gone. Chris could hear Officer Howard talking in the background, but wasn’t too focused on what was said. Instead, he tried to wrap his head around what he had just seen. No one could just blip out of existence. Sure, he was living on a whole different planet than he had grown up on, but what he had just seen was completely impossible.
“ISO’s sending someone as soon as they can,” Officer Howard stated, taking a stand next to Chris.
“Did you see that?” Chris asked, looking up at the officer.
“See what?”
“He just… Vanished.”
Officer Howard frowned, looking down as if he would be able to see the disappeared stranger. “Are you sure he didn’t just fall too far down?”
Chris shook his head. If his estimating skills were any good, he’d say the intruder disappeared around the ninth floor. Whilst there were six floors between them at that point, it was not far enough down for Chris to not be able to see them anymore.
“Well, ISO’s going to sweep the city as well. We just need to stay put until Chief Kirk has arrived.”
Chris knew Chief Kirk quite well. He was the head of London’s ISO team, which made it so Chris had bimonthly meetings with him about how safety was being managed in London, what global measurements were on the table and how those would affect their city, and financial talk for new equipment. Chief Kirk was a hard-working, honest man. The absolute best of his kind. Chris was curious about what he had to say about the whole situation.
They decided to head back to Chris’ office to gather information after putting the fire out. Something felt very off about the whole situation. The nonchalance of the intruder, the falling and disappearing. They had started a fire for crying out loud . Chris didn’t even have the materials necessary to do that in an easy way. They knew Chris’ name, they knew about the blackout, they had expected Chris to be gone from his office to help ISO out with said blackout. It sounded like a plan gone wrong.
Chief Kirk arrived shortly after, knocking on the office door and letting himself in. Chris was the first to approach him. “Tom, I’m very glad you could make it,” Chris greeted him. They shook hands.
“Well, after what they told me, it only seemed logical for me to come over and discuss what happened.”
Officer Howard joined the two men, shaking the Chief’s hand as he introduced himself. “How is everything going with the blackout, sir?” Officer Howard asked, folding his hands behind his back.
“Some systems are back online, we have our best men working on it,” Tom smiled.
Chris couldn’t help himself, and asked: “With all respect, but why wasn’t I informed?”
The question made the smile fade from Tom’s face, a sigh rolling over his lips. Chris knew the way the chief was acting, he was about to break news he’d rather not tell Chris. “The intruder was wearing a mask, yes?” Chris and Officer Howard nodded. “It’s not the first time that person caused trouble. They’ve been going bigger and bigger in their attacks over the last few months-”
“Months?”
“-and as soon as the blackout hit, I suspected it was their doing. The blackout seemed very insignificant compared to their latest attack.” Chris crossed his arms over his chest, raising an eyebrow. He had never heard of this masked intruder before, or their other attacks. It was very strange the Chief was keeping that information from him. Tom looked at Chris. “I suspected the blackout was only a diversion to get to something bigger. A blackout like this should get the attention of Planetary Security, which would result in you leaving office. Perfect if they wanted something from in here. I decided to see if it was truly the case by not informing you, and then Officer Howard called in.” Chris should have been mad, irritated at least, but Chief Kirk had made a good decision by not informing him about the blackout. If Chris had travelled down to ISO, the intruder would have gotten all the time in the world to set files on fire and search for whatever information they wanted from Chris’ computer.
“Why have I not been informed of this person before?” Chris asked.
“We never viewed it as truly severe. You already have a busy job, this felt like something within our own division.”
“So, what now?” Officer Howard asked after silently listening for a while. “What do you want us to do about this intruder? How are we moving forward?”
“They have been put on the most wanted list. For us that means arrestation on sight. If they show any resistance or violence, troops are allowed to neutralise this person in any way deemed necessary.” And that was the polite way of saying that the masked intruder was allowed to get killed by anyone in the safety and security department without repercussions, if safety was threatened. “It seems like this person won’t stop any time soon, so only imagine what they will be doing next time around.”
In the twenty years Chris had worked in safety and security, he had never had the allowance to kill if seen fit. He swallowed thickly and nodded.
After a bit more talk, Chief Kirk excused himself to return back to ISO and see what progress they made on the blackout, promising Officer Howard to reschedule his meeting with the local team.
* * * * *
The rest of Chris’ day went by very slowly. Mostly because his brain kept jumping back to the masked intruder and what had gone down. He tried to make sense of it, of what the person did and said. Watch out for changes ahead. Probably some words to get the Deputy confused and lost in thought, like he was now. He had cancelled his meetings. Reassembling the Skaro files and working on the file of the masked stranger were on top of his to-do list. But he couldn’t focus, which resulted in not much work getting done. Not as much as he liked.
When five PM rolled around, Chris ultimately decided to turn his computer off and leave for home, the image of that mask fresh on his mind. Something in him told him he was going to see it again.