Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

A Good Performance

The agents saw Desmond as he stepped out of the car. He could see them looking out of the corner of his eye, their heads turned very slightly in his direction, the barrels of their weapons gently elevated as he approached. They may have seen him, but they didn't recognize him, and he didn't recognize them either. It had been more than two years since he had stepped foot on Earth, and in that time his government contacts had atrophied considerably, replaced with new, fresh blood.

he continued to walk forward, and the guards reacted in kind, stiffening up from their lazy stances, weapons pulled up into a low ready, "Stop there." One of them ordered.

"Not any closer." Another said

Behind them, the Fort Harmony gate was sealed shut, and the building behind was a towering structure of glass and whitewashed metal. There was triple security on the building today with president Hunt visiting. There were six guards at the gate in total, four on the ground and two in the guard towers, that was not to mention the electrified fences, DNA locked Turret guns, and he could have continued to list off the specifications, but it would have taken him all day.

He held up his hands, pausing a few yards from the nervous men.

Nervous men were dangerous men, especially when those nervous men had guns. He couldn't blame them of course, any slipup that could potentially result in President Hunt''s death or injury would likely result in immediate termination , so they weren't taking any chances. That was unsurprising after what had been happening In the past few years.

President Kelly had died not seconds after her inauguration, and it was nearly impossible for the GA, to keep their chairwoman's near assassination quiet , not to mention the Martian President, who had been in a sharply declining coma over the past few months as well. There wasn't much hope for his recovery, but no one was willing to let go just yet.

Despite his neural scans showing no signs of activity.

That was at least three major world leaders either dead, or having just avoided death, four if ou counted Adam himself who was now a big player on the political stage, but the man had been the target of attempted assassination since he was nothing more than a lowly captain. If Desmond were to run a statistical analysis that included Captain Vir, the results would have you thinking that attempted assassinations happened to world leaders every other week .

But clearly, Adam was an outlier and should not be counted.

"Its alright, I'm unarmed."

"Good, why don't you take your unarmed self and step back into your car." The soldier said

He sighed, "I work for Hunt, which you would know if you had run a DNA or facial scan on me."

There was a moment's pause and the group looked on rather sheepishly as two of them trudged forward to pat him down, one of them doing the honors while the other kept a gun nearby, if not leveled at him in case he tried anything stupid.

Desmond made no attempts at them, and with a call through the comms, the gate was open, and he was walked inside. A group of guards met him coming through the gate. Desmond acted during the switch, dropping the two small, ball drones down onto the ground.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that was easy of course. These small ball drones were possibly the only thing in the universe that was going to manage what came next, and he only had them because he worked for president Hunt in the first place. Only two of them had ever been handed out, and it was understood that they would be used to assassinate or capture Adam Vir.

If he was back, that should have meant they had already been used.

The two ball drones rolled away, completely unnoticeable against the black pavement as he was pushed up the road and towards UNSC headquarters. He was transferred through at least six other teams, patted down on every occasion, and then put through a full body scanner. None of that was any sort of humiliation in comparison to the cavity search they preformed on him as a last line of defense.