"So the order really did just invert" says Tommy looking at me with interest for a moment before simply turning his head towards the others in the room. This time Tommy's long brown hair is tied up into a ponytail and his clothes cement the posh person impression.
He's wearing a suit that you can't quite tell if it's female or male. There's no bulge in the chest area obviously but the colours are more feminine than masculine. It looks rather comfortable honestly and the shades of pink and purple stripes running across the suit seem to indicate that this is meant to be a business suit of some sort. That impression is helped by the similarly coloured tie he's wearing and while I can't see the colour of the shirt I have to guess it's a sort of light purple.
He even has one of those handkerchiefs tucked into his pocket and folded up in that neat posh people way. The handkerchief is a bright red and matches the rest of the outfit surprisingly well. His bottom half is a matching pair of trousers that have similarly folded handkerchiefs coming out of his pockets for one reason or another. They're both the same vivid red as the one in his suit pocket.
His shoes meanwhile are a more visceral blood red colour and certainly not as bright and showy as the rest of his outfit. They look like they would clak against the floor and shine to perfection. Even though the salt should've gotten on his shoes for some reason I can't see any and they reflect their surroundings when I look at them.
The person Tommy turns to is Marianne and her trademark fierce smile. The honeybear in all her glory. She's outfitted in proper dress this time rather than the tribal attire she tried to pass off as clothing on our first meeting.
Her top half is covered by a fur jacket with no pattern. Just a colour that matches her hair and sleeves that don't make it more than a few inches past her shoulders. The front of the jacket isn't done up either and underneath she appears to be wearing a black vest that doesn't cover much of her midrif and honestly looks a little more like a sports bra than anything.
Her bottom half meanwhile consists of what appear to be a pair of fur shorts. They make it to just above the knees and share the honey coloured look she's going for. Honestly I bet if I stroked that fur it would feel absolutely sublime and if even I can tell that much it's gotta be expensive stuff.
Her shoes are a more normal affair. Sort of. They're sandals but also not. There's no strap. It's almost as though she just stuck some sort of fabric or leather to the bottom of her feet and thought that was good enough.
"Indeed it would appear the order we arrive was reversed this time." She says in her baritone voice. I actually find her voice to be more masculine than feminine but the bulges coming out of her sports bra clearly tell me otherwise. The fact that I had to check though…
"While I'm not completely certain. I do believe this is a means for Mainframe to show a lack of favouritism. If he or she were to have someone arrive first the others may become jealous or look up to them as a commander. Which I suppose could be useful in it's own right but it is unlikely with personalities as bad as our own we would take any sort of best case scenario in any situation." The person with the long-winded speech surprises everyone when she speaks up.
We all thought of her as more standoffish than anything and she still looks displeased to be around us. Well to be exact she doesn't have any expression. Her massive bushy tail behind her is straight and unmoving even sitting in her special chair and her eyes are cold like crystals of ice, their baby blue colour only enhancing this effect.
Her white hair in a bob cut doesn't move an inch even when she's speaking as though she's frozen in place. Lumi's not really much of a talker and she's already stated multiple times she doesn't like us so it's a bit of a surprise she spoke up here.
Lumi's attire is incredibly similar to what she wore a few days ago when they first met. A coat that's far too big for her. She even has her hood up indoors. The hood has a little fur around it's edges as does the coat but it is otherwise a completely normal coat.
It's white in colour and matches her hair extremely well. You can see the bulges of the padding the coat contains and having zipped up the coat she looks incredibly snug inside of it. We can't see anything above her knees since the coat extends that far down but we can see that she has a pair of what appear to be fur trousers similar to Marianne's shorts extending down to her ankles.
Her feet meanwhile appear to be protected by something resembling tennis rackets but made out of fur weaved incredibly intricately. That must be hard to walk on indoors. But I guess she'll be in the ship the entire time anyway so it doesn't really matter.
"Coming first doesn't make someone a leader. That's earned. It's like a twin saying they're the older one because they were born a few minutes before the other. It's just nonsense" The loudmouth who's arrogant explanation could be heard all over the room was Delilah.
Her hazel eyes stared daggers at anyone who met her gaze. Unless they were Marianne at which point they would almost audibly whimper like a beaten dog and become suddenly obsequious. Her arrogant smile gave off a similarly confrontational presence. She was wearing a jacket like last time though now it was made of cloth and a dark green instead of the leather that it was made from previously.
Under that was a beige shirt that appeared to have a small round neckline and just looked like an ordinary T-shirt. Her bottom half was taken up by a pair of similarly beige shorts. They appeared to be made from the same type of cloth as her jacket and only reached just above the knees like Marianne's
Her partner meanwhile was wearing a tracksuit. All black. Nothing more, nothing less. The zipper down the front of the tracksuit jacket was the only small reflection of light that came off her completely dark outfit. Her eyes were far calmer and a black matching her tracksuit. They sparkled with the light of intelligence and caution as she constantly scanned the room.
Her ponytail swaying slightly as her head moved was the only response to her partner's comment. She was either not willing to comment or just didn't feel the need to. "Come on Del there's actually quite a few twins who accept that reasoning you know." I chided her knowing a few orphans back home who thought of themselves as twins and had this sort of argument all the time.
"I'm still right though aren't I?" She growled back sounding annoyed at how pedantic I was being. I mean yes but that's not the point. You shouldn't fire stray conversational bullets like that. What if someone gets hurt.
"Now that you're all here we can begin." Says Emily and instantly everyone quiets down. It might have something to do with that terrifying smile or it might have something to do with her being the mouthpiece for Mainframe. Either way Emily catches the attention of the entire room.
"To remind you. Today will be the day of the infiltration. The first part should not be very difficult. Lumi must simply fly you into the planet Machina using the identities we prepared for you. If you explain to the guards your reason for coming as 'consulting with a client' they'll likely let you through without asking questions. If things fail right in the beginning we'll just think something up on the spot. Likely something more violent." Explains Emily with an innocent smile.
"Next you'll head to the Flux branch headquarters. Pretty simple. You just have to walk and act like the mercenaries you are. If they ask where you're going you tell them the client changed locations on you last minute. Once you get there is where the fun begins." Emily pauses to look at all our faces before continuing.
"Once inside Tommy will get you to the stairs. Good luck with that." She says smiling at Tommy who just gives her a serious nod in return. I thought he'd be a little more jovial about this but I guess not…
"We will keep contact with you on the first floor as it turns out but I'm afraid after that you're on your own. Vaguely defined your job will be to get to the tenth floor head to the employee break room, scan someone's body structure and then use his or her access to get up to the 13th or higher floor."
"Will we all need to scan an employee?" Asks Tommy more serious than usual. Maybe this is just a habit. Or maybe he keeps up the jovial act with us because he doesn't want us to worry or something. That'd be kind of sad but I can't blame him for it really.
"No just one. We can hide the rest of you from the sensors with just one employee but if you plan to come into contact with others and use your suits as a disguise then yes you will each need one. You may do whatever you believe is needed as the situation arises but know that ideally you are not to be spotted in a place you shouldn't be." Explains Emily patiently after hearing Tommy's question.
"Right you said we have to grab a few guard's bodies right? Something about blaming them for the break in?" Asked Delilah sounding almost bored with her own question.
"Correct. We are planning on having this seem like an internal dispute if not to the company itself at the very least to the public. While everyone would be happy to see Flux taken down a peg there would be those who would use this opportunity to get on their good side and…" Emily makes a cut throat gesture with her finger.
"Kill anyone in the way right?" Asked Dahlia who now that I think about it speaks up just as little as Lumi but in a different way. It's like Lumi doesn't want anything to do with us but Dahlia is just serious minded I guess.
"Yes." Was Emily's simple answer. In other words this is a scorched earth mission then. No witnesses, blame the guards and nothing ever officially happened. There's a good chance they could wipe us out afterwards too though judging by the gifts and the way they're treating us it's more likely that we would be recruited.
Maybe those who aren't recruited will actually be whacked to stop anything from leaking. It's also possible we might end up being forced to stay silent through other means but… As I'm pondering this I match eyes with Tommy who gives me a slight nod. Seems he thinks we might be knocked off if we don't agree as well.
We were planning on working for Mainframe anyway but this… "Once you're on the 13th floor or above get into the employee room and get one of these drives." Emily cuts off my thoughts and starts giving out what appear to be USBs to everyone present after she finishes speaking.
"into one of the computers there. It doesn't really matter which one. Once you've done that we'll be able to communicate with you once again though only through company phones. Still it will be enough for us to give you the instructions on where to go which will be the colour displayed on the screen. Here are the colours just to help you confirm." Emily shows us her tablet and on it is a drawing of the company building with various locations lit up with certain colours.
White in the middle and in the other four cardinal directions is black, blue, red and orange. We all nod and seeing this Emily puts the tablet away and looks at everyone before confirming. "Everyone ready. We have a ship landing for you outside as we speak. You are free to go whenever you please. Unfortunately I will not be accompanying you but I assure you I will be kept apprised of the situation on site. I wish you luck if you believe in it, if not I wish you the protection of Malarie." With that Emily sits down on a desk I completely ignored against the wall right in front of me as I stayed in the same place I entered the room.
Then she picked up some paperwork and got back to processing it. I don't actually know what she's doing but she's clearly saying 'get on with it I will entertain no further questions' in her own little way.
So I look at everyone and shrug as I leave the director's office. Since I was the closest to the door I open it and hold it there for everyone else to pass through. First behind me is Tommy. Then the Dede pair. Finally Marianne and Lumi both go through after each other in a neat little line and I close the door carefully behind us as to not disturb Emily's work.
Then we walk through the massive hall filled with different weird drawings and stories before reaching the big wooden doors. This time Tommy keeps them open for us and upon stepping outside we are immediately assaulted by well… Salt.
"Ah I spent so long in there I forgot that the environment on this planet is awful" My muttered complaint is drowned out by the outrageous wind speeds buffering each of our faces as we look up into the sky.