Phantasms and Falsehoods

Part 11 - Can I? Sorry... MAY I?

Nutmeg stifled her breathing as she ran down the hall, trying not to seem out of breath. She ignored all the curious stares from lone trainees passing by as she swept into her office and cleared the jump over her desk, landing sideways in her chair. The wheeled leather office chair rolled into the wall somewhat violently, but she used her feet to soften the blow and twisted into proper positioning in her chair once it stopped moving. Flipping her laptop open, she quickly typing an email to Head of Guard, pausing to check for spelling errors moments before sending it. His secretary responded within minutes, and she sighed in frustration, tapping her fingers impatiently on the desk.

"Need to get permission," she muttered to herself angrily, a habit of hers she never could quite shake off whenever she was alone. "Because this 'little girl' isn't allowed to do anything without your permiss- oh, of course I have to argue with him."

She typed angrily into her keyboard some more, despite the fact that the message she was sending was completely neutral-toned, and she clicked send. She needed the Head of Guard to allow Eggman to be informed of the weather issues outside.

"Are you crazy," Nutmeg fake-quoted his previous message in a semi-mocking voice as she awaited his next email. "That time traveler don't know nothing."

"Hi, don't mean to intrude."

Nutmeg jerked in surprise at the sight of Scarlet at her door.

"Have I been gone that long?"

"No, I just wanted to tag along."

"Oh, okay. You're not intruding." Nutmeg turned and made an angry fist at her laptop, and Scarlet chuckled softly.

"Are you like getting permission from Bob?"

"Yeah, there's nothing else I can do. Kind of like having a dictator for a dad, even though he's not my dad." Her violet eyes glanced over her laptop screen as the next email came back. "Oh. He wants a private meeting."

"Oh?" Scarlet looked somewhat concerned.

"Hey, private meetings mean he's actually considering it." Nutmeg smiled encouragingly at her head counselor. "Normally he'd just shut me down and that would be that. I mean, the situation out there is pretty serious."

She got up and walked past the hedgehog, lightly poking her shoulder. "I'll see you soon. Can you tell the others it'll be a bit before-?"

"Sure, man. Good luck." Scarlet waved her off before heading back to the break room.

The main office was brightly lit as the pink flying squirrel walked in hesitantly. She caught the eye of one of the desk clerks, who recognized her immediately and nodded in acknowledgement. "Mr. Wilkes is waiting in his office."

Nutmeg mentally steeled herself and walked past the desk, down the hall, and up to his door. She rapped quietly on the outside, and stepped inside upon the slightly gruff, 'door's unlocked.'

The Head of Guard's office was strangely dim, making his snow-white hair look slightly grey. The pink squirrel quickly shut the door behind her and stood before his desk, too anxious to sit down. Mr. Wilkes scrutinized her a split second before looking at his computer screen, which had their email conversation pulled up.

"So, let me get this straight, Silver the hedgehog himself popped into your school just to tell you to let Eggman help sort out the issue with the sky?"

"Yessir he did." She responded, her voice an octave deeper than normal.

"How can we know Eggman will be the one to sort this out?"

The squirrel raised her eyebrows, shaking her head in vexation. "Like I touched on in the email, we can't know. The future is indeterminable, constantly changing. I'm sure Eggman's supposed to play a part in helping resolve the climate issue, but I don't dare say he'll be solely responsible for fixing it." Upon his silent, uncomfortable staring, she continued somewhat nervously, "Tails has no idea where to even start with this problem. If we have two brilliant scientists aboard, perhaps we'll figure out a solution twice as fast."

"I see your point." Mr. Wilkes folded his hands together beneath his chin as he turned his gaze to his computer screen, contemplating. "Well, alright. He needs to be under surveillance at all times, no talking to any of the other trainees about the issues happening. Forget his F.V.R. courses, perhaps cleaning up one of his own problems will somehow reshape him for the better." He blinked, still staring at his screen. "If he doesn't want to comply at first, bribe him with a getting-out-of-jail-free card. I'm sure he doesn't want to be stuck in a school surrounded by old enemies."

Perhaps they needn't be enemies if he just reconciled with them, she thought to herself. Out loud, she replied, "Yessir. Thank you for the talk," and left his office with a calm demeanor of resignation.