Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

A Good Performance

Desmond came out of it feeling that his privacy had been thoroughly violated and now restrained by energy cuffs before he was even allowed into the same building as president Hunt. From there he went through at least two more additional scans, mostly for biological weaponry before he was escorted down a hallway and through a set of triples barred security doors.

The Fort harmony bunker had originally been designed for emergency use , but sometime in the past year it had been refurbished into a suite of rooms and offices with president Hunt as the intended resident. Off to his left he saw a hallway that led into a large, comfortable bedroom, while another door led into a small side office with a big man's desk crammed tightly inside designed to show just how important the owner was.

Before him, the main room had the same general purpose it always did, a command station for presidential security . There was an entire wall of security and surveillance cameras all running DNA scans on anyone who came in range. Smaller computing consoles held analysts who were performing on the fly risk assessments on anyone who passed by.

And then there was President Hunt.

He sat on a big swivel chair in the center of the room, while everyone else was forced to stand. He was surrounded by several directors and secretaries. Despite this being a military base, there were precious few military officials present, and those that were had been crammed into the corners of the room, relegated to the furthest points from the president, and they didn't look happy about it.

They had one four star Admiral standing by the door like she was a secretary waiting politely to e noticed.

The look on her face made it very clear that she was aware of this face, and she did not like it.

Silence fell over the room was he was shoved inside, and the entire group turned to look at him. President Hunt was the first person to recognize him, "Everyone out!"

A chorus of protests was raised, but hunt didn't seem to give a shit about any of them, ordering his security detail to herd the protesters away if they wouldn't go voluntarily. Of course when he meant everyone out, that just meant everyone who was not privy to his dastardly underhanded dealings. Government sanctioned assassinations weren't technically legal. In 1981 two thousand years ago the then American government had set a standard that, little did they know, would be the framework for a worldwide government two thousand years in the future, in the same way that same American government had been based loosely on the Roman Senate and city state construction.

This framework was a small thing, mostly unknown and ignored by people of the day and historians that came after but executive order 12333 had established the precedent that government sanctioned assassinations were morally reprehensible, and would henceforth not be supported as a practice in the intelligence communities (at least not against government opposition leaders or as long as no one was likely to find out about it.)

IN later years this president had been adopted by the UN government when it rose to power. Government leaders were off limits for assassination to maintain diplomatic integrity. It was like a smaller version of mutually assured destruction, as soon as you tried assassinating someone else's world leader, there was nothing stopping them from trying to kill yours , so for a few thousand years everyone agreed to an uneasy truce.

President hunt was breaking that president in a big way, and Desmond was the proof. If anyone were to find out about his existence, it would be a massive blow to the administration.

The room filtered clear of people, and Desmond kept his eyes fixed on Hunt's face as the bodies passed him on either side. He could see the man was thinking along the same lines as him. They were in a delicate situation here. Desmond had all the ability to expose the man, and Hunt had the two reasons Desmond had for never exposing him.