The Primal War : First Elements Saga Book 1

Chapter 5: Real World Applications

Marcus was just about to sit down with his tray filled with food when a hand unexpectedly descended onto his shoulder.
“Eat fast, kichwa cha moto, (Swahili for Fire Head)” Doug said before he could sit down.

“Barna is calling a meeting in his office.”
Marcus frowned as he looked at the lean air primal.

“Reason?”

“Oh wait, he told me over coffee and biscuits just now,” Doug said as he began digging around in his pockets before holding up the middle finger. “Pretty sure it was ‘just do what you’re told, Marcus, and don’t ask so many stupid questions’,’ the African said with a sneer as he dropped his hand.

“Wow, Doug, you’re almost cute when you’re trying to be sassy,” Marcus retorted before putting his tray down and sitting. “Considering I can jump from flame to flame instantly, and you can’t, I’m pretty sure I could beat you there anyway, if I had to. I just need to tell Barna to flick his Bic.” He picked up his fork and speared a piece of withered sausage with it.

“Now fuck off, if you don’t mind. I digest better when I don’t have an asshole putting his tongue in my ear while I’m eating.” And he pushed the sausage into his mouth.

Doug stared hard at him for a long moment, his lips twitching as he struggled to find something witty and pithy to say in reply. Only to fail in shame and be forced to spin on his heel and stomp out of the mess hall, defeated in a battle of wits he didn’t realize he needed to fight with the young fire primal.

Grimly Marcus continued to fork the food into his mouth, intent on finishing everything he ordered despite the distinct lack of flavor. They must’ve hired another ex-military guy as a new cook or something; frickin’ ground pounders eat so many MRE’s over a career they lose their sense of taste and need to put ketchup on everything to make it actually edible. And they had a tendency to cook the same way. Unfortunately, he forgot to grab some red sauce of forgiveness and camouflage before he sat down.

Still, three jumps, one short and two long, was enough to put a significant hole in his resource pool. Despite the lack of ketchup, the food contained important calories that he needed to refill that hole. So in it went. Just in case Rose wanted him to teleport through a couple more hoops and do some soft shoe jazz or something to keep the almighty CEO of RedSky entertained.

He was still feeling a bit belligerent when he finally arrived in Barna’s office nearly a half hour later, his colleagues already occupying the three remaining guest chairs after Marcus melted the fourth one last night.

“Good of you to join us, Agent Gray,” Barna said with just a hint of annoyance from where he sat behind his desk.

“Yeah?” Marcus stopped with a frown. “I can unjoin y’all, if you want.” He jerked his thumb in the direction he had just come in.

“There are reruns of ‘My Little Pony’ playing on the tv in the rec room right now that I could go catch up on …”

“Shut the door,” Barna firmly directed. He then turned to face the wall behind him without waiting to see if Marcus would comply. A heartbeat later the lights went out and the wall lit up as a massive monitor.

Sighing in resignation, Marcus closed the door and moved over to lean against the wall, arms folded.

“Two hours ago, at approximately 5 pm local time, a platoon of Russian super soldiers assigned to Russian special forces in the Crimea against the Ukrainian counteroffensive, detached from their company, traveled north to the border with Poland, crossed southern Poland and into Czechia before attacking the British embassy in Prague,” Barna said as a map flashed up
with the route the Russians took.