Zenith: The Grand Return

Chapter One: Living Post-Mortem (Pt. III)

Day two back at base was off to a sour start.

An attempted meeting had been held between the newest members of the new and improved Zenith Program, but thanks to the fact that nobody at base, not even the Special Projects team, was prepared for what they were now attempting to navigate. Captain Shepard was back at base and their entire project had been fast tracked by months, that wasn't something anybody could suddenly work into their already tight schedules.

Sergeant Sheridan was still stationed at Miramar for the majority of today, Ms. Hansen was swamped with initiation paperwork, Marsha hadn't had the heart to cancel all her early morning in-house sessions simply because she now had a workload twice the size that she'd been preparing for, and Dr. Miller couldn't get anywhere until the daycare opened at eight-thirty, lest she wanted to drag an angry toddler into a pointless meeting room filled with argumentative adults. That left Dr. Grant, Jack, and the general himself to sit down and attempt to lay things out all themselves, with the rest of their team promised to come in as soon as they had time. By the looks of it, it might just be the three of them all morning. They'd decided to start, regardless of whoever was - or was not - present, as it was mainly just a bit of a check-in on Jack's part, as he was the leader. It would have been nice to get Marsha - and Michelle, in that case - in the meeting as well, but luck did not seem to be on their side this morning.

"Where is everyone?" Jack furrowed his brows and took a stance at one end of the meeting table, resting one hand on the back of the chair that he was likely supposed to be seated in. Larraby and Grant sat on the other side and had wasted no time in taking a seat, but Jack had always liked to retain the high ground.

Larraby kept quiet, but Dr. Grant managed to pull his face out of his hot cup of coffee long enough to formulate some kind of response. "Busy." Larraby gave him an unimpressed look and nudged the man back to reality using his bony elbow. Sitting up a bit straighter, Dr. Grant realized that it was time for him to wake up and face the reality of the day, one-word responses during an important meeting were not going to fly. "Because we were...uncertain when this project would actually come to fruition," Grant began tentatively, hoping to get his wording straight without sounding incriminating. "It might be a slow start here because we can't exactly have everyone just up and drop their other responsibilities because we've had to fast-track the initiation of the project."

"Mhm," Jack nodded sarcastically, peering at the two old men through narrowed eyes. "And why exactly did you fast track the project?" He already knew the answer, he'd just love to hear one of them say it. They'd fast tracked it to screw him over, to bring him back against his terms and throw him directly into the fire on unsteady footing. All because the other option was to have him come back with far too much power. He could live with it, Jack was certain that he was confident - arrogant - enough to navigate the fire masterfully and have this entire plan backfiring in the government's face.

Larraby cleared his throat, already annoyed by Jack's soundless accusations. "If we brought the children back late August, as previously planned, we'd be legally obligated to have the kids in academic classes within a few weeks. Starting now gives us an entire summer free from the school board and more time for training."

Jack gave a look of disbelief. Tucker and Cindy were the only two remaining teammates in school, and even then, a couple hours a day were the legal requirements, as Jack remembered, and it had never posed a problem before. From somewhere behind him, he heard the door to the smallest conference room open and close behind someone, but never bothered turning around to see who their intruder was. "Respectfully, General..." Jack began, and it was overtly clear that whatever was about to come spilling out of his mouth could certainly not be defined as respectful. "That's a load of bullshit."