MARIEL

25~ There's Something Wrong With Thompson ~

Saturday, February 15th, 2020

Chicago, Illinois

"There's something wrong with Thompson."

On the twelfth floor, the morning sunlight beamed its orange rays through the conference room windows. In the Chicago streets below, the city bustled about as the smell of fresh coffee wafted through the conference room.

Tira sat at the head of the massive mahogany table. A couple chairs away sat Miels, who had an untouched Styrofoam cup of coffee steaming in the morning light before her.

"What do you mean?" Tira asked, crossing her leg over the other. She was anxious to leave. The meeting with Chicago PD had ended moments earlier. Everyone else left the room to find breakfast or continue preparation for the rally. However, Miels had requested to speak with Tira alone.

Miels wet her lips. The steam from the hot coffee coiled upwards. "At the hotel last night, he just sat in the lobby by himself. Picked the chair in the darkest corner of the room and just sat there staring blankly."

Tira shrugged. "Perhaps he is tired. Overwhelmed. Anything else odd?"

"Yes. His lips were moving, like he was talking to someone. But he didn't have his phone out and I'm pretty sure there wasn't an earpiece in his ear."

Tira thought about his demeanor the night before and today at the meeting. He'd seemed distant, but not to the level Miels was describing.

"How has he been the last couple weeks when I was gone?"

Miels reached for the coffee. "Distant. Angry. But I figured that was to be expected since we broke up. He's never talked to himself though."

"Well," Tira dead-panned. "He's overly-sensitive. Perhaps he's providing himself therapy."

Miels choked, nearly spitting coffee. "That's horrible, but funny. I am going to hell."

"Yes, especially since you dated the man." Tira sighed and folded her arms. "Anything else you noticed?"

"No, just that. I thought I'd tell you. He's not exactly pleased with me so I can't exactly ask him if he's okay."

Why couldn't he wait until after the rally to fall apart? Then, Tira could wash her hands of him and his future endeavors.

Her watch vibrated. "Have any of the others noticed?" Tira asked, looking towards her wrist. She felt her pulse increase as she saw the beginning of a text message.

'Hey, it's Esther. Hopefully you...'

"I haven't really talked to any of them about him." Miels' voice snapped Tira's attention back to the conversation at hand. "Maybe I'm overreacting. We obviously have a complicated history."

Tira attempted to focus again, fighting the urge to look at the text message on her phone. Her right hand twitched. It rested on her thigh near the pocket that held her phone. Instinctively, she folded her hands together and looked at Miels.

It would not serve to think about Esther Caravan right now.

"I doubt you are overreacting, simply because I've observed oddities from him since early training. I will keep an eye on him. Thank you for coming to me with this." The watch vibrated again, tickling her skin. Was it Esther again?

No, she couldn't think about Esther. If there was any hope of being reinstated as Esther's protector in Chicago, the current duty at hand must be successfully fulfilled now.

Again, she shifted her mind to Thompson. Hypothetically, should something be wrong with Thompson, what could she do? In a perfect world, she might propose a different position for him during the rally or, if necessary, suggest benching him.