Stuff Of Legend

Chapter 20

It was surreal to have the president of the United States having top secret meetings about you, but it's a whole new level of crazy to actually sit down and have a meeting with him. Piper left her team back at Bischoff and followed Ansley out in the cold. The sky was a bleak gray, the trees naked with damp bark. People would be coming back here in a week or so and the beauty of the solidarity would be gone until summer break. Piper would miss the quiet.

Ansley led her up the mountain to Doris Inn. It struck Piper as peculiar to be meeting the most important man in America in a mini motel and not an actual business room. There were men dressed in suits with ear pieces standing guard at every corner of the inn. The president was staying in a top room. Ansley went up to one of the two guards standing out his room, and told them who Piper was. The two guards opened the door and let Piper enter unattended.

President Romulus Greene was sitting at the mini table next to the maser bed. The room had a dull wooden floor with a large and pale green rug draped over it. The darker green sheets complimented it nicely with the cream walls. Piper was paying more attention to the room décor as opposed to the president. He wore a suit, similar to the one he wore when her arrived, but now with a red tie. Piper could fully see his features now; faint blonde hair and weary blue eyes. Time in the office gave him wrinkles men his age shouldn't possess and his whole stature was small, but seemed gigantic because of how important he was.

He stood up and crossed the room to Piper. The two of them were now alone in this room, no ATLAS member in sight.

"Piper Scott," he said, holding out his hand for a shake, "President Romulus Greene. I am sorry to spring a surprise visit on you."

Piper took his hand firmly, "Pleasure is all mine, Mr. President." Piper may not care for politics, and views people in charge just as the same as she would a bum on the street, but she does have some manners. Only some.

The two of them sat down at the table. Piper sat there awkwardly as President Green was there with a beaming aurora of authority and diplomacy. "So I suspect you want to know what this meeting is about?" He began. "Or maybe, you have an idea. I've heard that you are a very bright young lady."

"Why isn't Caldwell here?" Piper asked suddenly.

"I didn't want to bother Joe with this meeting. Plus, I wanted to have this meeting one on one. I assume you've heard that my last meeting here was about you? It's not wrong. But now, I'm here on a matter that doesn't just relate to you, but all deviants.

"You don't know what happened here the day you were born, and it's not my business to disclose that information to you. But a lot happened, to say the least. I've been trying, for my entire run as president, to better our nation, not just for deviants, but for us regular folk as well. I haven't done the best of jobs, and from your background, you can justify that. But before my time ends, I want to leave a lasting mark on this country. And that's why you are important.

"What happened seventeen years ago is a secret, and a nasty one, and unfortunately, you are at the center of that. But it's come to my attention that as of late, you aren't the only one. I have intel here that says your sister Skylar Scott is alive, correct?"

Turning back the clock, Piper counted that it's only been about four days since she returned from meeting her long thought dead sister. And somehow in those four days, word traveled all the way to the White Houses into the president's lap. Piper was genuinely interested into what President Greene was saying, so she gave a simple nod.