New World Order (TNE) [Original]

Chapter 9 - The Chief

Ms. Yamaha was inside the hut in her red and gold chair; the same hut Martin and Marissa woke up in. She clearly had new parts from her monster evolution including a spiky tail and her ears were higher up and more circular, all of this culminated in the new stony skin that she possessed. This made Martin think she was a statue if it wasn't for the short hop she did when they came into the room, her eyes were glued to her phone though and her expression was unchanged. That mix of non-emotion with the only sign of life being her thumb slowly sliding down the phone screen and her occasional movement of her hair made the duo utterly uncomfortable. Why was their teacher here?

"Hello Martin, hello Marissa. How have you been enjoying the relocation," she muttered through short looks at her two former students. Her statuelike transformation suited her overall personality quite well, although it didn't make it any less offputting. Relocation was a word that just angered Marissa. It was as if Ms. Yamaha hadn't even noticed the utter destruction of the world that just happened above their heads in the above ground cities!

"Relocation? Relocation!" Marissa replied angrily with her purple hair slowly turning into a pair of astral scissors. Martin tried to calm her down, but it was in vain as she easily pushed him back and continued walking towards her formed teacher. "Is this all some sick joke to you?"

"Well, it's just a new look for us, we clearly still have regular society just in a new place. Now could you leave for a bit I'm nearly done this level," Ms. Yamaha responded with a calm dry voice as if she hadn't had water all day and simply didn't care. Martin got back up from the push but tried to back away from the fight that seemed to be taking place in front of him. But, thinking about it Ms. Yamaha did have a point, there was clearly still a society here. Marissa was about to try and use her astral hair scissors to be utterly cruel to the teacher but she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and stopped herself. "Seriously though please leave this level is really tough."

Francis and Jasmine were looking at each other apprehensively in the meeting room, they both just noticed that The Unknown had flipped the switch to turn the recorders on. The last hour consisted of them both slowly noticing and trying to answer any questions directed at them as non-specifically as verbally possible. They desperately wanted to tell The Unknown to just nudge the switch to record back into place that was The Botanist's Club wouldn't be able to hear any of this, but that was more difficult than expected. The Unknown had even went for a washroom break but in that time Chief went on a long rant about work ethic and the quality of work they had been producing. But, now things were getting worrying as they were about to talk about phase 2 of the test.

"So, the test has been going pretty well so far. We released the toxin below ground first and then dumped it on the city. People either fled or got taken to the pre-established town like we planned. The only thing I'm worried about are the people who didn't get infected," Chief explained with his spine slowly rising back and forth with every breath. It's appearance was ungodly but at the same time the fear kept this whole city's government in check. None of them would dare to question such a horrid and powerful creature. Hence why Jasmine still didn't mention the error The Unknown made earlier, not yet anyways.

"The next phase of the test is to release our homebred creatures out onto the town and route out those who were unaffected by the transformation toxin. Is that correct," Francis asked Chief nervously, too scared to look in his general vicinity. He knew that he just revealed a major piece of information but knew that making sure he was correct about this could cost him his job if he did the wrong next step and disappointed Chief. But, he got his due punishment from a swift slap on the knee by Jasmine.

"Yes, that is-" began the monotone coworker.

"Yes, that is correct we will release the creatures all of you scientists have created throughout the past few weeks," Chief interrupted on top of the coworker. Even with Chief's quieter voice in comparison to the coworker, he was too afraid to continue talking and let Chief take the lead. Although in all fairness, Chief really let itself. Once Chief finished a boom was sent through the meeting room as the doors opened with a crash. The Unknown had returned from his bathroom break and seemed to be smiling an off putting smile. Chief gave him a look that clearly disapproved of his smile so he removed it and rushed into his chair. Thankfully, he had flipped the switch back in the rush.

Seeing this Jasmine and Francis let out a sigh of relief. Francis may have said more than he should've but at least it wouldn't be recording anymore.

Plum, Timothy and Geoffrey were all camping out by the power generated tree. The tree's logs had been all dispersed evenly to the populace of Botanist's Club. Beside them was a campfire they had all worked hard to make and were roasting chestnuts and hazelnuts over it in long skewers. The fire gave them a nice woody, nurturing taste and Geoffrey absolutely loved it; it made him feel at home. Now that was a feeling he hadn't got in a while. The only sounds besides the burning of the campfire that they could hear around them was the speaker that had been picking up the government meeting for the past hour. After the first 15 minutes everybody had kind of tuned it out and stopped listening, it was only still playing since nobody knew how to shut it off. That was except for Plum.

Plum was not certain that the speakers were actually the government, some of the things they said almost felt like parodies of thing actual presidents and mayors had said. But, this was too long for a simple joke call to go on for and nobody had figured out how to even get in to the speakers so the possibility of it being the actual government seemed likely. Timothy was much more interested on what the result of the naming elections would be, he had voted on "Forestville" but had a bad feeling "The Town Under" would win. Geoffrey was playing with some spare change he'd had on him, magnetically pulling it from hand to hand. That was when it played. The worst most terrible thing they could've heard on the speaker.

It was a simple message but meant quite a lot "The next phase of the test is to release our homebred creatures out onto the town and route out those who were unaffected by the transformation toxin" the speakers ushered. Plum was the only one was really listening closely but it was undeniable that whoever those people were talking they wanted people like them dead. A shiver quaked through Plum's spine as the sat back in her log chair and turned back to the group with a fake smile.