Representative

The First Meeting

We talked for about ten minutes longer, until the final girl arrived. She was Chinese. The conversations died down with the tinkle of tapped glass to associate a start. The familiar voice started off the conversation abruptly, focusing his attention directly towards one of the arrivals - the Russian man, large and broadly structured, a petite structured presumably Russian girl beside him, maybe a foot over half his height. They were a funny duo.

"The girl is not on the contract list, would you care explaining?"

The Russian man looked at the smaller, Belgium leader.

"She is my bodyguard. She stays with me."

"What about the secrecy agreement? Russia can't do what it wants!" the Chinese girl complained. She had her auburn hair up in two buns, looking thoroughly like she didn't want to be there.

"She stays," the man was Ivan. I knew him from his profile, and his extensive contacts with wealth. Yet beside him was a fragile, small girl with heterochromatic eyes. She looked scared, as if not understanding what was being said. Perhaps she'd never even left her home country. Her voice was soft, quiet, I could barely pick up the words that I knew.

"Vanya? Is.. wrong .... me .... ....."

"No, ... not ....."

As Ivan moved to stroke the younger girls hair comfortingly, the Chinese accent met the Russian ones. Of course. How could I not have recognised her before? Chen was a well known linguist expert.

"Yes, ..... is ....... he is an idiot ...... ....."

The Russian girl suddenly put her hand in front of her friend, she looked angry as she glared at the Chinese girl that had interrupted their conversation. I cursed myself for not knowing more of the language, so I would know what else she had said apart from insulting him. The Belgium man who had started this looked entertained, I half wondered if he had planned for his to happen. I let out a small tut to draw the attention to myself while remaining polite,

"Perhaps we should concentrate on the introduction meeting?"

Evelyn jumped on the chance of a conversation change and stood up,

"Yes. I am Evelyn, representative of France. I am a specialist on biology and maths. Are we not missing someone?" she gestured towards the empty chair beside me,

"Ah, Charlotte. She is also attending from Wales, although as a media producer and devil's advocate rather than a representative. She will be arriving tomorrow," I took it as my chance to speak and help defer the stunned faces on my temporary allies.

There was a moments pause as the rest figured who should go next, "Hey! I'm Zachariah, or Zac, I'm from Germany and the best representative ever! I'm gonna be doing all the space stuff with orbits and satellites to make sure you don't shoot them out of the sky. If you want to reveal your government secrets, I'm the man to call," I took interest to this one. He was of a medium height, but his build looked rather strong, unlike everyone else in the room. He stood out as confident, younger than those around, including not wearing a suit but normal casual clothes. Maybe he had been here longer and already settled down for personal reasons, I would not question it for now unless he starts causing trouble. I waited for the next person before realizing Evelyn had turned her attention back to me.

"You didn't tell us where you were from" she stated kindly towards me.

"Ah.. England."

Evelyn gestured around the table circle, letting people introduce themselves one at a time. She seemed like the natural leader, I looked at her with admiration. Her control was graceful, yet stern. I wondered what she would do to someone who raised a finger against her. Each person went around and said there words, although my concentration was on the papers in front of me rather than them.

"Gabrielle. Romania."

"It's an honour to meet all you. My name is Shinji, I am from Japan. I hope to be of assistance."

"Hello, I'm Mateusz. From Poland."

There was a blank pause and then a stuttering lisp, "Oh it's my turn. Hello, everyone. I'm Henri, the representative from Canada."

"I'm Chen. From China. I'm actually supposed to be here. I'll be doing most of the engineering."

"It would be rude to have a slip of tongue on the first day. I come from the motherland, Russia as her representative today in this project. I'm sure you've already read on the files what my name is."

Without having to look up, I could tell the spitting tone described his dislike of being challenged so early on, as well as being after the one who had challenged him. There were a few murmurs of greetings all around. Evelyn continued after the noise had settled down,

"Adrien, you were the one who invited us to work in this project, would you care to further develop your plans?"

My attention was drawn back to the Belgium man, as we were doing this preparation in his country. He had brown hair that was combed neatly, a gold embroidered suit in midnight blue. A handkerchief was out of his pocket. Yet, he seemed to have an informal air around him that I couldn't quite place my finger on. Perhaps it was to do with his stance, he was laid back against the chair with one leg propped up over the other.

"The Sun gun-"

"Stolen from my country, Germany!"

"The Sun gun is an excellent invention, a weapon designed to destroy a whole country by focusing the sun's light. However, there is curiosity if this weapon can be transferred into solar energy."

"I-I'm sorry to interrupt, but this sounds awfully like America's vulcan laser project.."

"Little Canadian, it's alright. The thoughts are too different, but similar in their own ways."

He had a smirk on his face, filled with confidence. I was not sure which was ruder: Adrien's disregard for American science or Zachariah's interruption and childish nature. Either way, the end of the conversation was met with an awkward silence.

The abrupt movement of Chen's chair going backwards greeted my ears,

"It's all in the file. This meetings over, I'm going to set up for work now. Bye"

Waiting a minute or two, I could see hesitation on Shinji's face. He seemed to want to follow, but not be rude. Henri seemed to be in a similar situation. Looking back at Adrien, he seemed to have a smug look on his face. Evelyn sighed and stood up,

"Is there anything else anyone would like to discuss?"

There was a murmur of disagreement all around. Evelyn smiled and looked at Adrien, allowing him to do the honours.

"You are dismissed."