New World Order Re-Written (TNE)

Chapter 3 - Making a Note

Jasmine was at her desk directly after the meeting. Throughout the meeting her desk had become progressively more cluttered, upon a quick glance she couldn't even see the snack bars past the papers, diagrams, blueprints and models that she had been asked to put away. In her opinion all that stuff had become utterly pointless. What was to be represented with models, when real life already showed everything they were building. At least it gave her something to do, she couldn't bare walking through the city streets on the average day. Even though she knew deep down that the experiment was for the greater good, looking at the finished product (or at least near-finished) was still difficult.

Jasmine wondered exactly what she would have turned into after being exposed to the gas. The Unknown, a co-worker of hers, had decided to fully immerse themselves in the experiment going as far as to become just another monster. The only difference is that before the gas was released on everybody else, they had got to design their own monster body and experiment with the gas until it was exactly as they imagined. It was truly childish. Jasmine couldn't help but want to reject the fact that if she went down a different route, a different stream then she would have been just another test subject for this experiment. That scared her, beyond anything else. Would she follow the directions and head to the circus? Honestly she couldn't be sure.

Daxton came up to her holding a diagram they had gone over during the meeting. The diagram showed a hoop that would turn into a ring of fire. Fire abilities were quite common upon the pre-release experiments and so it seemed only natural to incorporate it into the experiments. Clearly, Daxton had some kind of problem with it. Jasmine moved a seat over beside herself so that he could join her.

"What a disappointing meeting..."

She hadn't been prepared for hearing him so down on himself. He wasn't his usual monotone self.

"My first chance to really show Chief what I can do and I deliver a design like this. Of course it got rejected."

Daxton placed the blueprint on the table and Jasmine tried to figure out the design flaw that he was pointing out was. She couldn't find any, it looked better than most patents she had seen and nothing particularly dangerous about the ring of fire trick could be seen. Well, nothing dangerous for a monsterized human doing it. Jasmine wasn't going to step anywhere near the device.

"I forgot to add our corporate logo. That renders this entire blueprint completely useless," Daxton cried and ten struck his head against the desk. Jasmine tried to comfort him, but wasn't sure what to say. She instead decided to hug him and lean her head into him. She pulled her desk open once more and pulled out one of the discontinued snack bars for Daxton. It still smelled fresh. The smell of fresh chocolate caused Daxton to perk up and she passed it to him. Daxton was still crying, but now that he had the snack he was also crying. Jasmine tried to pat Daxton's back, but he was trying to revert to his usual monotone self. It suddenly became clear to Jasmine in a way that it never had before. His monotone self was just a worktime coverup. Deep down he was a really sweet guy, and definitely deserving of this snack more than her. "Thanks."

"No problem, I hate it when my ideas are rejected at the meetings too."

"Ok, but that flying wheelchair design was pretty awful, it would've eaten up more gas than this entire city has," Daxton replied extremely factual and monotone. Jasmine smiled, he was back to his usual self. She giggled and Daxton all-out laughed. Oh it felt good to laugh together, especially at work of all places. Jasmine hadn't had such a relaxed experience at work in years. She began to pack up her stuff. It was time to head home.

She waved goodbye to Daxton and they went their own separate ways. Jasmine hit the down button on the elevator control panel and stepped inside. The elevator was slow, but nothing particularly worrying. There was a small screen displaying the news in the upper portion of the elevator. Jasmine figured out that if she raised her hand in just the right way, then no matter how the elevator bumped she could clearly avoid watching the news. It was her floor. She stepped out. Ahead of her was the door to the outside.

She had never missed long meetings so much.