New Orders

Participants:

mitchell_icon.gif

Scene Title New Orders
Synopsis One phone call changes everything.
Date March 3, 2010

Washington D.C.

The White House


Clouds shadow the skies, viewed through the tall multi-paned windows of the Oval Office. Between the sheer white curtains flanking the sides of the windows, a single man stands in silhouette of the overcast light drearily melting in to the otherwise unlit office. Dark hands folded behind his back, Vice President Andrew Mitchell stares out over the front lawn, eyes narrowed and chin raised, tense silence defining his broad-shouldered stature.

Beyond the snow-covered lawn, the city of Washington looks frozen solid, and the thick snowflakes that drift silently in the air seem otherworldly in their quality. No cars pass this close to Pennsylvania Avenue anymore, so from the President's office the world seems to have stopped. No foot traffic on the sidewalk beyond those barred fences, just the dull gray of the skies and the bone white of the snow.

Drawn from whatever thoughts kept his attention on that silence for so long, Vice President Mitchell turns his head slowly, dark eyes leveled at the leather chair at his side, brows tensing in consternation before his shoulders align to square himself away from the window and face that seat. A heavy hand reaches out, as if to settle down on the back of the chair, wedding band seeming heavier than he remembers. Before his palm can settle on the leather, a four-note chirp from the cell phone in his jacket disrupts the moment.

Chuffing out a breath, Mitchell's hand moves away from the back of the chair, sliding inside of his coat with withdraw and inspect the number with a stare leveled down his nose.

617-547-4474

The reaction is a languid one to the number, and Mitchell's throat moves up and down slowly in anticipation. Brow furrowing and eyes narrowed, he slowly flips the phone open and brings it to his ear, glancing down at the seat beside him as he does. "Mitchell…" is the greeting he offers into the cellphone, tongue rolling over his teeth to get the bitterness out of his mouth; it doesn't help.

«Good morning, it's good to hear you're up.» The voice on the other end of the phone causes Mitchell's brows to tense, one hand sweeping over his forehead as he turns his back on the chair and turns to face the windows, staring at his own muted reflection in the glass. «I have some information that needs to be passed on to you.»

Swallowing noisily, Mitchell nods his head twice, eyes downcast to the floor in front of the windows. "Go on, but make it quick, I was in a meeting." Practiced liars always make falsehood seem plausible. But, the voice on the other end of the phone seems ill-amused at the notion, that dry and sardonic laugh that croaks out over the line gives pause to the actual reason he called.

«We were able to get Patient 117 to type something into the interface.»

Those words cause Mitchell's eyes to go wide, and when they do he's looking towards the doors of the Oval Office, then lowering his voice to a hush as he faces the window again. "What did he say?" It's exasperated, a breathy and almost frantic desire to know what could have possibly been stated by this subject.

«We're not sure… exactly what to make of it, to be honest.»

As Mitchell breathes in deeply and angles his eyes to look back at the President's chair, the tension in his voice is heavy in anticipation. "Spit it out," he demands of the man on the other end of the phone. Silence is the only answer, the sound on the other end of the line a distracted sigh and the sound of crinkling paper. It feels like forever, that wait for the revelation, and Mitchell watches a single snowflake falling steadily down past the window in the time it takes for the answer to come.

When it does, his heart skips a beat.

«Every prophet in his house.»

There is no response from Mitchell, just stillness. After a protracted moment of awkward silence, he turns to look back at his reflection in the glass of the window. "Thank you." Promptly, he hangs up the phone with a click as it folds shut. Mitchell's throat works up and down, neck muscles tense, and when he opens his phone again the number he dials is one from memory. He paces behind the President's desk as a ring comes over the other line, until the phone picks up and a tired voice croaks into the receiver of the other end.

«H… Hello?»

"It's me," Mitchell states sharply into the phone, brown eyes narrowed at his own reflection. "We need to move our plans up, it's going to happen sooner than we expected." That assertion is responded to by a rustling on the other side of the line, someone clearly trying to pull themselves out of bed and properly align the phone.

«W— What? Wait, you're— why? How? What happened?»

"I just got a call from the interface team…" Mitchell's deep voice is a low, tense grumble. "Patient 117 at the Institute is awake, and he was able to make a connection to the interface to type out words." Somehow, the exasperated and approving laugh from the other side of the phone only causes Mitchell's lips to downturn into a frown, brows creased together.

«That— That's fantastic news, wonderful. What did he say?»

Mitchell's nose rankles, a hand smooths over his lips and as he turns away from the window, it's clear that stress had found its way back into his stiffened posture again. "The trigger phrase." Suddenly, the man on the other end of the phone doesn't seem so enthused by this revelation, and his abject silence comes with a croak of half-spoken noise that might have been a response. Mitchell, however, speaks over it. "I need to give you some new orders…"

«…I'm listening.»


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