Chapter 288: meeting with the commissioners

“Is it true?”

Commissioner Martian quickly stood up to face his companion while asking, a surprised but excited look on his face.

“I don’t know. I just received the news this morning from my secretary, so I informed all of you”. Commissioner Crook answered with a helpless expression on his face as his 3 companions surrounded him enthusiastically.

He felt like cursing. “Don’t you have any dignity as old as you guys are?”

Though this was what he thought in his heart, he could not say it out. Still, seeing a bunch of old geezers surrounding him and throwing questions at him gave him a headache.

Calming himself down, he patiently answered their queries, even to ridiculous questions like if he was in the bathroom when his secretary brought the news to him.

They justified themselves by saying that for such important information, his secretary could barge into anyplace just to let him know at the fastest time possible.

For that, he answered but was left speechless in his mind. He was not a do the secretary when she does not have anything doing superior, he was a civilized old man.

As they were discussing energetically, they suddenly paused as the gate opened up, following which a luxurious car that stood out from the others suddenly drove into the government building majestically.

Seeing this, they all heaved sighs of relief. The head commissioner was here.

As soon as the car was parked, something bizarre happened. The commissioners were left shocked, gawking in disbelief. The originally charismatic head commissioner seemed to have experienced a huge change overnight.

Unlike usual, the old man did not wait for his driver to open the car’s door for him. As soon as the car was parked, he became a jumping cat immediately, hopping from the car and rushing in the direction of the honorable building.

In just a few minutes, he scaled the elevator which took him to the upper-most point of the building immediately.

By the time that he was scanned and the door opened for him, the other 4 commissioners were still felt gawking outside in the direction of his car, still yet to comprehend what just happened.

“Did the sun rise from the west today?” They asked themselves in unison.

“Ahem, what is so interesting outside that you are all looking at?”

Head commissioner Patrick finally spoke out with a weird expression on his face after barely suppressing his surprise at seeing these old geezers acting so captivated.

“Haha, good afternoon head. Nice to meet you too”.

“…”

As soon as all 4 commissioners improvised and said that simultaneously, silence descended. The atmosphere became a bit awkward as they finally realized what they just said, their face beginning to turn red.

Seeing their reaction even left the head commissioner more puzzled. Waving this irregularity away, he finally went forward to sit down on the chair that was at the head of the round table.

“Maybe, they are still shocked by the news. Hell, I’m even still shocked so that’s normal”. He thought intelligently.

After the others sat down, he finally spoke. “It’s confirmed, the leader is back. And from my sources, he is already on his way here”.

“Thank God”. The other commissioners exulted excitedly.

“The leader is really fierce; he actually survived a mission that was organized to target him. He is a real prodigy”.

The head commissioner had a serious expression on his face. “Don’t get ahead of yourselves. You know the situation of the city when he left, and you also knew the measures that we took to curb the problem”.

“The leader is a hot-headed fellow, there is a high chance that he would angrily criticize us a lot when we finally tell him of the truth. Perhaps, he may even decide to demote us”.

“Yes, you’re right”. The other commissioners deflated, sighing ruefully.

Clark was taken away from them at a time that Vatican City was very vulnerable. They made a lot of controversial decisions just to make the situation stable again, they were ready to be criticized by their leader.

“Crook”.

“Yes, head”.

“Go and fill in the details of the meeting that would commence in a few minutes. We have to present our report in the best possible way, perhaps that will lessen the leader’s rage a bit”.

Head commissioner Patrick assigned the other commissioners with tasks to prepare for the report meeting before he leaned on his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face.

It felt weird for old men of their age to be so reverent of a man who was barely in his 20s, but this was the age of exotics. That is the way of life of this era; soldiers first, every other person second.

Unlike what would have been expected of an old geezer with lots of governing experience like him, he was happy to have a leader like Clark.

The cities bordering and rivaling Vatican City craved to have a leader like Major Clark, but they don’t. Vatican City having him was a blessing, and he was extremely grateful for it.

Clark surviving this mission against all odds shocked him to the bone. This further reinforced his belief in the still budding soldier, he would remain loyal to the Major till his death.

He believed that under Clark, Vatican City would develop and soar above all their immediate rivals.

Sighing nostalgically, he stood up from the chair that was in the middle of the round table. He already occupied it for too long, it was no longer his chair.

This was the leader’s chair; this was Major Clark’s chair.

…

“Welcome back, leader”. The 5 commissioners greeted in a respectful tone as Clark walked into the conference hall with a confident vibe in his steps.

As soon as he heard their greeting, Clark smiled at them. “It’s been a long time already, it’s nice to meet you guys again”.

“Thank you, Major”.

As the 5 commissioners directed the Major to his rightful seat at the center of the round table, they could not help but direct glances at the soldier that followed him in.

As soon as King entered the hall, he waved at them before finding a chair to sit down. He didn’t speak, he just observed from the background with a neutral expression on his face.

Clark noticed their puzzled gazes, so he cleared their doubt after sitting down. “That’s a close acquaintance of mine, you can trust him with anything that you can trust me with”.

“Oh!” The commissioners directed a more scrutinizing gaze at this soldier, a curious gleam now on their eyes but King was unfazed, looking back at them calmly like an unfeeling zombie.

It was creepy, the old men retracted their gazes after just a few seconds.

“Ahem!” As soon as Clark cleared his throat, the attention of the 5 commissioners finally came back to him.

Though the commissioners had a lot that they wanted to say, they kept quiet for their leader to speak first. About his mission, they didn’t dare ask as they knew that it was a confidential mission.

Seeing these 5 old men again after so many months of being separated, Clark felt a peculiar feeling engulf his heart. From their faces, he knew that they were really happy that he was back.

This made him feel guilty a bit. He wanted to follow the more formal format of speech that he planned before, but this made him change his mind.

“It’s been hard on you all, commissioners”.

“No worries…”

Clark stopped them with a raise of his palm. “I know that you feel reluctant to reprimand me, so I will apologize. Just please don’t stop me”.

“First, I want to apologize for my rash decisions that led to this current scenario. I should have thought thoroughly over my decisions first, I hope the damages caused by my actions were not too much”.

The 5 commissioners were left stunned to silence in their seats, carefully absolving what they just heard into their brain.

The head commissioner was the one who spoke to break the silence. “Major, you don’t have to apologize at all. You being here is the best gift that Vatican City could ever hope to have”.

He hesitated but still continued. “No one is born perfect in this world. It’s our ability to learn from mistakes that make us excellent. As far as you take on that spirit of excellence, then you have absolutely nothing to apologize about”.

As soon as head commissioner Patrick said this, he felt a load being lifted from his shoulders.

Just like the others, he was stunned by what Clark said. When he thought back to his worries of a few minutes ago and the actual reality before him, he felt like he was the luckiest commissioner on earth.

“Which other head commissioner can boast of having a leader as nice as mine? None!”

As the head commissioner had these thoughts in his head, Clark also kept quiet to absorb what he was just told.

At first, he thought that the commissioners would just brush his apology off. But the head commissioner’s reply made him feel appreciated, accepting his apology meant that they valued him.

Removing those errant thoughts from his mind, his face finally became serious. “Give me a report of all that happened after I left”.

“Yes, Major”. Commissioner Crook replied and stood up.

He brought out a record notepad before speaking. After going through all the formal contents recorded in the notepad, he dropped it and continued.

“Sir, before you left, the city was already in an unstable position due to the sudden terrorist attack by the Persian tigers organization”.

“Though the unrest reduced a bit after you annihilated the terrorist base and gave a speech to the citizens, this increased again after you left”.

“After you left, we got together in a meeting to discuss our next course of action. In this meeting, we deduced that the best course of action was to try our best to hide your leaving for as much as possible”.

“Though the citizens became more agitated after not getting another address from you during the city’s recovery process, they still held their nerves due to respect for you”.

“Unfortunately, we were able to hide your absence for only 2 weeks”.

“We didn’t know how it happened, it felt more like an inside leek of information to us. Just in the 3rd week after you left, the news of your disappearance became known everywhere”.

“Though no details were given, everyone was inclined to believe that this was the truth”.

“What worsened matters was that just the next day after the news circulated, the Persian tigers claimed that they would raze the city to ashes very soon”.

“This brought panic among the citizens, which quickly snowballed to chaos. Before the opponents even came, we were already suffering from an internal breakdown”.

“Of course, we sought intervention from the Spartan army. They replied positively but we were not given a specific time when they would come”.

“The terrorists came a week after, turning Vatican City into a river of blood again. We already experienced this before, and we vowed not to experience it again”.

“To avoid the then ongoing massacre, we made a lot of harmful decisions”.

“We sought immediate help from our neighbor cities. We asked for both money and military reinforcement, we bled of course from this action due to their high demands to take advantage of our desperation”.

“In the end, after our reinforcement came, the terrorists retreated when the resistance became too strong. The Spartan army was not able to make it here to help us”.

“After the battle, we were able to sustain the economy through the millions of Spartan credits that we borrowed but the city is currently in a large amount of debt”.

“According to the clause that we signed, if we can’t pay the money borrowed in another 2 months, Vatican City will be no more. The other cities agreed to tear us up and absolve us”.

Commissioner Crook paused after saying this. Silence reigned as all 5 commissioners stole nervous glances at their Major.

The Head commissioner finally spoke out. “Sir, we’re sorry for any mistakes that we may have made in our decisions. We were driven to desperation, so we had to resort to desperate measures to pull through”.

Clark took a deep breath. “Forget about that, do you have footage of the battle?”

“Yes sir”.

“Show me”.

“Sir, but…”

Clark directed a glare at the commissioner, Crook relented immediately on feeling the glare prick his skin. “Yes, sir”.

Clark steeled his face before turning to look at the screen that was just projected in the middle of the hall. A lot of things went through his mind but he cleared them all to focus on this.

What he saw will impact his decisions by a large margin.

[Thanks for reading.]