Altruism 1
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to be clean work.”
A tall, skinny man in a pressed suit paced in of a small crowd of shadowy figures, the small Altrusian flag pinned to his collar glinting under a single, harsh light.
“But you’re not here do to clean work, are you?”
A few chuckles disperse amongst the small crowd.
“We brought you here for a specific reason. You are, for lack of a better word, Voyagers. Wildcards.”
The man stops, and accentuates his words with pinched fingers.
“Undesirables. Dangerous People.”
The men that had chuckled earlier are now silent, and the faces in the crowd are harsher than ever. This man knows nothing of their backgrounds, and from what he’s said so far, it is apparent he doesn’t care.
“We didn’t come to you for your experience, you came to us for employment. Luckily, we have employment for people like you. Many of you are broken; both inside and outside. But we need broken people, we need damaged people, because we need you to do damaging jobs.”
“We also need you to do precision jobs. You’re not just garbage, I’ll give you that much. In this room, we’ve got Veterans, Doctors, Thieves, everything. From this moment forward, you are no longer Voyagers. You’re Private Investigators.”
The clapping of the man’s footsteps permeated the room as he stepped out of view, only to reappear as the lights began to brighten around the group. Apprehensively, members of the crowd began to look around in the shifting light, surprised by how few of them there truly were.
There were five males and a single female in the room, which surprised the speaker as well.
I expected more.
The first male the speaker noticed was a tired-looking man in dingy clothes, a duster jacket worn over a clearly-spent shirt. His messy, unkempt hair reminded the speaker of what he imagined a surfer would look like, ironic considering how out of shape the man seemed. Out of shape wouldn’t really be the word. Below average.
The second was an extremely skinny asian man with a grey sweater and metal walking stick, his long, black hair sweeping in front of his eyes. The bulge of headphones could be noticed beneath the man’s hair, and the speaker questioned whether or not the kid in the sweater heard anything at all during the brief.
Fuck it, his loss.
The third man was much larger than the previous two, which was strange considering that he was wheelchair-bound. His arms were clearly conditioned to carrying the weight of a man with a gut, and his large, somewhat muscular arms complimented his gut in a strangely fitting way. His darker skin was rough to see behind a large beard, and fuzzy, unkempt hair. On the man’s shirt, the words “Altrusian Children’s Hospital” were barely legible under the effects years of sustained wear had placed on the clothing. A father to a sick child, perhaps?
A few rows behind him, a blonde, pale woman sat cross-legged in her own row, keeping a safe distance from the men around her. Although she made a concerted attempt to seem unfazed by the disproportionate amount of men in the room, her body language conveyed unease. Her hair was somewhat well-kept, and a few unruly locks blocked the speaker’s view of her very attractive face, her small, pink nose a cute contrast against her milky skin.
Behind her, and thus, out of her view, a suspicious looking man glared at the back of her head, the flames of desire lit in his eyes. Other than the faintest sense of arousal, however, this man seemed devoid of any emotion. His bearded face was severely scarred, and if the speaker didn’t know any better, he could’ve sworn the vertical gashes running down the man’s face were eroded away from tears. His arms were large and tattooed, and although his walking stick implied he couldn’t walk well, the strength with which he held onto the pole made the speaker uncomfortable of what the man was capable of. The man noticed the speaker’s glare, and tearing his eyes from the girl, gave the speaker a sly wink. Noticed was the wrong word. The man knew he was being looked at it all along, he just chose to act on it when he did.
Oddly enough, the last man was the most normal-looking, a minority in a room full of broken, damaged humans. He was white, and had about a week’s worth of hair on his face, and although he seemed to be of thin frame, he had no obvious impediments. Other than a few scars and bruises, he seemed normal enough.
Mental, probably.
The suited man nodded after analyzing his audience, and then paced to a door on the other side of the small room, which looked like it had been a classroom at some point. He unlocked and opened the door, and an elderly man stepped into the room, lightly pushing his weight down onto a metal walking pole. His impediment stemmed from an injury in his left leg, and almost immediately the man walking into the room made eye contact with the bearded man with the scars, and something clicked behind their eyes. A connection.
The man walking into the room blinked and it was gone. He resumed his walk into the room, and stopped when he stood where the suited man had stood before.
“I am Doctor Liston.”
No response.
“I have been Markose’s personal therapist for the last few months, and thus, I am an extension of the Senator himself. I volunteered for this because I believe that what were are doing here is imperative to the safety of Altruis.
“You may not know me, but I know you. Markose means the best for Altruis, and I think that’s why you chose to help him win this election.”
The wheelchair-bound man grunts in approval, and nods.
“Take this opportunity to introduce yourselves. After I feel like you’re well-acquainted, Peter here will begin our initial brief.”