MF1.0 - 09 - Ryan

Ryan sat at his desk, staring at Jones’ reports. Another mirrorfall, so soon - it wasn’t fair. There was the obvious reason they fell on the city of course - what had happened just over two decades ago had made the city a magnet.

Seven out of the last ten mirrors had fallen there. Two had been destroyed outright, Echelon had managed to get control of three - and had safely disposed of them. The other two - those had been lost.

One had been used by a demon named Remington to create a powerful monster - it had been a terror until dispatched by their counterparts in the London Agency. The final mirror had remained a mystery.

It would show up, things like that always did. Like bad pennies.

Echelon had almost destroyed all of the bad pennies, and the bad one cent coins. The latter had been the more difficult - as their numbers had been far greater than the initial run of bad-luck low-value coins. It had involved removing the one and two cent coins from circulation. It had been a major effort, and the one of the only things their Agency had ever done to impact the public so greatly.

This mirrorfall, however, was going to be a problem. Dancers had begun to organise - not in any great way - organisation was a foreign concept to demons as a whole - but enough to be dangerous.

He swivelled his chair to look out the window - he needed a break from the task at hand. Ghosts of old, alien planes flew past, some dove and rolled - the buildings around them were no obstacle for them.

As quickly as they had appeared, they disappeared.

He’d been watching the ghosts from this mirrorfall, he always did. There was little use in learning about a planet that had, or was just about to - at the same time, there was no harm in it. No harm in keeping a few memories of an entire world blinked out of existence.

He always took heed of the assumed relative level of technology of the dying world - to try and get an idea of when his world was going to die.

All worlds died, it was an irrefutable fact. It was the how - especially relevant in his case, as Earth couldn’t suffer a traditional mirrorfall, and the when.

In comparison to the technology around him, it seemed that most of the worlds died when they were older than the Earth. Sometimes, he noted as a ghostly zeppelin floated past the moon, it happened a lot sooner.

He shook himself from his thoughts and turned back to his desk. An incomplete letter was there. A condolence letter to the parents of a recruit. Recruit Adams had died the previous night, shot by a vengeful member of the Solstice. One who had a very personal vendetta against the recruits, and relished killing his recruits.

Jones’ recruits rarely died, they rarely left the Agency. There was the occasional accident, but mostly they either died of natural causes, or left of their own accord, feeling they had accomplished enough. Some graduated into being general recruits, and in extremely rare cases, combat recruits.

Jones wrote heartfelt letters, detailing what the recruits had achieved - what achievements weren’t classified in any case.

Taylor had someone else deal with it. His idea of a condolence letter was a form letter - if there was indeed any family to send it to. Taylor’s recruits - with the exception of those that came from military academies and services - tended to be criminals or murderers.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">He felt caught between the two - he didn’t have the close relationship Jones did with his recruits, so he couldn’t feel empathy with the parents, nor was he as callous as Taylor. He’d never had a complaint, though, he supposed, when you lose a family member, the wording of the letter from their employer hardly mattered.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Ten minutes later, the letter was done. He folded it and placed it in an envelope. He touched it and it disappeared, it would be delivered the next day, as would the details of the pension. Money was simply numbers, so they had no problem supplying the families - or the recruits themselves if they chose to leave - with a pension.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">There was a hurried knock on his door. It wasn‘t a recruit, he knew that, there had been no footsteps preceding the knock. It wasn‘t Taylor, when he was in a hurry, he simply barged in ‘Come in Jones,’ he called.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">Jones pushed the door open, the prerequisite blue folder in his hand.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘What is it?’ he asked of the flustered tech agent.

<p style="color:rgb(189,190,190);font-family:Verdana,'CenturyGothic',Tahoma,sans-serif;line-height:normal;">‘Solstice is on the move.’