RMK: Closed Eyes

}Scene 1 : Unquenchable Excitement

}          A man groaned and then released a long sigh, using his hands to push him up from his sleep. He had appeared to have slept atop his desk, slumped over in his chair with his head buried in his shoulder. Checking the clock, he found it was 6:12 in the morning, the news eliciting a disappointed head shake. Nevertheless, he stood from his seat, the lone person in the office, wiping the sleep from his eye with the corner of his red and green striped thermal.

         The office itself was spacious, as an understatement. It was the size of a decent sized board room, with only a single mahogany desk sitting in the center of the room, back to the large window which denoted the fact that the room sat perched on the highest floor of the building. A lonely putting green was lazily placed in the corner as if it were waiting for a caring owner, and the walls were near barren, if not for a few posters that o}nly showed the stylized logos of companies, namely "RMK Ind.", "Hybrid Dynamics", "Omnicorp", and "E.Ps.E.K.A".

         After preparing himself mentally, he ran a hand through his hair out of habit before walking to the elevator. He stepped inside, using the polished steel to see how he looked. He stood 6' feet tall normally, his build toned from both his profession and necessary workout regimen. He stretched his exposed toes testingly, the zig-zagged joints of digitigrade legs allowing him to bring his foot to his hand fluidly, checking the pads on the bottom of his toes and short sole before dropping the limb and continuing the dreary self check-up. He had solid grey fur from toe to scalp, the flesh beneath a pale slate color. He checked his teeth, canines pointed to an appropriately inhuman degree, and his tongue a curious solid shade of black along with the rest of his inner mouth. The only non-monochrome feature on him were his eyes, two deep amber orbs resting behind the tired eyelids of an over worked, cat-raccoon hybrid.

         The elevator stopped with a pleasant but sharp "Ding," hybrid padding out to a busy room of computers and the people working on them, long tables and walls filled with monitors, the displays showing irregular shapes and colors that seemed only vaguely of people, locations, or objects. He caught himself watching the fuzzy picture of a worker's monitor before he was brought back to the present. "Rian," A voice said, accompanied by the sound of snapping fingers. "You tired there? You know you can sleep more than 4 hours right? You look terrible."

         "Good to see you too, Jeremy." Rian said, turning his head to face a bear, shorter than him and not rather fit, though he was stout and, given where he worked, didn't have any reason to work himself physically. "I have any jobs today?" He asked

         "You mean 'we'. You can't keep 4 dead beats living without rent like they do work. So I have you guys scheduled for something more, team building...er. You'll be assisting a militia at around 12. Be here 11:45. And remember that you're the one who wanted, I'm quoting here, 'Like 3 more people that get me. That can fit by my side like freelance bad asses.' " Jeremy finished, raising a brow to Rian, who chuckled softly at the citation.

         "Now, it sounds silly when you say it."

         Rian rode the elevator once more, the doors opening to a long hall filled with doors, the first 3 doors starkly different from the basic steel of the doors down the hall. At the end of the hall laid a single door, much darker in color, but still the same steel as the majority of the other doors in the hall. Rian stepped from the elevator and looked at the doors, consisting of a black wooden door and a brown door without much furnishings. The lone door to the right was made of what seemed to be pure wrought iron, the frame following the same aesthetic. Rian took out his phone, leaning against the elevator doors and taking some time finding what he needed. Eventually, he found the app and set it, with the tap of a single button setting off the alarms of the first three rooms. Sets of groans and sighs filling the air alongside mechanical beeping that stopped one by one, the final alarm ending with a loud crash behind the iron door.

         The doors opened and what soon followed was a motley gathering of furred co-workers, four of them just disturbed from their sleep. There stood a tall, thin brown hare, already wearing a pair of pressed slacks and a white dress shirt, a pair of young lynx, dressed casually in jeans and hoodies, not having bothered putting on their shoes the first time they left the room and forced to redress, and a young adult labrador, long boots laced up beneath a dark pair of blue jeans, a brown turtleneck that was thrown on as an after thought, and a red scarf that loosely covered her face from the cheeks down, her nose poking over the top.

         "Now then, today is a big day!" Rian said with a mix of both true and artificial enthusiasm, "We have a mission! All of us, not training or anything like that. You're all gonna actually earn your stays here."

         One of the lynx raised their hand to speak, Rian pointing at them and nodding, "Rachit."

         "Mr. Karek, what exactly are we doing?" He asked, looking to his brother and then the two adults, the canine looking away with her hands in her pockets.

         "Well, I wanted to keep this more of a surprise, but, we'll be eliminating a warlord and his entire compound. We were hired by a resistance group in the area and we were paid in advance." Rian said, opening the elevator for the group and waving them all in.

         They all filed into the elevator, doors closing and a silence filling the air. The twins shifted nervously as they looked around, looking back down at their feet the moment they made eye contact and whispering to each other occasionally. Rian took note of the tension, turning to the two then looking to the whole group.

         "So, I take it you all got acquainted with each other after you all moved in?" Rian said, met only with an awkward silence, Rian shaking his head and letting out a sigh. "Alright, well this is going to take some working at." He said as much to himself as anyone else.

         The group walked through a large steel hallway, Rian opening a large set of sliding double doors and walking the group inside. He then took a seat in the front of the room, the rest setting down in front of him afterwards. Rian took out his phone and began to speak, projector from the back of the room displaying a top down lay out of their target. "This is a mock-up creates from a few of the drones we sent out..." He began to say as the twins started whispering to each other, "What in the hell are you two talking about?" Rian said, frustration creeping up in his voice.

         "Well, uh, we think that its great to be here," Rachit said, averting his eyes from Rian's, "But, Raahi and I think we need more training before we do stuff like... This." He waved his hand at the floor plan, the labrador nodding at the words.

         "Nice to see that I am on an elite team, 'Mr. Karek' " The hare said, leaning back comfortably in his seat, pushing his hat over his eyes.

         "You can be snarky as you want but we got this in the bag, alright? You just wait, 'Mr. Carter Batt.' " Rian quipped back, "At least I know Stacy believes. She's ready. She's a pit bull up in here."

         Stacy shifted in her seat and adjusted her scarf, looking at the other people in the room before speaking, "Well, I think that they might not be too familiar with everyone yet, and it might get... Sketchy." Rian nodded and began to speak, his voice thoroughly deflated, "Well, Thats why my plan requires coordination, not synergy. Everyone does what need be, at the right time, and we're in business." He said, turning back to motion to the diagram. He continued with the presentation, before long picking up light whispering when he looked away.