Chapter Text
Pitch black. After a few minutes of Luke’s eyes attempting to adjust, he concludes that there is no light whatsoever. Only whispers. They echo, and although the acoustics of the room make them sound like they are bouncing down an endless tunnel, he is accustomed enough to the high-domed ceiling and marble floors of the Board’s meeting chamber to recognize it as such. The whispers surround him, taunting him with "10 minutes until Extraction," and "You have failed. He has been Wiped," in overlapping frantic voices that start to sound like siren wails as time passes. If Luke reached out, it seemed like he would be able to touch the barricade of bodies closing around him.
Just as Luke drops to the floor, clammy palms clasped over his ears, the lights flicker on.
Except they aren't the brilliant bulbs held in the pristine chandeliers of the meeting room. It's the flickering yellow lights hanging from naked bulbs in the hallway leading to the Committee's offices and the Board's room. It's the day of the Extraction.
In an instant, a barrage of worries overcomes him, and he hunches over for a moment before regaining his composure.
These thoughts worry at the careful composure he had constructed for today's meeting with the Board, until they condense into an obstructing haze brought on by anxiety. The haze seems to convulse and send out wispy tendrils randomly, as though it is searching for something. As one of the snaking vines gropes drunkenly towards the boy, he tries to make a sound, but finds he cannot. Abruptly the haze turns into a swarm of hornets, which descend upon him.
Just as Luke feel their first piercing stings, he bolts up in bed, finally free of the net of the dream. His body is covered with an icy sheen of cold sweat, unsurprisingly. Of late, his nightmares have been worsening, including real fears and worries that ghosted into his subconscious. The blonde boy reaches out a frail hand, still clammy and shaking, to brighten the screen on his phone, to find himself to be almost late. "Shitshitshit" plays as a mantra in his head as he struggles into a black shirt, washed-out jeans, and an old pair of sneakers. Luke’s "work uniform." No need to be fancy today. Only the most important meeting in his career approaching. And possibly the last.
Within 15 minutes, he’s out the door and blending in with the busy work scene at the Boards' headquarters, still adjusting the collar of his shirt. Luke calls out to any Board members he crosses paths with, and some of them acknowledge him with a curt nod in return. Luke considers this a small victory, as they are habitually introverted.
The fabrication of his confidence only lasts so long, as it did in his dream, and as if it was a physical thing it starts to weaken and crumble. At first Luke was immune to the whispers of "That's him, the advocate, “and "The Ghost will awaken soon. He's bringing scum into this world," but as time passes and the hallway seems to stretch out forever, he shies away from their cruel hisses.
At long last, Luke comes to the double mahogany doors, which had seemed to pierce the sky when he stood here as a little boy. He flinches away from the memory, then swears at his own cowardice, startling a few already-jumpy passerby. He squares his shoulders, brushing off memories of his past with a real family, and enters the conference room.
When Luke passes through the heavy mahogany doors, which swing open silently under his touch, a barrage of voices enter his mind. The sight would have been an eerie one for someone more unaccustomed to the Board's ways: A dozen or so young men, cleanly shaven and dressed crisply in matched suits, gesturing animatedly to each other, mouths moving, but not a sound escaping.
"Mr. Hemmings," the Board's leading speaker, Calum, addresses Luke inside his mind. He nods at the younger boy from across the room, his formidable form and towering presence making him appear as tall and mighty as the intricately carved ceiling arching above them. With another glance, silence cloaks the room.
Accompanied by the rustling of pressed suits, they make their way to their seats along the sprawling marble slab of a table. It's appearance, along with the rest of the meeting room, is grand and haughty and precise. Luke got a cut once by running his finger along its edge.
Once Luke is seated, he folds his arms on the table like a diligent schoolboy, but after a few minutes, his eyes become lidded and his head drops onto his arms. He didn’t have much say on the topic of the Extraction of who the Committee nicknamed the "Ghost," the newest subject of interest who the Board would be transporting from the past to stop the looming apocalypse. Luke supposes he is referred to as such because the remainders of files the Board managed to save after the explosion that would have Wiped him of all valuable information suggested that he only had a ghost of his past intact. It seemed he had taken a knife to all ties to his mother's death. Luke found this subject analysis the most interesting part of his responsibilities. It made him feel like he knew actual people, not just the boring ones who were employed in the Committee. Guess preventing the world's catastrophes didn't leave much time for humor. Or a life.
Luke’s main job is to stand in for his deceased mother. He was the deciding vote in whether to extricate the Ghost or continue searching for a nonexistent cure.
Luke was brought back to the present moment by a cool female voice reverberating through the room, "One minute until Extraction." The shuffling of papers got more rapid, hands clenching around the owner's ESOs, tiny electronic devices that project holographic images that we use to keep an eye on the outside wasteland and communicate with each other. On cue, a squad of four Board members stood up simultaneously, high-backed chairs scraping against the polished marble floors. Two to execute the Extraction, two to guard the Portal entry.
"Send them through. We have exactly 10 minutes until the Extraction is complete or he is Wiped." Then, with the click of a button, a gaping ingress opened in the floor and the Board members were swallowed.