8 months before the robbery of Dust till Dawn
Thomas was in deep shit.
He was in charge of Atlas's Search for Extra Remnantian Intelligence or SERI for short. 8 years ago he had finally convinced Ironwood to fund the program, telling him that if there is life out there they needed to know. It was of course after 500 tries Ironwood relented so that he wouldn't have to sit through the umpteenth pitch of the program. Probably the reason why ironwood put the SERI office on the opposite side of the base maximizing the distance between him and another headache, dealing with Jacque Schnee gave him enough of those already.
James gave him minimal funding, enough for simple receiver and a transmitter. For the past 8 years he had been sending out messages until word from the higher ups came.
No more funding. The recent aggressive actions of the white fang had led atlas to reconsider how it allocated it's resources, they had deemed the one man department as an unnecessary financial burden on the military.
It was over. 8 years of getting up early. 8 years of sitting in a room all alone sending binary signals into the cosmos. 8 years of being mocked and ridiculed as a quack for his theories. 8 years of being treated as the black sheep of atlas. 8 years of sweat and tears. And what had he to show for it? Nothing.
He sighed as he finished reading the message sent to his scroll telling him to close up shop. He sighed as he looked around the the now cramped office. Piles of paper holding readings were stacked all over the place. Hell he wasn't even sure what color his desk was with all the dried coffee stains and papers covering the surface. He got up took a sip of his now frigid coffee and muttered
"If its gonna be the last time I use this thing might as well make it count"
Thomas got up and headed over to a console. He pressed a few keys to boot it up and waited for the program to load
"8 years I ask for them to bring a goddamn coffee machine closer and instead they do this."
The program finally loader as the screen displayed the message: ready to broadcast message. Slowly Thomas lurched towards the screen and pressed the transmit message. Outside his cramped office a small red bulb turned on in a long abandoned
"Alright broadcast issss transmitting….and we are live" Thomas was aware that it wasn't necessarily the most appropriate way to address a potential audience of aliens but honestly who even gave a shit anymore.
"My name is Dr. Thomas Mitchell,I am an Altesian researcher working for SERI. This will be my last transmission so for anyone out there who is listening please hear this. My home world is called remnant. We have two dominant sentient life forms, Humans and Fauna, and of course both are at each others throat right now. The planet is a tinder box waiting for the spark to send the whole world to hell. New settlements are getting wiped out as fast as they are being set up. White fang attacks are becoming increasingly violent. Heh. Ya know its kinda funny that a group built on peaceful protest is now playing terrorist. They are dead set on making the Faunus equals at any cost. We cannot reach space because we lack the necessary power source to do so. Our energy source for whatever reason doesn't seem to function outside of our atmosphere. Look the point I'm trying to make is..."
What was he trying to say? What to say in the last broadcast?
He took a deep breath and uttered the following
" If anyone is out there, anyone at all.I don't know how many more years remnant can go on like this. Please help."
He sighed as he stopped broadcasting and plopped back down into his well worn office chair. He opened a drawer and grabbed a cigarette from his desk drawer and lit it up. Advantage of being sequestered away in a deep recess of the facility like a bastard is no one will bother you when you smoke in a no smoking building. He closed his eyes deciding he might as well nap. The console didn't make a single sound for a moment then suddenly a soft beep came out and the screenBlinked.
MESSAGE RECEIVED.
He briefly opened his eyes and glanced at the screen. And then closed them as if nothing was awry. The message blinking on the screen didn't seem to register with him.
The office was silent if only for the soothing beeping of the console. Thomas's eyes had shot open and he scrambled out of his chair and ran towards the console only to slip on some paper he quickly got back up and dashed to the console and stared at the message. His jaw dropping and his cigarette slipping out of his mouth.
"Holy shit"
Rapidly he typed away on the consoled telling it to print the message. Slowly beginning to chuckle and descended into an exited maniacal laughter. The second it was finished printing he tore it off of the printer and dashed out of his office. He had a meeting with general ironwood. Whether he wanted it or not.
Most likely not
On the literal opposite-side of the base
James was talking to his protege winter when a man with wild hair and gleaming carrying a burthen of papers burst into his office he didn't recognize the man and was about to apprehend him when he slowly recognized him
Gods damn it, this quack again.
"GENERA-"
Winter had already drawn her sword and put it on the mans throat and glanced at ironwood
" general shall I arrest this man?"
Ironwood sighed after recognizing the man in question and said
"Winter stand down. This man is Dr Thomas Mitchell Head of the SERI department"
"SERI?"
Ironwood sighed,"it stands for the search of extra remnantian intelligence. A department recently discontinued in" he glances at his watch, " 2 hours"
With Winter having withdrawn her sword from his neck Thomas tried to speak. "General I think-"
"Dr Mitchell here is what I think,I think you are just delusional if you think that whatever it is your about to say will change the fate of your headache inducing department"
Silence reigned the office, ironwood was taking another sip of his coffee until Mitchell uttered,
"We have first contact"
At that moment ironwood spat out his coffee on winter who yelped in surprise but soon realize what the doctor said.
Ironwood steadily said, "are you sure?"
"Yes"
SERI office
Three sets of footsteps echoed in the lonesome hall of sub-basement 3 leading to the office.
"Now Thomas are you certain that it came from space."
"Sir with all due respect all of my dishes are pointed up. Additionally our civilization has no capability of entering space so there couldn't be any satellites from remnant transmitting down to us"
Ironwood eyes seem do glaze over as his thoughts drifted to his upcoming plans. Plans he had to now put on hold because of this. He wasn't expecting first contact now. His mind quickly worked out a series of plans if the aliens should be deemed a threat. If not then even ironwood knew the possibilities were endless. Medical tech eons ahead of theirs, weapons tech making his shiny new paladins look like squirt guns, transportations that didn't rely on dust hell even new energy sources. If the aliens are strong and amicable enough they could even help deal with the Queen.
It began to dawn on Ironwood at this moment that things were going to change in remnant. And then he snapped back into reality. He was going to have to contain this. Of course he will let Ozpin know. Probably should let him know soon.
Winter got Thomas's attention attention "do you know who responded?"
Thomas dripping with sarcasm replied, " No but maybe I could have gotten a better idea if I had some proper funding. James" he mad the last point while glaring at Ironwood.
Winter was about to berate the not so quacky doctor but stopped as they realized they had made it to the office. And noise was coming out. Of it. The quack, general and specialist all quickly glanced at each other and stepped in.
"Dr. Mitchell this office is a mess. I would've thought that someone of your stature would've would have at the very least been capable of keeping things in order."
"Unfortunately the funds you provided barely covered my living expenses live here couldn't afford rent." He points to a corner of the office with a sleeping bag, coffee machine and a microwave. Wrappers and packaging of various microwavable meals the cheap kind loaded with chemical additives. "Do you know where most of my budget goes to? Electrical dust to power this" gesturing at the console,"piece of trash, the rising prices of dust didn't help either."
Ironwood seeing the conditions this doctor was living in felt a grain of salt bad but first he needed to verify Dr Mitchell's claims, "doctor could you show us the transmission you received?"
Thomas swooped into his chair and snatched another smoke from his pack as he was about to light it he heard a cough. It came from the general.
"Dr Mitchell I believe this is a nonsmoking facility."
The doctor unfazed bluntly said, "how far do you have to walk to take a shit?"
A single lonely fly that had been trapped in the office for the past 2 days was heard.
"Excuse me?"
"Answer my question if you may?"
Winter shot a glance at the general as if to ask gut this fish? Ironwood didn't seem to notice, "I don't know how this information is relevant but if you have to know I have a lavatory facility built into my office"
At that Dr. Mitchell laughed," Ha in your office, thats nice" by this point the cigarette was lit and he took a long drag, exhaled it and said,"I have to walk ten miles if I want to take a shit. Can you imagine that? holding in a 2 pound dump made out of crappy microwave food, and you gotta hold it in for roughly 2 hours because you're way past the stage of holding it while running. Making sure none of it leaks out of your as-"
"BY THE BROTHERS WE GET IT ENOUGH!!!" Screamed Winter. Seemingly unfazed by what winter just screamed continued to address the general this time sounding a smidgen more angry, after all its still the general,"and you know y to do this, because one man thought that the ideas I was nothing but bullshit. That it would be impossible, that it wasn't important." He was inching closer to the general, "that we should make at the very least a contingency in case this happened because right now we don't what what they are here for, to invade, to trade, to enslave, to destroy but at the very least a competent general should at least have made a contingency for this. But no you didn't."
Silence once again dominated the hall except the fly was quiet since it was busy feasting on a small piece of popcorn wedged behind the desk.
"Thomas i'll admit that me not taking you seriously was a mistake, i-"
"A mistake, A MISTAKE? I SLAVED 8 YEARS OF MY LIFE IN A DECREPIT LITTLE HELLHOLE OF AN OFFICE BECAUSE YOU MADE A MISTAKE? No general you didn't make a mistake because you were simply wrong, I'm aware that this program wasn't gonna get the most funding out of all the offices but you didn't have to do what you did, you didn't have to make me live like this" Thomas gestures to the office and sighs, "ehhh forget about it lets just hear the broadcast."
Ironwood & winter chose to focus on the screen. Thomas clicked to open the transmission and a window popped up to reveal a blank page with a series of numbers no, coordinates! As well as an additional series of numbers counting down.
Winter rapidly figured out where the coordinates led,"sir these are coordinates to beacon academy!"
Ironwood calmly replied, "Inform Ozpin ill be meeting him as soon as I get to vale don't mention a single word about this, to anyone."
Thomas meanwhile was trembling with excitement, this was it, a close encounter of the third kind. This was something he had been dreaming about ever since he gazed up at the inky depths of the night wondering if they were alone in the universe. He was about to be part of the most significant part of the planet's history since the great war.
Until his heart stopped
Thomas suddenly clutched his chest and keeled over winter and Ironwood rushed over to his side. But they were too late. Their most qualified individual to deal with this crisis is now dead.
Ironwood said the only thing that came to his mind at that point, "well, shit".
Winter put Thomas's freshly dilapidated corpse on the bed so that he was in a more honorable position. She noticed things about him, he was dirty, probably hadn't showered in days. She crossed his arms and closed his now glazed eyes Ironwood looked around the office. If this was discovered it would paint a bad picture on his reputation as a good leader,"send cleaners here. Get rid of any non relevant data, send a team of archivist to filter through the document. Swear them to secrecy under threat of spending the rest of their lives in prison. The threat is empty just need to make sure they keep quiet until we go public"
Rules of the universe
1
Everyone will eventually die and Everyone will eventually be forgotten
No exceptions