Honestly, I couldn't wait to get the next chapter up that much longer. So here it is~
Thank you 'Guest' for leaving that short review! :) It's the first review I've ever received. (Maybe I should put it in a frame on my wall or something)
To the fic! (￣▽￣)ゞ
"I just don't understand where she comes from! It's like she simply teleported into my office. There's no other explanation!", Warner ranted as he staggered back and forth in the conference room. Alice was locked into the office, with the elevator dispensed with a password, keeping her from his private gym. They didn't want her to have access to the guns contained down there.
Delalieu was sitting with his hands clasped in his lap following the chief commander with his gaze.
"Well that's easy", he suddenly perked up.
Warner spun around and looked at him. Stopped pacing.
"What?"
"She's from scandinavia, sir."
"...what..?"
Delalieu realized the irrelevant answer and started fiddling with the papers in front of him. Though as he had been asked he decided to explain.
"Well, haven't you noticed, sir? She has quite the accent.."
"What accent? You've heard her utter five sentences, how can you judge her whole nationality with only that?", Warner demanded.
Delalieu looked slightly startled.
"She rolls her r's, sir. And she pronounces the w as single v's. I think she'd talk with one of the scandinavian language melodies once she relaxes enough", he nodded.
Warner scowled.
"Delalieu, she won't be staying for any longer than it takes for us to get to know how she walked passed my soldiers unnoticed and waltzed into my private quarters."
Delalieu meet eyes with the table.
"Of course, sir, certainly, sir."
Warner started his pacing once more.
"How did she get in?", he asked himself. His mind racking for answers. But nothing made sense. Unless it was all some well planned joke..
But the door was locked, and he was the only one with the key. Excluding an extra Delalieu had. And the cleaners. But what would they have against him?
"Perhaps we should look at the surveillance cameras? We should be able to track her journey all the way from the entrance. Right?"
Warner whirled around again.
'Why didn't I think of that?'
"This is not happening…!"
The only thing keeping him from banging his head against the desk was that Delalieu kept pressing replay to try finding something to reveal that a girl had walked through the corridors.
Nothing.
Not a glance from a guard to reveal any plotting.
Not a flicker of tape revealing any modification.
Not a shadow out of place.
Not a sound if she would have crawled through the air vent.
They even tried with playing it at half the speed.
Then fourth the speed.
Then tenth the speed.
"She shows up out of nowhere, with no apparent reason whatsoever! Silently sits down and reads my books, and with no answer of where she came from!", he ranted once more.
"...Well, we do know she's from scandinavia, sir", Delalieu tried cheering up.
"We don't even know now that for sure Lieutenant!"
"Oh yes sir I'm sorry sir…!"
The soldiers who had been withdrawn from the monitor room must have been wondering what all the yelling was about.
There was a sudden knock on the door.
Both males startled at the sound. Warner was the first to react.
"Didn't I tell them to not disturb us?", he asked through clenched teeth, looking at Delalieu.
"Yes, sir, you did sir", Delalieu reassured.
Then he just sat there waiting for instructions.
"Well, open then!", Warner snapped gesturing for the door.
"Oh", Delalieu breathed before scrambling out of his chair towards the door,"yes of course, sir, forgive me sir!"
He was at the door in seconds.
Opened.
"Hello Mr Delalieu!"
Delalieu stood frozen and just stared at the short stature outside the door. As did the soldiers already waiting outside the door.
"Do you have a moment-"
"What?!", Warner shouted.
He lifted from the chair so quickly it fell over. Four long strands and he was by the door, shoved Delalieu out of the way and with an iron grip of the small wrist, yanked her into the room. Slamming the door behind him.
She yelped at the sudden movement, which hurt her wrist, too.
"Ow", she muttered.
Warner didn't give her any time to recoil.
"How did you get here?!", he shouted. Not caring if those soldiers heard him. They already knew of her existence anyway.
She looked at him with an uninterested look.
"I walked", she answered plainly.
He groaned.
"No, how did you get out of my room? I locked the door."
"24601", she said.
Warner did not respond.
"Sir, is she-?"
"Yes Delalieu she's saying what I think she's saying", he answered curtly. Then he turned back to her.
"Where did you get that code?"
She just stared at him.
"The code", he repeated," where?" He hardened the grip of her wrist.
"Your desk..", she said, cringing a little at the pain in her wrist.
"You looked in my desk?", Warner asked," Have you no manners?"
Alice suddenly looked troubled.
"Oh no, I didn't touch the desk. The book laid on top of it!", she explained.
"How did you get the password from that?"
Alice got an 'Are you serious?' Look on her face.
"You don't need an engineer to figure out a hastily made, five digit password when Les Miserables is laying on the desk", she said, with a European pronouncement of the French title.
There was a silence.
"Sir, is what she's saying-"
"It was a hurried situation!", Warner interrupted. Then he opened the door once more and walked out into the corridor with Alice in tow.
As he expected the soldiers were already gone. Spreading gossip around the base like plague.
He cursed under his breath.
"Delalieu", he said.
As the older man came out the door Warner pushed Alice towards him, letting off the grip of her wrist.
"Escort her to the guest facilities and stay there with her until further notice", he ordered.
Delalieu looked from his superior to the girl with worry.
"Oh, understood sir!", he then said.
"I have to attend other…", Warner trailed,"..things", he decided.
He sent a glare at Alice and noded for Delalieu.
"Do not lose her", he added, and then turned on his heel and left.
"Oh, well then..", Delalieu said uncomfortably, he hesitated but as Alice didn't look uncomfortable at all he just noded in the direction where they were heading.
"This way, miss..", he said. Then, for good measures in case they would walk into Warner, he took Alice by the hand and started walking towards the guest facilities.
The two walked through the building. Delalieu slightly before with Alice easily walking behind him. He tried to look as nonchalant as possible to not attract any unnecessary attention. Though every soldier, guard, cleaner and other stared perplexed at the girl.
It wasn't her presence that startled so much, but her appearance. First of, she was clean and looked healthy. The civilians from outside didn't. Not now in the winter. And because she had not been seen here before, and no announcement of a parent that might be visiting had been, she had to be from outside the base.
Second was what she was wearing. No uniform they knew of. No patches as the clothes outside. And they fitted her. And they weren't winter clothing either. They were summer.
She wore a white sailors blouse, with the edge of the flap being of lacing. The goldy blond springs were held away from her face with a clip in shape of a cream and gold ribbon. Below she had a pleated gray skirt and white socks with a pair of sneakers.
Even if her was wearing a summer outfit she wasn't tan, though she had a nice pink undertone, giving of her fair health. Something rare.
"Mr Delalieu?", she suddenly asked, scaring the man out of his thoughts.
"Yes Miss?", he asked turning his head to her.
"You have a much nicer way of holding hands than Warner", she said, looking at their connected hands.
Delalieu didn't know what to respond at first. He blushed slightly, but smiled at her.
"Sir Warner isn't very used to girls…", Delalieu tried explaining.
"But you are", Alice remarked.
"I suppose so…"
"Why is that?", Alice asked.
Delalieu looked forward again, greeting a Sergeant with a nod; said Sergeant didn't look twice at Alice for some reason. As he thought over the question.
"Well..", he blew some air through his moustache," I guess because I have had a wife and a daughter. And a sister myself. Sir Warner doesn't, and he works too much to meet any girls besides the civilians and the cleaners." He decided.
Alice was quiet for a while.
"How big is this place?", she asked as she stared at the many buttons in the elevator.
"This part of the building has the deepest basement, so it had more floors than the rest. So there isn't twenty floors everywhere. I think it would be too big for sector 45's headquarter…", he said.
"Oh, okay", Alice said.
Delalieu pressed the button for for the fifth floor, and then the elevator left for the guest facilities.
After many hours of trying to research where Alice came from Warner decided that he 'didn't have bloody time for this' and simply sent Alice to the compounds.
"Did she tell you anything interesting?", Warner asked his lieutenant as he and Delalieu ate dinner. Delalieu had, once the decision had been made to send her off to the compounds, personally gone out to make sure Alice did not trouble the soldiers who left her.
Delalieu startled, seemingly from being lost in thought. Something that was not usual for the old man in the presence of his superior.
"I-i did not catch that, sir…"
"Did she tell you anything that raised interest?", Warner repeated with slight annoyance. His moodiness did not show any sign to cease, even as the day went by without any further disturbances.
Delalieu seemed to think over the answer.
"Well.. She said she likes reading… And-"
He stopped as he saw the skeptic expression of Warner.
"Anything of importance", he corrected.
"Oh..", Delalieu said embarrassed.
"Anything about how she got inside? Why she's wearing summer clothing? If she already knew anyone from the base?", Warner exampled.
"She didn't know what the weather was like outside!", Delalieu suddenly said.
"..what..?"
"She didn't know it was winter, it seemed", he explained,"'it looks so gray!' she said when she looked out the window", he retold.
"And this is helpful because?", Warner asked.
"Well… I haven't meet anyone not knowing it's December, sir. Have you?"
Warner's stare was enough to answer the question.
"W-what I'm saying, sir, is that it might be that she's just confused. Perhaps she didn't know what she was doing", Delalieu explained.
"I'm certain that she had no idea about what she was doing", Warner said,"Otherwise she would have known that she put herself in a position in which she risked being shot as an intruder."
Delalieu slumped his shoulders a little and returned to his meal.
"Certainly, sir.."
The night fell and the base changed their activity by routine. Delalieu went to bed and so did Warner.
He laid in his bed and groaned at the non fitting pieces at the back of his mind. Nothing made sense. But it was over now wasn't it? The girl was back in the compounds and wouldn't bother him.
But it wouldn't satisfy him. The thinking at the back of his mind kept him awake for almost an hour until he wrote it down to get it out of his head.
I know abrupt end is abrupt, I couldn't find a better way to end this chapter to flow nicely into the next. Otherwise Warner would have gone to bed at the start of the chapter and woken up to a new day right of the bat. Starting a chapter like that doesn't look good. I'm sorry ( o~o )
Anyway, thanks for reading! Please review so that I know someone's reading it.