Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 73

Chapter 73 - Middle Management

It hadn't been particularly surprising to find out that the IOA's headquarters was just a closed to the public section of the UN building. After all, what better place to hide the comings and goings of high level diplomatic personnel then a place expected to be frequented by high level diplomatic personnel.

Upon beaming down, Eventus had been escorted to a somewhat dark room with a crescent shaped table around which the seven current representatives of the IOA were seated. Carl Storm, the current head was in the center. With Richard Woosley, Russel Chapman, and Shen Xiaoyi to his left. While Jean LaPierre, Sadru Desai, and the unfortunately named Pavel Chekov sitting to the right.

He wondered what it said about the universe that so many different groups tended towards the same conference table design. And he made a mental note to check the archives when he got back to see if anyone had ever done a study on the subject.

“High Councilor Eventus.” Carl greeted him with a nod. “Thank you for agreeing to meet us.”

“It was the least I could do given the circumstances.” Eventus demurred as he took a moment to study each of the faces arrayed before him.

Most seemed to share a general mix of boredom and unease, as if they fully expected this meeting to amount to nothing more than a formal waste of everyone's time. The two exceptions to that seemed to be Pavel Chekov and Sheen Xiaoyi. The former of which seemed to be grinning as if there was some joke that only he got, while the latter seemed in the midst of studying Eventus with an oddly contemplative smile on her lips.

“That said.” He continued with a sedate smile of his own. “How about I save us all several hours of back and forth and just put the question directly out there.”

He took a moment to look each of the representatives directly in the eyes before continuing. “What is it you want?”

That wasn't really a question his people had been known for asking others, which, while somewhat understandable when they had been the uncontested masters of the universe, was somewhat less pertinent now that there were less than a thousand of them left.

“What we want?” Carl repeated as he exchanged confused glances with the other representatives.

“Yes.” Eventus confirmed, not entirely sure they understood just how open ended he was making his question. “Offensive technology, defensive technology, power generation, or maybe just access to raw materials. I assume there are many things your people want that my people have, so what are they?”

Not their top of the line technology of course since those things were far beyond their people's ability to reproduce, but he'd put together a rather comprehensive list of designs over the past couple weeks that should be within their technical capabilities to reproduce in preparation for this inevitable meeting.

“You're offering these things to us?” Chekov asked in a tone that made it clear that he thought he was misunderstanding the Lantean’s words.

“No.” Eventus corrected with a shake of his head. “I'm telling you that I'm open to negotiations for those things. 

The representatives exchanged glances again, and it was clear to the Lantean that the seven desperately wanted to have a discussion about the curveball he'd just thrown them amongst themselves.

“If you would like to talk about my offer in private, or maybe contact your governments to figure out just what you're authorized to negotiate for, I can wait in whatever designated waiting area you have for such things.” He put forward helpfully once it became clear from the continued silence that he'd stepped on some sort of diplomatic landmine.

Truthfully he'd budgeted a full week for diplomatic niceties, but he suspected if he admitted that, their various governments would draw out the entire thing till the literal last minute in hopes of figuring out just what the heck he was up to.

“That may be for the best.” Carl agreed, motioning to one of the guards by the door. “Tucker? Would you escort the High Councilor to the IOA Quiet Room?”

“Of course.” The guard confirmed with a nod as he walked up next to Eventus. “If you’ll follow me, High Councilor."

Nodding, Eventus followed Tucker out, and the sound of muted debate sprung into existence mere moments after the door shut behind them.

The IOA’s quiet room turned out to be a small sound insulated room next door to the meeting room they’d just left. Inside sat twelve low backed cushioned chairs, four coffee tables, a couple of work desks against the far wall, and a single flat screen television set on a stand. Not a particularly objectionable design for a waiting room all things considered, so he pulled his interface pad off his belt and settled into a chair to pass the time.

“So, Tucker.” He began when the black suited guard settled into a position next to the door. “Do you think it will take them a while?”

“I couldn’t say.” Tucker replied after a moment, and it was clear from his slightly clipped tone that he was under some sort of order to keep conversation to a minimum.

Sighing as he slumped back into his surprisingly comfortable chair, Eventus took a moment to break into the building's wi-fi network before a glance over at the clock on the wall reminded him that it was nearly noon.

Looking over to Tucker, a slightly hopeful look crept onto his face. “Do you take lunch orders?”

It was Tucker’s turn to sigh. “One moment.”

He opened the door and walked out, taking a moment after he did to make sure to close the door behind him.

Eventus smiled slightly to himself, unable to really fault the security considerations, though he was mildly amused at just how clear the limited electromagnetic shielding around the room highlighted the fact that their whole secrecy obsession was more of a general negative to what they were actually hoping to accomplish instead of a plus.

The subspace jamming field the SGC had in place for instance would have made it a lot more difficult for him to wirelessly access anything. Not impossible mind you, as the only way to really do that was to completely cut out remote access capabilities. But he probably would have had to spend a good ten minutes isolating an unaffected subspace frequency before he would have been able to do anything.

It was nearly five minutes before Tucker returned with a thin pamphlet in hand, time Eventus spent browsing the nascent version of youtube and wondering if it would be too much to upload a short low quality video of a proailurus chasing a laser dot.

“Here’s the lunch menu.” Tucker said as he walked over and offered the item to Eventus. “Feel free to pick out whatever you’d like and we’ll have it brought up.”

Accepting the menu with a nod, Eventus spent a moment glancing through it before coming to a surprisingly easy decision. “A grilled salmon melt, bowl of lobster bisque, and a glass of whatever beer you have available.”

He didn’t expect the beverage to have a high enough alcohol content to do much of anything, but he was moderately interested in seeing just what they had come up with for a high end location like the UN.

“All right.” Tucker confirmed as he accepted the menu back. “I’ll relay your choices to the staff, though it will probably be twentyish minutes before everythings ready.”

“No worries.” Eventus said with a grin as he held up the interface pad. “I have more than enough to keep me occupied till it’s ready.”

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Author’s Notes: Jokes on Eventus, the IOA went into this expecting a short and boring meeting where both sides would basically just exchange meaningless platitudes and at the end agree that they were more or less on the same page of discussing things further at some nebulous point in the future. But hey, that means Eventus get's to deal with political jockying that comes after throwing a wrench in things.