“Hey… Don’t look so down, uh…” He looked at my badge, as if to find my name. “Matt! Yeah, I’m sure we’re gonna be able to solve this, I mean, we have done the impossible, what can’t we do?”

“Mhm… Thanks…” I looked up to see his chest, to read his badge. “Dennis.” It was very awkward.

"So, uhh..." He chuckled nervously and twiddled his fingers together."I don't think I've seen you before, we must have worked in different departments. So, what's your duty as a Shielder?"

I was wondering if talking to him was worth my time, but for some reason, deep down in my heart, I wanted to talk to him, just in case it made me feel better. And so I took my chances.

"I'm an architect. The Super Architect, in fact. I helped build a lot of the most important buildings around the world, like this one. Every Monday I also perform an inspection on Silver T. Big to make sure nothing's wrong with it. It's not the most exciting job, but it's what I'm good with." I replied.

Dennis smiled as soon as I finished my sentence and happily talked. "Wowza, you did a pretty good job then! I'm just the Super Assistant, it's not too much to brag about really!" He then laughed heartily.

 "Plus, if you're an architect, then your brain can figure out what to do regarding this mess of a situation!"

"Heh... Just an assistant?" I couldn't help but feel that his sentence was just a little bit silly. 

"You're not giving yourself enough credit, not everyone can simply say they're the assistant of someone in the Shielders, especially not only that it's Natalie, but you also managed to get yourself into the emergency meeting." I smiled. "Mmph. It sounds more exciting than my job, you get to manage people, I get to manage materials."

Dennis then looked at me. "Well, yeah... You're right! See, this is why you must be good at what you do! If you can logically think about how to build such a good place, then you can logically think about how everyone is good at what they do!"

"Ah, thanks... Also, you moved to this department recently, right? I’m guessing you were assigned to work alongside Natalie now." I looked at him curiously. "Yeah, I just started helping Ms. Natalie out…" He smiled back at me.

Just then, Natalie noticed we were taking a bit to leave and peeked in. “You guys… I hate to butt in, but can we get to work? Hell, you can talk while you work if you can concentrate on both tasks.”

Dennis got nervous. “A-ah… Alright then, let’s get going Matt!” I rolled my eyes and followed them.

“Alright so, what should be the first thing we do?” I asked, “I’m usually good at planning things, but when it comes to an incoming possible apocalypse? I can’t simply plan something for that so easily.” I needed to listen to see if they had any thoughts on the matter.

Natalie sighed and continued walking. “Well, you’re gonna have to think of something. Personally, I’m gonna go to my office and start thinking about the situation on a deeper level. I’ll tell you my info when I finish.”

I stopped in my tracks.

Dennis looked at me, but I couldn’t help but grow frustrated. But I was used to it at this point… that’s how work is.

That’s the way it is… The annoyance of this task was consuming me. At the end of the day, this was just another job that could definitely be solved, so it was nothing but a huge, mere annoyance.

Beginning to move towards the vending machine again, my mouth thirsted for some more coffee. My hands almost instinctively reached into my pockets looking to see if they had more pennies.

“Ah, there we go.” I said and got my hands on some more.  [Slurp]... “Mm.” My mind began to get working, trying to figure out what to do.

Arthur approached me. “Well, what is in your mind, Matt?”

“Well,” I replied. “I’m trying to think about what to do, but I can’t think of anything. I thought that if I got more coffee I could concentrate and think of something.”

“How about the following: Try to make a detailed sketch about the whole situation outside. Maybe we can plan something once we get visual information about it.”

I looked to my side briefly with uncertainness, then I replied. “Ah. Thanks, Arthur. I’ll do that as soon as I finish my drink. I’m guessing you want me to show it to Natalie?”

“That’s correct.” Said Arthur. … “Alright then…” I sat down resting my elbow on the table placing my hand on my chin and cheek, gazing outside through the window slowly drinking the dark and bitter coffee. Deep in thought, with the slurps and cup slamming being the only sounds apparent.

The thoughts came to my mind, but before doing any planning, it was probably a better idea to find out more about the situation first. I gulped down all the coffee and walked to the scientist department, to find out about the situation by myself rather than by Natalie’s words.

“Hah, heey!” Was how a weird, big dragon lady of blue colors greeted me as soon as I walked into the department, she was wearing a lab coat that fit her attitude of being… a bit too crazy.

“Ugh… Hello, Crystal... You wouldn’t know anything about the whole Emptiness deal, right?” I told her. 

“Ah, yeah. That wacky dark goopy stuff.” She said. “Wait, what? Did you touch it? How did you do that if it’s in space?” Leaning back a bit, I was already feeling awkward.

“Hah, nooo.” She let out a small giggle. “We have a nice telescope of our own that’s pretty good for observing space. I honestly found out Emptiness is approaching us by accident, I couldn’t stop looking at it for minutes until I finally realized I had to tell Ms. Natalie!”

“Ah… Alright then, thanks. Mind if I take a look?” Concerned, and nervous, I replied.

“Yeah! I’m not using it right now anyway, just don’t break it!”

Giving Crystal my thanks, I walked to the telescope, although cleaning it slightly with my coat as I didn’t want to get this weird woman’s whatever on me, then took a look.

What I witnessed with my very eyes was a giant barrier in space of presumably dark goo, standing in the distance. Something that quickly caught my attention was a cold planet near ours was partially caught in the barrier of Emptiness. Just from looking at it, the planet gave the impression it was decaying beyond repair.

As if the goop was a burning acid with destruction being its only purpose in the world.

“...What… the… hell…?”

If an entire planet was in that state, why was Crystal acting so eccentrically casual to the situation?  Because of her weird attitude, I was convinced and thought it wouldn’t be a big deal, but now… My body was shivering hard… fearing for my survival.

“Uhh… Crystal?” I said to her weirdly. Crystal looked at me and replied. “Yeah, Matty boy?”, “I don’t think you ever told me… Or anyone for that matter, that this crazy anomaly had already reached a planet that’s so close to us.”

“Well I did say it was getting close to us.” Putting my palm on my face, I quickly lost my temper. “Dang it, Crystal. You said it was getting close to us, that’s correct, but you never specified how close it is to us. This makes things even more stressful for me.”

 I gave her a cold, death glare that had come from the ever growing frustration being built up from my day.

“O-oh…” She then looked at me nervously. “S-sorry, Matt… I guess you’re right, I should’ve specified.”... “Ugh, whatever. I’ll just get to work already, I think I already know the overall look of the situation. But try to work on your wording, seriously, this matter is no joke.”

Crystal nodded slowly and sadly. Afterwards, rushing to my office rapidly I began to write and sketch a plan regarding this madness. Illustrations, arrows and keywords were what I drew on the papers. Taking a sheet of paper after another, keeping notes in each of them.

And then… Finally, after an hour, the notes and a map of this insanity were all done. Reaching towards a paper clip to keep these documents neatly kept together, it was time to move. After reaching my boss’s office, I knocked on the door. [Knock knock!] “Come right in.'' said Natalie.

After walking in, my eyes instantly focused on her. “Alright, Boss. Natalie… uhh… I wrote some stuff for the situation.”

Natalie’s eyes opened slightly more. “Is that so? Well, let me see…” She adjusted her glasses by the corner and took my documents for a look.

…After a few minutes, without even taking her eyes off the pages, “Not bad, Matt. It’s a good thing I called you here. It’s not been too long and you’ve already made a nice summary of everything we need to know.”

“Ah… Yeah, well…”  I said nervously. Quite a bit embarrassed from her good words.

She then quickly interrupted me. “But enough flattery, I’m just gonna go ahead and copy these files to let everyone have their own.”

With me awkwardly sitting on one of her office’s chairs, I looked at her and started chattering. “Hey Nats, if Dennis is your assistant, why isn’t he here?”

She gave me a half-smirk. “I guess he’s doing guard duty right now, I told him to watch the floor and not let anyone in.”

“Anyway…”  Natalie spent the next few minutes reading the papers, gently passing each page.

“I have an idea for what we could do, but we need everyone here to collaborate, and to not tell anyone else.”

My eyebrow raised after hearing her words. “Huh. Don’t tell anyone else… O… k… I guess I can do that, but why though?” She replied quickly. “Well let’s be honest, this is a world threatening situation. We need to keep it low profile while we investigate it. Who knows what kind of disaster would happen if everyone knew.”

Oh well… I put my hands in my pockets yet again and pouted. “Right…” Anyway, “I figured you’d be stressed, so we’re gonna cut it short. I need you to come over Stellar Site next week on Monday, eight AM. You can go home now, you’ve done all I needed.”

Natalie looked serious and determined, to ask me to come to such an important place out of nowhere… I guess that meant I should definitely not take her words lightly.

Sigh, oh well… “Alright then Boss, no questions asked. I’ll be there… Are you sure I should go home this early though?” 

“For sure, you want your alone time, right? Then this is your chance.” She replied, teasing me a bit. I could see it from her expression. She was trying her hardest to hide a grin. As is natural of her.

“Alright, uh, see you next week.”

Stellar Site… Allow me to explain: Stellar Site is a transportation hub that connects our planet with space, it’s pretty expensive, but us Shielders have special rights to it.

If she wants me to go there, does that mean we’re going to space to confront The Emptiness directly?!

Time passed, and soon it was early morning next week. I had spent my remaining free Sunday relaxing and not doing much, just how I liked it. It was good to know that my energy was well recovered for this day… It’s better to be early than late, so I took a taxi and stepped into Stellar Site.

There were spaceships of varying sizes everywhere. At this point in time, they’re pretty useful and affordable means of transportation across the world, although only wealthy people and special figures, like me, could travel to space.

Amazingly though, the structure was neat and clean. It's impressive how much care they put into these places.

Well, I arrived at the lounge, and to my surprise, Arthur, Natalie and Dennis were already there. The only person missing was Crystal…

I sat down with them. “Hey guys. Didn’t expect everyone to be here so early. Well, besides Crystal.” I said, yawning a bit.

Dennis chuckled and replied. “Ah, that girl is always a troublemaker! Well, what can we do, what can we do…”

  Natalie talked as well. “Yeah, she’s pretty clumsy, but she’s so good at her job that we need her, I also want to have everyone in here, so we’re gonna wait for her.”

Arthur replied, “I can’t comprehend why she would be late, Shielder jobs pay lots, one wouldn’t want to miss out like that.” He did make a good point, but anyway… I looked at my phone… It was 7:59 AM. Geez...

“Well, regardless, uh, how did you guys spend Sunday?” Dennis smiled.  “Well, I played video games all day! It’s a pretty good thing to do when I have free time, really relaxing and fun! Except when you’re raging at teammates but that’s another story.”

Natalie smiled as well, but slightly. “I invited Arthur to hang out, we talked some, drank some tea and afterwards played Chess. It was fun, too.”

“Huh…” I looked at them a bit surprised. “Didn’t know you guys hung out in your free time.”

Arthur chuckled a little bit, with a confident look on his face. “Well, we live in apartments pretty close to each other in the same building. Though we have a more casual life there. For example: "I am not letting anyone beat me at Chess.”

“Neat. Who won then?” Natalie couldn’t help but laugh a bit. “Me.”.. “Well then Arthur, that’s a way to be in denial.” I sarcastically said, chuckling a bit. 

“I guess not everything goes as we want…” Arthur sighed, now looking a bit comically depressive, like a total dummy.

It was weird how a robot would lose at chess… Is he losing on purpose to look good on Nats or something? If that’s right, he sure would suit the role of Royal Jester more than Royal King. But well, whatever. Our chatter continued, until the time was 8:17 AM and Crystal arrived.

“S-sorry! I’m late!” said Crystal nervously as she arrived, she looked stressed and exhausted. Natalie looked at her with some annoyance, but let it go. “Yeah well, it doesn’t matter now. We should get going and start our plan instead of wasting any more time by talking about this.” 

She stood up and walked towards one of the spaceships, a small sized one, so we went with her… The guard looked at us. “Hello there. May I see your ticket please? Wait…”

The guard noticed the badges on our clothes. Those sparkly, important badges that made a taxi driver awkwardly talk to me when I simply wanted to get over my day at the time. “Ah alright alright, go right ahead. Enjoy your ride!”

We stepped into the small spaceship, which we fortunately fit in, and closed the door. “So, Boss, what are we gonna do?” I asked. “I don’t think we’ve discussed our plan with the Emptiness yet.”

“We’re gonna travel to one of the affected planets, the cold one in decay, then we’re gonna closely inspect it to see what we can find.” Answered Nats, determined. I could see she really meant it.

“That’s why I needed Crystal here. She’s the most knowledgeable of us when it comes to this.”, “Ah…” Everyone else seemed to understand as well. I got a bit nervous, since it was definitely gonna be threatening.

“I know what you’re thinking Matt, it’s very dangerous, but we have to make sacrifices in order to progress. This is a world threatening situation, we can’t back down.”. As she told me that, I couldn’t argue, she’s right… Natalie then pressed a button on the spaceship. A few belts revealed themselves to us from the ship’s storage.