Rivals ➢ Iron Man [ON HOLD]

1.3

CHAPTER THREE

Stark, Missing In Action

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APOLLO HEADQUARTERS
LOS ANGELES

Headaches were no good.

Thea watched the effervescent dissolve in the tall glass of water in front of her.  She had her palms folded on her desk, and she rested her chin on the backside of her hand, puffing out the air from her cheeks. It was almost three in the afternoon and she had participated in seven meetings all across her building. Marketing. Manufacturing. Human Resources. Clients. Management. Product Testings. And last of all, accounting. It took a lot out of her.

Being a CEO wasn't all that fun.

Her parents made it look easy. Thea suspected that it was because they had each other. They shared the workload and had friends in the company they could trust to oversee a few aspects in the business. Those friends had either retired, quit, or passed. Thea could count on one hand the people in her company she could trust to run it if for some reason she was unable to.

M.I.D.A.S. — that's it.

Don't get her wrong, her employees were good on paper. They worked hard and earned their pay checks. But they weren't close. They weren't family. Thea knew many of the managers in every department — their names, their families, their upbringing. Lara and Luck weren't the CEO type. They would rather a right hand job taking notes and driving places than run a multimillion dollar company. And as for M.I.D.A.S., she programmed him to learn all that she learned. He was the hub of the building. He heard everything. He analysed everything. He knew when someone was two minutes late or clocking out overtime. He could track the movements of every employee in the building the second they step foot inside. It was a security precaution. And every employee was well aware. On many occasions, Thea had to deal with men and women who were just looking for trouble.

"Boss?"

Thea snapped out of her thoughts, and straightened up in her seat when there was a knock on her door. Lara had poked her head in, smiling at the CEO. Thea downed the mixed water and set it aside, beckoning her forward.

"Lara. Come on in." Thea returned the smile, tasting the berry flavour from the medicine with a hum, and watched as Lara sat in the seat across from her desk.

K-9 trotted in from the hallway, his mechanical limbs whirring as he approached his maker. He was about the size of an adult golden retriever, and had a sleek silver finish all over his artificial body. He had gold optical scanners for eyes that could change colour depending on his battery level. Thea always wanted a dog from when she was a kid but her mother was allergic to them. So she built one without fur and drool, and introduced the new member of the family with immense pride at the age of ten. Over the years she had given him repairs and upgrades, but she never replaced his foundation. That way, he was the same dog, just with the latest and greatest material updates.

Thea picked up a pen and wagged it on front of him, chuckling when he immediately hopped around, barking with excitement. She tossed the pen across the room to his charging station, and clapped when he stepped into the cord, hooking himself up.

"Good boy, K-9!"

Lara shook her head. "I will never understand why you don't just get a real dog." She commented, glancing back at K-9 as she got comfortable in her seat.