The bitter sweet agreement

”So they're serious about us paying for it,” the older man said flipping through the stack of papers. The leather jacket hung on the back of his chair and his mask was on the table, its long blond hair hanging over the edge. Next to the mask, an open contact lens case held a pair of green contact. Without the mask on, he no longer appeared to be a mid to late-thirty man; the wrinkles on his face brought him up to his mid-fifties in appearance. His hair was short and brown and his eyes hazel.   ”We couldn't get them to budge on that,” Valiant said, the voice changing as he removed his helmet and placed it on the table, and rubbing his temple. Without it, his voice was more in the range of tenors, than baritones. “I really wish you'd come, we could have used--”   ”Oh dear God no!” Radiance exclaimed. “Can you imagine how Tracie would have been when those senators dug in their heels about this detail or that one?” In the conference room, with only the six of them, the glow normally surrounding her was gone, indicating she should turn off her power completely. Without it, her skin was darker and her features showed her African ancestry. “Just how foul does your language get?” she asked the man. She also looked and sounded younger, somewhere in her twenties, rather than thirties.