“Interesting perspective.”

Graham reached into his pockets, retrieving a pack of synthetic cigarettes from their casing. As he continued to lead the group from the transit station his eyes met those of other key staff members and pilots that were going about their duties. The veteran commander pondered what Alan could mean, as all eyes came to him. The raven-haired Denver-Vegas native looked back at the would-be pilots. He still wasn't sure about any of them, even if he more-or-less had been tasked at vetting them for the greater good. A greater good he did not particularly believe in.

The best answer he could make was pragmatic, though he knew he had to pivot to bring questions to Alan's perspective. To see how he and the other pilot's would react.

“Do you just see snow and scrap here? I think while you were busy looting corpses out beyond the trenches of Mississippi you lost the onus of what we are supposed to be doing out here in this world we have inherited.”

A curt, “And what is that, exactly?” came from one of the pilots. It didn’t matter to Graham which one.

“Building something.” Graham smirked, unabashedly full of confidence. “New Anchorage is trying to build a coalition. The big corporations like Fairbanks and Paragon don’t really care about what’s out here in Alaska, so I’ve been tasked here to build infrastructure. You might all come from rough situations and are strapped for cash, but you should be able to see that this is going to be a whole lot better than wondering if your buddy is going to shoot you in the back of the head when the job is done.”

Graham may have never flown as an independent, but he knew what the life was like. Officially, he hadn’t been a combat pilot in over-a-decade, and unlike some of his peers he had never moved away from Denver-Vegas for his entire life. He had never stepped in the mud of Georgia or in the rust-laden graves of the Midwestern Territories. He had never wondered when his next meal would come or if his best friend thought he’d be better off killing him for a bigger cut of the money offered by some fledgling settlement with no real corporate sponsorship. That was a life he had only seen from the other side of the fence.

Sometimes he wondered if he had the right choice staying behind for as long as he did. He discarded the thought instead of dwelling on it as he continued to appraise the pilots.

“I've read all of your information. I know you want to be here. Let's get you settled and see if you can make the final cut.”

---

“You say a lot for a suit.” Ryn commented, her hands still buried in the pockets of her coat. “Hope you're telling the truth.”

The comment was strong from the fire-haired fourteen-year-old, but it was a sentiment that many of the group of pilots likely shared. Commander Graham was struggling with being overly stern and welcoming, it was clearly a struggle for him to be the voice of New Anchorage no matter how much he tried. The young teenager obviously saw the cracks in his platitudes so anyone older and more perceptive would’ve seen it more easily. The red-haired couldn’t have known Graham’s dance between strict company man and voice of the people in Smith’s Rest was a way to gauge reactions, though. If there was anything the Midwestern pilot was bad at, reading people was on the top of the list.

She took a light breath as Graham ignored the retort, though her eyes caught that two other pilots were in hushed conversation.

One particular person caught her eye in the crowd, as he had done earlier. For one reason or another she decided to push her shoulders forward into his body as she moved forward at a quickened pace in an attempt to catch the front of the line. There was a reason for it, but only two people in the crowd knew why. A few pilots shot a glance toward the scene, though they probably wrote it off as the case of an impatient child rather than intentional malice.

How wrong they were.

Soon enough, Graham led them into the main facility, the large metal doors seeming like something of a fantasy for Ryn. She had spent so much time outside in the snow and mud, sleeping underneath her NC outside of various settlements in the northern wastes rather than any sort of hangar or facility. She had only been to a megacity twice in her life and both times had been so long ago she barely remembered it. The fourteen-year-old thought back, feeling as if four years ago felt like a decade. Her eyes looked around the corridors, curious yet annoyed. If she passed the physical and whatever else Graham wanted to administer, was this going to be her home for long? Could she finally find a feeling of family here? She mulled over the thought as she twiddled her thumbs in her pockets.

The last time she had thought she had found a new family they had abandoned her as soon as it became inconvenient. This was just a job. She had to remind herself of that. Seeing old faces didn’t help ease her anxieties.

“The process going forward will not be like other jobs in the past for you.”

Ryn’s attention snapped forward, realizing she had trailed off for a moment. Graham was beginning another branch of dialogue, another time to remind the pilots that they hadn’t actually made it. That despite flying their mechs out to Alaska, with their own credits, there would be more to the process. Ryn had figured out that much. By this point in Black Barrow she had already signed on the proverbial bottom line.

“Mm. Yeah?”

The commander continued his march. The tour as Alan had called it.

“First of all, I need for you to get the approval of my medical staff and pass a out-of-suit exam. I'm hiring you on not as pilots, but as independent contractors for a length of three-hundred days.”

“And we will not be reimbursed for our credits should we not pass?” Asked one of the other female pilots.

Ryn took a look at her. She was foreign. Thick accent. She wasn't smart or worldly enough to know what kind of accent. She had spoken before in a language she didn't know. As the reality hit her, Ryn looked back toward the man who had been conversing with the one she had pushed aside to get to the front of the line. He sounded off, too. How many foreigners had New Anchorage gotten interest from? How much credits did they waste just for this opportunity?

Ryn looked back toward Graham as he spoke again. His comment was one that made Ryn wonder what would happen next.

“Unfortunately not. New Anchorage doesn't have that kind of income. I hope it'll inspire you to succeed.”

Percy had followed Zach to a proper dead overhead light, and was holding the ladder for him so he could climb back up into the ceiling. There was a tense halt to the conversation they'd been having - or was it just Percy that thought it was tense? Zach seemed pretty nonplussed, according to his observations. Then again, the guy was kind of hard to read in general, even after living with him for years. Not that he didn't have his own expressions, obviously, but his two default faces were a calm half-smile and an angry-looking neutral face. Like, maybe he was just focused; or he could be stewing in a quiet anger, pissed off that Percy took Ana from him. Maybe Zach was thinking about what he was going to do for dinner when he was done with this work. Maybe he wanted to make the job take as long as he could make it take, to avoid going back to a house devoid of the little girl he'd considered a daughter. Maybe Percy was thinking entirely too hard about what was going through Zach's head. Maybe it was just plucky elevator music in there. Maybe he was thinking about something funny he'd read, his hands going on autopilot as he did his engineering- or would it be electrician?- thing.

"Moore," Eli said, yanking Percy back to reality.

"Jesus, Eli," Percy gasped, his hand firmly placed on his chest, "You scared me."

She seemed unphased by her startling of Percy, stiffly gesturing away from Zach and towards the open space of the hangar instead. "Can we have a word?"

Now there's only two ways this could go. He could take that request for "a word" for what it was and say Oh, yeah, of course, just give me a second to make sure Zach's gonna be alright by his lonesome, or he could take that in the way that's far more entertaining.. For him, at least. To hell with anyone that didn't find it funny.

"How's about... discombobulated?" Percy replied with a lopsided, toothy grin. "That's a good word, I think. Haven't found a use for it myself, but I'm sure you could."

Both pilots could hear Zach snort from above them. They didn't hear the soft "Fuck's sake, Percy," that followed, though.

---

“Hm. I see.”

It may not have looked like to others on the outside, but Taraneh Marno, the Iranian prospect, was on the verge of a panic attack.

She had come to Alaska for a new opportunity and to finish unfinished business. However, despite fully being aware of her personal goals this was the best chance she had to dig around without throwing off too many alarms. Her last job had been in the ruins of Lilongwe. The people there had called it The Forgery; or, well, that was the rough English translation of the Bantu phrase at least. She had found a few clues, a broker of information who gave her information about the target she had been chasing for years before she was inevitably chased out of Africa by Tshwane. Evidently, they had been still livid that she had taken down a few of their profitable assets. If not for a friend of hers she would’ve probably been dead and her vengeance incomplete.

Taraneh crossed her arms, peering into the back of Graham’s skull as he moved through the facility.

He was a company man. He walked like one. Talked like one. Admittedly, he was honest and Taraneh couldn’t quite figure him out. There were so many mixed signals. Was he the kind of company man who hired wetwork teams to prey upon people who were barely making ends meet? or was he the type of company man who didn’t cross such blurred lines? He had said he wouldn’t condone illicit actions, but he also said he didn’t believe in good and evil. What kind of person couldn’t have morals in the world they lived in where the rich gained more and more power while the poor took a shovel to the dirt to dig their own graves? He was trying to inspire them despite these questions. He was a veteran of some kind of war. Taraneh could tell that much.

The Iranian woman tapped her leftmost fingers on the forearm it rested on, a tic she had picked up over the years, as she thought on Graham, New Anchorage, herself, and the two tests she had to pass. A medical examination and an out-of-suit exam. She supposed that was basic in the corporations. She had worked for a few once before as a proxy asset, so she knew that much. An out-of-suit exam meant that you could not only climb your mech without aid of ladders, but also showcasing your physical athleticism and durability. There were many old world devices that used the neural network for security and access. Defense turrets, power systems, data archives. The list went on. Being compatible with the neural network wasn’t just about being able to access super-weapons like NC’s but also pretty much anything predating the war that forced humanity to go underground or survive the effects of nuclear fallout.

She looked back behind her, catching the eyes of one of the pilots who had been talking. His accent was slightly different than Graham’s, but it was still the same. There was something about him that made her want to strike a conversation, but for now she was trying to get a read on the other pilots rather than make friends with them.

There were a lot of pilots. Mostly Westerners, but also foreigners like her with their own reasons for being in Alaska. If Graham accepted all of them, no matter what he said, he would most certainly have an army. She doubted New Anchorage could afford up-linking all their NCs in their hangars, paying them, and hoping they’d all behave. She wondered where the red line was for pilots? Obviously your run-of-the-mill mercenary wasn’t it. They needed people who wanted to be here and had little options. Only Allah knew how she would survive if she didn’t make the cut. She had used the last of her credits to get out of Africa and to Alaska in the first place. Shipping NCs across the Atlantic wasn’t cheap and doing it without paying lip service to the corporations and regional warlords was difficult enough.

She just hoped she could succeed. Failure was not an option.

By the end of her thoughts, Graham moved the various pilots into a waiting room where they were told to wait around and converse among themselves while the medical staff would call them forward one at a time. The first to leave was a woman who sounded like she was from Southeastern Asia. Australia or New Zealand. She honestly could not tell the difference. So she was left with her own devices, surrounded by pilots from various backgrounds. Her thoughts remained on succeeding and making sure her and her father could have a good life here while she hunted down the bastards that killed her mother and brought ruin to her family.

“Aya divaneh hasti?” She muttered to herself underneath her breath.

It was a question she asked herself before every venture.

"Oh come on, that was funny, Eli," Percy insisted as she'd continued to be silent. He waited a second to see if she'd admit it, but she stayed quiet. "At least kinda funny. Just a little?" Sure, he figures that it doesn't matter if anyone else thinks he's funny, but being the only one laughing was really uncomfortable... and no, Zach laughing doesn't count. They've known each other for multiple years and have absolutely demolished each other's senses of humor.

But then Eli insisted that what she had to say was important, that she had worries about these new pilots Graham was bringing in and how none of them were natives - none of those issues Percy really cared about, it didn't really affect how he'd operate. But then she'd said that "One looks like a raider." That was what made Percy's stomach go into a knot. He already didn't really like Graham all that much, but.. employing a raider? Employing the same kind of person that got Laura killed and tried to steal his daughter away? It made Percy want to barf. Fuck Graham. He then saw how Eli's gaze shifted upwards to Zach and how her lips had tightened shut - like she didn't want to talk about it in front of him.

"It could be something worth discussing with one another."

Percy glanced up to Zach as well. While the guy seemed pretty preoccupied with the light, Percy knew that if the roles were swapped - with Zach being down here and him being up there - he'd definitely be listening in..

"Yeah," Percy said, "Yeah, I'll be with you in a-"

"Go ahead, Pierce."

Well. That confirmed two things. One, Zach absolutely was listening like Percy had guessed; and two, Zach would probably be fine on his own for a bit, if he was urging him to hurry up and go. Something about Zach's tone made Percy wonder again, though. He sounded.. Fed up? Irritated? Generally upset - which in this point in time would finally make sense. Of course he'd be upset about a potential raider being anywhere near Ana right now. Of course he'd be worried. Percy found himself reaching out to him, to nudge him enough to get him to look down and just give a little bit of reassurance, but Eli's eyes boring into the back of his neck made him not do that.

"Alright," Percy said, taking a small step backwards and throwing on a grin, "Don't zap yourself, alright? Please?"

"Yeah. Sure."

One more moment of hesitation, and then Percy finally turned around and went off with Eli down the thoroughfare. The two only took a couple steps away before Percy got fidget-y with one of the two rings on his fingers, waiting for Eli to maybe start them off - he only had one worry on his mind, but he wanted to hear her out first. Like, maybe she had a good reason to believe these new pilots not being native was a bad thing? Honestly, the more he thought about it the more he realized that y'know, yeah, it might be bad that they're not from here. He didn't want Ana to be exposed to some kind of weird disease, or for her to get snatched up again, or so many other horror scenarios they kind of blended together, now- Ah, fuck, alright! Alright. If she won't elaborate, then he'll give her something to elaborate on.

"Sooo," Percy started, twisting the silver band around his ring finger, "uh.. what's this about a raider, again?"