Xaltwind
Spiffy
dwyer austin
The Otter
Zapdos
Dezuel
Izurich
Danyel
Aku the Samurai
tundrafrog1124The U.I.D.
Director's Office, DAIB HQ, ???, Tar Idkar
Two people sat in the room, each on opposite sides of the desk, in simple but comfortable padded chairs of a sort. All the while silence hung about the room like a great and draping curtain, the tension somewhat palpable as one stared back at the other without a word. In the background, a bladeless fan pushed air along to cool the warm room....warm? Wait, was it normally warm in here, or was it just herse-
"Agent Malone, I'm waiting for your explanation. Have all the time in the world, even, to do this."
The director's words cut through the air like a chilly breeze, sending a mild tremor down the back of one rather tensed up Agent Malone and snapping her out of her thoughts. Spacing out wasn't going to save her here, but she-.....well, it was-.....drat. For her part, though, it was apparent that Agent Malone was now trying to think of what to say, but part of her didn't want to let some of those words escape her mouth. What could she say to the person in front of her that would even hope to remedy the matter or such? Hmm? What did she want her to say about the whole matter? Some part of her didn't regret a thing, and yet after the whole affair and 'that' being returned to its place in Containment Level B all the way back at Site Alpha it was more than a bit mortifying all the same.
"I-...u-u-umm..."
Her voice felt shaky, like a child caught where they ought not to have been looking. Her muscles felt tenser than they ever had before, more than her first mission had ever made her feel for that matter. A cold sweat was beginning to form on her upper back as well, as if she'd just jumped out of a lake before coming here. Maybe it was just her who felt rather warm in this room, as across from her the visibly dissapointed visage of Director Clark was looking her down without seemingly batting an eye. Golden blonde hair, that pair of stern green eyes, the rather light-hued human skintone, the business uniform, everything about her felt hard to look at right now despite the human-like appearance she wore. The woman was....she'd seen she was human, heard she was before joining up yes, but right now she felt less like a human and more like a terrifying wall of force. Truly it was more scary to be in front of and looked at by her, really, than the monster that accompanied her as an assistant than anything else. Like that gaze pierced into her very soul.
At the same time, though, she knew that the longer she said nothing coherent the longer this would be drawn out. Ok...well, she could do this. It was all so very stupid, in hindsight, but here went something!
"....Marina...she was pretty shaken up by it, b-but she was holding it all in. Being on 'that' duty and all, but she was afraid she'd be fired for sticking to it and holding on with that assignment. It was only two weeks, right? But she wasn't doing well, and Kael's prodding at her wasn't doing anything to help it. I-I-I got angry, of course, but and when Kael dared me to do something about it I....we....well....we....we began to come up with a plan.
He h-had the security clearance, Marina h-h-had watch duty then, and I planned to be walking by when Kael was on duty."
"Go on."
Agent Malone gulped a bit of air and saliva, trying to wet her throat as it suddenly felt so very dry. She tried to slow her breathing, just as they'd been told to practice in the field, bit by bit. In and out. In and out. In the nose, out of the mouth. Good. That was good.
"H-He said he had a ship that'd shoot the box into the sun....a-a-and I didn't think about if he was telling the truth at the time. Or...o-or at all, about any of this. Once M-Marina handed it off to me, and Kael got me to the anti-psionic box he'd prepped so I could put it in, I-I walked off back to Marina."
"Mhmm. That lines up with what the security system observed last week, and what we were able to dig up thus far about the incident, so if nothing else I congradulate you on telling the truth about your involvement in yesterday's incident in the end. However, the fact remains that you participated in moving a contained anomaly off-site, where your coworker attempted to make a profit on selling it. Yes it was a mere Class A Anomaly as far as you knew, but that's far from an excuse."
"I-I didn't k-k-know he was doing tha-!"
Director Clark held up her prosthetic right hand, and Malone's mouth suddenly shut.
"Yes, after your voluntary psionic examination and reporting to your superior about the incident a few hours later we know that for certain already. Marina, however, was told about this. Would you have gone through if you knew it was being sold for a profit? It seems not, or at least that Kael and your friend didn't trust you enough to let you in on that little detail."
Malone's stomach sank, as if someone had dropped a heavy stone inside of it, as her jaw locked up and froze in place midway into trying to speak back again. Yet as words and questions began to race through her head, as some part of her wanted to shout back that Marina would-
"Would never do that in her lifetime? It would seem to be so from a first impression, but sometime people like to hide what they're really thinking behind it all. Behind the face of a newer agent who couldn't handle Anomaly 642 duty, she was working with Kael on selling it before trying to book it from the facility soon after alongside him. It's why we caught the two of them as they tried to leave Site Alpha in the first place after she left you to 'go have some time alone' to calm down later."
"B-"
"You know I'm psionic, yes, Miss Malone? But that aside the question is written on your face more than anything. Yes, we knew what was going on that day....and the whole time to be frank. Yet given you're the only one of the three involved to submit to a psionic examination, as well as voluntarily speak with me in my office here after giving a testimonial, you've already proven a fair amount of sincerity. You didn't try to run, even, which I must say was a smart move on your part as well.
However, why do you think we assign some agents to Site A for their trial period? To test them. Sure the initial missions, the trianing, and the like are all there, but in the end we want to test your mettle, capabilities, and more. Your ability to work with others. Your honesty and character. Your ability to handle the 'safest' level of anomalies as well as sudden curveballs....though that one is admittedly actually a Class B we throw in there from time to time as a somewhat harder test. Pretend its a new find that the site has to contain for a while until a proper cell can be prepared for it or something like that."
"...."
"Is it cruel? To some extent most people would say that, especially given that one's nature. However, in this line of work you must be able to adapt in case of 'sudden escalation' beyond your normal standards as the training session tried to drill into you and your peers at Site A. This job isn't easy, neither is it fair, and our role is to handle things that most can't as best as we can. Not everyone can handle everything, regardless of that, but the general rule of thumb still stands.
Your coworker wasn't as devastated as she made herself out to be, and she used that to manipulate you into 'helping' it seems she and Kael were in contact before joining up with the agency to boot as we've been inclined to believe at this venture. It doesn't nessecarily mean torture either, but that is why we weed out new agents like this in one way or another. If someone who can't handle it gets out there, and messes things up, the problems goes well beyond just your own potential danger or suffering. It involves a lot more than that many times oover, and if we fail or try to hit above our weight class then it could spell disaster for far too many people in the end."
Malone sat listening, her hands coming into her lap and nearly clutching her knees until the knuckles turned white. All this time, Marina had-...and she'd-...it was a disgrace. Even the sudden disappearance of her new work 'friend' seemed to have been some part of a plan, perhaps, and her going a few hours later to tell on herself and the others had been useless enough if even the Director had known what was going on anyways before it all went down! That stupid, stupid teapo-
"It is 'stupid', yes, but you handled that duty well enough, tried to formally inform others put on watch over that anomaly when they came in after your turn, and even your superior wrote some positive notes about you in his initial reports about the new trainees at Site A. But your former coworkers didn't make it far after he got the box anyways, not even to the parking lot before waiting security staff apprehended them and the box.
However, we cannot overlook your transgression all the same. Site A may be rigged to weed rookies out, and to capture such ill-intented 'recruits' red-handed, but trying to hand away and get rid of a contained anomaly recklessly cannot be ignored. It is a whole breach of protocol, a violation of your work contract, and the like. In short, by all right I should have you hauled of to do time in an angency cell for this and have you dead to rights on it."
"However, given your honesty and straightforwardness in the matter, and being able to recognize you were in the wrong, the only reason you aren't in a cell right now is because I said so. Because you were brought to me on my orders. And why? Because with the noted factor of your emotional manipulation by the other two, I wanted to see if you were even salvageable after this whole affair."
The Director leaned forward onto the wooden desk in front of her, the light tap of her prosthetic right arm's elbow on it audible, looking more into the eyes of the still-tense but now somewhat-confused new agent.
"I will make it abundantly clear that I am making you one offer, and one offer only, because of your actions after the fact and your willing cooperation with us on this and what sort of stuff we've not turned up in investigating your background and history more in-depth after this along the way. So you have two choices in this matter:
One, you will stay here in a security cell for tonight, and then report to the Mass Transit Shuttle Center at 3am tomorrow morning, sharp. From here you will be taken by an escort back to the training center at Site Gamma elsewhere. Formally from this point on you are suspended if you choose this option, and there at the center you will remain under close observation and undergo a more than tough remediation program meant to harden your resolve, allow you to better grasp your emotions, and give you more resilience and awareness against these sorts of situations. You will then undergo a thourough psionic examination after completing this remediation program, and then your status will only then be debated once more as to whether to return you to rookie-level duty, to imprison you, or to release you from employmeny in the D.A.I.B. altogether and so forth.
Two, you will give me your verbal resignation and will then immediately report down the hall to the Information Protection Department's main office. There, for full disclosure, you will submit to a psionic erasure of specific lowest-level classified information before reporting to security. From there, you will be escorted off the premises, fitted with a nanomonitor, and placed safely in a humane and monitored prison cell for the time being until we can get you a good court date scheduled and so forth.
Do I make myself clear?"
She, she wasn't going to prison right now?! Er, well not unless she-...and...ah. No, it made enough sense she supposed. It was much more than she thought she'd get after being called to come in and speak with the actual Director, of all things, but it was 'something' at least. Yes. And in that vein Malone's eyes would open wider for a moment before her own left hand came up suddenly, jerking up into a formal salute of sorts.
"M-Mam' yes mam'! Thank you for the chance you've given me mam'!"
"Good. Now then, report to the security office down on the next floor. They'll be expecting you."
"Yes mam'!"
The rookie agent would scramble up from her seat, giving a hasty bow to Director Clark before quickly moving to open the door and leaving the room. The Director could even hear her footsteps as they moved across the floor outside of her carpeted office, deliberate as much as they were a mixture of excited and still tension-filled from the whole affair. As soon as those footsteps were out of earshot, however, the overly-large door to her office would once again open. This time, however, something else would walk in altogether.
It wore a fully face-covering mask along with a simple hat of archaic make, walking on a myriad of clawed feet-hands emerging from a main body hidden underneath its black cloak. Its flesh and claw-ended appendages were a dark as the deep blackness of the night, or perhaps even the void of space, and yet Director Clark had felt its presence concealed in the waiting room of her office as it had arrived back there in the middle of her talking to Agent Malone all the same. While most felt it was an anomaly that was 'hard to read', and obviously so in a number of ways, the psionic director felt she'd a certain 'knack' for reading its mood and demeanor underneath it all. One could call it simply 'inuition' at this point, not even needing to glean things like emotions from afar that were on the surface of its mind by now, but all the same its presence tugged up the corners of the human woman's mouth just a bit.
"I take it you brought my message to them, then?"
"....Yessss"
A voice hissed and rumbled at the same time from underneath the beaked mask of the anomaly before her now.
"Perfect, and my other request-?"
A clawed hand came out from behind the door, carrying with it the smell and appearance of a fine cup of tea just the way she liked it. Just hot enough for a tiny wisp of steam to still be trailing off of the top of the cup at that. Without skipping a beat, the clawed appendage gently and gingerly handed the plate the cup of tea was on to the Director, who placed it down in front of her before taking a slow and careful sip. At this point, the edges of her mouth began to crawl up even farther into what some would call a proper 'smile' perhaps. Hah. Her, smiling at a time like this? That was the punch line in reality.
Still, she'd handled a lot worse than this new agent's unwitting participation in a scheme to make bank and run. Especially after all the years she'd had to whip the agency as it was today into shape. Those with ill intentions were always something to keep an eye out for, and they'd learned that well enough even as far back as the old Empire. Still...
"Ah, I needed that today. Now then, did any other news come in while I was in my meeting here?"
A clawed appendage reached into the unseeable void of the anomaly's main body, before coming out with a piece of neat and crisp paper in hand. A rather primitive method of communication, paper and pen or pencil, but it certainly was a method useful in certain ways that wasn't expected by most. Made even better for destroying communicaides she didn't want left around to boot after they're use was through with. Even so, upon taking the offered piece of paper the Director's smile would fade into her usual stoic manner as her eyes ran over the paper in her hands. Then her eyes ran over the words again. Then again. Again. Then once more again for good measure before neatly folding the paper after a pause and placing it securely in a pocket on the front of her shirt, abruptly if not a littlr jarringly gulping down the hot tea, and standing up swiftly from her desk before pushing the chair back in.
The clawed anomaly moved back from the door automatically, to give her room as the Director nearly stormed out in a formal but notable haste, but kept its head lowered down to look at her from the side before moving to follow alongside her all the same.
"Did they say if this news hit the media yet?"
"....Ssssaid it wiiill laaaater toniiiiiight, yesssss."
"Good. Now please take a message from me to Chhief Yavis down in the Archives. Tell him to get all the hands he has down there today to dig up everything we have on this 'Ghost Region', compile it into an encrypted holodrive, and to book it to HQ's shuttle terminal ASAP to meet me there in-person because he's coming along for this. Then go tell our mutual friend I'll be there in thirty minutes in the usual spot, tops."
Without a word, though with a light tip of its hat, the anomaly would seemingly vanish in an instant. Or had it even been there? Slipped into the shadows, perhaps? No one could tell for sure much of the time, but Director Clark didn't skip a beat in any case. Sure she'd need to let Administrator Burke know she'd be gone on 'Class M' business that had popped up just now, but this...yes, this was no small matter if she was getting a paper and pen message like this from 'that' person and by the appendages of her assistant. And the topic? She'd at least seen the term in passing before when perusing some of the most secure archives they had at HQ itself, sitting in things imported from the old Empire proper, though she'd have to use the holodrive to try to get a gist of things before arriving at their location. Wouldn't have much time to brush up, but that's why she was having Chief Yavis come along. He had a good way of analysis, and they'd need that if the topic was this urgent and the timeframe they had was this horribly short.
Yet something didn't sit right about this in her mind, even as the gears of her memory clocked and whirred along. Anything that old, that top secret, and that tightly-maintained in the records even by the Empire's standards was not a good sign. She just hoped it didn't pertain to Tar Yrra directly, though that matter was a four-wars-deep mess of its own already for that matter. Any more heaped on 'that' pile might set off the burnt-down charcoal and tinder that was the whole blasted galaxy again at this rate for all they knew.
However, for now, she and Chief Yavis had a 'meeting with royalty' to get to.
