The Hollow Men

[Commissar]

SSGT Corey Carter

Carter obliged, feet moving more out of habit then any sense of respect for the man before him. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the new light, wishing again that he shared the marine's tinted visors. The seat creaked slightly as the bespectacled figure comfortably settled atop it, looking for all the world like a birdwatcher quietly contemplating the local wildlife. The insults, he could tolerate. No-one made it through recruit stage without building some sort of tolerance to verbal needling. A decade of dealing with some of the worst individuals the Army had made the mistake of trusting with a uniform had only served to hone that particular skill.

"The ESRD-" Are lead by a lunatic? He bit back the response. Madman or not, this man outranked Carter by an order of magnitude, and his organisation was one of the few actively fighting the nomads. Despite his training screaming at him to avoid antagonizing an interrogator, he met the man's eyes. He'd never made a habit of subtlety, and damned if he was starting now. "Frankly, sir, the ESRD's a mess. A cluster of organisations thrown together by Government cost-cutting and somehow expected to start working together as one big happy family against the biggest threat we've seen in a long time." He pushed on before the man across the table could respond.

"I expected to be bought here for an interview to work against that threat." Carter took a half-pace forward, conversational tone belying the cold anger that burned in his chest. "Instead, I've spent the past day in an empty room at the bottom left corner of God-Knows-Where, trooped about by armed guards in a Republic facility, and generally not been given a damn clue about what's going on. If that's how you run your recruitment, that's your bag, sir, but I think I've waited long enough to earn some answers." He left out the aliens on the research level. The part of his brain that dealt with rational thought was still trying to make sense of that particular revelation. He'd known what External Research dealt with, but to see it so close... Carter shook it off. It was just another piece in the puzzle, and he'd treat it as such. He stood, waiting as the silence stretched on, the gentle pulse of the circulating fans the only noise in the tiny room.

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May you live in interesting times.
| Sarah McFarlen | Jane Hartman |