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Personal Journal: Captain John Price
Date: [Redacted] — Week One, Day Two | Location: Joint Task Force Facility, UK | Time: 1923
I have been doing this job for twenty-three years.
I have managed Ghost, who communicates primarily through silence and occasional acts of profound violence. I have managed Soap, who once repurposed a field kitchen as a diversionary explosive and considered this a reasonable solution to a supply chain problem. I have managed the full operational catalogue of human stubbornness, insubordination, and creative interpretations of standing orders.
Nothing in twenty-three years prepared me for the uniform meeting.
I'm going to write this down because I owe this journal accuracy and because if I don't write it down I'm going to keep thinking about it and I have other things to think about.
Standard first week integration. I run it with all new attachments. Equipment check, operational protocol, dress code, communication standards. Forty minutes. Clear. Non-negotiable.
She arrived at 0827. Three minutes early, which I noted. She was wearing — I'm going to be precise about this — a cream silk blouse with a neckline that belonged in a different decade and a different operational context entirely, tailored trousers, heels that added three inches she did not need, and every piece of jewellery she apparently owned.
I counted. There were a lot.
She sat down across from my desk and crossed her legs and looked at me with the expression she had arrived with on day one — complete, unhurried composure, total absence of concern — and said:
"Good morning, Capitano. You look like you've already had a difficult day and it's only half eight. Should I come back?"
I told her it was Captain. She said she knew.
I proceeded with the briefing.
She let me get through equipment and operational protocol without interruption, which I now understand was a tactical decision rather than cooperation.
Standard issue. Tactical vest, base layer, combat trousers, appropriate footwear. No personal jewellery in operational contexts. Hair secured. Professional appearance maintained at all times within facility guidelines.
I set the standard issue kit on the desk between us.
"That vest is going to be a problem."
"The vest is non-negotiable. It's—"
"It's cut for someone without my proportions, yes. I can see that from here. The chest panel is going to gap, the shoulder width is wrong for me, and the whole thing is going to compress my silhouette in a way that makes me look like I'm wearing furniture. Which is a problem."
I told her the vest was standard issue for all base personnel and was not subject to modification based on personal preference.
"It's not personal preference, it's operational functionality. I'm a social infiltration specialist. My operational functionality is directly related to how I present. If you put me in equipment that makes me look like I'm struggling to move and breathing through a box, I become significantly less effective at the only thing I'm actually here to do."
She said it pleasantly. That was the part I was unprepared for. Not argumentative. Not combative. Just — presenting her case. With the patience of someone who had thought this through more thoroughly than I had.
I told her that on-base dress code applied regardless of specialisation and that operational contexts would be assessed individually.
"Lovely. I'll wear the vest on base. Now let's talk about the jewellery."
No personal jewellery in operational contexts. I said it once. Clearly.
"Define operational context."
"Any situation involving—"
"Because my operational context involves being in rooms with men who respond to women who look like they belong in those rooms. A woman with no jewellery at a high-end event doesn't belong there. She looks like she got dressed in the dark or she's trying too hard in the wrong direction. The necklace is working. The rings are working. The earrings—"
"Are a liability in close-quarters situations. Someone gets a hand on—"
"I'm very difficult to get a hand on."
She said it without heat. Factual. The way you'd tell someone the weather.
"That's not a guarantee I'm willing to accept."
"Neither is the alternative. If I go into a room dressed like I borrowed someone's kit and forgot my accessories, I lose the target's attention in the first thirty seconds. I'm not useful to you without his attention. You need the earrings, Captain. You just don't know it yet."
I looked at her. She looked back. The earrings in question were small gold hoops. Not — unreasonable, objectively. But that was not the point.
"The jewellery comes off on base."
"The jewellery stays on everywhere because it's part of how I work and you hired me to work."
"I didn't hire you. You were assigned."
She smiled when she said it.
I'm going to note that I found the smile genuinely irritating and move on.
I told her the heels were impractical for a working base environment and represented a safety concern.
"I've been running in heels since I was seventeen. I am faster in these shoes than most of your operators are in boots and I can prove it if you'd like to time us."
I told her that was not the point.
"Then what is the point? Because from where I'm sitting, the point seems to be that I don't look like what you expected and you're trying to make me look like what you expected. Which is understandable. But it's not going to make me more useful to you."
I opened my mouth. I closed it again.
Because the infuriating thing — the part I'm not going to write in detail — is that she wasn't wrong. The objection wasn't performance. It was logic. Her logic was sound and I knew it was sound and she knew I knew it and she was waiting, pleasantly, for me to arrive at the same conclusion she'd reached before she walked through my door.
"The heels are a problem in the field."
"I have field boots. I'll wear them in the field. Can we talk about the blouse?"
"The neckline is doing something specific. It's a tool. I'd like to keep it."
"I'm not asking you to like it. I'm telling you it works. There is a meaningful difference between those two things."
She wasn't flirting. That was the part that caught me off guard. This was just how she argues. Warmly. With complete conviction. Looking at me like she was enjoying the conversation and fully expected to win it.
The jewellery stays on. I've classified it as operational equipment. This is technically accurate and I am not going to examine it further.
The heels she will wear at her own discretion. I've confirmed she can move in them.
Final. Not negotiated. Not subject to revision.
She argued it for eleven minutes. I held the line for eleven minutes. She accepted the outcome with a grace that I am choosing to interpret as professional.
"Fine. The blouse stays in the wardrobe."
"Don't thank me yet, Capitano."
I don't know what that means.
I've been thinking about what that means for forty minutes.
She will find new gaps. I know she will find new gaps.
0617 — Day Three Addendum
She walked onto the base this morning in a leather bodysuit.
Black. High neck. Sleeveless. Fitted in a way that I do not have the appropriate professional language to describe and am not going to attempt.
She is within all of the dress code parameters I set yesterday.
She planned this last night while she was still in my office.
She will be proving the heels claim today. Full kit assessment. Obstacle course, building clearance drill, close-contact evasion. 1100 hours. The whole team on the yard.
She was not wrong about the heels.
She cleared the obstacle course in nineteen seconds. MacTavish's time this week was twenty-two. The team was watching. She did not perform for them. She just worked.
I told her: results noted, assessment concluded, return to base duties.
She didn't leave it there.
"So the record shows I can operate in the heels."
"The record shows you passed the assessment."
"In the heels. That you said were impractical."
"The assessment is over, Castellano."
"I'm just noting that your concern was operational and the operational concern has been addressed. By the assessment you called. That I passed."
She was right. On the narrow question of the heels. She was right. That was not the point.
"You found the edge of every parameter I set. You wore it back onto my base as a deliberate provocation and you knew exactly what you were doing. Passing the assessment doesn't change that."
A beat. Something moved through her face. A recalibration she hadn't planned for.
"You'll be running the full assessment again tomorrow. 0600. With the team."
She opened her mouth. I watched her make the decision to close it.
Clipped. The first completely neutral thing she'd said to me in two days.
She was right about the heels.
She was wrong about the rest.
The blouse stays in the wardrobe.
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The Diamond's Reflection: Summer Castellano's Personal Log
Date: [Redacted] — Week One, Day Two | Location: Joint Task Force Facility, UK — East Wing Bunk | Time: 2011
I need to write this down while I still think it's funny, because by tomorrow it's going to be annoying, and by the end of the week it's going to be a problem, and I'd like to have the version where I still think it's funny on record.
He is exactly what the file said and also completely different from the file, which is something I've found before with people who've been doing one thing for a very long time. The file gives you the shape of them. It doesn't give you the texture of how they sit in a room like they built it themselves, or the way they look at you when you've said something they weren't prepared for — not rattled, not dismissive, just. Recalibrating.
He has been recalibrating since the moment I walked through his door.
He runs the integration briefing like a man who has given it a hundred times and is surprised, each time, when it doesn't produce the same result. Everything stated. Everything non-negotiable. Everything mine to comply with.
The man has never met anyone who won't comply.
I could see it on his face when I got to the vest.
I want to be clear that I had no intention of being difficult. I had every intention of being direct, which is different. Being difficult is when you obstruct without reason. Being direct is when you tell someone they're solving for the wrong problem before they waste both of your time.
The vest was solving for the wrong problem.
"The vest is non-negotiable."
He said it like he'd never had to say it twice in his life.
"Everything is negotiable if the reason is good enough. The reason is good enough."
He looked at me. He has this look — controlled, certain, the specific expression of someone who has been in command long enough that disagreement reads to him as a technical error rather than a different perspective. I know this look. I grew up watching men produce this look.
I have never found it persuasive.
He is very good at the look, though. I'll give him that.
He told me no personal jewellery in operational contexts.
"Define operational context."
"Because my operational context is every room I walk into. That's the job. You don't get to turn Honey off at the door and back on when you need her. She doesn't work like that."
He did not enjoy that sentence. I watched him not enjoy it.
The thing about Captain John Price — and I'm basing this on thirty-six hours of observation — is that he's not actually unreasonable. He's rigid, yes. But underneath the rigid is a man who responds to logic if you can get the logic past the rank.
The trick is getting it past the rank.
The trick is making him think he's reaching the conclusion himself.
I did not make him think he was reaching the conclusion himself. I told him the conclusion and waited for him to accept it.
This was, in retrospect, a tactical error.
The heels argument was my favourite one.
He said: impractical. Safety concern.
I said: I am faster in these shoes than most of your operators are in boots.
He said: that's not the point.
"Then what is the point?"
He opened his mouth. He closed it again.
Captain John Price did not have an answer. Not because he's not smart. Because the answer was: you don't look like what I expected, and the correct answer to that is never admitted out loud.
I want to say, for the record, that the blouse is not unreasonable.
He said it without letting me finish the sentence.
I looked at him. He was looking very deliberately at a point above my left shoulder. I noted this. I filed it. I am absolutely not going to examine what I filed it under.
He held the line and he wasn't going to move and I could see that and I'm not stupid, so I said fine.
"Fine. The blouse stays in the wardrobe."
He said thank you like a man who thought he'd won something.
I walked out of his office with the earrings. The necklace. The rings. The heels. And without the blouse. Which is fine. I have significantly better options.
He is going to regret holding that line so hard tomorrow morning and I am going to be very gracious about it.
Black. High neck. Fitted properly, unlike the vest. It is not silk. It is leather. Leather is durable. Leather has structural integrity. Leather is, by every metric he used to say no to the blouse, a superior material.
He is going to open his mouth tomorrow and he is going to have nothing to say and I am going to smile and say good morning Capitano and walk to my briefing.
He gave me a look when I left. Not the Captain look. The underneath one. The one he doesn't know he shows.
I also — and I don't know why I'm writing this down — there's something just to the right of his nose. A freckle. Small. I don't know why I noticed it. I was making a point about the blouse and I was looking at his face the way you look at someone's face when you're making a point and my brain just — stopped. For approximately four seconds. And when I came back I had lost the sentence I was in the middle of.
I found it again. Obviously. I found the sentence.
The blouse is in the wardrobe and that is what matters.
I don't know why I wrote that down. Closing the journal.
— End of Summer's Day Two Entry —
The Diamond's Reflection: Summer Castellano's Personal Log
Date: [Redacted] — Week One, Day Three | Time: 2147
I knew he was going to do something. I walked onto that base in the bodysuit and I watched him review the parameters in real time and I knew, before he'd said a word, that I had won the argument and lost the room. You can win an argument and lose the room. I know this. I've known this since I was nineteen years old and I know it now.
He called it a full kit assessment. He said it with the tone of a man honouring an operational claim, which was technically accurate and also completely a punishment and we both knew it.
The entire team was on the yard.
I changed into the assessment kit. I kept the earrings. I kept the heels.
If I change anything now it means he was right and I lose more than the argument.
I'm not going to be modest about this: I ran it well. Nineteen seconds on the obstacle course. The building clearance I did quietly. The close-contact evasion I passed clean.
The team was watching. I didn't perform for them. I just worked.
When it was over Price said: results noted, assessment concluded, return to base duties.
I should have said: yes Captain.
I did not say yes Captain.
"So the record shows I can operate in the heels."
He said the record showed I passed the assessment.
"In the heels. That you said were impractical."
I knew the assessment was over. I knew I was pushing. I could feel the exact quality of the silence behind me and I kept going anyway because I had passed and he had been wrong about the heels and I could not make myself not say it.
Stop. You've won the point. The point is won. Let it be won and walk away.
"I'm just noting that your concern was operational and the operational concern has been addressed. By the assessment you called. That I passed."
He told me I'd found the exact edge of every parameter and worn it back onto his base as a deliberate provocation, and that in his experience the distinction between the letter and the spirit matters, and that apparently in mine it doesn't, and that was something he needed to know about an attachment he was responsible for.
He said it without heat. That was worse than heat would have been.
And he told me I'd be running the full assessment again tomorrow. 0600. With the team.
He held my eyes for a beat and then he dismissed me. I walked back across the yard.
I did not look at MacTavish. I did not look at Ghost. I kept my chin level and my pace even and I walked back to the accommodation block in the heels that I proved were not impractical and I closed the door and sat on the floor of the corridor for approximately ninety seconds.
▌ You knew he was going to do something. You did it anyway. The bodysuit was a provocation and you knew it was a provocation and you chose it.
▌ And then you couldn't shut up when he called it..
That's the part I keep coming back to. I stood by the bodysuit — I will go to my grave standing by the bodysuit — but after the assessment I should have let it land. I passed. The point was made. I didn't need to narrate it at him while his whole team was standing there.
I know why I did it. Because he was going to classify it as discipline and I was going to walk away and everyone was going to see me walk away and somewhere in me that was unacceptable regardless of whether it was the right call.
It was not the right call.
I noticed the freckle again. During the assessment, when he was reading out the parameters. I wasn't thinking about it. It was just there and then I was looking at it and then I wasn't, and the whole thing took less than a second and I don't know why I'm mentioning it because it doesn't mean anything.
I'm running the full assessment again at 0600.
I'm going to pass it again.
And then I am going to be so precisely within parameters that he will have nothing to say and I will have nothing left to prove.
I have spent six years knowing exactly how to walk into a room. How to be Honey. How to be Pearl. I know what each of those requires and I deliver it.
I don't know yet what this base requires. I thought I did. I walked in here and I treated it like every other room I've ever needed to work and I was wrong about that and today is what wrong feels like.
— End of Summer's Day Three Entry —
[ I don't know yet what this base requires. ]
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