#allison prime

[january-summers]

Does anyone else ever think about how Genkins probably could have broken open the goddamned seal and shattered the timeline beyond recognition (from a purely rvb standpoint) or at least done significant damage with one single act:

Saving Allison Church (Prime)

... To be fair, is Prime really is anything like Tex, Genkins may have made the safer choice (for him and his plan) by not saving her.

[softerrvb]

you brought a freelancer here? what are you, insane?!

[secretlystephaniebrown]

Hi Steph, what would you way is biggest difference between Allison And Tex?

Well, Tex is a character for starters!

Allison is essentially a plot device who the fandom has turned into a character. She’s more of a “canon OC” as I like to call her. People can assign whatever traits they want to her, and it has just as much canon justification as anything! I’ve seen so many interpretations of her that I couldn’t even count them. 

I don’t particularly have a lot of thoughts on Allison (Tex is my lady love, as you might know) but I do view her and Tex as COMPLETELY distinct characters. We don’t have a lot of canon basis to back things up. 

It depends on your interpretation of Allison. For me, they’re pretty damn distinct characters with wildly different lives and relationships, particularly in regards to the Director, who was Allison’s very dedicated spouse (no matter how you interpret the relationship, his devotion can’t really be questioned) and the father to her daughter, while he was Tex’s abuser and boss. But other people might disagree. Like I’ve said, Allison is a character extremely up for interpretation. 

[softerrvb]

be quiet, is what i’m saying

[artsyorangeykay]

“And when she left she... wouldn’t say goodbye to me. Instead she always told me,  "Never say goodbye. If you don’t say 'goodbye,' then you aren't really gone. You...just aren't here right now." “

I was busy all day so this is a bit late and also rough, but happy mothers day 

also i hc that babyLina sometimes dyed her hair blonde like her mom (the cheap two-day lasting bottles) until she started actively dyeing it red

[sroloc--elbisivni]

Red vs. Blue: Unit Cohesion, part 6

Verse tag

Allison Church survives what could have been a fatal engagement. Seventeen years later, Allison is appointed as the military liaison to Project Freelancer. What follows is a better version of history.

In this chapter: Allison checks in on the results of a training exercise. 

Thank you @secretlystephaniebrown and @goodluckdetective for your help!

AN: The End.But not really.I’m sorry it took so long! This chapter has been written for a loooong time. Like, before chapter 2 was even done. But then I was worried that I wasn’t showcasing the Freelancers in Blood Gulch enough, and then I stressed over how to write that, and then, and then, and THEN I remembered that a sequel is coming where they will get way more screentime anyways and I’m more excited for that than I am to incorporate something I was never prepared to deal with and here we are.Oh yeah, if you noticed that I made this part of a series a while back you probably already knew, but A SEQUEL IS COMING. The first part is already written and I will start posting it next week. I’m participating in the Bang with a different fic, so progress may be slow, but IT WILL HAPPEN. The sequel, probably to be called Universe Collision, is a crossover with canon that follows Season 13.Thank you to everyone who read and liked and followed this story! I truly appreciate it and I hope to see you again when the sequel goes up.

AO3

EPILOGUE

Two months later

“General, the Director would like to know when Alpha squad is scheduled to return.”

Allison is so busy frowning at the report in front of her that it takes her a moment to frown at FILSS’s message. “I thought he was tracking that.”

“I believe his exact wording regarding the matter was ‘if you want to disrupt the training schedule by sending the entire Alpha squad out on a fool’s errand, you can keep track of what they’re doing.’” The words are read out in FILSS’s even tones, which means it was a written message, not a verbal one. Which means it probably got lost in the hundreds of other memos Allison deals with.  

“When was their last check-in?”

“Two days ago, General.”

“Did they make any mention at all of coming back?”

“I believe that their orders are to stay until you inform them they can return.”

“Whoops.” She and Leonard are in the middle of going toe-to-toe with the oversight committee and Chairman Hargrove for the right to another AI, which means round after round of reports on her part detailing the successes and failures of the program over its four years and round after round of arguing with Leonard over the way he insists the AI should be based off of her. Not to mention that she’s also been supervising preliminary recruitment for Beta squad, as well as dodging the accountants trying to track her down for the annual overhaul. She’s been only too glad of the quiet.

“Get VIC to contact Blue base for me, and run the transmission through here so I can hear it.”

The call dials up, popping up on the screen on the wall. It’s answered by a private in regulation Blue armor, and she scrambles to remember his name.

“Hello? Who is this?” His voice triggers her memory—Private Caboose, Michael J., 479er’s brother—transferred out of his squad after an accident with an ancient AI resulted in severe mental trauma. “I am Caboose. Is this the pizza place?”

“Yo, Caboose!”

VIC annoys the crap out of her, but he’s effective at blocking and doing runarounds of anyone who wants to contact ‘command.’ Can’t make it too easy for the agents to yell at her. If they’d been able to reach her directly the first week, she’d probably have spent a lot more time having to deal with their complaints. Instead, she got to read the frantic and frustrated reports from the removed safety of her office and laugh.

“Oh! It is the voice of the phone! Hello!”

“Hey there, amigo! So, those Freelancers still hanging around?”

“Yes. Except for the one who makes dumb jokes. We sent him to the Red Team, but they did not want him either.”

“Great, great! So I just need you to pass on the message that they can come back now.”

“Come back…there.”

“Yup. They’re done with their assignment, so we need ‘em to come back to Command now. Other places need help too.”

“You mean they will leave?”

“Yup. Leave Blood Gulch.”

“Oh. Sorry. I can’t do that.”

“What? Why not?”

“Tucker said we are keeping them. And I do not want them to go. The purple one and the one that looks like me are both very nice, and Tucker is always shouting at Agent Washingtub now and not me. And the one who looks like Tucker is scary, but not bad-scary. So we are keeping them.”

“No, no, you can’t keep them—”

“Goodbye.” The screen goes black.  

Allison reminds herself very firmly that she is a professional, and that an entire squad of highly trained soldiers accidentally defecting is supposed to be very, very, bad, and not hilarious.

“FILSS, please pull up the surveillance footage of the valley floor.”

She isn’t sure what she expected, but seeing the group of elite soldiers she’s spent the past three years turning into the most efficient unit in the UNSC military decked out in brand-new paint accents, split up into two teams, and playing out a chaotic scene is definitely not it.

Agent Washington and another soldier in aqua armor are arguing behind a rock while North calmly takes potshots at the canyon wall. He seems to be cheerfully shouting insults at the Warthog careening across the canyon floor with Private Grif at the wheel and a mounted machine gun manned by South and a maroon soldier. Florida is inside a tank—Allison isn’t really sure where he got it, and doesn’t really want to know—chasing after them. Maine is on the roof of red base with a brown soldier she’s about 70% sure she didn’t assign there, both of them looking down at where Geor—Sarge is waving a shotgun in the air and calling out encouragement and insults in equal measure. Connecticut is simultaneously perched on Maine’s shoulders and sneaking up on the same outcropping North is aiming for. Even as she watches, Carolina physically launches herself at a red-accented blue-flag-carrying York and tackles him to the ground, yelling something about the “superiority of the Blues.”

Allison slowly and carefully puts down her tablet out of harm’s way, crosses her arms on the desk, lowers her head onto them, and breaks down laughing until her eyes water.

[sroloc--elbisivni]

Red vs. Blue: Unit Cohesion, Part 5

Part 4 || The original post

Allison Church survives what could have been a fatal engagement. Seventeen years later, Allison is appointed as the military liaison to Project Freelancer. What follows is a better version of history.

In this chapter: Alpha, meet the Freelancers. Freelancers, meet Alpha. Everyone with sense, run for your lives. Oh, and somehow, plot happens. 

AN: I said this would be up by the end of May and it’s 20 minutes till midnight on May 31. GOAL ACHIEVED. 

Also, this is an AU, and has been from the start, but MAN have I gotten jossed recently. 

Thank you @secretlystephaniebrown for letting me babble ideas and plot points at you and still managing to express excitement for this au.

Leonard and Dr. Price arrive exactly five minutes before eleven, carrying tablets and the independent holograph projection unit. Allison has FILSS play an air horn noise to get the attention of the soldiers on the obstacle course. Because she can.

Most of them aren’t in a dangerous position or didn’t startle enough to affect their performance, but Wyoming loses his grip on a rope mid-swing, falls into a pit and is subsequently mocked.

“Glad to see you’re having fun,” Allison drawls over the comm. “If it’s not too much trouble, assemble off the training area.”

The tone, which her agents have already learned promises that she is not interested in playing games, gets them off the floor with a minimum of mockery. FILSS quickly resets the floor from the obstacle course to a blank demonstration mode.

Leonard strides into the room and stands in front of the agents, leaving Price to fiddle with the holographic projection device. Allison takes her own place next to the table it rests on, maintaining her stoic expression.

The agents are in a neat line, Carolina keeping herself just a little bit apart. That gets their attention and makes them exchange glances because this just went from ‘ordinary lecture’ to ‘something big enough the team leader is already part of it.’

Leonard clears his throat and launches into his speech.

“Agents, you are to be congratulated for advancing so far in the program. You have been recipients of the best possible training and equipment and have turned them to your advantage. Today, your training pays off, because today, agents of alpha squad, you advance into Phase Two.”

He pauses for dramatic effect and Allison only refrains from rolling her eyes because she doesn’t have her helmet on and she’s supposed to be the one setting a good example.

“As you are aware, your role in Project Freelancer was to create a unified, cohesive team. This, however, is only incidental to our primary goal—the successful integration of a smart AI, shared among a group of soldiers. To that end, you have received extensive coursework in AI theory and history, while the Alpha AI has been undergoing an education of its own. The time has come for you to meet.

“Now, you must understand that the Alpha is, bar none, the single greatest advancement in recent AI theory. He is not only highly intelligent and capable of mastering complex systems in a fraction of a second, but intuitive and responsive on unprecedented levels and based on one of the greatest scientific minds of our times.”

Allison tries not to choke on air. She’ll have to bring that back to Leonard later and mock him for it.

“The Alpha AI is one of the most sophisticated pieces of advanced technology you will ever experience, Agents. I hope you all understand how highly it speaks of you that you are participants in this program.” A sweep of his gaze causes him to apparently conclude that they are sufficiently awestruck, before he pauses at the side of the table and turns to the holographic projection unit. “Alpha? You may come out now.”

Alpha’s favored white projection flickers to life, three feet off the ground and a foot high. Allison can’t tell with the helmets, but she’s willing to bet that all of their eyes just went wide.

She has to hand it to Leonard; he sure knows how to set a mood.

“What’s up, assholes?”

Allison bites down hard on the inside of her cheek as her chest seizes with suppressed laughter. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Leonard covering his eyes with one hand and letting out an enormous sigh.

Alpha’s first encounter with the Freelancers definitely sets the tone. The next week involves less actual training than acclimation, all of the agents getting used to an extra presence on the team and his voice in their ears.

It also involves quite a bit of complaining as Leonard packs the rest of the full AI coursework into the rest of the week. Since Carolina took care of her coursework a while ago, she spends that time with Allison and sometimes Alpha, planning out strategies and techniques.

Alpha is only ‘sometimes’ because now that the final restriction is off he’s been having the time of his life alternately hassling and chatting with the agents.

Carolina supposes she’s had worse weeks. Sometimes.

“Is the government hiding aliens at Area 51?”

Carolina has to actually put down a report on the field suitability of a domed shield to stare at Alpha’s projection for that. “Alpha. We’re at war with aliens. Right now.”

“So…is that a no?”

“Don’t go hacking the military files on Area 51. It hasn’t even been inhabited in centuries, and I need your attention here.”

“York was right. You are part of it.” He sounds triumphant.

She resists the urge to bang her head against the table. Why had anyone ever thought this was a good idea?

“York?”

“Yeah, he and Connie know a lot about this stuff.”

“I see. And where’s York right now?”

“Hmm? Oh, rec room.”

Carolina’s sharkiest grin is well hidden by her helmet. “Could you go check the specs on the last of the enhancements for me? We’re starting on them tomorrow.”

“What, you’re not going to tell me about the aliens?”

“There are no—” She stops herself through great force of will. “Just…please go check the enhancements?”

“Yeah, yeah, what the fuck ever.” He vanishes in a huff.

One shortcut to the rec room later, she’s standing on the table and dangling York by the ankle off the side. He’s remarkably, frustratingly, annoyingly unafraid. And smug.  

“No. More. Conspiracy theories.”

“But I didn’t even get to tell him about the faked moon landing yet! Or the—ow. OW! UNCLE!”

Carolina leaves off shaking him as Wash wanders into the room, skateboard tucked possessively under one arm and face dark. He stops dead, stares at the two of them, and then announces rather loudly, “I do not want to know. Ever,” before leaving.

“I don’t suppose you could let me down?” York asks after they’ve both watched Wash retreat.

Carolina does. Expediently.

“Ow.”

The next time Carolina runs into Wash, he still has his skateboard with him, and he’s looking even more harried than usual.

“C’mon, can’t you just show me?”

“No.”

Carolina hears Alpha before she sees him, a white light flashing in and out at random intervals because Wash is walking too fast for his projection to keep up in the hallway. “You won’t even leave it in your rooms anymore!”

“Because you keep trying to steal it. You can’t even use it!” His voice is getting higher pitched.

“Well, I bet you can’t either! You’re just trying to look cool.”

“You’re not gonna get me that way.”

“What’s going on here?” Carolina isn’t entirely sure she wants to know, but she’d rather not have it explode in her face later because she wasn’t aware.

“He’s an idiot.”

The look on Wash’s face and Alpha’s horrified silence as they realize they spoke in unison is something Carolina plans to keep close to her cold, cold, heart.

“Whoa. You’re not allowed to call me an idiot. Artificial intelligence, remember?”

“Are we sure that’s what the ‘I’ stands for? Because you think pirates are better than ninjas.”

“Pirates are totally better than ninjas, shut the fuck up.”

“A ninja could kick a pirate’s butt, any day.”

“Except the pirate wouldn’t be alone because pirates have ships and parrots and aren’t lame fucking loners trying too hard to be cool.”

Carolina’s pretty sure they’ve already forgotten she’s there.

“Guys. Guys. Guys!”

They break off their argument to look at her, confused.

“Wash, put your skateboard back in your bunk. Alpha, leave it alone. Both of you have somewhere to be right now, so I suggest you get there.” She stares them down.

Wash mutters a quick “Yeah, boss,” and heads off. Alpha waits longer to prove she’s not the boss of him before vanishing and reappearing as a spark over Wash’s shoulder.

She calls after them just before they round the corner, “Oh, and ninjas are totally better than pirates.”

“I told you!”

North’s the first one to get a go with an enhancement and Alpha helping out. It’s the same bubble shield South has, and with Maine’s scheduled invisibility enhancement still glitching, the safest enhancement to experiment with.  

Since South’s temper might make cooperation…difficult, North’s the one doing the first test run.

Carolina squashes down the little flare of envy; she wanted to have a chance to play with her new speed boost. But that will come later.

North’s out on the floor, armored up, with Alpha flickering in and out nervously. The Director, General, and Counselor are all observing, and the rest of the agents have squeezed in as well.

“FILSS, begin the test,” the Director orders, hands behind his back. “Be aware that Alpha has no authorization to interfere with your systems.”

“Understood, Director. Beginning test.”

Down on the floor, a domed shield expands out from North, rotating rapidly in a circle. The twins have both run it before, but only for short periods of time, and never with much control.

South’s record is shattered in about five seconds, but she just lets out a low whistle and cracks her knuckles. “Can’t wait till it’s my turn.”

“Shield holding steady,” FILSS reports.

“Open fire,” the General orders, eyes tracking the shield’s movement.  

The floor slides back beyond the shield’s radius to allow four turret-mounted guns to rise. The shield easily takes the impacts, pings and cracks echoing all the way up to the deck.

“Cut the power, FILSS,” the Director orders.

“Wait,” the General cuts in. She watches for another minute, and then grins. “Okay, now start cutting the power. Oh, and transmit from the microphones.”

Alpha’s voice cuts in. “Are you kidding? I’m fucking amazing. I’m awesome. I’m so on top of—power. Losing power, why the fuck are we losing power?”

North’s voice. “Can you switch to—“

“Only necessary contact points to conserve remaining power, yeah, yeah, this isn’t my first rodeo, kid.”

“You’re less than a year old!”

“Still more mature than you, dickhead.”

Even with the bickering and the greatly reduced shields, Alpha’s still blocking all the shots.

“Add variables—if, of course, that’s acceptable to you, General.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Carolina’s the only one close enough to hear the Counselor’s exasperated sigh.

“Good. Nice work.” North’s keeping up a stream of chatter and praise on the floor.

“Can you just shut the fuck up for a second? You’re kind of throwing me off my game, here.”

South, from her position at the window, lets out a loud, wicked cackle.

Wyoming gets the next shot at working with Alpha, and because Carolina’s mother has a sadistic streak, none of the other agents are aware of anything other than that they’re all having a lot more accidents that day.

Connie and York, as always, are suspicious, but Carolina has seen them get suspicious over the janitorial staff rotating their cleaning routine, so she doesn’t set any store by it.

Until the training for the day involves full-armor sparring matches and she can’t beat Wyoming.

He blocks every hit she makes with a laughably infuriating ease. Every strike is somehow anticipated and countered. He’s catching moves that she knows for a fact have laid him out flat on his ass before.

Halfway through the third round, though, he takes a hit to the chest that sends him crashing to the ground”

Wyoming groans. “That’s the third bloody time I’ve fallen for that one. Thirty seconds, this time.”

“Jeez, if you need thirty seconds to recover from one hit, maybe you should just step off the floor.” Carolina cracks her knuckles, taking a moment of satisfaction in the hit.

But Wyoming just stands back up and tips his head to the side. “What do you mean ‘not happening’?”

Alpha pops out from over his shoulder. “I mean not fucking happening. The thing overheats with too many uses, and you’ve racked up a good two hours winning these fights. Which, for the record, I told you was a stupid idea.”

“Hang on, time out,” Carolina orders. “What’s going on here?”

She glares them both down from behind her visor, not at all pleased with this development. The only reason for Wyoming to have Alpha with him would be to test his—

Her eyes go wide inside her helmet before narrowing in Alpha’s direction. “You got your enhancement.”

“Yeah, I’m out,” Alpha says quickly, vanishing.

“Cowardly bugger,” Wyoming mutters.

Carolina lets herself grin inside her helmet. “FILSS? Please reset the floor for training exercise seventeen and notify the others that Wyoming’s the target.”

“Damn.” He takes off running for the opposite side of the room as FILSS pulls up a labyrinth from the floor.

Yes, she can kick his ass herself, but this way everyone gets a turn. She’ll let her team have fun too.

Besides, maybe if she tires them out enough, Connie and York won’t have the energy to gloat.

That doesn’t really work.

(“We told you so.”

“People really need to listen to us more often.”

“This is, literally, the first time you two were right. Stop being so smug.”

“The first time we were proven right, maybe.”

“The rest will follow.”

“Our time will come.”

“You two are such dorks.”

“Dorks who were right.”

“This one time!”)

York runs exactly one mission with Alpha.

In the aftermath, Carolina has a meeting with the Director, General, and Counselor, and they spend three minutes sitting and staring at one another before Allison finally says what they’re all thinking.

“Never again.”

“Seconded.”

“All in favor?” Hands go up. “Wonderful. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make nice with Charon Industries and negotiate a return of their property. One of you gets to arrange suitable disciplinary action.”

The negotiation is eventually settled with a lot of bureaucratic brouhaha Carolina doesn’t have to worry about and a ‘mission’ that she does.

The General calls Carolina into her office and sighs. “As an apology or a sign of goodwill, whatever the chairman’s calling it, we’ve been asked to run a small security check at a Charon facility. Just a two or three person team, trying to infiltrate and gather information at an unspecified, unanticipated time and see how far we get.

Carolina nods, calculating in her mind. “York and Connecticut, definitely—Florida if we really need backup—”

“No,” Allison cuts her off, waving her hand. “I don’t trust that man as far as I could throw him without armor. I definitely don’t want to give him a heads-up on what our best is capable of. I’m sending in the twins.”

Carolina is more than a bit surprised, but it does make sense. South and North are a good team, a great team, but South doesn’t do ‘stealthy’. Still, her worst is far and away beyond the ‘best’ of most regular soldiers. They should be able to pull it off, or at least look convincing if they can’t. “Is there a particular reason you’re informing me?”

“Well, one because you deserve to know what your people are doing. Two, because I’d like you there to back them up, since I’m seizing the opportunity to let Alpha have a field test and your supervision would be welcome.”

“Sounds like fun. Where are we going?”

Allison stands up, flicking the screen of her tablet. “Bjørndal Cryogenics Facility. I’m having FILSS alert the twins right now. Briefing’s in ten minutes.”

“This is moving fast.” Carolina moves to walk a step behind the General as she strides out of the room.

The General’s lips thin. “I don’t trust Charon one bit. We’ve been given permission to mount a surprise raid, essentially. It’s a four-hour flight from here; they’ll have enough time to warn their people, but not enough to prepare for us to come knocking.”

“You…really don’t like this guy.”

“I don’t like any man who knows my rank and still calls me ‘Mrs.’”

Carolina is keeping an ear on the comms because she’s supposed to be supervising this mission, Niner, and not because she’s hovering, thank you very much.

More than that, it’s just plain entertaining. North’s set up on top of one of the vents, hiding his heat signature in the steam as he covers for South making her way into the facility.

Alpha is in full nag mode. Right now Carolina’s getting an earful of North trying to politely shut down attempts to ‘help’ him aim his sniper rifle.

“No, if you just angle that way—“

“The wind’s against me—look, I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you’ve been alive, just let me—”

“I’m sorry, which one of us is a fucking targeting computer? Just let the master work, kay?”

“…That’s going to end up five feet away from where I need it to go.”

“Oh, really?” A pause. “…huh.” Another pause. “Y’know, I’m just gonna go see if South needs any help.”

South, according to South, does not need any help. South, according to Alpha, is five feet away from getting them all caught and shot in the head and dumped in the ocean.

“Oh my god, SET YOUR FUCKING TRACKERS.”`

“That’ll only slow me down. Hey, what are the odds of me making that jump?”

“About seventy percent, go for it. Look, I will set them for you. There, do—HOLY SHIT THERE’S A GUY RIGHT BEHIND YOU.”

“WHAT?!”

Carolina buries her face in her hands and waits for the alarms to start going off.

Much to her surprise, they don’t.

“South, sitrep,” North orders.

“One guy, took him out with nonlethal measures, as ordered. Stuffing him in a closet now.”

“I told you! I fucking told you to set—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re awesome, Al, now where are we going?”

“Don’t call me that. Left up here.”

South makes her way through the facility with only a few close calls, heralded by a couple quiet swears, Alpha yelling, and distant grunts. Carolina listens to South’s notes to Alpha on security and North’s steady commentary over the comms and tries not to twitch out of her skin with nervousness.  

“Okay, we’ve made it to the databanks.”

“Alright. Alpha, don’t mess around, we’re in enough trouble already. There should be a pretty clearly marked data packet. Leave everything else alone.”

“Oh, you’re no fun. Hey, found it—oh, do you wanna fucking go?”

“Alpha?”

“Security’s a bitch, but it’s never met anything like me. Forty-two seconds to completion.”

“Forty-two seconds? How big is this file?”

“Uh.” A pause. “Are you totally sure that we’re only supposed to touch that file and nothing else? Like, totally-totally sure? Not even a teeny-tiny employee manifest that was maybe really close to the thing I was supposed to touch?”

“Alpha.” Carolina can’t stop a growl. “What. Did you. Do.”

“I swear I didn’t—SOUTH, GUY!”

“I see him, I got hi—”

“DON’T DO THAT!”

“What’s going—”

North doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before the alarms start blaring. Carolina swears under her breath as she starts running preflight checks.

“Alpha, cut the download, now, and we will be having words later. North, South, I want you at the rendezvous five seconds ago. Niner!”

They manage the extraction and only break a small tank, a rotating turret, and someone’s leg. Also, a bit of Niner’s ship. It’s tiny. Barely even a scratch. She can’t possibly be that mad about it.

Although Carolina knows for a fact that at least three of the barrel rolls the pilot does on the way back to the MOI are completely unnecessary.

“What went wrong?”

South crosses her arms and glares at the wall behind the general’s head. “Ask the jackass who’s hiding out in North’s armor right now.”

Allison refrains from mentioning that Alpha jumped out of North’s armor and North doesn’t know where he is. “Agent South Dakota.” There’s working around South’s authority issues and then there’s the agent disobeying a commanding officer.

To her credit, she realizes her mistake and pulls up straight. “I got Alpha to the terminal without any serious incidents, sir. Seven hostiles, avoided four, dispatched three without raising any alarms. Assumed that we’d be done and out before any of them could miss their check-ins, which, technically, we were. Took notes on the security measures and fallbacks, as ordered. Alpha was in the middle of his download when a guy came around the corner carrying coffee. I went to disable him, Alpha yelled at me to stop and fucking locked my armor. The guy got to the alarm before I could stop him. Knocked the guard out then, grabbed Alpha, and ran for it. Had to fight our way out at one point, but Carolina and Niner pulled off a stunt pickup and got all of us out of there.”

Allison makes a note on her tablet to look official that just reads put end to pilot stunt betting pool before someone gets killed before looking back up at South. “At some point in the next day I’d like you to submit a full write-up of the obvious security failures. Put three of the less noticeable ones in a different file, but attach it.”

“…sir?”

“Dismissed, Agent South Dakota.”

After South leaves, Allison sighs and leans back for a moment, before resuming her professional pose. “Alpha, I know you’re here.”

She doesn’t, but the worst that could happen is that the AI doesn’t appear and she ends up having to order FILSS to scrub the footage so Alpha never finds out how she keeps doing that.

A light flickers sullenly on her desk, though, so that doesn’t need to happen.

“Quit sulking. You were part of the team, you owe me a report. Why did you lock up South’s armor?”

Alpha doesn’t project, but his voice comes out clear. “The guy. With the coffee. If she’d hit him, the trajectory of the cups would have sent one of them into the alarm button. I was just—I just needed more time.” His voice gets quieter. “I needed to figure out what to do, and I was going to, I just—I just needed more time.”

“Sometimes you don’t get more time. This was a low-risk mission.” Allison refuses to go gently on this point—Alpha needs to learn it, and he needs to learn it now. “You can’t think forever in the middle of a battle. You have to keep moving, keep reacting, keep adapting. You can’t freeze, and you absolutely cannot lock down your soldiers to buy yourself more time to think!”

“I KNOW!” Alpha’s volume is louder than she’s ever heard it, and Allison forces herself not to flinch.

“I know,” he says, quieter. “I know that, I just…I didn’t know what to do.”

There’s silence, and Allison’s hand rises up to rub her bad shoulder. “South had an acceptable solution. You don’t get perfection on a mission. If there’s nothing you can do…you ride out the situation. You deal with the fallout. And you trust the people you work with to do what they can, not deliberately hinder their actions.”

“Oh gee. Words of fucking wisdom.” His tone shifts to sarcastic and defensive.

“It’s worked for me so far. I don’t ever want to hear that you’re overriding an agent’s autonomy again. Now get out of my office and go start groveling to South. You two are going to be working together tomorrow and figuring out some way to communicate, or so help me I will lock you both in a room with Price and have him pull out some old-school bonding exercises.”

After the light flickers out, Allison makes another note on her tablet: talk to Price about how to make perfectionist ease up. After a moment, she adds a third: punch Leonard. Because basing an AI on a finicky, obsessive scientist and sending it into a situation as messy and unpredictable as combat was and continues to be an awful, awful idea.

Maine has largely been ignoring Alpha. His enhancement still hasn’t passed testing yet, and he hasn’t been especially interested in chatting, either.

Seeing how the AI has been making a game out of harassing Wash, Maine’s not particularly unhappy with the current state of mutual ignorance.

A state abruptly shattered by a holographic projection appearing on the mess hall table.

“I mean, what does she expect me to do? Says get the data, get out, don’t get caught, and when I try to make sure we don’t get caught, suddenly, I’m the bad guy?”

“…Who?” Maine asks, blinking over his spoonful of soup.

“Allison. The General.” Alpha’s hologram kicks sullenly at the table. “I’m not human, I can see stuff you guys can’t and I know what I’m doing. And she just treats me like some fucking kid!”

Maine tries the soup again. It’s cooled off a bit, but not enough to be unappetizing. “You’re thirteen months old.” “Oh, fuck you. I just said I’m not fucking human. And your counting system’s stupid.”

Maine just shrugs. He didn’t come up with it.

He dunks a cracker in his soup before something occurs to him.

“Why are you talking to me?”

Alpha flaps a holographic arm. “She never yells at you.”

Fair point. “What did you do?”

“I—” Alpha stops himself before he could launch into another tirade. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Maine pauses with a mouthful of soup and tries to convey are you serious just by looking at Alpha. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, why is he here, talking to Maine?

The AI must realize it himself, because he mutters an “oh, fuck you,” and poofs out of sight.

Maine doesn’t really expect to see Alpha again, but he’s in the gym two hours later when the AI pops out of the camera.

“Okay, fine, you win, I wanna talk about it.”

Maine pauses for a moment and tilts his head at Alpha before returning to his routine.

“I mean, the coffee cup was going to hit the alarm. I crunched the numbers five times, there was no way to avoid it. And, and she wouldn’t have fucking listened, there was a, like, three percent chance that she would have heard me in time to stop and even less that she would have done anything about it.”

Maine punches the bag again. “Get to the point.”

“Geez, cranky.” Alpha huffs. “This is valuable information here. Vital to my thought processes.”

Maine finishes his turn at the punching bag with one extremely hard punch before turning his back on Alpha’s projection and walking over to the weights.

“So yeah, stuff was going down on mission and there was no way South was going to do anything in time so I just kinda locked down her armor to buy some time.”

Maine freezes picking up the barbell, holds very still for all of five seconds, and then spins around and hurls the weight at Alpha’s projection.

The little sprite yelps in terror and vanishes, and the weight follows through on its arc to crash into the floor hard enough to crack it. He reappears almost immediately.

“What the fuck, asshole?”

Maine just turns around and strides out of the gym, fists clenched and only not shaking through sheer force of will.

The AI doesn’t reappear until Maine is at dinner, picking disinterestedly at the peas. Just like before, the hologram pops up without warning.

“Okay, I don’t think you were—”

Maine flicks a pea through him, causing a buzz of static.

“Oh, very funny. Like I said, I don’t think—” Pea. “I don’t think you—” Pea. “I don’t think—“ Pea. “Would you stop fucking—“ Pea. “—throwing those things alread—“

Maine holds up his throwing hand as a sign of surrender.

“Thank you. Now—”

Maine thinks that it’s a bit of a shame Alpha’s projection doesn’t show a face. His expression at having a chunk of ham sail straight through him would probably be hilarious.

“Oh, very funny. Jackass. You done?”

Maine considers it, throws one more piece of ham for good measure, and then picks up his plate to leave.

“Wait, no! I didn’t mean it like that—come on, sit the fuck back down.” Maine keeps walking. “Ugh. Please?”

Maine considers it, and ends up sitting back down mostly because he still has most of his food left to eat. Alpha probably won’t be any harder to tune out than Wash.

He isn’t harder to tune out than Wash. Maine just eats, nods vaguely at what feel like appropriate places and only looks up when it’s quiet again.

Alpha is giving him an unimpressed look. “You’re not fucking listening to me, are you.”

“Nope.”

The lack of vocal cords doesn’t stop the AI from making a guttural, disgusted sound. “Why the fuck not?”

“You were wrong, and stupid, and dangerous. Don’t care why.” Maine stands up and flicks one last pea through Alpha’s projection. The static is indistinguishable from his sputtering. “Apologize. Don’t do it again.” With that, he leaves.

The next time he sees the AI, he’s hovering next to South’s shoulder, and she’s not scowling anymore.

Good.

Allison and Leonard have started to do their paperwork together to make it easier to compare notes. The accounts sheets she’s poring over are nowhere near riveting enough to keep her from noticing when her husband makes a “hmm” sound.

“Hmm?” She asks, looking up. “I know that ‘hmm’. That’s a ‘someone reported incorrect lab results’ hmm.”

“I’m taking the opportunity to review the extra information Agent South Dakota and Alpha retrieved from their most recent mission.”

“When Alpha got handsy and forgot his manners? Really, Leonard, I thought you at least might have some restraint. Hargrove hates us enough as it is.”

Leonard snorts. “I was under the impression you took being hated by that man as a compliment. But I found something…interesting.”

“Good interesting or ‘how did Agent York set that on fire’ interesting?”

“’Charon Industries has some interesting inconsistencies in their employee manifests’ interesting.”

Allison rolls her chair over to look, and blinks at the records. “Hmm.”

Connie knocks on the door of the General’s office and waits.

“Come in.”

The door slides open without further prompting.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” As soon as she’s inside, the door slides shut and takes on the telltale blue glow of electronic soundproofing.

“What do you know about Charon Industries, Agent Connecticut?” The General flips through a paper file, waiting for her answer.

Connie takes a moment to gather her thoughts. “They’re a long-established umbrella corporation involved in a lot of different industries. Strong ties to the military. Big weapons manufacturer. Involved in the construction of this ship, I think.”

“Accurate on all counts.” She sets the file down. “The corporation is also in possession of a cryogenics facility. The company chairman, Malcolm Hargrove, asked us to preform a security check on that facility a week ago. Part of that check was to retrieve some data, and that data turned up some…inconsistencies.”

“Inconsistencies?”

“At least one person we recognize as a highly skilled mercenary, listed under the janitorial staff of a currently-unaccounted for shuttle. What with the sway Charon has been building up where their defense contracts are concerned—which, you didn’t hear from me, you understand—this is just another instance in a long line of concerning developments.”

“I, see, sir. And…why are you ‘not’ telling me this?

The General pulls up a holographic report. “I see you’ve been working on using your enhancement with and without Alpha?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you feel comfortable in your ability to use it in a combat situation?”

“Yes, sir.” Connie has a feeling she knows where this is going.

“I’m assigning you a subterfuge mission.” She swipes a file and an alert pops up in Connie’s HUD. “Your mission is to infiltrate a nearby Charon Industries facility, obtain information, and get out without being seen. You’ll have a pilot to take you there and back, but otherwise you’ll be totally without backup. If you’re seen, we’ll deny it. If you’re caught…well. Don’t get caught. Can you handle this?”

Connie knows that if she’s caught, she’s out of the program. If the situation with Charon is as risky as it sounds, holding onto a confirmed spy is as good as an admission. The only way the project would survive that kind of hit is by claiming she had been acting as a rogue agent.

“The situation is that bad, sir?”

The General’s face is grim enough for confirmation.

“If I’m close enough to avoid subspace, you won’t even need to assign me a pilot.”

The General nods at her. “Thank you, Agent. The relevant file has been sent to you. We should be in range after 0200 tomorrow. Do you have any further questions?”

“Just one, sir. Does this mission have anything to do with where Florida was?”

An eloquent eyebrow raise. “I can promise you that Agent Florida’s assignment was entirely unrelated.”

“Understood, sir.”

The General turns back to her paperwork and the door slides open in a clear dismissal.

Connie waits until she’s back in her bunk to review the file, but she’s distracted enough with her thoughts not to notice the way the security cameras follow her from the moment she leaves the office.

Connie’s knocked out the guard on the server room and has less than two minutes left to find the files she needs before the alarm system finishes rebooting.

Her preferred approach in a situation with this much info available would be to grab all she can, but she doesn’t have the time to get everything, doesn’t know if the specific information she needs would be in the data dump, and can’t risk any nasty viruses being attached to the wrong files and just waiting for someone’s carelessness to activate them.

So she’s frantically scanning, trying to spot the file she needs and keep an ear on the alarms at the same time.

Connie’s sure she’s pulled riskier missions before joining the project, but she doesn’t have the spare brainpower to think of one at the moment.

A file name several lines down gets highlighted in white, and it only takes her one click and a few seconds of reading to confirm it’s the right one. A few more seconds to run a security check that comes back…eerily clean.

Wait a minute.

But since the ticking countdown in her HUD makes that not an option, she settles for snagging the drive and running like hell.

“Alpha, you took care of the cameras?” she asks.

“How did you do that?” he shrieks in her ear. “And yes, of course I fucking took care of the cameras, do you think this is amateur hour or something?”

Well, it’s an unexpected development, but it’s definitely useful. She cuts her exit time by a full twenty seconds because she doesn’t have to worry about avoiding the cameras.

The facility’s blowing up with alarms by the time she takes off, but it’s too late for them to do anything now.

“Y’know,” Connie says, as soon as she’s damn sure she’s shaken any pursuit. “I’m pretty sure the General told me not to expect backup.”

A little light blinks on to her right. “…what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her? Or me?”

Allison will give Hargrove this—the man isn’t an idiot. Connecticut has just barely radioed in with confirmation of a successful mission before Leonard forwards her an incredibly passive-aggressive email with enough layers of “I know that you know that I know” to give her headache.

But fortunately for them, “He still has no proof.”

“Allison—”

“If he had proof, he wouldn’t have even bothered to contact us before going right to the top and shutting us down. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and he knows it. The only thing he can do is wait for us to slip up.”

“Which might be sooner, rather than later, if Alpha continues his unfortunate new habit of doing exactly as he pleases without consulting anyone,” Leonard points out.

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Allison collapses into a chair. “The agents are riled up too. Worse than that, they’re cocky. It’s a dangerous combination.”

“So what do you propose? Confine them all to the ship like recalcitrant children?”

A thought occurs. “Not the ship, necessarily.”

Her husband sits straight up and eyes her warily. “Allison, what are you planning?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll let you know if it pans out as viable.” She waves herself out of the office without answering any more of his questions.

As soon as she makes it back to her office, she digs out Florida’s report on the Blood Gulch outposts from a pile of recent submissions.

High level of largely-harmless mayhem, isolated location, relatively unknown aspect of the program and none of it funded by Charon Industries…this could work.

Not to mention that trying to work with the insanity Florida hid between the lines of meticulously crafted incident reports would be a good exercise in creative thinking for all of the agents.  

[bookofmac]