Many years ago…..

Journal Logging #2: (Preparations)

September 24th 2545. It's been two days since our briefing before our next mission. Capturing the Sarcophagus…well, that's going to be rather tricky. In any case, we're all preparing like there's no tomorrow. I supplied North and Wyoming with their sniper rifles and gave them enough ammo. C.T. went with the basics. An assault rifle with two grenades. I remember that Agent Florida had a grenade launcher on his rifle. Maybe I should put one on hers as well. Yeah, that's sounds like a good idea. I should probably equip grenade launchers on all of our rifles, along with at least five grenades to go along with. And maybe four frag grenades. Yes, that will definitely be doable. Carolina told my to pack 'light' which means no rocket launchers or missile pods. Man, I like bringing that stuff.

Speaking of Agent Florida…well if there was any freelancer you could trust even more so than York or North, it'd be him. Not because he's particularly tough, nor the best freelancer (heck he's not even on the leaderboards). But he's just really…cheerful I guess. Well whatever it is he has, it's a good thing in this case, said case being two certain female…scratch that maybe three female freelancers that are…less than pleased about what's been happening. Mainly Texas, South, and C.T.

I've recently asked Florida if he could help me out with C.T. I decided to talk to her first. I left South alone since North was pretty much the only one who could calm her down. And Texas…I just don't like her. She doesn't work well with other freelancers, she's even more cold-blooded than South (and that IS saying something), and when she's around my sis…sometimes I just want to wring her neck, maybe after breaking every bone in her body, and then ….

I have no idea where that came from…maybe I'm just over reacting. Yeah, that's it. I should probably just keep an eye on her from a distance. I shouldn't hate her…yet. Oh well, we'll just have to see.

Anyways, Florida and I were walking down the hall, talking about the upcoming mission. As we were talking about different methods of covering fire, I heard C.T. talking to Wash about something. It must have been rather important if she was worried. I think the conversation went something along the lines like this.

"…Great. Hey, how about you go make Carolina feel better? Go pat Maine on the head. See how that works out for you."

"We all make mistakes."

"No! We don't."

"That's the point! We don't all make mistakes. Some of us very specifically make mistakes, and others don't seem to make any mistakes at all!"

"Connie, come on..."

"That's why they're doing all this! These missions! The rankings! They're drawing a line between us Wash. And you're either on one side of that line, or you're on the other. And it's getting pretty goddamn clear which side I'm on."

"No one thinks like that; we're a team."

"I'm not talking about you guys. I mean them. Him."

"The Director? He's given us everything. He's helping us!"

"Helping us? Wake up! Wake the fuck up! He's filtering us! This is a selection process, Wash. I don't know for what, but, if you're not at the top of that board, you're not worth anything to him."

"You're just overreacting. You've always been hard on yourself, Connie."

"Not as hard as they are. Not nearly as hard as they're going to be."

"And don't call me Connie. Makes me sound like a fucking kid. Call me CT. Oh, and the line that I talked about...you better hurry up and figure out what side you're on, Agent Washington. Before they figure it out for you."

I should have known that C.T. would feel this way about the leaderboard. Both of them made good points but for wrong reasons. I sent Florida to deal with Wash while I dealt with C.T.

Since I was the director's son, I figured two things were going to happen. Either she was going to outright ignore my own reasons, since I may be looked at as biased (considering my position), or she was going to accept that whatever I know is useful, and maybe take it to heart. Well, all things considered I decided to approach her.

After the initial rebukes, and fist throwing, I can honestly say that our conversation went rather well. As I hoped, she listened to me as I explained to her how we really are a team, and yet not a team at the same time.

'See what the Director is trying to do is two things at once. Improve individual training by adding competitive incentives (hence the leaderboards) and improve teamwork, which is why we always act as team on missions, even though there's competition. That way, we can fight in any scenario. And when together acting for ourselves, we're unstoppable.'

While this gave her some ease about the leader board, clearly she was upset about something else. Before she left, she told something very strange, more-so than the usual. She told me that when the time comes, a shadow from the Director's past will destroy us all.

A shadow. I have no idea what she's talking about but it must have been serious. Well in any case, I told her I would take her warning to heart, which I did and still am doing. Somehow, I have a feeling that I learn what this means and then regret it.

Well, a lot of stuff happened on my part the past two days. I hope everything went well with the others, mainly Carolina and North. Hopefully now things will be less…ominous. I gotta stop thinking about stuff like this.

So, now I gotta finish up getting ready for tomorrow. Got a big day coming up. So I'm going to sign out.

Journal Logging #2: Completed

Agent California.