On the way to the Counsellor's office (Ada would never entirely lose her habit of calling it 'the principal's office') Ada finally noticed the board.
"Crap," Ada muttered. The new girl, Texas, was now Number One. Carolina was second, then York, Wash, Maine and –
"Me?" Ada yelped to no one in particular. She got an answer anyway.
"Yep –you're still a boarder, Ada," Jerry said.
Ada jumped about a foot in the air, but recovered well. "Looks like it," she agreed. "I don't get why. North would've made more sense. He was team leader."
"What actually happened?" Jerry asked. "I can't seem to get a straight answer from anyone."
"Have you asked anyone who was actually on the mission?" Ada replied, smiling.
Jerry smiled back. "Well, no…"
"There's your problem," Ada laughed. "Tell you later; have to go to the principal's office."
"Oooh, Ada got in trouble," Jerry's tone was jovial enough, but there was a little concern there, too. Concern that Ada picked up on.
"Yeah, whatever," she said flippantly. "Don't worry; I'm innocent until proven guilty."
With that, Ada walked past him.
"Good luck!" he yelled.
To be fair to North, his advice was perfectly valid. Ada just didn't take it.
"But it worked," Ada pointed out, really wishing she could say exactly what she wanted to say without being labelled insubordinate. Something along the lines of get off my case, it worked, who cares about clearance! I saved the guy's life!
"Be that as it may, you are not cleared for equipment use in the field," the Counsellor said sternly. "The fact that it worked was purely luck –I don't need to remind you of what happened to Agent Utah."
Ada nodded, not speaking. She'd been there when Utah had been screaming –or trying to, anyway.
"While you did save another agent's life –"
"Your actions were reckless and could have gotten both of you killed," the Director told her, cutting the Counsellor off.
Ada held back a sigh; that would get her in more trouble. It always had done, labelled as 'disrespectful'. "Sir…s," she made it a plural for the Counsellor's sake, "I did what I believed was the best course of action at the time. While there was admittedly a large potential for something to go wrong, I saw it as an acceptable risk."
Ada was lying, but she didn't think they'd noticed. That was something she'd learned from her brother –if you act like you know what you're talking about, they're less likely to disagree. Using big words helped, too.
It was one of the millions of little pieces of advice he'd given her, ones she'd never bothered to thank him for.
But those thoughts could wait –Ada had more immediate concerns.
"I would believe that, Nevada," the Director said, "if there were not already several moments of recklessness on your record –even recently, when you saw fit to get into a fight with Agent Maine."
"Then why am I still on the board?" Ada blurted, not able to stop herself.
"Because you saved another agent's life," the Director smirked.
Ada could think of nothing to say to that, so remained silent.
"However," the Director continued, "through either luck or skill, you have managed to escape most of these instances of recklessness with few injuries. If it is the former, we can only hope your luck holds out."
While Ada would have loved to argue it was her skill, she let her silence answer for her.
"You are dismissed," the Director said.
"Sir," Ada said, giving a quick salute. This time she ignored the Counsellor.
She walked out, surprised that she hadn't been bumped down when she passed the board. She hadn't exactly been respectful, and the Director had called her bluff. Throughout the entire meeting he'd pointed out the downsides and faults of her character and what she'd done.
While walking past the gym and the nearby locker rooms, she nearly crashed into York and North.
"Hey, Ada," North greeted as she stopped herself. York also greeted her, but both seemed off to her –too grave, even with Maine and Wyoming in the infirmary, and Carolina injured.
"Hi, guys," Ada said uncertainly.
After a small, awkward pause, North asked her, "How'd it go?"
Ada groaned, accepting the scrambled-for topic. "About as well as you'd expect."
"What's wrong?" York asked.
"Equipment in the field," North explained.
"Apparently saving Wyoming wasn't worth it," Ada griped. "He more or less said it outright. Can't even get a 'nice job on saving another agent's life, Nevada.' Only a 'you saved another agent's life, Nevada.'"
"Were you expecting a congratulations?" York asked, only half-serious.
"…No," Ada admitted. "Would've been nice, though."
"Nice job on saving another agent's life, Nevada," North said.
"Thanks," Ada rolled her eyes, smiling widely.
"Ada?" another voice asked.
The three turned to see Kenni standing in the hallway.
"Hey, Ken," Ada said.
Kenni smiled back her greeting, but seemed unsure of the other two. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" she asked.
"'Course not," Ada replied. "What's up?"
"Illinois, Massa and I are going to Jerry's room for..." Kenni trailed off, unsure of North and York. Ada mentally added 'pizza' at the end of her sentence and nodded for Kenni to continue. "Wanna join?" Kenni asked, seeming a little brighter.
"Sounds like fun," Ada said.
"See you in ten?"
"Sure," Ada said. When Kenni had left and turned a corner –presumably to invite other guests –Ada turned back to the two guys.
"See you later," she said brightly.
Ada walked away, but was stopped by York's voice.
"Hey, Ada…" she turned, and he paused. "The guys we were fighting, the military and cops… what did you think of that?"
Ada took a moment to understand what he meant, and then another moment to consider it. "Well, they were Insurrectionists, too, weren't they?"
"Yes, they were," North interjected, but not with much confidence.
"Weren't they?" Ada repeated, now a little scared –had the men she'd shot been innocent? What about that big dummy…
"Yeah," York said. "Yeah… they were. Don't worry about it, kid. Just not used to shooting at our guys, I guess."
"Ok," Ada agreed, walking away again. But now the thought was there, it stuck –had the people she'd shot been the bad guys? Were they the good guys? What the hell was the Director doing attacking their own people, assuming they were his own people?
She returned to her room on auto-pilot, quickly brushing her hair to make it a little more presentable, something she'd had no time to do when the Director called her in. She looked at herself in the mirror, and saw the rather impressive scar on her right temple, reaching back to her hair. Another couple of inches and she'd have won bragging rights for eye injuries over York –also, she would've been dead. Shoving the depressing thoughts aside –both trains of them –she left her room.
She met Massa on her way to Jerry's room and they walked there together.
"Nasty scar," Massa noted, tying back her dark brown curls.
"Hardly," Ada replied. "Wyoming, Maine and Carolina got the worst of this mission."
"Carolina, huh? I wondered why she'd been bumped down," Massa commented. "How'd the new girl get up there instead? She wasn't even on the mission."
"Texas showed up about halfway through, I think," Ada said. "I never actually saw her, but York and Wash said she was there, setting up a transmitter and chasing down the briefcase. I guess she got to it before Carolina did."
"What, she snuck on board one of the pelicans?" Massa asked, opening the door to Jerry's room, not bothering to knock.
"No, somebody would've seen her –you can't hide a fully-armoured person in a pelican," Massa nodded at this fact. "The Director must've sent her."
"Ok," Massa nodded, seeming to accept this. Ada was grateful for Massa's presence once they were in the room. The six other Freelancers –Illinois, Kenni, Jerry, Georgia, Michigan and Vermont –seemed to freeze and stare at her, in a way that made it obvious who they'd just been talking about.
"Is there a problem?" Massa asked, her Australian accent coming on strong.
"Just feeling flattered that a boarder would lower herself to dine with us," Vermont sneered. He and Michigan disliked anyone on the board. Before, they'd joked about it with Ada, but now she was a target.
"I've not changed since I got on the stupid board," Ada said, striving to keep her voice even.
"That's what we've been trying to tell 'em," Jerry said, while Kenni and Illinois nodded.
"Neither her skill level nor personality has changed," Geo stated, the voice of reason. "She is only being recognised for it more now than before."
"If you boys have a problem then just GTFO," Massa finished ever-so-eloquently, giving Michigan and Vermont a hard glare each.
"Whatever," Michigan snapped.
Ada sat next to Kenni and Geo, and Massa sat beside her.
"I can leave," Ada whispered to Kenni.
"No need, Ada," Jerry interrupted, having heard her offer. "You're my guest, just like these idiots."
Michigan and Vermont hadn't heard what Ada had said, but they'd seen Jerry gesturing at them when he said 'idiots'. They fixed Ada with a glare that she tried to ignore.
Massa offered Ada a slice of pepperoni pizza, and Ada gratefully took it. She hadn't had anything to eat since her brief breakfast that morning. Seeing Ada eat the slice in about thirty seconds, Jerry mock-sighed.
"Might as well give her the whole box," he lectured jokingly. "God knows she could eat it."
Ada punched Geo on the shoulder and told him to pass it on to Jerry, which he graciously did. The conversation stayed nice and polite for the most part, broken by a few comments made by either Mich or Monty. Ada made her whispered offer to leave a few more times, always being rejected by either Kenni or Jerry.
"So, how exactly did the mission go down?" Illinois asked. "No one told us anything."
"I can only tell you what I was there for… and a little of what I've been told," Ada said.
"Hey, it's more than we know now," Kenni said.
"We do not even know the objectives," Geo agreed. Massa nodded, and even Mich and Monty were leaning forward with interest.
"Well," Ada began, not giving a thought to classified information. "We had to split up into two teams. Team A was Carolina, York, Maine and Wash, and Team B was North, CT, Wyoming and me."
She explained the teams' respective goals to her friends, and how Team B's part of the mission went down.
"You mean there was no warning about the escort?" Massa asked.
"Perhaps it was a little added test?" Geo offered.
"Maybe it was mentioned, and they were just too arrogant to pay attention at the briefing," Mich stated, receiving several glares and two elbows for his troubles.
"If that was a test, you should hear what happened to Team A…"
Ada told them about Texas showing up, and how the building Team A was in had been targeted by Mother of Invention's MAC cannon. She told them about the jumping off the building stunt, and there admitted she didn't know much else.
"I thought I felt something earlier today," Monty muttered, too stunned to make a smart-ass comment. "A rumbling along the ship… Never thought it was the MAC cannon."
"Yeah," Kenni agreed. "There was a rumbling… but the MAC? Why?"
"Maybe a test, like Geo said?" Jerry asked.
"Maybe the Director's off his rocker," Mich muttered, before clamping a hand over his mouth. "Shit! Didn't mean that!"
"Don't worry," Massa said. "We won't rat you out."
"Oh, and you're speaking for all of you?" Mich asked, casting a wary glance at Ada.
"Secret's safe with me," Ada promised.
Everyone parted ways, and Mich and Monty seemed to be at least a little less antagonistic of Ada.
Ada closed the door to her quarters, and checked the training schedule –her match with Wash and Maine against North, South and York had been cancelled, as well as another match that had involved the Freelancers on the mission. Satisfied, Ada collapsed onto her bed.
MAC cannons on the Freelancers, sparse intel, shooting potential military or law enforcement troops –what the hell was the Project getting at?
A/N: So, summer hols have arrived in the Land of Oz, and I'll try to post as much as I can… but it may take a while. In the meantime, here's this.
A lot of people post disclaimers, which I think seems kinda pointless seeing as this is but if it's something we have to do, I'll do it:
I don't own Red vs Blue or Halo. I do own Nevada and the rest of my OCs, but that's pretty superfluous… anyone can make up a Freelancer and call him/her Nevada.