A/N: While I'm aware that "chat/script format and keyboard dialogue based entries" are against the rules, if Dostoyevsky can get away with an entire book of them I figure I can probably sneak half a chapter in. Also, have I mentioned that the automatic removal of things formatted like an e-mail address or filename is obnoxious? Because it's obnoxious.
To: Daniel Weathers
From: Alice McDermott
Subject: Group 12a Medical Evaluations
Body:
Dan,
We've finished the medical tests. This batch is better than most, but if even half of them are over eighteen I'll eat my medical license. They all have very nice fresh and new looking documentation that proves they're of age, of course, but even accounting for malnutrition in the street kids there's no way in hell they're all legal. I know their ID passes the extended check, but I want it on file that I'm not buying it.
One of the recruits, calls herself Shepard, made one of the recruiters a little uneasy. He asked Jason to have a talk with her – you know how disarming he can be – and he ran through some of the standard psych eval questions. Raised some red flags. Pretty much all of them, in fact. Normally that means somebody's gaming the test, but Jason thinks it's real. This would mean that she'd be an instant scrub and we'd be recommending a lot more, except for two things:
First, she's piqued Jason's curiosity, and you know how he is about interesting projects. He's been dragging his feet on the paperwork something fierce. I almost asked him if his dog ate it after the fifth excuse this afternoon.
Second... She scans for biotic potential. A lot of potential. More than anyone I've seen, including most of the asari tutors we have on staff. If that turian hadn't gotten killed over at BAaT I'd have already recommended her as a candidate, red flags or no.
On a separate note, IT still hasn't been out to fix the database front end yet, so I've attached the test results to this message for your perusal. Let me know if you have any questions. Assuming there aren't any problems and Jason stops indulging himself, we should have a final pass/fail list for you by Friday when the lab work comes back.
Yours,
Alice McDermott
Attached file: 12a initial medical review
Attached file: 12a psychological evaluation eshepard
Attached file: 12a supplemental interview eshepard
To: Alice McDermott
From: Daniel Weathers
Subject: Re: Group 12a Medical Evaluations
Body:
Alice, thanks for the heads up. Greg tells me that the database stuff should be sorted out soon, so we won't need to mail this stuff back and forth. It's the fucking 22nd century, this stuff should just work.
Your concerns about the age of the recruits are noted. Standing policy from Up High, however, is that the new ID system is unhackable and if they pass the extended verification test and a medical evaluation then they're in. A more suspicious mind might suspect that they made the system intentionally insecure in order to boost recruitment numbers with impressionable underage kids, but as a responsible administrator and sensible soldier I'm above such paranoid imaginings.
I don't have time to go over this Shepard's tests right now, but I'll take a copy home and look at it over the weekend.
-Dan
To: Alice McDermott
From: Daniel Weathers
Subject: Elle Shepard
Body:
Just read the files and transcript.
DO NOT SCRUB HER.
I've called the folks over at the N program, and they're sending down a couple of psychologists and recruiter of their own. Make sure she doesn't go anywhere. If she tries to leave, stop her. If she starts whining about her rights, call Zeke over at the 43rd precinct office and have him hold her for me on the usual gang charges. He owes me a favor.
Jason can ask questions if he wants, but make sure he knows that she's worth more than he is right now and if anything happens I will personally see him hung, drawn, and quartered. I'll tell him too, but in case he doesn't check his mail before he gets working on Monday let him know for me.
-Dan
To: Jason Wells
From: Daniel Weathers
Subject: Elle Shepard
Body:
Jason, make sure you don't spook Shepard. I've got a call out to two folks from the N program who I think will want to talk to her. I don't know if you've read the medical reports Alice did, but she's a more powerful biotic without an amp than most of the L1s.
-Dan
To: Daniel Weathers
From: Jason Wells
Subject: Re: Elle Shepard
Body:
I won't spook her. If anyone's getting spooked talking to her, it's me. Her world view is creepy as hell, and before you ask, yes, that's my professional opinion. You can even put the wording in your report.
I'll leave a copy of my interview notes on the server – Greg got it working again – and on your desk. Make sure that whatever N suit shows up to talk to her reads them first, okay? You do not want to be bullshitting her, Dan. I cannot stress that enough.
-J.
P.S. We still on for beers this weekend?
To: Jason Wells
From: Daniel Weathers
Subject: Re: Re: Elle Shepard
Body:
Just be careful, alright? If potential biotics like her were one in a million I'd be literally jumping for joy.
And yes, we're still on for beers. There's a new English-style brewpub that opened up near my place, thought we'd give it a try.
-Dan
To: Daniel Weathers
From: Jason Wells
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Elle Shepard
Body:
Sounds good. See you on Saturday.
-J.
The classic brewpub was an interesting beast. Part commercial brewery, part restaurant, and part simple bar. While there was great variety of what you could find in a given brewpub, there were a few consistencies between them, at least in the North American region: The food was always greasy and delicious, the beer was always above average and expensive, and the clientele was usually less boorish and obnoxious than your average bar denizen.
To Major Daniel Weathers it was a vast improvement over the trashy bars that Jason seemed to favor. He didn't feel like he needed to constantly watch his wallet, or inspect his food for errant critters before taking a bite. The décor wasn't bad, either, even if he thought the retro-industrial look was a little bit over the top.
He'd taken a customary bench seat in a corner for privacy's sake – while they were both technically off-duty, he and Jason had a longstanding tradition of discussing the goings-on at work over drinks. None of the material they discussed was exactly classified, per se, but some of it might be considered a privacy concern if anyone was listening in knew where he worked. Hence the back booth, he thought to himself as he sipped his beer.
The heavy door to the pub rattled and he saw the thin frame of Jason Wells step inside. He gave a small wave, and gestured to the seat across from him.
Jason sat down with a long sigh and tossed his hat next to him before leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes.
"Long day?" Daniel asked, grin on his face.
"You have no idea," Jason replied, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table and rub his eyes. "The server broke again literally an hourafter we got in to work today, so we're doing all the approval paperwork by hand and mailing – mailing – it off. If we get these recruits shipped out on schedule it'll be a miracle," he said.
"So, basically, everything's going like normal," he said with a straight face.
"Pretty much," he nodded absently, squinting at the drink menu above the bar. "What's good?"
Daniel tapped his glass, full of a nearly black thick beer. "The stout's pretty nice. Smoky. The bitter is really bitter, but good anyway. The amber's a bit light. Haven't tried the IPA yet, but heard it's strong."
"If I drink anything strong, I'll just pass out," he groaned. "I'll try the amber. Back soon."
Dan waited comfortably, nibbling absently on the chips he'd ordered while Jason headed for the bar. They were real chips, cut from actual whole potatoes, not extruded from a ground-up paste like most were these days. Of course, they have a price to match, he mused, but what's the point of earning a decent salary if all you do is give it to your kids when you finally kick the bucket?
His idle reflections were interrupted by Jason's return with a full pint of golden ale, and Dan raised his eyebrows at the man. "You know, if you drink it in pints, it's going to put you to sleep no matter what beer you order," he said teasingly.
Jason rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, dad, whatever. It's been a long week." He settled into the seat and took a long drink from the glass, then looked up in surprise. "Hey, this is pretty good!"
"That's what happens when you don't get beer at crappy dive bars," Dan said.
"Pff. You just don't appreciate the unique atmosphere."
"You mean the garbage on the floor? No, not really." He shook his head. "How'd that business with Shepard go? I never got a full answer about what happened after I sent the N recruiters over to your office."
He grimaced and set the beer down on his coaster, giving a quick glance around him to make sure nobody was listening in. "They pulled her aside and talked to her in private for most of Tuesday afternoon. Threw the evaluation schedule all to hell. They said something to Alice that had her pissy for the whole week."
"She's normally pretty calm, unless..." he trailed off.
"Unless someone tries to interfere with her job. You want my guess? I think they told her to pass Shepard despite all the warnings and being, like, fifteen kilos underweight."
He nodded. "That would explain the transfer request I got."
Jason blinked in confusion. "Transfer request?"
"Yeah, one of those 'our station is over capacity, can you process this recruit' deals. They're not that common with recruitment as low as it's been, so I was a little suspicious." He sighed. "I checked out the details, and he's got a 'random training itinerary' that happens to exactly match Shepard's."
Jason's face lit up in understanding. "He's a plant. She's being watched."
Dan nodded. "That's what I figure. Jason, you've been talking to her a lot, what the hell is going on? I know she's a biotic candidate, and frankly, that's why I called the N folks down here – with BAaT gone, they're the best people to talk to for biotic training – but everyone's acting like she's a time bomb."
He let out a long, explosive breath. "You want the truth?" He shook his head. "I think she's a psychopath," he said slowly. "Like, an honest-to-god, clinical psychopath. A biotic psychopath. Hell, she's got an element zero nodule in her brain about the size of a fucking walnut."
Dan flinched. "How the hell is she not riddled with tumors?"
Jason shrugged. "No clue. It's probably wrapped in all kinds of glial tissue, or something. Point is, it's stuck smack dab in the middle of the ventrimedial prefrontal cortex, near the amygdala."
"Jason, I'm not a doctor," Dan reminded him, not for the first time.
"Right, right. Uh, that's the part of your brain responsible for – among other things – fear, anxiety, guilt, and empathy." He shook his head again. "She doesn't feel shame, or fear, or remorse, or regret, or anything like that."
Dan looked at the doctor in horror. "And the N program wants her to go through basic with all the other recruits?
He nodded grimly. "Yeah. They want to make sure she's 'sufficiently stable,' or something."
"But they're not idiots, so they're assigning her a watcher." He sighed. "Okay, that makes sense. What's your take on her? I mean, is this a train wreck waiting to happen?"
"Jesus, I don't know." He rubbed his eyes tiredly, and took a long drink of his beer. "It's a good thing she's smarter than I am."
Dan looked at him skeptically. "Jason, you have an IQ of a hundred and fifty-"
"One hundred and forty two," he interrupted.
"Fine, whatever. You have two doctorates. Do you really think she's smarter than you are?"
Jason sighed. "Intelligence is hard to quantify. I know a lot. I'm fast at getting from step A, through steps B, C, and D, to the conclusion at step E. I have a good memory." He stated these things as simple facts, with no boasting in them. "Shepard... she does similar things, but it's... faster, sort of. Colder, definitely. She knows she doesn't feel what we do. That's rare in psychopaths. So is patience."
He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "It's good that she's smarter than I am, because it means she's curious about the world. She reads. She plays the violin, did you know that?" Dan shook his head. "She likes learning new things. She knows that she can't get what she wants by ignoring the rest of humanity, so she willingly works with us, despite not caring about us."
He closed his eyes as he thought back to the interview. "I spoke to her at length, you know. When I left that interview room... I think I finally understand what it's like to be a specimen on a microscope slide. Peered at by a being greater than I ever will be." He gave a small shiver and drained his mug.
"You want my take on her, Dan?" He put his empty glass down and opened his eyes, looking his friend straight in the eye. "She'll do fine. She'll be a great soldier, and I'll cheer her on from the sidelines... and pray that she never looks my way."
"Imma get another beer," he said after a long silence, and stood.
"Get me one, too," Dan said.