Halo: Cloak and Daggers
By: Natination
"Who is this squad leader?" Will asked as he glanced at the clock. 10 hours to go. He had sat down and carefully listened to the man's story he remembered his team made their way though the jungle. He left out details that he had to ask for but it was no big deal considering anyone would leave them out anyway.
"Colonel John Stewart." The marine said reluctantly. He went back to drawing another set of pictures and will turned off the voice recorder. He got enough to analyize for now.
"Thank you for your help." Will said. "A guard will bring you some food. You must be staving."
"Ok thank you." The marine said. "Just nothing messy, I don't want to mess up these drawings."
The marine seemed to be coming out of his shell but still receded back in. Interesting. Will thought. At least he is gradually coming out of it, unlike his teammates, one had apparently slipped into a deep sleep due to exhaustion of keeping awake so long and another other had apparently gotten sick from the flu. He was currently asleep and on meds that would keep him knocked out for 5 hours. Will glance at the clock again for the fifth time in a row in the past 30 minutes, and started to mentally counting down from 9 hours 55 minutes that was the time he had left before Captain Ackerson decided to go after whatever killed these men.
Most likely this man didn't get along with the squad leader; he reluctantly left his name out on purpose. They also had traveled the 2 kilos in 3 hours, due to the heavy rain; it slowed travel to a crawl. That was interesting to know, the Colonel was cautious.
At least he wasn't crazy on this expedition of theirs. Will glanced at the man as he finished another picture; it showed them holding position with him looking back at the men. Another picture showed them moving though the jungle at a slow pace he noticed. The tree in that picture that was extremely far away was the one in which he took position behind.
Interesting. Will thought. Very interesting indeed. He continued to pan throughout the pictures as Dom walked in. His blond hair was cut short military style and everything about him was military, except for the lab coat.
"How went your interview?" Dom said.
"Pretty good, got him to tell me every up to the two kilo's part, but that's about it." Will said.
"Well give me 5 minutes and I'll…" Dom said. He grabbed some coffee and poured two cups in the corner, Will did not see him but also didn't care as he looked at the pictures. He grabbed the cup and downed it within 3 seconds without thinking twice.
"No, you will not hurt my subject for information when he is giving it freely. Sure we're under a time constraint." Will replied.
"What time constraint?" Dom's head perked up at the mention of it.
"We have 9 hours and 15 minutes left to figure this out." Will said. "Plenty of time. I just got to get my subject to tell me what attacked him and then Ackerson can kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned. Then I can prevent him from going out there until we figure out actually how to kill whatever it is.
"Interesting indeed." Dom said.
"Yup." Will said. "He keeps receding into this shell of his and locking up his mouth but I think my magnetic personality that makes everyone talk is starting to work on him."
"Magnetic personality?" Dom almost choked laughing. "You couldn't get anyone to talk even if they asked you they wanted to."
Will went to the recorder in the coat pocket and started to play it. The voices filled in as the guy told his story.
"How can a marine platoon only go 1.5 kilos in 2 hours?" Dom asked quickly changing the subject.
"They got the same rain as us." Will said. "Remember the storm where you couldn't see squat upstairs?"
"O yeah that one, I remember now, that was hell in trying to drive a warthog here. Nasty stuff. I can see why now." Dom said. "Doesn't matter if he's drawing or not, he better tell everything by 3 hours left or I'll do it my way."
"You cannot…" Will start to say.
"I can, it is a direct order." Dom said. "I outrank you."
"Screw you." Will said. "You can shoot me before you do it."
"That can be arranged you know, not that hard." Dom smirked. "You got 8 hours and 46 minutes now before Ackerson leaves and 5 hours 45 minutes 55 seconds before I take over. Nice chatting with you."
Dom left the miniature lab with a smile on his face obviously looking forward to the three hour limit. Will angrily looked out where he left and wondered what it would be like for his head to explode when a bullet hit dead on. He sat there wasting a few minutes thinking about how many ways a bullet would pierce his skull before he finally focused back on the subject. Sleep overwhelmed him; he had been up for several days but not for this strange case but another project that needed to be done. Trying to resist the urge to put his head down on the table he decided that a small nap couldn't hurt him much.