"Well…" Nashville mused, skimming over the email on her government-issue phone. "I guess this is good news."
"Indeed it is." Deputy Goulding added, the massive man shifting in the government SUV's front passenger seat. "If she worked there regularly, there's a lot of potential information we can get from her coworkers."
"Except we've got the secrecy issue." Agent Furgeson spoke up, the balding Fed focused on the road ahead of them. "If three G-men and a shipgirl started talking to everyone on the jobsite, people are going to start making dangerous assumptions."
With the more charismatic Agent Peters still dealing with the Mill Creek Police Department and Shangri La back at Everett, they had a lean version of the team heading to investigate the email. It hadn't been the first 'abyssal sighting' email Captain Newman's staff had forwarded to them, but it was the first with definitive evidence attached.
Nashville was far too familiar with that face.
"It's good enough to know that she is willing to work with humans." Murray spoke up. The Lieutenant Commander was driving, and from her position in the vehicle the light cruiser could only get a view of the back of his head.
"Good enough?" Goulding echoed, a bit of confusion creeping into the marshall's voice. Nashville wasn't going to speak up, but she also didn't understand the sentiment. Did 'good enough' have any place in an investigation this important?
"Hmm?" Murray questioned, wrapped up in taking the SUV around a corner, before clarifying. "Oh, I meant we already have a lot of good information from the email. I want to get as many details on Trinitite's alias as possible, but Furgeaon's security concerns will take priority."
Murray nodded to acknowledge his FBI counterpart, but the older Furgeson's face remained grim.
"What I meant was this: Trinitite had to negotiate to get and keep that job, and from a position of weakness unlike the hostage situations we've seen before. That demonstrates an ability to react quickly to our society and adapt to concepts like money and employment."
"That sounds like the opposite of good news, sir." Nashville stated flatly. Murray's comments weren't in the grim tone she associated with bad news. In fact, his tone was a lot more… casual then she was used to.
"Yes, this makes our job significantly harder, but it also means she won't be marauding through CONUS to procure her supplies."
"Not immediately." Goulding corrected, the Mardhall's tone lacking some of it's usual warmth. "With today's economy, she might get desperate."
"True," Murray admitted, "but that's merely a silver lining for us. This operation is still on the back foot, but news has some very good implications for the outlook of this war."
What? How the hell did the monster holding a job down for a couple of days help humanity win the war? Nashville was about to ask, but the man next to her spoke up first.
"It sounds like you're downplaying the damage, Murray." Furgeson deadpanned, and the Light Cruiser's thoughts immediately shifted. The spook wasn't making any sense to her, but this didn't seem like some mere ass-covering.
There was a pause as the Lieutenant Commander mulled over the barb. The back of his head was unreadable as he focused on the slowing car in front of them.
"I don't think so. There's still a serious capacity for potential damage. She might have a mental breakdown and turn violent, or we could back her into a corner and end up sinking her with a lot of collateral.
"What's strategically important is this: if fodder abyssals are capable of dealing with MaCaulay Construction Group, they'll be capable of dealing with our intelligence assets. There is a possibility, here, of compromising them while they're still in a classic fleet."
"You want abyssal agents." Furgeson stated, his tone flat.
"It's worth exploring." The Spook tempered. "Best case is we could bribe, trick or convince a fodder abyssal into redeeming their princess, but it would be more reasonable to just aggravate conflict between factions."
The spook was met with silence as he stopped, Nashville mulling over the implications. As far as she knew, her corrupted sister stuck to the Falklands, but regularly patrolled the area. If the Navy managed to pull off a snatch-and-grab and secured one of the patrolling ships, what could she say to the abyssal to help Phoenix?
She… had no idea. The thought felt surreal, and more than a little wrong, but to save her sister she'd do much worse than striking petty deals with the enemies of humanity. That meant, in order to know how to get at her sister, she'd have to try to take Trinitite alive. Damnit, it would be hard enough for her to survive, let alone ensure both of them did!
Then again, without the threat of the depths below them, a shipgirl on land could take a lot of damage before finally dying. The difference between a 'dead' and 'neutralized' Trinitite was pretty large. She wouldn't have to hold back much when she finally got to resolve her unfinished business with the Wo.
Still, she'd get repaired eventually-
"That... sounds great," Deputy Goulding started, interrupting Nashville's thoughts. "...but it's out of our jurisdiction."
"It is." Murray admitted, his voice returning to its more grim calm. "But this also gives us several leads into finding Trinitite. Tracking all illegal employment isn't possible, but if she's working unofficial jobs like construction, we have some sort of behavior we can look for."
"True." Furgeson relented, and the vehicle descended into silence once more. Nashville slowly returned to her previous line of thought, worry creeping into her keel as a question presented itself.
"Actually, I have a question…" She asked, the problem still forming in her mind.
"Shoot." The US Marshall's voice boomed, and Nashville continued. It wasn't a particularly relevant question, but they still had plenty of time in the car.
"Say we catch Trinitite…" She started, rolling the logistical issues in her mind. "How do we hold her?"
Alton Owen had been waiting for them.
The unmistakable thunk of footsteps on hardwood filtered out from behind the door as soon as Murray's knuckles hit the white-painted wood, and in a matter of seconds the entryway slid open.
The man in the doorway clearly had his best years behind him, but that didn't mean he wasn't in good shape. While dwarfed by Goulding, he was still slightly bulkier than Nashville's unassuming Commander. The tan formed by a lifetime as a tour guide in Hawaii was slowly fading in Washington's infamous fall weather, but the callouces and faded scars that marred his light skin proved his profession.
"Welcome!" He spoke up, his eyes widening as they traced over the rough camouflage of Murray's NWUs, then Goulding's iconic US Marshals uniform, before focusing over Furgeson's unassuming suit then settling on the dress Nashville had been summoned with. "You're taking this seriously."
"This is a serious situation, Mister Owen." Murray replied. "Nobody can afford to take such a report lightly."
"I see." He nodded, taking a step back from the doorway. "Please, come in."
The house was sparsely decorated, reflecting the family's refugee background. Nashville abruptly realized this was the first real civilian house she'd been in, but even she could pick up on the cheap furniture and widely-dispersed wall decorations. Maybe the knowledge the couple were Hawaiian refugees tainted her perception, but she'd expected the house to feel a little more… homey.
"Ah, hello!" The woman Nashville guessed was Mable spoke up, her head leaning out of a doorway as she watched the visitors. "Can I get you anything?"
"Nothing yet." Murray replied, nodding in thanks. "We'll need you for some paperwork, though."
Able's smile slipped, but she left the doorway to fall in with the group. They filed into the living room, Alton stopping and turning to his visitors.
"I'm guessing you know who I am…"
Introductions were curt and quick, Nashville introducing herself last before the witness motioned for everyone to take a seat.
"I guess we'll get started." Murray said, producing two sheets of paper and sliding them on top of the coffee table. "Here's an NDA for each of you."
When Mister Owen's email had been forwarded from Everett, the team had still been dealing with The Mill Creek police. Dismissing themselves not long after the chief had linked the Abyssal with the missing persons report Goulding had spread around didn't look good, but time was of the essence. This was evidenced by the NDAs themselves, hastily printed at the nearby library as they headed over.
Grabbing a pen, the spook started walking the two civilians through the clauses of the agreement: they wouldn't tell anyone about the abyssal's true nature, they wouldn't disclose that Murray's team had visited, the debriefing would be recorded, they'd each be given a sum of forty-one-thousand dollars over the course of the year...
...Nashville was never going to get used to 2022's inflation.
"80k might be enough to buy that Oahu property you talked about." Mable mentioned, and Nashville's confusion only deepened further. Who the hell would think buying land contested by an installation princess was a good idea? The installations, foul corruptions of land itself, were thought to be invincible, and as far as she knew no one had dared try to redeem one. Sure, she guessed people who technically owned the land might not see any value in keeping it, but were those titles legitimate anymore in the first place?
At his wife's words, Alton only grimaced.
"I'm just glad to be alive." He stated, grimacing. "I'd been hoping to covertly get the info to you, but she discovered me."
"She did." Murray echoed, offering the pen to Alton. "We'll talk about that once you've signed. You understand the terms of this contract?"
"I do." He acknowledged, followed soon thereafter by Mable.
As the pair signed, Nashville caught the gaze of each team member, the group silently reviewing their roles. They hadn't had any time to plan the debriefing, however, so Nashville recognized a lot less confidence then she would have liked, with the exception of one person.
"Now, I imagine this will be a fairly long conversation," Murray started, looking towards Mable, "so could you get us all a bit of water?"
"Of course." The woman stood, turning and walking towards the kitchen. "I don't think I have enough filtered for everyone, though."
"Tap water should be fine." Murray commented, watching Mable open a cupboard and pull out several glasses. Like the kitchen in Nashville's apartment, it was open to the living room the rest of the group was in, so Murray's suggestion did nothing to isolate her from the conversation. "Now, Alton, when did… 'Elizabeth' start working on site?"
"Oh, it was just last Saturday." Alton started. "I remember because of the podcast I had listened to on the way to work."
"Alright." Murray acknowledged. "What were your first impressions of the woman?"
Alton sighed, his gaze shifting so he was no longer looking at anything. Finally, he nodded, his thoughts sufficiently corrected.
"She felt really out of place. Not inhuman, just… lost. Like, she might have been fit, I couldn't tell from the thick jackets we all wear, but she didn't look prepared at all to do construction work."
At the witness's words, Nashville noticed all of her colleagues were nodding, which didn't seem right to her. Of course, everyone knew better, but did shipgirls like Trinitite and herself really look weak? As a warship, someone so imposing their presence warped geopolitics around them, the thought seemed a little… disturbing.
Now wasn't the time to sort those thoughts out, however. Alton was still speaking.
"That is, until we told her what to do, and she just did it. She'd work for hours, without seeming to get tired, or weak, or mind at all, really." He squinted, his arm raising to pull an invisible lever over and over.
"She was like one of those robotic arms that builds cars. That's how I got suspicious." He added, looking back at his interviewers "Normally two workers would switch using the rebar bender so we don't tire out as quickly, but she kept using it for the entire work day."
"That's indeed strange…" Goulding started, the big marshall's brow furrowing in confusion. "...but it couldn't have been enough to make you buy that camera. Did she leave any other clues your subconscious picked up on?"
"Oh, there were loads of little things." Alton dismissed. "She asked questions that anyone should know the answer to, treated every new meal from the food trucks like it was the first time she'd eaten it, and she was obviously stronger then she let on, but I never really noticed those things until after I already suspected her." As the construction worker spoke, he'd been counting on his fingers, but now he dismissed the gesture, leaning forwards. "Now, what tipped me off was the news of some battle near Olympic National Par-"
"News?" Nashville interrupted, horror and embarrassment overwhelming her. What kind of attention had that damned video gotten? She shot an accusing look at Murray, knowing that if they'd knipped that leak in the bud and scrubbed it from the internet... somehow… then it never would have gotten to any television divas, eager to jump on any story that spread fear and-
The Lieutenant Commander's icy expression finally broke through Nashville's thoughts, and suddenly the light cruiser remembered where she was. Shame abruptly replaced the anger as the light cruiser attempted to sink into her seat.
"What the hell is going on out there?"
...And now the civilian was suspicious! Damn it, she's fucked the entire debrief! Why couldn't she just move on from her failure off Kalaloch?
"That's what we're trying to find out, Mister Owen." The spook replied, switching to the job of damage control as well as any sailor could. "Elizabeth is an anomaly, something that proves a lot of our assumptions we've had to make about the abyssals are inaccurate. Anything you can remember about Elizabeth's personality, her cover story, or how she reacted in certain situations, would help us get closer to figuring out where we're wrong."
When Alton met the Lieutenant Commander's gaze, he only saw Murray's well-practiced poker face. Looking at the rest of the group didn't yield any results, so he sighed.
"Well, I guess I can't expect a more honest answer than that." Alton relented. "Ignoring her strength, Elizabeth always seemed to act…" for a moment, he hesitated, doubt creeping onto his face and into his voice. "...innocent, I guess? It feels wrong to describe an abyssal like that, but it always seemed like she didn't really know much, but was always eager to learn. I don't know how much she was acting, but when some of my coworkers were talking about their prewar lives, she made a good show of sympathising with them. Besides myself, who had caught on, and maybe some people who wanted something from her, she was pretty well liked."
Nashville nodded with her colleagues this time. It was disconcerting the monster had won so many people over, but she knew from the shore stories she'd heard as a steel hull that there was power in a pretty face. That Trinitite had managed to tap into it while her attempts during liberty had gone so poorly was something she didn't want to dwell on.
"Then again, I only really knew her for less then a week, and most of that I was just focusing on her true nature." Alton looked up, shrugging. "You probably don't want to hear that, but…"
"That's fine, Alton. It's more than we had when we walked in." Murray reassured him. "Did she ever give a cover story?"
"Oh yeah." Alton nodded. "She said she'd been raised on a private island, only ever having contact with her family until the island got attacked by abyssals." At those words, his voice hardened a little, and he shook his head. "I think that's the only thing she did that really made me angry. Pretending to be the victim of stuff she'd probably done to people just to get everyone's approval…"
Nashville looked back to Murray, only to see he had done the same. The two shared a subtle nod. 'No contact' was an exaggeration, but if you replaced the abyssal antagonists with the JMSDF, it was a pretty accurate story. Hopefully anything else she divulged would be just as accuriate.
Hell, considering how often abyssals fought each other, Trinitite's story was… actually pretty credible.
...Damn it, was she defending The Wo?
"What other details were there?" Nashville spoke up, taking the Lieutenant Commander's nod as a signal to jump in.
Alton gave Nashville an unsure look, no doubt certain there had been a lot less truth to the abyssal's story then there actually was. Still, he continued.
"She said she was the only survivor, except for her mother, who she said might be alive. Other than that…" He trailed off, shaking his head again. "I can't think of anything else. She was always pretty vague."
"It helps." Agent Furgeson reassured. Nobody on the team really doubted Saratoga was Trinitite's objective, but there were probably some higher up who would need more convincing.
"She didn't say anything about what she wanted to do if she found her mother?" Goulding asked, the big man's tone clear he wasn't expecting an answer. When none came, he tried another question. "What did she do when you found her out?"
The civilian went silent, looking at nothing in particular as he gathered his thoughts.
"...a lot of stuff went wrong." He spoke up. "The crane had broken down, so we'd thrown together a pulley system to get supplies up to where we were working. She was hauling on the chain to lift it, so I figured it was safe to take a quick picture with my phone.
"It wasn't. She noticed when I snapped the image, and for a moment she just… stared at me. I don't know if she broke the chain she was holding on accident or not, but when it gave way the palette of rebar we'd been hauling fell right on me."
Nashville blinked, re-examining the civilian.
"It did?"
"Yeah." He confirmed, his expression conflicted. "Elizabeth tackled me before it hit, though, and took most of the impact. She… saved my life."
What.
Nashville couldn't have heard that correctly. It was one thing for the monster to spare someone, especially after threatening them into doing you a favor, but this! Alton was a threat, and according to him The Wo knew that, but instead of letting the problem fix itself, she went out of her way and broke her disguise to help him?
That had to be wrong. Abyssals did even trades all the time, apparently, but they had never helped their enemy! Nashville was about to ask the civilian to repeat himself, but Murray beat her to the punch.
"What happened after that?" The spook asked, wearing an expression as if the shocked civilian was merely talking about a movie he'd watched.
"She asked me if I knew." Alton was leaning forwards, his elbows resting on his knees as he stared at the cheap carpet. "I think I nodded, and then she… turned and ran."
A space heater in the corner chose that moment to kick on, the whirr of the fan filling the silence. The light cruiser's thoughts were still focused on the revelation. The psychological profile Lieutenant Commander Murray had been working on was shot to hell, no doubt, and now they had to account for… something.
Hopefully that meant they had a good chance of taking her peacefully, although Nashville no longer had any idea how the abyssal would react to anything anymore. Until this point, she'd been pragmatic and calculating, but something had made her shoot herself in the foot for a random human, one she apparently didn't even know that well.
What the hell were they missing?
'm back! See you never, Chicago and Recruit Training Command!
While I was enduring bootcamp, I tried to stay sane by brainstorming the end of this arc and the majority of next one, using the 'free time' I had when I wanted to sleep, but several of the high school students I was stuck in a room with were too busy shouting at each other.
I was... partially sucessful. Got the interludes bridging this arc with the next one planned out, but about halfway through the next arc my sanity had degraded to the point where my outline was no longer comprehensible, so I had to switch to working on another project during that free time. Still, that should mean you'll be getting semi-steady updates while I work through nuke school.
Right now I only have my phone to write, but that won't be a problem in a few weeks. ( EDIT: I have my laptop now, which is why the chapter is a few weeks later then it was on SB and SV.) Yes, I do know that nuke training is very good at sucking away a man's free time, but this fic is about the most reliable way for me to destress, and it got me through college, so updates will continue to come, no matter how slowly!
Unfourtinately, it will take a bit longer for Trinitite to return. Like I said, there will be a few interludes before the next arc can start. For those of you who like those, I hope you enjoy, and for those who don't, please bear with me for a bit longer.
I'm pretty exited to get back into the thick of things!