Three years ago….
"Percival, I don't care if she's talented, we know that she's talented. I want to know if she can be controlled."
Akron rubbed his brow where a patch of dry skin had formed. It had been caused by this habit, a rub of the brow seemed necessary whenever he was in contact with ONI. It was too common now, with Madeleine and Katya in his classes, as well as these debriefs with the heads of ONI but Percival Akron had taken to joking among colleagues in-the-know that he seemed to teeter on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
He sighed and sat back in his chair, looking out over earth through the ceiling of Luna's Dome. "You took a bundle of teenage angst, put her through hell, gave her the world, took it all away, gave her a catch 22 decision, and then pumped her full of propaganda, and trained her to an Elite level by the time she turned nineteen."
Serin Osman gave a shrug, "yes, and?"
"And you think that you can keep the house of cards together forever? One day, she'll work out that she's been played, Margaret." He replied, glaring at the old Admiral as she sat, silently observing the conversation. "It's not just her you need to consider but the entire support network around her- good job isolating her from that, by the way. I don't suppose her mothers infidelity has anything to do with you, either, does it?"
A wry smile crossed Parangosky's lips, "so you don't think she can be controlled?"
Akron shook his head, "I can't, no one here can. Only you and that damned competition for second place can do that. How will you manage when she leaves this place and there's nothing to distract her from your meddling?"
"There's plenty of things." Osman replied, "how did she take the recent failure?"
"What do you think?" Akron snapped, angrily. "It was obviously a set up."
"That's the point," Margaret chuckled, "tell me, who did she blame?"
"Katya."
Parangosky smiled, it was a thin front line, sweeping forward with purpose and satisfaction.
"You can't control her like this forever, she will figure out what's going on eventually."
"Well you are certainly not going to tell her, are you, Percy? I sincerely hope that you have not forgotten our deal."
Akron's gaze never faltered, the old marine turned private defense contractor weathered intimidation like a ship on the seas.
"Oh, I shall play my part, you need not worry about that. I am acutely aware of how many cards I hold here." He drummed the desk and sighed, again. "If you know everything, why bother with these briefings, surely there is nothing that I can tell you that you have not already deduced yourself?"
Serin Osman leaned forward, her huge figure cast a shadow over Akron as he shifted in his seat. "We're confident in our assessment but we are not complacent. How did she react after the incident?"
"She took time off, her brother… Alex, I think, was rotating back from the siege at Meridian and she and her sister Eliza spent some time together."
"How long?"
"About a weekend."
"And the results?"
"I don't know what to say, the results of her most recent tests are still under official investigation, as you are well aware."
"Your personal thoughts are what we are here for, Percy, not the board of education." Parangosky said, resting her hands on her walking cane.
"Well if you plan to distract her from your interference in her life with visits from her siblings and grandfather, I must warn you that it is only a short term solution. They each inspire something in her that defies explanation. Her brother Alex is the most like Admiral Harper, which makes him predictable. Eliza is young, perhaps too young to understand what is happening to Maddie. Her most recent exercise was the epitome of unorthodoxy. We might have rules at the academy but they do not exist in the real world, certainly not on the battlefields that you are grooming her for."
"And this isn't a viable strategy long term because…" Serin asked, raising a brow.
"Because she becomes unruly, she stops listening to orders. They bring out that rebellious spirit in her, the personality that you are trying to stop her from developing. There's an inevitability to it, I feel. No amount of distraction from her family or her mission could stop it."
"Mission?" Serin asked, cocking her head, "what mission would that be?"
Parangosky laughed, "Akron was there, Serin. He knows a little bit already."
"It is a mission about a rebel forerunner, a rogue who was feared enough to be locked away. It all just plays right into her proclivity for deviance."
"Her mission keeps her blind." Serin said, folding her arms.
"For now. What happens when that changes? Who knows where this discovery will take us, I'm not entirely sure you are prepared to face that when it comes. I do not believe that even you know exactly what it is that Maddie has been tasked to find."
"You believe we have miscalculated?"
"I do. I think this balance of smoke and mirrors is predicated on the belief that you have the girl figured out, that you think she will not figure out exactly what you are. I think this rivalry with Katya will fall apart the moment they leave the academy, I think eventually she will work out that neither you, nor Agent Drake, are positive influences in her life, and when she does, all that you've built will come crashing down around you. Madeleine is incredibly good at recognising when people are a positive influence, she's emotive, has the capacity for self reflection, and seems to want to know herself above all else. Everything she does is about perfecting herself so that she can keep those she cares about from suffering like Private Stagg, or that friend she mentioned - Nicola. You can throw everything at her, Parangosky, but she will endure the lot of it. What will you do then, when every option has been exhausted?"
There was a long silence as Parangosky considered the old marine's words. Her mind settled and she closed her eyes, sighing with a deep exhalation that seemed to Akron as definitive.
"I believe that will be all, Percy." She said, tapping her finger on the hand rest of her cane.
Akron frowned, "this is my office."
"And you're dismissed from it."
He got up with a sigh, leaving his big leather chair vacant as he saw better than to contest the Admiral on it. Akron settled on a coffee break as he gathered up a set of papers from his marking tray and shuffled out of the door, letting it shut unceremoniously behind him with a whump.
"So what do you think?" Margaret asked, moving to Akron's chair.
Serin watched her the whole way, noting how little her boss actually needed her cane to move and smiled as she sat down behind the desk, a wry smile on her lips.
"I think that if this Bornstellar character is real and has some kind of asset, we need to control it. If you told me that the long term future of the human race could be balanced upon a knife's edge I wouldn't be surprised. If you told me that knife's edge was a nineteen year old with a family history of stubbornness, unpredictability, and tenacity, I'd say that I feel sick about our chances."
"And do you?"
"Feel sick? Absolutely. I expect you do too, Ma'am. There's far too much at stake here to actually allow Madeleine the chance to dictate our path forward."
"You do not trust her, do you?"
"I don't trust anyone that Halsey sees potential in."
Margaret scoffed. She loved that about Serin, her consistency was as refreshing as it was predictable. "I would have thought that as a fellow candidate for the SPARTAN program, you might have more empathy."
"She was only ever screened, we're not the same."
"Of course."
"Halsey picked people with very specific criteria, too. She could be a dangerous person to cross."
"It is unlikely to come to that, she's a middle child with an addiction to the limelight. That she is struggling so much with our little game and her competition with Miss Volkovskaya should be proof enough of that."
"Can we really just keep finding competitions for her to find validation in forever? At some point, she might see a pattern. Say what you will about Akron but he knows this girl."
"My dear, it has been three years. I have stated, Drake too, that she is a pawn. If she does not realize now that she is a frog in boiling water, then she will not by the time it is too late."
"Too late?" Serin replied, frowning.
"If she cannot ultimately submit and be controlled, we will cut her loose."
"I thought she was… more than that."
Parangosky shrugged, "that is my preferred outcome but if what she has found herself in the middle of is too important, if it is a threat to ONI itself, then she must be eliminated."
Serin considered this. She had no real affection for the girl, despite the role she was playing in mentoring her. Still, the thought made her uneasy. To just make the girl expendable was very Halsey-esque of the old Admiral and she found herself shuddering at the thought of aligning her own actions with that witch.
"You disapprove?" Parangosky asked, cutting to the heart of the issue.
Serin nodded, "I just need to know where the line is, at what point does she become a threat?"
"We do not have the data to know just yet, my dear. In this regard, however, our friend Mister Drake had a suitable idea."
"Did he know he was hurting the girl when he suggested it to you?"
Parangosky smiled, "he suggested that we push her a little, see how much she can bend before she breaks. It will take some creativity on our part but the process is already in motion."
Serin's eyes widened, "the affair…"
"When the family were resettled on Ballast, I had a local cell screen candidates for a regime change. Having the daughter-in-law of a UNSC Fleet Admiral marry into a future Ballastian Royal Family could be very profitable, no?"
"That's inspired, Ma'am."
"It is diabolical, my dear. However, isolating Miss Harper is a must if we want to maximize our control over her. Drake recognised this and has agreed to stay out of contact until she gains her commission, the only stability in her life can be us. Everyone else must be a rival, a threat, or absent."
Serin nodded, it was evil but the very existence of ONI was on the line.
"And if it fails and she learns the truth? You would be creating a faction within the UNSC with unrivaled power. The UNSC can't handle two competing fifth columns."
Parangosky's eyes grew cold and vacant, "In that case, it's very simple. We kill her."
