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(IC)Hunter:Project FORT
Edith Upwards
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Interviews are concluded, papers are signed, oaths are sworn, and the new recruits are guided into a waiting room. They've heard rumors during their stay here, whispered bits of gossip traveling across the facility's rounded halls with surprising clarity, almost as if they were designed for it...
"I heard that guy we passed's going down to San Juan." "Didn't we lose some guys there?"
"Guy wit' the scar's talent, when they gave him his experience... ripped it's damn head off."
"I mean, she doesn't look like one of those Adamski creeps, but the way-""Shut up newbie!"
"I heard that guy we passed's going down to San Juan." "Didn't we lose some guys there?"
"Guy wit' the scar's talent, when they gave him his experience... ripped it's damn head off."
"I mean, she doesn't look like one of those Adamski creeps, but the way-""Shut up newbie!"
The characters have a short time to talk to each other before their briefing.
Edith Upwards on
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A few seats down from the tough guy was a women. She was cute but the way she scanned the room he could tell she was a journalist of some kind. He didn't like journalist. They always wanted to know more and if they couldn't find some parts of the story, they made them up. More times then none some hot shot from New York Times had revealed how wild the Daredevils were. And more times then none some commander would tell them about public eye and representing the Army and U.S. Military.
The last person in the room sat two seats away from Motley. He looked rough. Like someone had beaten him with a stick, had sex with his wife, and then told him he had cancer. He looked as though he was just about to break into pieces. Motley felt sorry for him. Motley's brother Adam had been that way after his wife was murder. They never found out who killed her, but Adam had drank himself to death. Motley remembers holding his mom as she cried. He wondered if he would see her again. He hadn't called her since he had gotten into the mess with the Lieutenant. She most likely hear what had happen, from the Military's point of view of course. But this didn't make him bitter. Better she didn't know that he's Lietenant had been eating his men.
A glance here and there to the others. A familiar face or two... so they weren't dead. Well, that was good. Experience always proved useful. As for the unfamiliar ones; she made mental note of them. Backgrounds to check up on whenever time allowed. If time allowed. Without a word, her attention went back to her notes, looking over the sparse information she'd been given.
The pale face, the long fangs, and the frightened face of a young teenager. That horrible sucking sound.
Dan's eyes snapped open and he shook his head, banishing the images away, for a time at least. He needed to focus. These people, this company, they had contacted him. They knew what he'd seen, somehow. They knew vampires existed.
But what did they want with Dan? What would anyone want with him? He was a coward. Couldn't even tell a kid's parents what happened to their child, though he'd watched it with his own eyes.
Dan pulled a flask from his jacket and took a quick swig. Just something to calm the nerves.
And who were these others? A military man by his posture stood against the wall. A woman sat with a notebook, pretty obviously a reporter or close to it. The others? Well why not find out? Maybe they'd all...seen things.
Dan coughed loudly, then spoke, his voice rough. "I'm guessing we're all in the same boat, or bus, or whatever multi-passenger vehicle ya wanna call it. I'd rather talk then sit in silence, even if it's just chit-chat." Silence was bad, silence made you think, thinking leads to remembering. "My name's Dan." He was going to give his last name, but he glanced at the reporter. Maybe not now, until he knew a little bit more about why she was there.
"I'm Hank," he said, exposing his large teeth, the deep scars on his face twisting as he spoke. "Give that flask here, Dan. Valkyrie bastards ain't let me have booze since I got here."
Eleanor took up the pen again, and began tapping it rhythmically against the page before looking to the others. "I don't suppose you were given any more information than I was. That is to say, none at all."
The pen ceased its tapping once she noticed the arrival, who got a half-smile from her.
"Well, another survivor. Casimir, wasn't it? And here I'd assumed you were all buried down there."
Hank smoked his cig during the awkward pause.
"Nobody knows about Valkyrie because nobody tells. You don't work for Valkyrie. They own you. So get through your five stages of grief on that before I get on the job with you."
After Dan spoke Motley turned his attention towards him. "Define Strange. I've seen 9 year old girls blow themselves up because it is an honor to die during a holy war. I've seen a 50 cal kill 3 men from a mile away with them hiding behind a wall. I've eaten a rat burger once because we ran out of cow. You got anything stranger than that?" Motley didn't want to talk about his Lieutenant. Eleanor had that pen next to her pad. He rather not give her and her friend a story on a classified subject. There were rules against that in the UCMJ.
Hank swiped the flask from Dan's hand, and took a pull from it.
"...and these Valkyrie fuckers? If I told you their thing you wouldn't believe it. You'll find out."
"Whatever we're here for, it's equally bad if not worse, so best you all work out your differences in advance. I don't expect you'll have time later."
The man scowls at the door for a short time, before peering at the group. "Hank's here, right?"
"You are here because you've all had... an encounter with things outside the normal human experience. Ghosts, monsters, spirits, and the undead. Each of you has displayed the talent required to be a member of our organization. We are Task-Force Valkyrie, established in nineteen forty-four by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in order to deal with Extra-Normal Entities, or ENEs" He clears his throat before resuming.
"Valkyrie is comprised of three departments. Project Twilight deals with those ENEs that look and act human. Project Fort, your department deals with intangible beings, otherworldly artifacts, and other occult matters. Project Adamski secures funding and sweeps everything under the rug. Any questions?"
Hank blew a cloud of smoke out of his nose.
"Nice suit, by the way."
"You guys are going in to work with two fairly experienced guys up in San Juan county. They go off for weeks at a time, so they'll probably need to be called in when you get there."
"So, any last questions before we move on to the main event?" Kowalski gestures toward a sleek chrome thing in his suitcase that looks vaguely like a window punch.
Dan took a deep breath. He hadn't been able to face it before. Would he freeze up again? The thought of seeing more supernatural, or otherworldly things was intriguing. What else was he going to do?
"What about friends, family, what do we tell them?" Dan asked, though he wouldn't need to tell them anything. They wouldn't ask anyways.
"And I don't know about anyone else here, but I'd like to know just how much we'll be getting paid for dealing with this shit?" Hank had said they owned them, but that didn't mean Dan would do this for nothing. "And what's the catch?"
The thought of facing anything like the vampire was frightening, but also exciting. A chance to prove to himself that he wasn't chicken-shit.
"Dan, this is government work. Not the happyface TV bullshit... the real one. And now, you're going to know some of what they know. What they were perfectly happy not to tell you before. Right, Skip?"
Kowalski ruffled a bit. Hank, with a talent common to many criminal thugs, had instantly made a nickname out of the 'ski' at the end of the surname, and the 'middle manager' clearly didn't like it.
"On second thought, do the kid a favor and lie to him so he doesn't think his life's over already."
Hank wasn't kidding. His face slowly crossed with an ugly, big-toothed, scar-faced smile. Maybe it looked awful to some folks, but Motley had seen worse. Hell, it was actually sincere.
He sighed and leaned back. "But don't worry, I get it. You're obviously not the type to ask too many questions."
"Oh great, the rest of you got here. I was wondering when you would be along.", his smile continues as he looks at all the people around the room. "Why all the long faces? Did I miss something?"
He walks over to the table and puts one of those cardboard carrying cases of coffee down which is currently holding 6 cups. Cream and sugar on the side. "I guess I got here too early, so I let myself out and went down the hall to the employee lounge. Figured I would bring everyone coffee."
"Oh, and before I forget. The guard that let me in here dropped his keys, think you could give them back to him?" With a flourish he tosses the keyring to the man in the red suit.
"Oh, shit."
Hank was the first to move up to the table and grab a cup of coffee in one of his big mitts.
"Thanks, pal," he said, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He went back to leaning on the wall, across from Motley, and kept his attention on his coffee and cigarette.
Vic had spent his time in the break room quietly reading the rather brief dossier on the new recruits that some careless employee had left behind. It is amazing that people just leave things like this lying around.