"Hey, Sergeant, eyes open." There was, Corey Carter immediately decided, far too much enthusiasm in that man's voice for the early hours of the morning. Carter obeyed, bleary eyes focusing on the unfamiliar steel bunk a few inches from his nose. The mountain of a marine next to his bed stepped back a pace and retrieved his rifle from the bunk under Carter's, satisfied that his charge was awake. Carter had barely slept last night, despite the exhaustion bought on by a day's worth of travel and security checks. Mattresses that he was fairly certain had been originally built to deflect machine gun rounds had done little to help matters, and his back ached in half a dozen places. He swung his legs out over the cheap laminate floor and hauled his boots on, the man who had woken him watching in still silence through his helmet's tinted faceplate, more like a statue then a human being.
Despite himself, Carter's eyes still darted to the marine's chest, searching for a name tag. Only a blank velcro strip stared back at him, just as it had yesterday, though the patch on his shoulder was as clear as ever, the blue crest and five stars proclaiming him as a member of Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Carter knew the tags weren't standard. He'd seen workers on his trip over sporting tags, likewise the military personnel supervising them. Only the people sent to speak to him did so without their tags. It was nice to feel trusted, he reflected, tugging a lace tight enough to squeeze his thigh. "Where to?" Carter asked, fake chair skittering across an equally fake floor as he stood. The marine gave an apologetic shrug.
"Sorry, Staff Sergeant. You'll find out when you get there." Carter reigned his irritation in. It had been the same answer for the past twenty four hours. A polite apology, a smile, and no more information then he'd started with. To Carter, the lack of knowledge was suffocating. He'd filed away a dozen small facts about the station and its personnel since he was taken aboard, but his understanding was still a frustratingly limited picture. But letting loose on the marine wouldn't get him anywhere. Carter had been on the other end of that exchange, caught between two superiors orders, too many times for the option hold any real appeal. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that the chevrons on his uniform held no more authority over these people then the stitches that held it together. So, he just forced a smile and nodded, following the marine from the room.
The mountain-marine's partner fell into place behind Carter as they left the room, rifle in-hand. Carter raised an eyebrow at the escort, but said nothing. These were real special forces operators. Sure, they might smile and laugh, but he had no doubt they wouldn't hesitate to smear him across the wall if he stepped out of line. Not for the first time, he wondered what exactly he'd signed up for. The corridor was empty, save a handful of work crews packing wiring beneath the panel floor, who quickly moved aside at the sight of his black-attired escorts. The carefully pressed black BDUs were just another reminder of how out of his depth Carter really was, still in his travel-worn Army greens. The uniform had become something of an in-joke over the last few centuries. The Army hadn't fought a dedicated war in a jungle since the sleeper ships left Sol, but their ceremonial dress clung to the green of Earth's forests nonetheless.
Corridors passed in a blur of half-finished monotony. Cables the width of his arm snaked up the walls, carrying power to hastily installed strip lighting that cast a white light bright enough to set Carter's eyes watering. The marines, safe behind their visors, hardly seemed to notice, pushing a pace that he had to stretch to match. His legs aching alongside his back, Carter ploughed straight into the back of the lead Marine when the stopped, all but bouncing off the big man's armored vest. He barely seemed to notice, raising a hand to point through the windowed door ahead of them and to the walkway that dangled above a cavernous opening beyond it, all illuminated in stark white. "You squeamish, Sergeant?" There was a faint undertone of amusement to his escort's words. Carter felt a sudden twist of unease. Laughing marines were never a good sign. "It's going to take more then a little bridge for me to spill my guts, if that's what you're asking." Carter shot back, pride overruling trepidation. The marine behind him chuckled, the laughter surprisingly genuine. He wondered how many people the pair had guided through this route before."He wasn't talking about the catwalk, hombre." Carter had a faint impression of standing aboard a sinking ship. "So what did he-." The lead marine swiped his card, keypad flashing green. "Just try not to hurl on the cams." He said, stepping through the opening door.
The smell hit like a kick to the gut, a sickening combination of offal and antiseptic that set Carter gagging. The mountain-marine waved towards a faded yellow bucket from the floor, herding Carter towards it. Carter waved him off and focused on breathing, forcing the sickly air into his lungs until his olfactory system simply gave up protesting and retreated to somewhere in the back of his throat to recover. For the first time in twelve hours, he was glad he hadn't eaten. Finally, he regained control and loosened his grip on a rail he didn't remembering grabbing. The marines glanced at each other, the smaller one behind him smiling like he'd just won a bet. Going by the sudden reluctance in the marine-mountain's movements, he probably had. "You alright, Sergeant?" That was the smaller man and, it seemed, Carter's new best friend. "Never better." He said, backing the phrase with as much false bravado as he could muster. Damned if he was going to vomit in front of the marines. "The hell is this? Did we just walk into Cash and no-one told me?" Combat Support Hospitals weren't uncommon, but it was unusual to see one this far from the front lines. "Nope. Research labs, right below us. R&D runs all sorts of crazy stuff down there. Working on the blues, mostly." Carter was faintly surprised that he'd received an answer at all. Apparently, that was one of the questions he was allowed to ask.
Sealed glass containment units dotted the walls, faint blue shapes visible through the plexiglass, attended to by what he presumed were scientists, alternating their attention between the datapads they clutched and the tanks in front of them. Carter felt his hands tightening around the rail again and forced himself to release it. Nomads. The rational part of his brain spat the fact out in a moment, reconciling the distorted blue shapes with a handful of briefings and confidential folders. The conscious part simply stared in disbelief at the creatures that had come within a hair's breath of kicking off an inter-colony war that would have left Liberty a pile of smoking rubble. And he'd slept aboard the same station as them. A shiver ran up his spine that had nothing to do with the air-conditioning. He didn't resist when his escort placed a firm hand at his back, guiding him forward.
After the shock of the research labs, the darkened interview room was a welcome change. An interview room in name only, the plain steel floors and simple lighting alluded to its true purpose. Interrogation. The bare metal of the floor supported only a pair of plastic chairs, a table and the recording equipment atop it. Carter had spent most of his career in rooms like this, albeit on the other side of the table, wrestling with facts and lies. Finding one here was almost comforting.
After what must have seemed like an enternity to Carter, standing in the dark looking into nothingness, a loud, firm, and condescending voice boomed over the speakers lining the interrogation cell while in the same moment the strip lights lining the ceiling and corners of the floor burst alive with an almost blinding intensity.
"Staff. Sergeant. Carter...how pleasant of you to join us today -- please do feel free to take a seat, try not to get too comfortable though. I will be with you shortly. That is all."
With that, Sergeant Carter was left alone to stew in the near deafening silence produced by "soundproofed" interrogation cells.
Doctor Greenfield however, remained in his office, just across the corridor, tucked behind a seemingly normal looking door, where he poured over the surveillance feeds like a Hawk, looking for any visible sign of weakness or unease as he watched Sergeant Carter, the newest candidate for service with the E.S.R.D, and as of today, Doctor Greenfield's newest play thing.
He leaned back in his leather chair laughing boisterously as he thought of just how he would make his "Grand impression", upon the dear Sergeant in the next room.
"Ah, that should do nicely...yes!" He sat up quickly, seemingly envigorated by some stroke of genius as he picked up the microphone wired into the interrogation room speakers and spoke in a scolding tone, carefully eying the now seated Carter. "Now, now now, Mister Carter...Didn't I tell you not to get too comfortable?"
He paused for a moment, watching the monitors with glee as Carter immediately straightened out his posture and began to look around the room, presumably for the cameras that were watching him.
"Tsk..Now I have to take your chair away..." He scolded, before pausing again to watch as two Marines clad similarly to Carter's previous escorts stepped briskly and in lock-step, through the metal cell doors, moving swiftly and silently, to relieve the Staff Sergeant of the chair he had been sitting in, by way of knocking him to the floor and flinging the chair against the back wall, where two of it's legs snapped off, leaving a nice mess there in the corner.
Greenfield watched silently as the Marines then exited the interrogation cell, damage done, point made. A subtle smirk crept across his lips as he pondered what to do next, while continuing to watch for any signs of protest or reaction from Carter.
After a long moment, Greenfield leaned into the Microphone again, and spoke in a feigned cheerful yet expectant tone. "Well? What are you waiting for, Sergeant? On your feet! Atten-hut!" He barked into the microphone, with some kind of sickly genuine laugh, before allowing silence to take hold again.
"You're mad." It was more a gasp as Carter hit the metal floor, side first. Carter's knees protested as he scrambled to his feet, hauling himself off the cold ground, the speaker's laughter echoing in his ears. This was madness. Enacting punishments for mundane actions, disproportionate and random retribution. He'd read up on those same techniques in training. They weren't intended for information collection, no information obtained under that sort of pressure was considered trustworthy by any intelligence officer worth his bars. It was torture, intended solely to break a captive, body and mind. Carter felt a chill settle over him as the connection settled in. These people were lunatics, and he'd walked straight into the asylum.
Still, he stood, squinting against the glaring lights. The room was as bare as it had seemed on the way in, though the floodlights illuminated more evidence of a rushed construction. The wall panels closest to him didn't sit quite right, and one panel had come away altogether on one side, revealing the bare metal underneath. Escape flitted across his mind like a flash of sky glimpsed through prison bars before he crushed the idea. He'd seen the marines waiting outside, and Carter was enough of a realist to realize that he wouldn't make it ten paces before he was sporting enough ventilation to cool a fusion reactor.
In the absence of escape, there was only one option. Endure. He'd seen this before. Petty individuals given power, seeking to prove their dominance. In a way, it was the same pathetic dance that played out on California's streets between rival gangs every night. He'd survived it once. He could do it again. An old survival instructor's mantra crept into his head, unbidden. If you're going through hell, keep going. Carter balled his fists, heels clicking together to attention.
Doctor Greenfield's expression turned deadpan as he observed Carter standing at "Attention" inside the interrogation cell. "Good", he thought, as he headed across the hall, toward the cell. "His instincts are finally kicking in..."
As if to relieve some of the stress, the lighting throughout the cell suddenly dimmed down to a more agreeable level, although still very bright given the amount of light saturation. As the lights dimmed, the metal doors slid open once again, emitting a soft hiss as they did so. This time however, only a single figure stood there, the light obscuring most of his facial details, save for the reflective glint from the frame of his glasses.
"That's quite the form there, Carter..." He paused, seeming to examine the Sergeant's posture before continuing. "You must be a fan of drill and ceremony, no?" Greenfield laughed as he began to pace back and forth in front of Carter, just out of his reach.
After walking back and forth several times, Greenfield stopped, turning toward Carter once again. "So tell me...do you know why you've been brought here? Do you know what it is that this division is tasked with?"
He tilted his head curiously, before pulling the one intact chair from under the desk nearby, and seating himself politely onto it, directly in front of Carter's forward gaze.
"Oh yes and...you may stand at ease now, Sergeant. Wouldn't want you breaking any customs by answering me at attention." The man laughed sarcastically, adjusting his glasses as he glanced up at the Sergeant, waiting to see what he would do next.
Carter obliged, feet moving more out of habit then any sense of respect for the man before him. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the new light, wishing again that he shared the marine's tinted visors. The seat creaked slightly as the bespectacled figure comfortably settled atop it, looking for all the world like a birdwatcher quietly contemplating the local wildlife. The insults, he could tolerate. No-one made it through recruit stage without building some sort of tolerance to verbal needling. A decade of dealing with some of the worst individuals the Army had made the mistake of trusting with a uniform had only served to hone that particular skill.
"The ESRD-"Are lead by a lunatic? He bit back the response. Madman or not, this man outranked Carter by an order of magnitude, and his organisation was one of the few actively fighting the nomads. Despite his training screaming at him to avoid antagonizing an interrogator, he met the man's eyes. He'd never made a habit of subtlety, and damned if he was starting now. "Frankly, sir, the ESRD's a mess. A cluster of organisations thrown together by Government cost-cutting and somehow expected to start working together as one big happy family against the biggest threat we've seen in a long time." He pushed on before the man across the table could respond.
"I expected to be bought here for an interview to work against that threat." Carter took a half-pace forward, conversational tone belying the cold anger that burned in his chest. "Instead, I've spent the past day in an empty room at the bottom left corner of God-Knows-Where, trooped about by armed guards in a Republic facility, and generally not been given a damn clue about what's going on. If that's how you run your recruitment, that's your bag, sir, but I think I've waited long enough to earn some answers." He left out the aliens on the research level. The part of his brain that dealt with rational thought was still trying to make sense of that particular revelation. He'd known what External Research dealt with, but to see it so close... Carter shook it off. It was just another piece in the puzzle, and he'd treat it as such. He stood, waiting as the silence stretched on, the gentle pulse of the circulating fans the only noise in the tiny room.