ON
Caleb deposited his empty tray somewhere where the cleaning crew could retrieve it, and then strode casually over to his friend whose presence had pulled him away from his earlier conversation. "Hey, took you long enough, man! What were you doing in there?"
"Nothing at all," was the icy reply. The figure that uttered it was a tall, blonde-haired man with a quite bored look on his face. "How was lunch, my good friend?"
Caleb grinned. "Interesting. You planning on eatin' or are you taking a pass on chow or you sticking to straight stims? It ain't too bad, a little like home cooked chow." He playfully punched the tall, blonder man in the shoulder, "You should loosen up a little, man! It's like they gave you suppositories of icy daggers or somethin'."
The tall blonde coughed slightly when the fist impacted his arm. "That may or may not be the case." He allowed his eyes to flit over to Caleb's former seating arrangement, and the dark-haired woman sitting there, for a moment, before bringing them right back to bear on Caleb. "I will be passing on consuming anything for the moment, thank you." He stopped and thought for a moment. "Ah, yes, there is someone who would like to speak with you."
"That would explain a lot, actually. Especially why you walk... that way," Caleb continued to tease with a grin. He nodded as he smoothed his hand over his hair. "Oh? Is this someone tall and voluptuous or am I gonna be disappointed and get tall, dark and brooding?"
The blonde's face showed now sign of amusement at either comment. "The latter, I'm afraid." He turned and stepped through the same door he had entered. "Come."
"I can't say no to the angry ones, they hit harder than the voluptuous ones," Caleb commented with a sigh as he followed after the blonde man.
The man strode down the hall at a rather high speed. After about a minute of stony silence, he stopped at a large door. He knocked twice, and the large, gray barrier shifted away, revealing a large room filled with viewing screens, all of them focused on the cafeteria. The blonde stepped through the door and made his way towards a large cluster of men, on of which was Mitchell Flins, bent over one of the displays. "Caleb, come here, please."
Caleb's smile didn't fade as he walked casually into the monitor room towards the large, bent over ID-SOL. "If I didn't know better sir, I'd think you wanted me to do something inappropriate." He stood just out of arm's reach to the left of Flins as he waited patiently for the man to respond.
Flins grunted before standing to his full height, and turning to the shorter man. "Hilarious, Cadet." Flins stepped around Caleb, towards another bank of screens, these ones focused on Alaster and Lenz, still picking through their food. "I assume you learned something." He clicked several keys at his display before turning back. "Would you care to share your findings?
"Hmmm... where to start," Caleb pondered for a moment and thoughtfully rubbed the stubble on his chin. Inwardly he knew that the stubble counter balanced the neatness of his appearance but he liked the feel of it against his hand when he pondered like this. "Her upbringing is fairly recent and she sounds rather 'hollow' because of it. She doesn't understand certain emotional concepts so she might be an advanced AI trying to become human in her behavior. Or she might be socially retarded from living a incredibly sheltered and technical upbringing on some backwater planet. She's also trying to mimic certain behavioral patterns in order to fit in more."
Flins nodded. "Excellent work, Cadet." He lifted a folder located on one of the numerous tables throughout the room. "As for the backwater planet, that would be New Kohana. We have an inkling she may be linked to a Yamataian crime lord who has made his base of operations there." He looked down at the file some more before passing it off to a small hovering drone, with a command to enter in the extra information to the central database. He looked back to Caleb. "You looked quite friendly with her."
"It's what I do, Sir. I've found more information can be gained through casual conversation than an interrogation. Besides, she looked more inviting for conversation than the midget with the assload of muscles and the short temper breaking silverware," Caleb shrugged. "Not that, being a wall of muscle with a bad temper is a bad thing for the organization, it's just less interesting to spark conversation. But I have the feeling you already have a great deal of information on that particular red head."
Mitchell nodded. "Indeed we do. He, however, hasn't been hiding anything." He pointed to the same table he had pulled the folder off of earlier. It was still stacked with dozens of vanilla-colored portfolios. "As you can see, we're not hurting for information on all of out new recruits."
"I'm just glad I'm not the one trying to sift through all of those folders right now. So we suspect that Nelew's father might be the Yamataian crime lord or working for him then?" The young intelligence officer wondered aloud, it'd make sense but Caleb knew that there'd be no way to get confirmation of that data through regular conversation with Nelew.
"Correct. However, we lack verification on anything further at this time." Flins answered. "You've done well, Caleb. You will do well for yourself. I believe that is all, for now. Cadet Blist will show you out." Flins turned back to his display, as the blonde man nodded, looking to Caleb.
Cadet Locke nodded and turned to follow Blist out of the monitoring room, he paused for a moment. He looked over his shoulder and added, "Oh, one more thing Sir. I'd keep an eye on her hygiene habits. You might discover more information about her true nature that way."
Flins looked over his shoulder. "Noted. Thank you, Cadet."
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