Orders From the Top

S1: E5

(November 17th, 2548 - South Hallway) [Aoric POV]

**Washington is seen walking down a hallway in the Mother of Invention. As Washington walks by North Dakota follows him, with Aoric walking ahead as he thinks to himself about the information he's gotten so far.**

Aoric: Haven't really been able to say much to the Captain as of late... missions have been thin, and I'm still struggling to get close to Leonard in order to talk to him. Damn Carolina is making this more difficult than I was anticipating, especially since I'm struggling to keep under the radar more and more.

North Dakota: Hey, Wash! Wait up! Listen, I heard you had a meeting with Internals.

Washington: Oh, you did?

North Dakota: Yeah, do you mind if I ask what it was about?

Washington: Not really supposed to talk about that.

Aoric: Probably another psych eval... something big is coming, but without proof, I can't get that intel to command unless I want it to be thrown out as "useless without proof" for no hard evidence.

North Dakota: Help me out here. I'm still getting heat about using equipment in the field.

Washington: You did? Really? Without a pipeline back to the command server?

North Dakota: I had to improvise. We had a problem.

Washington: Let me guess, are you related to the problem?

Aoric: Yep.

North Dakota: Hey! *glancing over at Aoric, who's lost in thought, and simply shrugs.* ..... Okay, now I don't want to talk about it.

Washington: Equipment in the field...don't forget what happened to Utah during training, you're lucky it didn't kill you.

Aoric: *rolling his eyes under his helmet.* You guys are lucky you haven't seen a day in the real world yet, kiddies.

North Dakota: If I was lucky I wouldn't have needed to use it at all.

Aoric: If we were lucky your other half would have stayed out of that operation.

North Dekota: Calm down, Nevada, she just needs to learn from her mistakes... maybe if you didn't disappear as much you could be on the leaderboard to compete with her.

Washington: *Aoric clearly about to retort in anger as Washington hastily interviens.* Well, you can both relax. Internals didn't ask about you. *Soldiers start running past the group* It was something else. Lots of questions about the Insurrection and transmissions coming out of our- *One soldier bumps into Washington's shoulder and is about to run past as he pauses to apologize*

Soldier: Sorry sir!

Washington: Hey, what's going on? Soldier, where is everyone running?

Soldier: *Pointing down the hall* New agent squaring off against Maine, Wyoming, and York on the training room floor. We're going to watch! Hey guys, wait up! *rushing down the hall after his friends.*

North Dakota: Three on one?

Washington: I gotta see this.

North Dakota: Yeah, right behind you. *Both agents follow the soldier*

Aoric: *sighing a long sigh as he walks after the others.* Great... more complications for this mission..... Fucken fantastic.

**After a few minutes the three of them enter the observation deck of a training room as Maine, Wyoming and York run towards the agent with pugil sticks below them.**