Orders From the Top

S1: E11

(April 12th, 2549 - Mother of Invention) [Aoric POV]

**Aoric is flipping a knife in the middle of what looks like a locker room. Agents New York and North Dakota are also present. North Dakota looking through a window at the top members of Freelancer as York paces. Neither of which notice the fresh blood on the edges of Aoric's blade.**

North: List changed again.

York: Yep, lots of things changing these days.

**York opens a locker and pulls out his old helmet, looks at it, then tosses it in the trash.**

York: I think we've got more change on the way.

North: You feel it, too?

York: I felt it since Texas showed up and when cops and military started shooting at us, yeah, I find that I just keep coming back to the same question in my head over and over again.

North: And what question is that?

York: We're the good guys, right?

North: Yeah, 'course we are.

Aoric: *quietly.* Nope.

York: You don't sound so sure of yourself. *glancing at Aoric see see if he can tell what was said, but unable to since Aoric is the only one with his helmet on currently.*

North: No, no I suppose I don't.

**South walks past the ranking board, looks at it, then storms out. Aoric simply watching everyone else leave, before heading to his quarters and locking everything down, before turning on his computer and uploading further footage.* Day.... *looking at his systems.* Fuck, I don't even know anymore. *looking back at the camera.* Things seem to have been ramping up since we attacked that building around here. Director 'Church' has been working the top agents overtime at this point, and the agents are beginning to question themselves. *kicking his feet up.* Keeping under the radar is becoming less of a problem now, since this new agent has been stealing most of the spotlight from everyone... it means they don't pay as much attention to a missing guard here... and a couple agents missing for a few days... hopefully this won't affect us too much. *looking at his helmet for a second.* Still no intel on Agent Texas since the first day, it's becoming difficult to learn more about her, but I do have more intel on Connecticut... *holding onto a flash drive on it with the ONI marking on it.* Seems like she has a secret admirer now. Or at least she's gotten bolder about meeting him now. Working on decrypting it all now for you all to see, since it wouldn't let me transmit it in its current state. *chuckling a bit as he uses his knife to nick his forearm, before cleaning it.* Probably a fail state she put in at the very least. *looking at the camera.* Nothing new on the other agents though... I still can't quite figure out why agent Carolina feels familiar to me after seeing her face for the first time, and the Director is as secretive as always. So that concludes today's update.... *sighing.* I'll report more information tomorrow. *ending the recording as he sees the feed is finished uploading to the computer. Then sending it to a mediator for ONI on this mission, before scrubbing his computer again and removing the footage from his helmet, as is protocol. Noticing something in his helmet as he opens up the pocket to find the pair of dog tags, reading "Koch Rune, C, 3345557, 0-, the church of BULLET" as he rotates it, before putting the information into a UNSC database to see who this is, before going quiet.* Fucken hell... *turning his camera back on to record his next video, rotating the dog tags in his hand.* I recovered the dog tags of Lieutenant Koch a while back, but never discovered who it was until today. He's been labeled as MIA for nearly four months now. *looking at the camera now.* Please inform the Koch family of the passing of their son and brother... and knowing his mother, she'll likely find out soon enough how it happened if she hasn't already... *chuckling.* She's probably watching this with you now, Captain. *looking at the dog tags.* I'll send confirmation at the next drop off point... hopefully the tags will put them at ease.