Not All Shells are Hollow

A Shaky Introduction

The day that Simon Riley was recruited for the Task Force 141 was a quiet day. There was no celebration for him, hardly even a congrats was offered by the man in charge of this Task Force, General Shepherd. Instead, he quietly arrived at the base at Credenhill. From what he gathered, the force was going on roughly 85 operators and was split between two Captains. He was coming in to meet his possible new Commanding Officer. Just an interview, no need for concern.

At least, that's what he wanted to believe. Despite the relaxed nature of the base, his stomach practically twisted upon itself. Back in his days of the SAS, Simon heard tale of Captain Price; he was infamous for his high risk decisions - impulsive and yet too effective to call out. He'd heard from the General just what Price did in the days long conflict with the Ultra Nationalists earlier this year. This man was probably ready to dig in his head in search of any weakness. Probably was looking for a stone faced rock like every other special service officer out there. Probably a man on his waning years of service...

That was all Simon could think in: probabilities.

When he reached the door, he shook his head and took a slow, deep breath. Just an interview. With that, he knocked.

"'s open," a gruff, decidedly Scottish voice said on the other side.

Simon opened the door and stood there in minor shock as he gawked at the stranger inside. The man was only slightly shorter than he was, but you probably wouldn't notice with the stupid mohawk he had. Beyond that, all Simon could tell was that this man was young, way too young to be a Captain. A Lieutenant, easily, but definitely not a Captain. This guy had to be just running paperwork over from somewhere else.

"Simon Riley, I presume?" The stranger asked, effectively snapping him back to attention.

"Yes, sir. That'd be me. And you are?"

He smiled. "I'm Captain John MacTavish. How about you have a seat and we can get this interview under way."

Okay, so this man, who simply couldn't be much older than 25, really was a Captain. Simon nodded and pulled one of the two chairs against the wall.

The Captain sat at his desk as well and flipped through a few pages. While he did so, Simon caught sight of lengthy notes scrawled in the margin, small print and yet a touch messy. Once MacTavish found what he was looking for, he looked up at him. "You're a strange case, Lt. Riley. I've got a couple conflicting reports on you. Care to shed some light on this?"

Simon bit the inside of his lip. His luck this man chose to get at one of the harder questions. If there was a conflicting report, then that meant that he somehow dug up his old records. Part of his delay in coming to this interview was in General Shepherd clearing up the messier parts of his papers. For all intents and purposes, his record was supposed to be a clean slate. Either the General decided to entrust the knowledge of his old records to him, or MacTavish must have done a lot of digging. Already a bad sign. "I've got a bumpy history."

With a slow nod, MacTavish turned his stare back down to the files in hand. "'Bumpy' seems like a bit of an understatement, don't ya think?"

"..." Years of training allowed Simon to keep his outward composure, yet inside he was sure he couldn't feel any sicker. "Yes, sir, it is."

"Even after four months away on recovery, they hadn't let you back in the S.A.S. Said you'd been seeing a therapist for some time and she prescribed a sleep aid. Have you been taking it?"

This was a trick question. Either answer was a flag, could even disqualify him from joining. "No, sir, I hadn't. When she suggested it, the original problem hadn't been bothering me for some time."