2023-01-31: The Nega Force's negative space
- Cutscene: The Nega Force's negative space
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim's coworkers, the Nega Force
- Where: Colombo, Sri Lanka
- Date: 2023-01-31
- Summary: The Nega Force notice that Yuliana has returned to the Institute for Continuing Study. Wen tries to raise her complaints with management... and gets sent away.
"Hey," Parminder Chaudhri calls out, across the office, as he looks out their tinted window. (Of course he has the window desk. He doesn't even look out it half the time!) "Check it out." Knowing he won't explain what 'it' is, Wen Yuan hurries, to the window.
It's Yuliana Kafim -- in handcuffs, being led from an unmarked van into a side-entrance of the Institute. She's putting up resistance, but it's hardly enough. "Captain!" Wen exclaims, her hand slapping to the window. "They got her back?! But -- they're taking her next door, too?!" She has noticed Alma's absence, and since the Major wouldn't give her a straight answer, she asked Parminder instead.
"Surprised you and Cascade haven't been recalled, too," Parminder notes, idly. "Since they've been on the move ever since the Captain got got. Trucks rolling out at all hours of the night... they even shipped their Gundam off, about six hours back. Man, I can't believe you never found an excuse to get in the cockpit of that thing for me... I gotta know if it's really made of bones!"
Wen turns, and grabs him by the lapels, shaking him even as he grins. "Would you focus?!" She demands, even though she knows asking him to care is a fool's errand. "If this is how it is, that means they took Alma so she wouldn't protect the Captain! And if that's how it is, they must be planning to--!"
"What, vivisect her?" Parminder supplies, all too casually.
"I-I was gonna just say kill her!" Wen protests, though her artificial skin can hardly grow more pale.
"Or she just needs medical attention," Cascade Wattana observes, dryly. They haven't bothered getting up. "G-Hound prison... you know." They all know, of course; they're special operatives, so they've been trained on capture.
"If that's true, why drag her to Medical in cuffs?!" Wen demands, turning to them.
"You can't tell me cyborgs get treated that much better next door," Cascade scowls. "Use your imagination, Lieutenant. ... and worry about someone better than her," they add, bitter. "How come we haven't got Alma back, yet?"
"I've been trying! The Major won't give me a straight answer, but -- look, I'm gonna ask him again right now!" Wen storms off, down the hall.
Parminder shrugs, and sighs. "Looks like our tidy little house of cards is coming down... man, I hope they don't just dump me back in prison. I'm gonna miss the internet..."
"Worry about dying, first," Cascade corrects him, and mutters, beneath their breath: "Idiot."
"Nah." Parminder grins. "I ain't fussed about that."
Cascade issues him a flat expression. "Why the fuck not. ... sir." They remember rank, but just barely.
Parminder's never been particularly worried about his rank, though. "Hell," he chuckles, "has surprisingly good uptime."
"No one will mourn you." Cascade says, and they're not joking.
"That's their loss," Parminder always is.
...---...
Meanwhile, Wen all but breaks the door down.
She knocks, first.
(She's not a savage, just an assassin.)
"Sir," she cuts in, storming into Major Pham Van Vinh's office. "Sorry, Major, sir, but what the hell is going on, here?! Right now everyone's looking to me but you won't tell me anything and now--!"
"Calm down," the Major scowls, and his tone broaches no argument. There's an eyepatch, slung across one side of his face. Wen has politely declined to ask. "Please, sit, Lieutenant," he gestures, to the chair. She sits, and once she's taken the breath he expects of her, he goes on: "Tell me what's happening, Lieutenant. With all the proper decorum, if you would."
"Sir, we just saw the Captain being taken next door. I mean -- in handcuffs, unwillingly!" He raises a brow, and she deflates, from the breath she's taken. "Besides that, our civilian attache is still over there... it's not right, sir. I know Medical's been supporting us since we built this team, but... with all this happening, it's hard not to feel like we're... secondary to it."
"And would protecting a human experiment laboratory bother you, Lieutenant?" Pham asks, and his directness is unkind, to a woman who prefers to look away. He leans forward, on his desk, folding his hands together. "As I understand it, they've improved your life very much... if they didn't have space to develop those prosthetics, you'd still struggle to breathe, wouldn't you?"
Wen lifts a hand, to clasp at her chest. "Y...you're right," she says, knowing what's beneath her skin there. "Half of my body had to be converted, so if it wasn't for our technological progress, I'd be in a lot of trouble." Her hand curls to a fist, as her too-red eyes lift back to the Major. "But even if that's true, Medical can't just take half our team because we've grown unpopular! Think of Cascade, too! Won't they want them, next?!"
"Perhaps. But you should think of your own future, as well. I could recommend you --" Pham's cut off, as Wen gestures out, sharply.
"No way!" She knows Pham hates yelling, but she really can't help herself. "Now the Captain's incapacitated, I'm their senior officer! If you want me to just leave them to rot, you're asking me to abandon my pride and honour as a soldier of the Republic!"
"You pick now to stop overlooking it?" Pham asks, dry. "The bones of your inaction and ignorance litter at your feet, Lieutenant. You cannot play at virtue now."
"Even if that's true... even if that's true, someone has to do something!" Wen's hands bunch, in her lap, as she frowns down to them. "And you won't do anything," she adds, more quiet, more dismal. "All this time... you've really just been laughing at us, haven't you...?" But she realises what she's said, a moment later, and winces into herself. "Sorry, sir. That was too far."
"Quite," Pham agrees, without any particular disagreement as to her complaints. (He can laugh. He just sees no need to, in this environment.) "Forgive me by handling this next assignment, Lieutenant," he directs her, taking a file from his desk and handing it over. "You'll be working with Lieutenant Chaudhri for this one."
"Sir, you can't be serious," Wen says, though she takes the file, anyway. "Command's talking about having our heads -- never mind what everyone else is saying -- and you're still sending us out there?!"
"Our work is not ended," Major Pham insists, "even given the situation the Captain has placed us in."
He's still her superior officer. They still have to leave.