Utah was going to carry the conversation with California, but before she could continue her introduction, she was interrupted by the Director’s announcement. She made her way towards the briefing room only to find it full of Freelancers. Glancing around the room, she scanned the other Freelancers and their armor, while the words of the Director rang out throughout the place. They were easy to understand and fairly simple, and the objectives were pretty straightforward. She looked at Washington stride to the front and deliver his announcement of leadership.

Utah wasn’t one to question authority, but she rolled her eyes at Washington, someone who couldn’t even keep up with the training bots back in the sim. He was reckless and stubborn. She questioned his leadership ability but in the end the plan sounded good, furthermore, she didn’t care too much about her having a partner. Her only concern was the means of distraction, which, if too heavy was sure to bring all manner of hell upon them, and if it was too light it wouldn’t bring much attention either.

She looked at the rest of her teammates and suddenly it dawned on her. These people weren’t ODST, these people weren’t even professional soldiers; she didn’t know whether they were the “crème de la crème” or some bums the Freelancer program picked up. Suddenly, her concerns became broader :[i]what if the other Freelancers fail? What if her partner wasn’t up to scratch? What if-[/i]

Her thoughts were cut short as Iowa started up some commotion about Washington being the oh-so-glorified leader. She didn’t know this was her partner, all she knew was that this was the agent that was mumbling to himself leaving the training area. She wondered why he was so adamant with knowing who they were going to fight, wasn’t this team just a ragtag bunch of people sent to do missions without any raised questions?

[@nytefall]

“Hey Washington,” Utah began. “What’s our plan B when things go wrong? I mean, I know we’re all [i]“badasses”[/i] at what we do, but I think some of us are familiar with what happens when you get your dick all caught up. That’s a lot of responsibility and money.”

she delivered the cringy contraceptive joke with the tone of mocking sarcasm right after Iowa gave Washington the affectionate nickname washing machine.