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[indent][indent][indent][right][sub][code]Smith's Rest, New Anchorage[/code] | [code]Facility Entrance 🠒 Medical Offices[/code][/sub][/right][hr]
[color=8D6A64]“Hm. I see.”[/color]

It may not have looked like to others on the outside, but Taraneh Marno, the Iranian prospect, was on the verge of a panic attack.

She had come to Alaska for a new opportunity and to finish unfinished business. However, despite fully being aware of her personal goals this was the best chance she had to dig around without throwing off too many alarms. Her last job had been in the ruins of Lilongwe. The people there had called it [i]The Forgery[/i]; or, well, that was the rough English translation of the Bantu phrase at least. She had found a few clues, a broker of information who gave her information about the target she had been chasing for years before she was inevitably chased out of Africa by Tshwane. Evidently, they had been still livid that she had taken down a few of their profitable assets. If not for a friend of hers she would’ve probably been dead and her vengeance incomplete. 

Taraneh crossed her arms, peering into the back of Graham’s skull as he moved through the facility. 

He was a company man. He walked like one. Talked like one. Admittedly, he was honest and Taraneh couldn’t quite figure him out. There were so many mixed signals. Was he the kind of company man who hired wetwork teams to prey upon people who were barely making ends meet? or was he the type of company man who didn’t cross such blurred lines? He had said he wouldn’t condone illicit actions, but he also said he didn’t believe in good and evil. What kind of person couldn’t have morals in the world they lived in where the rich gained more and more power while the poor took a shovel to the dirt to dig their own graves? He was trying to inspire them despite these questions. He was a veteran of some kind of war. Taraneh could tell that much.

The Iranian woman tapped her leftmost fingers on the forearm it rested on, a tic she had picked up over the years, as she thought on Graham, New Anchorage, herself, and the two tests she had to pass. A medical examination and an out-of-suit exam. She supposed that was basic in the corporations. She had worked for a few once before as a proxy asset, so she knew that much. An out-of-suit exam meant that you could not only climb your mech without aid of ladders, but also showcasing your physical athleticism and durability. There were many old world devices that used the neural network for security and access. Defense turrets, power systems, data archives. The list went on. Being compatible with the neural network wasn’t just about being able to access super-weapons like NC’s but also pretty much anything predating the war that forced humanity to go underground or survive the effects of nuclear fallout.

She looked back behind her, catching the eyes of one of the pilots who had been talking. His accent was slightly different than Graham’s, but it was still the same. There was something about him that made her want to strike a conversation, but for now she was trying to get a read on the other pilots rather than make friends with them. 

There were a lot of pilots. Mostly Westerners, but also foreigners like her with their own reasons for being in Alaska. If Graham accepted all of them, no matter what he said, he would most certainly have an army. She doubted New Anchorage could afford up-linking all their NCs in their hangars, paying them, and hoping they’d all behave. She wondered where the red line was for pilots? Obviously your run-of-the-mill mercenary wasn’t it. They needed people who wanted to be here and had little options. Only Allah knew how she would survive if she didn’t make the cut. She had used the last of her credits to get out of Africa and to Alaska in the first place. Shipping NCs across the Atlantic wasn’t cheap and doing it without paying lip service to the corporations and regional warlords was difficult enough. 

She just hoped she could succeed. Failure was not an option.

By the end of her thoughts, Graham moved the various pilots into a waiting room where they were told to wait around and converse among themselves while the medical staff would call them forward one at a time. The first to leave was a woman who sounded like she was from Southeastern Asia. Australia or New Zealand. She honestly could not tell the difference. So she was left with her own devices, surrounded by pilots from various backgrounds. Her thoughts remained on succeeding and making sure her and her father could have a good life here while she hunted down the bastards that killed her mother and brought ruin to her family.

[color=8D6A64]“Aya divaneh hasti?”[/color] She muttered to herself underneath her breath.

It was a question she asked herself before every venture.

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