[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=4682b4][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Jail (AA) [i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/6ZrqbnS/Ash-FC-3.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] It was a very straightforward approach to keeping prisoners. Limited contact, no help, let God (or Darwin, either one) sort things out past basic care. Ash had heard from Mizrahi what had happened to Hunter, and knew that he'd be in here. It was still a little bit of a surprise to see the younger man behind bars in this place. Strangely, seeing the blood and brain matter on the floor was less of a shocking thing than he might have assumed. Be that as it may, he did release half a breath that he didn't know he was holding when the explanation of how the mess was made came out. For all of the familiar structure and benefits of CMB, he was still a little wary. Full trust would come with time. For now, his two mandates were to clean and stay away from the other cell. He could do that. [color=4682b4]"Yes sir,"[/color] he said evenly to Cage. Best to get this over with quickly. Ash wasted no time in getting the cleaning supplies to bear as Cage was leaving the room. He had already taken a knee for purposes of getting to the spattering of gore on the floor in front of them, but hesitated. Hunter had things to say, apparently, which struck him as odd considering the situation. Still staring in Hunter's general direction, Ash looked like he was weighing options of saying something, but decided against it with a small shake of his head. This wasn't his problem. He wasn't a counselor and he wasn't a commanding officer; this man wasn't family by blood, choice, or circumstance. Hunter was not his responsibility. Insomuch as he appreciated Ted's offer for a smoke purely as a polite gesture, it was never one of Ash's vices. He declined with a wave, preferring to stick to work. Then he heard a return of Hunter's general smartassery. And immediately following, a marginally more apologetic word concerning his absence from cleaning duty, followed by what he could only assume were the ramblings of whatever crossed his mind that second. Ash was a stoic, disciplined individual with several years of shooting for the greater good behind him. And while it was probably best to cut this person off and let him drift away on an ice floe of his own making, a different sort of responsibility took hold of his psyche. [color=4682b4]"Goddamnit, Monroe,"[/color] he said, sounding a touch more like an officer than befitted his present station, [color=4682b4]"Do you not know when to shut up?"[/color] He rose to stand, but did not approach the bars. [color=4682b4]"A few minutes of AWOL doesn't land you in the stockades. I'm betting you're in here 'cause of your mouth."[/color] His Virginian Appalachia accent was becoming more pronounced as he spoke. Thinking, Hunter's choice of words and the actions around them got him threatened by Ash and others, followed by a full takedown by Beatrice while the locals watched from a distance. Like they were assessing the new blood. Regardless, he kept expressing his thoughts openly. [color=4682b4]"Hell, I'm compelled to ask if you're [i]tryin'[/i] to get kicked out of here. You have a good thing here, soldier. Damn good thing, and if you pull your head out of your ass for three seconds to get some air, you might see that this place has a lot to offer you. You've got a lot to offer it, too. National Guard, right? You got any idea what a rare commodity military experience is these days? And you landed in the middle of American military remnants. You know how this game is played. You lived it before. Christ's sake, Hunter, these people have the resources to help your sorry ass out [i]as long as you play ball[/i]. You even know the rules already."[/color] He shook his head more fully this time, continuing, [color=4682b4]"I don't give a rat's ass about the cleaning detail. I hope this all blows over. I hope they give you a rifle and let you walk the wall eventually. None of that's gonna happen until you stop acting like a petulant child. Apologize. Submit to orders. Go to assigned therapy and work your shit out. Be a useful goddamned person. 'Cause you know as well as I do what the ascending punishments prescribed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice are, and what comes next."[/color] That is, if they weren't using a harsher system now befitting the times. [color=4682b4]"This community might actually need you one day. You won't be here, though, on account of your mouth. You took an oath, once. We're supposed to be better than this. Still can be."[/color] It was more than Ash was used to saying in one sitting, not unlike the story about his fallen friend in the cemetery earlier. He guessed it was just a day for speeches. Whether this one was a rousing call to action or just a series of blahs falling upon ears that didn't want to hear them was immaterial. Having expressed his frustration, he felt a little spent. Like he'd had enough tilting at windmills for the sake of others who couldn't be bothered to help themselves. He let out a sigh and resumed his work. Ash had things to do. [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=dc143c][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Administration (A) -> Education (M) [i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/D9f1NPS/Thalia-Irritated.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] There was a level of irritation that passed through Thalia as Gunny spoke to her. Condescension was a pet peeve for her, so when a man spoke to her while he was looking through paperwork, it was irksome. Then again, he did look directly at her when he began to address her, deferring back to the contents of his desk as he went into explanation. So really, Thalia mostly stood in confusion. If nothing else, it did reinforce the position that she was a subordinate. What fun. But no, this wasn't too dissimilar from her old position with the Company. She had people to report to. Reflecting, the last five years had really changed her. She could remember how to do this. Thalia was in CMB for a reason; this was part of the deal. In any event, the man wasn't being rude, persay. He looked like the type that had to be gotten used to. Like herself. [color=dc143c]"Thanks, Boss. See yah tomorrow."[/color] The minuscule conversation with Alexander went in a similar manner, though with him, she spoke a couple extra words. Firstly, she gave a quick twitch of her head, acknowledging his friendly expression for what it was, a minor parting of ways after working a shift. As to his declaration that he needed to sort some stuff out before dinner, she could fully sympathize. She had two issues that she required her attention before dinnertime. [color=dc143c]"Yah. Same."[/color] As to whether they'd meet for the meal, it was a distinct possibility, especially if whatever respective business they each had to do wrapped up around the same time. [color=dc143c]"I'll be at the Mess Hall aftah a little while."[/color] Thalia had a purposeful stride as she exited the office and walked down the hallway. Yes, food called to her in the way that it always did, but some things had to be handled and this was the perfect time to handle them. As the exited into the lobby, Thalia was actuating the fingers on her prosthetic down into a closed fist, each metallic pinging sound an almost gratifying robotic knuckle-popping effect. She looked to Rolodex, keeping to stride the entire time, and gave her some regard. Odd woman. She didn't stop when she hit the street, in fact taking to a light jog. That was, until she fully remembered where the Education building was located. She had to sign up for something, hopefully before slots filled up, if that was in fact how things operated there. As she came towards the building proper the front door flung open, both of them, hitting hard against the back stops just as Maddoc stormed out. The doors nearly hit him in the ass as they swung past him, back into place, and out again due to the force he had put behind it. Shoving his cigar into his mouth he chewed it, growling almost, and it became abundantly clear why he was called [i][b]Maddog[/b][/i]. The sight of a pissed-off older man slamming things about and growling (almost) might ordinarily put most people off, or at least caution them to mind their distance. Not so for Thalia. This was the kind of thing she was used to dealing with as it came to family. It reminded her a lot of her uncle, specifically. And it was that kind of asshole that she needed to deal with. Being direct was her strength, when it wasn't her weakness. And it looked like this man wasn't a fan if "indirect", anyway. [color=dc143c]"Mr. Martin!"[/color] she called, increasing her pace for the final few steps to stand before him. Looking up at him with burning resolve, she half-blurted, [color=dc143c]"I need to be a soldier. Gunny says talk to you."[/color] The man didn't even stop but his eyes went to her as he stalked closer in a direct collision course. "Fuck, fine, tell Professor Cunt in there to put you on D Roster," he said as at the last moment he side stepped her and went around. "And I want a full psych evaluation from Major, she's on the wall," he yelled back as he turned and started to head east down the road. It wasn't clear if it was cigar that was sending up trails of smoke or his ears. [color=dc143c]"Hells yeah,"[/color] she called back. It was breathtakingly shocking how simple that was. Thalia had expected more to it. She was prepared to yell and stand her ground, defend the fact that she was crippled to the point that rifles were never going to be in her wheelhouse, even throw a punch if needed to make herself heard. But that was over in the space of a handful of seconds. Less, maybe. [color=dc143c][i]"Okay, okay,"[/i][/color] she thought to herself, [color=dc143c][i]"Two obstacles. D Roster and a psych eval. Inside here and on the wall ...somewhere."[/i][/color] This was her survival strategy. It worked with the Shieldmaidens. It worked with the survivalists. Now that she was physically compromised, she had to adapt yet again. Thalia was actually a little excited as she approached the doors, flinging them open with a motivated lack of fuck-giving spawned of potentially violent optimism. [color=dc143c]"Alright..."[/color] Thalia said aloud as she entered the Education building. Taking a look around her immediate surroundings, she realized two things: 1) There was a study group present that probably didn't appreciate her entrance, and 2) She had no idea who the hell she was actually looking for. Thalia felt a little stupid, but got over that quickly enough to ask the nearby study group, [color=dc143c]"Maddog told me to find [i]Professor Cunt[/i]."[/color] She didn't even get to phrase that in the form of a question before everyone in the group pointed down the hallway at the same time. [color=dc143c]"Nnn."[/color] she responded at a nod. [color=dc143c]"Thanks."[/color] Slower, and with more of a predatory gaze, Thalia turned and began to step down the hallway.