[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/3Ymcdzh/Ash-FC-4.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] Hunter's story sounded much like many of the other stories coming from military men who had made it past the first six months. Ash supposed that his own wasn't too different. Specific of circumstance, certainly. Told from the point of view of one of the people making a decision or two rather than merely following orders, yes. But not too different than the multitude of others. It was almost comforting being reminded that he wasn't particularly special in this regard. Still, the point of view from Infantry's side of things was slightly different than that of Sappers. It was interesting to note. Ash listened intently, nodding knowingly every so often as a familiar concept came up. Like the hordes around New York. [color=4682b4]"Massive infection rates in high population densities. Hordes form. Cities diffuse slowly, but they don't usually go too far..."[/color] He could really only speak to his experience. City runs were nigh-suicidal sometimes, especially on foot. The impromptu camaraderie with Ted, Soldier in the Army of Colonel Harland Sanders and Keeper of the Eleven Herbs & Spices, was a bit of stress relief for Ash. It had been a while since he had gotten to know a detail about someone new that didn't have something to do with the screaming necessities of life, such as ammo counts or securing a perimeter, or briefing on new surroundings. Or catching up, though that last part was precious to him. This was just shooting the breeze with another human being in the context of getting to know someone, even in passing. And being that they unknowingly shared some real estate a while ago, back when the world made more sense, it was cause for minor celebration. Of course, that cracked a little bit when the discussion went to Cage. Specifically, what he was out there doing and what he had already had to do so far this shift. In addition to the last three shifts as well, apparently. Ash felt a little foolish. Based upon what Ted had told him, he had assumed that Cage was leaving them in there until he took his own trip to the Mess Hall to take a break, grab some dinner, then get back around to letting them out when he felt like it. His trademark stoicism helped him out there, keeping his internal voice internal and prompting him to change the subject. The fact that he was thinking it, though, gave Ash an attack of creeping guilt. He was still an asshole as far as Ash could tell, but he was demonstrating diligence to his job. It was also a kind of relief that this man, Ted, didn't seem to know about Newnan or Eden directly. Or Franklin, for that matter. Or Fairburn's Castle Town. So Ash settled back against the wall for the time being, mulling over their predicament and the use of NOID, a thing he hadn't heard in years. [color=4682b4]"So he'll be along soon enough. Takes away some worry."[/color] Ash even permitted himself a chuckle, and asked (partly in hopes of avoiding a continuing, strained conversation), [color=4682b4]"So what did you do to get stuck down here overnight, Ted? If'n you don't mind my asking."[/color] There had to be more to the story than banging on a door. [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] 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] Of course, it had to be written. This was going to be her big hurdle, Thalia could tell. A place with paper meant a place with paper[i]work[/i], especially if it was being run by the military. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof, anyway. Of course, the problem with that was that, of all the things she was beginning to really get the hang of with her non-dominant hand, writing was not one of them. She remembered having to fill in her entrance questionnaire while in quarantine. It looked like a toddler with some kind of palsy tried to write it. Thalia was honestly surprised they didn't throw her out for smuggling alcohol inside somehow and getting blotto before the big test. But they did see the lack of hand she was sporting. It was hard to miss. This was probably a good indicator that she used to be right handed, too. But back to the present: Writing. It sucked. It sucked pretty hard, but she should have seen this coming. Moving on. Accepting the papers from Profesora Coño, Thalia gave them a brief glance before looking back to Thana. She was right. Thinking about it, considering the number of hardasses in their combined groups, ex-military, and cutthroat survivors, she would be surprised as hell if she and Nigel were the only ones. They were probably just the first. She gave a passing expression of agreement to Thana and held it until her face oscillated back to the Professor, terminating with a shrug and nod that supported their shared suspicion; more would be coming. It was just a matter of time. Then she got back to the papers, awkwardly holding them with her flesh and steel hands, maneuvering to turn the page as necessary. [color=dc143c]"Blah, blah... party of the first part bullshit, la la la..."[/color] she mumbled to herself, seemingly unaware that (while quiet) it was out loud. [color=dc143c]"Jaysus, this is corpsec basic all over again..."[/color] Again, spoken with discretion. She listened to the rundown given about the content of the paperwork, but didn't give it a ton of serious thought until she saw it in print in front of her. Sharps, shield, hand to hand training. [color=dc143c]"Well shit, that's [i]almost[/i] why I'm here,"[/color] said Thalia, a little more openly than her earlier mumbling. She looked over to Nigel for a second before going back to the papers. She wanted to spar with him, being a fellow weapon and board guy. She needed to adapt to soldiery from these people. Learn another way, compensate for her abbreviated dexterity. Broaden her warrior's horizons and whatnot. But if this was Step One, fine. Thalia would get there in time. They were just making her take other steps first. [color=dc143c]"Oh, I'm moving up to C Rostah,"[/color] vowed Thalia, this time speaking openly. She had reached the bits that required her signature and sighed. She'd have to try another approach to using a writing utensil. Acquiring one, she placed it in an underhanded grip in her metal hand, securing it in place by articulating her fingers one at at time to tenuously grasp without letting it slide. It was a little harder then it looked. Secured like she might use it to impale someone, Thalia began the mildly infuriating task of signing her name, one blocky letter at a time. [color=dc143c]"I hope cursive isn't required."[/color] Thalia did have to pause in the middle of her own personal hell to look up at Thana, quirking a brow quizzically when she foreshadowed something about their instructors.