Tobias gave a chuckle, as he ran in front waving a middle finger back, just knowing just how much of a shit she was at the best of times, but he knew exactly how to give it back. "Fuck you very much, princess." His response painted just how it was between the two of them, the kind of banter that most people just saw as shithousing abuse, but they loved it anyway. It was another coping mechanism, but then again, when you could do the sort of damage they just did, it sort of flowed well. Stepping inside, Tobias tapped the side of the aircraft with a nice thump, calling it out. "Chief, little hand says it's time to roll!" He called out through the comms to the pilot, an easy "Affirm" coming back as the V22 kicked up and with the two of them inside, began to dust off. The door shutting, the scene of the scar of the rare earth mine against the rising sun and the endless island jungle was a splendid sight, one that given they had just been shot at a little while ago, at least left a nice tinge on their return out of here. Taking a seat, Tobias took his helmet off, and reaching over into the reinforced front webbing of the suit, pulled the cornish pasty out. It was still hot, against all odds. Thermal insulation on that particular pocket had it's perks... "Joy of joys." He sighed, leaning back, the door closing as the V22 began to go into horizontal flight, leaving behind the mine and eventually, the remote island. --- Part One: Four Days Later Bracknell, England 1100 Hours The small depot on the edge of Bracknell looked fairly inconspicuous, a building that fit in with the business park's drab demeanour, another metal shack among many others. It looked almost cluelessly inconspicious for a private security company, having an indoor parking bay and a relatively drab international design type of architecture of the sort that fit a head office for small to medium business. A clear sign of "this was built as a part of a business park". A reception, a main workfloor, and a couple of offices, with a small workshop and a few breakout rooms and briefing rooms all furnished in a plushgrey and blue colour scheme adding to just that very slick, corporate-like look. But beyond that, a couple of reinforced security doors, one in the garage complex, one in the office itself revealed something quite not like most office- well, that the facility's critical element was hidden beneath ground. In some ways, the contractor had effectively chosen a "hide in plain sight" approach to its operation- after all, it was just a business like any other, but to keep everything at a distant, remote place would just create more fuss when moving the suits around. Here, it just looked like any other security contractor's office. And downstairs, it was anything but any other- a two-storey basement that certainly had a presence about it. Iron Wolf had a licence to store weapons, ammunition and other military hardware in this very specific area, in a document hidden in the papers of MI6 with lots of black lines through it. It had the licence to keep the suits here too, both of them in a sealed, secured element to make sure that they were kept far away from prying eyes. The basement was another world, a high-tech labarotory with yellow, white and black hazard paint and hard concrete everywhere, showing just how recent it had all been built. The labs themselves were mostly to do with exoskeleton testing and sensor work, but some were specialist in their nature, testing more exotic and interesting tech that was in the final phase before being fitted to the suit. It almost looked like a Formula One engineering department, full of weird and wonderful toys that were very, very expensive. Of course, this was the last bit of testing and experimenting- most of it was done by DARPA and ARIA, as well as the private contractors they worked with in tandem to get the suits through to Iron Wolf, so this lab was relatively small, even for it's size. And of course, where exoskeletons and weapons were, there had to be an internal testing range. A firing range with heavy soundproofing was in place, making it sound to other buildings like heavy drilling going on in the subterrenean facility when a minigun was fired, whilst a miniture assault combat course provided a place to test the suits' ability to move, jostle and react under fire, with portholes for actual live fire to come back at them. It had been a serious cost to pay- but then again, given how much their two operators made them money for it, and given they were literally the main two, there was hardly need for anything else if they could subcontract it in or get it elsewhere. Iron Wolf was a fairly small company by all regards, the sort of buisness that didn't have many operators or staff for a reason- it subcontracted a lot, but still had to remain professional. A lot of people, including the board of directors and owner worked from home unless they were in for meetings so the depot itself wasn't overtly staffed. But a couple had made the trip down to watch Tobias and Gabriela's play-by-play, with the two of them mostly wanting to fall asleep, but enjoying the highlight reels. It wasn't all go and shoot bad guys- it had boring elements to it too, and those had to be complemented by this, and it was what helped feedback their improvements, as well as iterations to the suits. They were prototypes after all- and getting them to a higher level was going to be what the bigwigs wanted. It was there in the office that Tobias found himself, his detatched metal legs on his desks in the workfloor, filling out a brief psych eval, one of the last mundane jobs he had to do before he was going to pop out for lunch. A rare desk day, and while usually a lot of contracts would be strung together and they'd do it in the field, here they had actually been shipped home, back all the way from the far-flung jungle of Papua New Guinea. For such a formal company, everyone was usually smart-casual, with Tobias wearing a grey checked shirt with grey cut-length trousers. It did make sense given that well....it was a company still filled with literal mercenaries, and not overtly corporate types. Getting in a suit and tie made no sense- especially not in world where you wanted to actually appeal to people whose choice in high fashion was camoflauge and whatever they could get their hands on. And anyway, it never really demanded it- not unless there was something formal going on. On that thought he finished up, gently jostling his legs off the table and with a gentle turn, stepping into the braces for them both. A gentle twist and he torqued up the brace, the fact he was even able to walk at all still a freakin' miracle to him. He could have been very easily wheelchair bound, but the prosthetics were a literal lifesaver, as he finished up, the routine basically autonomous to him now. It didn't feel really that much different, he still went for runs and climbed, he could even spar just as well with Gabby- but nobody was ever going to take him seriously as a professional soldier again without the armour, not unless he was going to magically grow them back. He checked his phone, looking over the divider of the hotdesk he was at, seeing Gabby over there working on her end. "Yo Gabby...you up for heading out for a brew? My eval's all submitted. I mean, you're not suffering any hallucinations, are ya?" Tobias asked cheekily, catching her attention among the murmur of phone calls and printer noise. Ordinary this was, compared to the very extraordinary they did for work- but they had a few bits to come back for in half an hour in that basement, and a few drills to run with some new kit.