Participants:
| Scene Title | Delivering the New Recruit |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The flight from NYC to Baltimore isn't that long. |
| Date | Oct 29, 2010 |
Airplane!
Best thing about working for FRONTLINE? Private plane from NYC to Washington DC. Easy as pie. Elisabeth boarded the plane wearing the black-on-black pants tucked into combat boots and the heavy jacket over top of it, her blonde hair held in a ponytail to keep its length off her face. She drops into the seat facing Gavyn and smiles faintly. "Welcome to Frontline," she murmurs. "We've got about 45 minutes on the plane for you to bombard me with every question you can think of."
Dressed to travel, Gavyn is actually clad in the more traditional uniform of her former profession. The two-piece, brown and green earth tones that make up the current airman's battle uniform tucked into sage green combat boots. She wasn't told to wear something else and it seemed too presumptuous to wear civilian clothing. On her lap rests a non descript black backpack, filled with another few changes of clothing, PT gear, and personal affects. As always, sunglasses rest on her nose, covering her eyes.
"Thank you, ma'am," Gavyn replies as Elisabeth appears, her attention turning from the world outside window to the other woman. "Ms. Kershner answered my questions when I met with her. But I might be able to come up with more." She leans back slightly, folding her hands on top of the pack on her lap.
"Mmmm," Elisabeth says with a grin. "Wow… if she answered all your questions straight, she's getting mellow in her old age," she quips. "Given what your powers are, the Horizon armor that is waiting for you at Annapolis will be of the more standard variety. Some of us require specialized bits and pieces. My helmet's an example; Ivanov's exoskeleton. The HUD will be the thing, mostly likely, that you'll find hardest to adjust to. I hope you're not claustrophobic or anything."
"Don't think so," Gavyn replies. Curiosity grips at her tone and brows furrow together briefly. "Is it compatible with sunglasses? I'd hate to …you know. I don't want to be causing /everyone/ I look at to just spill their guts." She grins shortly, though fairly easily. Must be the nerves or something, that it doesn't last longer. "What's the HUD do?"
"Behind the visor, you won't need them," Elisabeth asserts. "Just keep it opaque. The HUD is state of the art. It has range finding, limited infrared imaging, sound processing, tactical information in a combat situation. Think a friggin' Apache helicopter in your helmet. The exoskeleton will allow you to perform physical feats you'd otherwise only do on the moon, really. And the armor itself absorbs a host of ballistic and blunt force damage. It's adaptive. Last but not least, if you break it, it's like several trillion dollars or something ridiculous like that. The techs will cry and gnash their teeth. Just so you know. And you gotta fill out forms in quadruplicate if it happens." She grins cheerfully.
"No pressure, right?" Gavyn grin again, and gives a small shake of her head. "I was warned not to scratch the paint. How does it work? Armor that can stop damage like that has to be heavy. Flack vests aren't exactly light or easy to wear, either."
"It's why there's an exoskeleton," Elisabeth says. "The part that morphs is actually not much heavier than your regular clothes — you can eject out of the exoskeleton. But the overlay armor you won't be able to even move easily without the hydraulic assist. In Ivanov's case, for example, they needed to remove a lot of the overlay armor for him and create a special exoskeleton. The first suit they tried to have him use his speedster abilities in, he literally sheared the goddamn thing apart. I've never seen grown men cry like that," she comments with a grin.
Gavyn can only shake her head again and look properly impressed. As well as perplexed. It definitely sounds like a thing to experience rather than just hear about. "What's training going to be like? Besides wearing this suit eight hours a day." She pauses to grin in fond rememberance. "I hated basic training while I was there, but I'd do it again if I could. If you took out the lack of sleeping, being yelled at all the time, and having to swallow your food without chewing, it was a lot of fun."
"I'm afraid I never experienced that," Elisabeth admits candidly. "I'm not a military soldier. I was NYPD before I got tapped for this." She's the only one on any of the squads not military, in point of fact. "Aside from wearing the thing a lot of hours, training's actually going to be relatively simple for you. Keep up with your PT, keep up with your firearms skills. It's a cake walk. It's the armor and the fact that you'll be testing your ability at various times while in it that will be the challenge for you." Her tone is cool. "Because at the bottom of it all, I need to know that you can hack both the use of your ability as necessary and using it in a high-stress environment."
Oh, /that/ sounds like fun. All the time Gavyn has spent keeping her ability under the carpet and now she'll need to use it while in high stress situations. She tilts her head back and rubs her eyes without disrupting her shades all that much. "Well, can't be worse than some of the training I've already done," she decides. And she doesn't sound resigned so much as determined. "Haven't done firearms since my last qualifier, but PT's easy unless you have insane standards." She grins, not terribly concerned with physical training.
"Nah. 'Bout the same as the services," Elisabeth says quietly. "Firearms quals roughly the same too, we just expect you to keep them up to par regularly." She didn't miss the reaction to the use of ability. "Your ability is just as much a tool in your arsenal as your rifle and armor," she tells the other woman calmly. "Think about this for an example — you know the guy we're trying to take down has every intention of walking away and killing his own comrades when it's over. You think it's a big distraction when you can get him to look right at you and admit that?" She shrugs. "There's not one weapon that we won't use in this fight. Get used to that thought now." Her tone is calm, but there's a hardness to it. "I'll go balls to the wall to keep everyone on this squad alive to fight another day, and we expect it of every member." It's why Mills is taking some serious shit right now, for bolting in the middle of a combat situation. Not her fault, really, but now she's getting to undergo Training.
Gavyn sits up at the change in tone and shock briefly marks her features. From recruiter to training instructor. Well, it's not entirely unexpected. "Yes, ma'am," she replies, returning to seriousness. "I'll do it. I signed up and agreed to this, I'll make sure I get use to using my ability." She glances out the window then back to Elisabeth. "What else should I know about all this?"
There's a faint smile that plays about Elisabeth's lips. She plays many roles, it seems. Her tone eases right back down, having gotten her point across. "Well… you'll live on the base, in case Kershner didn't mention it. There's a barracks at the Textile Factory we're calling home at the moment. But if you have a place you don't want to give up in the city, you're welcome to keep it. Any time you go off the grounds, you'll need to keep your phone on and charged and be ready to rock-n-roll at a moment's notice. A lot of the squad stays on the base most of the time. I'm one of the few who tends to be out and about a lot." She shrugs. "Part of my job is keeping tabs on the local scene, and I was born and raised in Manhattan so I've got a lot of contacts to tap." She pauses to consider. "Ruth will introduce you to the security team on the base itself." She grins a bit — Ruth Crow Dog and her team will be a fun thing to see someone else handle.
"I was already told I'd be living in the barracks." A fact that doesn't seem to bother Gavyn at all, even the part of it being non-negotiable for her. "So, two weeks in Maryland, with possibly being called out for details next week. Then meeting Ruth and her security team." She pauses and takes in the other woman's grin. "Do I get to wear my armor for that?"
Oh, she's a quick one to pick up on that. Elisabeth laughs. "Nah. It won't be bad. Just… unusual," she admits on a grin. "I won't be staying in Annapolis the whole time, I'll be back and forth, though. And if you need to get back to the city, the plane's at your disposal, same as with the rest of us." She leans her head back. "I have a feeling your first couple of days you're gonna be too tired to be bothered with going back north, though," she tells Gavyn. "Getting used to the suit's not hard, just requires time. About your third or fourth day, I'll start working with you in my armor and we'll see about doing a few of the more fun tricks. You'll have your sea legs by then."