MEDIC, UP FRONT!

He gave a small smile, and blinked up at the Agent. Pegasus kind of just likes listening to people talk - that’s definitely something he’d call a pastime. Less ‘talking to people’ and more ‘being talked to’. So Jefferson’s spiels are very well welcome.

Pegasus rubbed the side of his face, carefully mulling over the information thrown at him. Characters, stories..he guessed he could do those? He liked the robot characters in that one book, uh, and stories were good too. He liked listening to people’s stories. And coming up with a setting should be easy enough — he’d always been yearning to be somewhere other than this goddamn ship anyway. Maybe he could make his escape through sequential pictures and ‘speech bubbles’?

"Yes, I believe I do," he began, "that doesn’t sound too hard. As I said, however, I do have trouble with imagination."

He sighed. He really should’ve drawn more when he was floating between Annapolis and Lincoln, drifting in his own mind. When it was his own, when he could let it roam free - when he didn’t have to keep it boxed up and controlled. When he didn’t have to make sure it didn’t hurt anyone.

But he knew everything that came out would’ve been horrible anyway, and we’re not just talking skill here.

"I don’t really like reading novels; my mind tends to wander elsewhere. I like stories with pictures and not much writing,” Pegasus said. Jefferson couldn't help but share the unit's qualms about reading.

..Still counts. He shrugged.

He sat there, drinking in the images and wondering what was going on but also not caring because damn, it looked so radical. “This is very radical, Agent,” he said matter-of-factly. He pushed the corners of his lips down, raised his eyebrows, nodded head once. Looked back at the Agent. “Do you have any more?”

Oh, hello, he hadn’t noticed those. Pegasus squinted at the thing in the Agent’s hands. They’d been worn over the eyes, right? Must be some kind of optical armour, or, maybe they just looked cool or maybe they enhanced the vision. Haha, wow, humans. See? They were the ones that really adapted. Trouble with your eyes? Put stuff over it to change light rather than just have them replaced or something. Sigh.

And well. Pegatron was certainly a new one, but once again — before he could get his head around this sparkling new nickname — he was distracted by yet another technological wonder. 

A…a "comic". A comic? A comic.

Pegasus reached forward tentatively, transfixed by the tablet’s current display. He glanced down at Jefferson, before raising his fingers to his lips and glaring intently at the screen. 

Interesting.

There’s an image. No! There are multiple. Pegasus cocks his head. Little white bubbles float around within coloured, illustrated panels. Text occupies such bubbles, and it takes a little while for Pegasus to realise that they’re supposed to…work together. Damn.

Now that, that was more than interesting, that was absolutely radical.

Jefferson pulled his upper body up then placed his foot down from the bench to where it once rested. Then he wrapped his arms around his shins then locked his fingers together so he could gain posture. He could feel his back ease down from the strains of a hard surface. At the same time, he was thinking how remarkably strange these AIs were. To him, they undoubtedly represent the triumph of man through technology, and here's Pegasus seeing a comic and a video game maybe for the first time of his life or in a technical sense, his activation.

The A.I hadn’t planned on laughing, but Jefferson’s description of his favoured music awakened a light curiosity in Pegasus, the kind that brightened his eyes and lilted his lips. “I’m sure they do — I’ll be sure to look further into the matter, Agent,” he said solemnly. 

But when the Agent launched into his next spiel, the words tugged much more urgently on Pegasus’ interest. Comic books? Video games? What…what in the world were those?

Video and game? Gosh. Videos were moving images, often accompanied by sound. Games were…well, they were games. Like football!

Video games…What a concept! He could scarcely wrap his head around the very idea — and he couldn’t even begin to consider what a comic book might be. In fact, he was so busy mulling it over, that he nearly missed Jefferson’s additional question: what kind of things did he draw?

"Well, I would like to draw from imagination, but sadly, I often find myself lacking in such a department. So I tend to draw things I see. What did you draw? But I understand, Jefferson, how you feel. I’m not the most talented artist myself," he said, a small laugh jumping in his throat. 

"Well, video games are.. well.. games." he chuckled, not knowing how to properly phrase his sentence. "Only, you play them using a device like this one." he pointed to his tablet. "There are games that you could shoot bad guys, build a city, command an army, play football or any sport for that matter. Here." he tilted the screen to Pegasus as it showed a game of castles and kings. "See? A game." 

He held his tablet over his chest again and started surfing through the cloud servers so he could access is wireless drive back in his room. He remembered leaving it on, just like always, so he could retrieve any necessary files that he keeps in that pod-like device. 

"The thing is, you need to give yourself a bit of a new perspective. Put yourself into things that might be strange because you’ll never know if you’re going to like it until you try it yourself."

The A.I’s head flopped to the side as the Agent spoke. Wow, wise and casual. Not a combination he’d expect - but it was definitely one he could appreciate. He thought of Concord’s wisdom - serious, somewhat square wisdom - on the subject of preference in the animal world. He’d turned out to be all kinds of correct. But Bismarck! He was another wise/casual combo. That Agent had actually taken the time to explain what a square was. Very valuable information, in Pegasus’ point of view.

"I’ll be sure to keep that all in mind, Jefferson," Pegasus confirmed. And he certainly would! He kept a lot of things in mind — but he had, however, let his casual speaking slip away a little so he added the word "man" to the end of his reply. Phew. That’d do. He smiled.

But Jefferson’s next question had him wincing and biting his lip a little. He’d had this conversation not long ago, with Lincoln. But at least he knew what to say now.

Eversince the real Dawn of Man (which contemporary historians consider as year 2000) humankind made significant efforts to preserve what humanity had achieved. The progress of technology made everything possible that Jefferson could enjoy music from five centuries ago. He had new ones, two year old or four year old albums of the modern bands like Cartoon Heroes, BVCI, and Hello Gulliver. "Well, don't laugh. But these are what I call Five-Cs. These are really old songs. Way beyond the both of us. They sound really good though. You should try to listen to them sometime." he smiled. Jefferson pushed his glasses up his nose bridge and bent his head backwards to see the vast space through the large glass window.

Drawing is such a human thing to do. So is anything related to the arts. Apparently Pegasus is doing it. They never failed to impress and scare the hell out of him at the same time. They have so much potential.

Turning around to take him in the opposite direction, over to the radiology wing, he had her at a loss for words again. “I didn’t,” she confessed candidly. “I’m not a doctor. I was pre-med at uni, did biology and nursing, but I didn’t make it to med school.” Once, that might’ve been a sore spot to discuss—Helena didn’t think herself particularly prideful, but she had trouble getting over her lifelong dream. She had wanted to be a doctor, more than anything. “I didn’t have the money. So I enlisted.”

But looking back on her experiences, the countless lives she had saved both directly and indirectly, as the soldiers under her charge would continue to fight for humanity—she no longer had any regrets about it. “I don’t have a degree, or a license. But I keep up to date with med tech and I’ve been trained to handle real emergencies. I’ve been out here, working for nearly six years. And I think what I’ve learned from experience shows a lot more of my skill and aptitude than a sheet of paper, yeah?”

"Oh." Jefferson glanced back at the leaderboards. He was a bit stung by the fact that she gets to sit on the high chair when he's the real doctor in this bay. One thing brought him back to his feet though, the Director trusted her capabilities, the team trusted her with their lives and she has served with obvious distinction in the span of her stay. Clearly, he deserves to sit on the floor. If her skills got her this far then it is only fair to throw the educational attainment away. Obviously, she's good, maybe even the best and he's about to find out how much. "Biology and nursing is a pretty good combination." he said.

She noticed his stress on ‘actual’ fighting—was there any other kind? This was a war, and they were going to be dropped into the worst of it, hence the ‘elite special force’ designation. She couldn’t help squinting at him, confused and slightly concerned. Was he worried about having to engage in active combat? She was open to answering any and all questions, but this one…it made her nervous. Was he going to be able to pull his weight around here? While Helena once had blind faith that the Director made his choices for a reason, she had been through enough to know better now.

Or maybe she was reading too much into the question. What if he was asking because he was (unusually, for a medic) bloodthirsty and eager to shoot some Covvies? She knew a few like that. They signed up for vengeance, just as much as a sense of duty, or for money, or something to do. But as long as he could follow commands and act under pressure, they wouldn’t have a problem.

"Depends on the demands of the mission, and the discretion of your team leader," she shrugged. "Concord, my CO, tends to keep me in reserve as long as possible. But the fight usually finds a way of getting to us. And of course you know what has to be done when someone calls for a medic." He wasn’t completely green, after all. To get this far to be noticed by the Director, he had to be capable of performing his job.

Helena managed to tend to them for almost a year now, he sees no reason why he can't try to be like her.

Jefferson cleared his throat.

"Reserve huh.." there's no need to tell people that he could hold his own, to be honest, he's not even sure if could should the need arises. Eversince his close brush with death, fighting was something he tried to improve on. "I guess I'll just find out myself, I just hope it won't be soon enough." he tried to laugh it off. "I know how to use a gun, don't worry about me Chief." then his unusual habit of giving people nicknames started to kick in. He figured it would suit her since she holds a higher position in the unwritten rules of 'being new'. "I'll get used to all of this somehow." he looked around a bit and then glanced back at her.

She did not comment on whether or not he was socially inept.

"No one in right now. Everyone was cleared for duty after we left med base." As confirmation, they were heading towards the wing of private recovery rooms. All the doors had been left open, each outfitted with the standard hospital bed, monitoring equipment, tray table, chair, viewing screen, and a few locked cabinets filled with supplies.

To his initial question, she replied, “Apart from the usual post-mission flood… Well, Freelancers train hard, sometimes to the point of hurting themselves.” She would’ve liked to say it was limited to bruises and sprains, typical athletic injuries, but there was the knife accident… “And there has been the occasional inter-agent…altercation.” To phrase it delicately. Should she have warned him that the instigator of many of those disputes was on his team? Hm. Well, Phoenix had been keeping a lower profile as of late. And at least Jefferson could step in if it happened during a Beta team meeting.

They passed by the wing where the private recovery rooms were located. They were all empty. He scanned each room to see all the amenities it offered. It wasn't as different when he was still on tour aboard UNSC Tempest so he's pretty sure he could force himself to adapt in this environment. He could see various medical supplies from bandages and gauze, iodine, disinfectant, antibiotics and biofoam canisters through the glass windows of some cabinets. They are well supplied for a ship this size.

He didn’t quite wait for an affirmation of whether or not that was cool - he was too caught up in analysing his choice of wording (was buddy a friendly term?) - and soon his own back was pressed to those cold, hard tiles and he was staring up at the ceiling. He entwined his fingers together and rested his hands on his stomach. “I have not taken the time to appreciate the Observation Deck from this angle, I must- I’ve gotta admit.” He laughed a little. He was pretty bad at this whole, casual speech thing, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t putting him in something of a better mood. Maybe that’s why Bismarck did it all the time? Clever guy. Should get Calvin or Lyra to do it.

But at the negative response to his question, Pegasus frowned. He moved his hand to his hair and ran a hand through it absently. Only realised he was doing it when his path was obstructed by the ground he was now lying on. Dammit. “That’s a shame,” he said softly. It was a little more than a shame, though - he sighed a little. He just wanted to know if she was okay. Alive. “And no, we weren’t really friends, I was just, um. Was wondering.”

He blinked up at the ceiling, stewing in his thoughts a second. Cooking and becoming more tender by the second so he metaphorically took himself off the heat and turned his attention to Jefferson’s tablet. Which he actually hadn’t noticed was singing, until that point.

Pegasus just told him if his tablet was serenading him. From a piece of sophisticated technology (technology still being the keyword) it was a rather amusing remark. It was not stupid, he can't use that on units. They're just not used with the things that would surround normal humans and Jefferson finds it unfair to use the word on them. It's coming close to a kind of naivety that's almost adorable. He had to give it to Peggy though, he knows the word 'serenade'.

"Ah." Jefferson didn't give Pegasus too much time to react when he realized what the unit meant. "I'm just using this to play music. I work better with music, so I'm just going to play this if you don't mind buddy." he turned his head to Pegasus and smiled. "Kind of feels good huh?" he asked the man beside him, not really looking since he's checking something in his tablet. "Just laying here, I mean. You can't really do this if you're staying in a military ship like I did back in the day." then he placed his tablet back on his chest. "The thing is, you need to give yourself a bit of a new perspective. Put yourself into things that might be strange because you'll never know if you're going to like it until you try it yourself." Eversince meeting Ara, Jefferson felt he have this moral obligation to teach these units how to live. They are interesting and it's just wrong to hold them to their true potential. He might be doing a good job or maybe he doesn't.

And as requested, Helena did not ask him for further clarification on his other remark, for the sake of both of their comfort levels. After only knowing for a few minutes, doing otherwise—pretending she didn’t know what he was getting at—was obviously cruel. That was like deliberately asking him to stuff his foot, if not his entire leg, down his throat.

Moving on to his query, she did a quick calculation in her head of the dates. “Well, I was recruited in the second wave of agents. Coming to a year, I think.” Had it already been so long? Sometimes, it seemed like just yesterday that she’d first stepped off the Pelican in the hangar. But thinking about how their ranks had changed so much since then was a harsh reminder. Most of the original agents were gone now. And the A.I.s were different, too. She shrugged. “There are a lot of slow days, when no one’s in and you’ll still have be on duty at your desk, but… Time goes by faster than you’d think, overall.”

She managed to stand as a field medic for a load of people in this ship. Just going through the numbers, she is doing really well. He could only think what would happen if five different agents would come back with bullet wounds all over. It could've easily spelled a medical bay break down. Somehow, it's comforting to know that he'd be working with someone. There are tasks that he preferred to do alone and this is not one of them.

"A year huh.." he mumbled as he gazed onto the table that she pointed out. He wasn't really expecting an answer for that, he just blurted the words out to let her know that he was listening. At the same time, he's trying to convince himself that he could try and last as much as she did and maybe more beyond that. Little by little, he is beginning to grasp the kind of life that he would be having from here on. The table didn't look so bad. The chair looks comfortable and the desk is spacious. It has two holo-screens, and a work space for specimens. Maybe he could place a small potted plant here, like a mandarin plant.

He frowned. His thoughts were on anything but idle chatter, but if a change of pattern was in order to make this new Agent more comfortable, then so be it.

“Oh, yeah, course,” Pegasus said, raising an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure if he was doing this right. He hesitated a second, before easing himself into a crouch a metre or so away from, and facing, the reclining Agent. “Well it’s quite good-um, it’s radical to have you here, Agent Jefferson.” 


When in doubt, chuck in a ‘radical’ and she’ll be right. 


"My name is Unit Pegasus," he continued, quickly brushing his hand down his chest. "But a lot of my friends call me Peggy. It’s also much more casual, or as you say, not extra polite," he added, a hopeful lilt shifting into his tone.

He stared out at the stars for a second. Blinked. There were so many yet this ship was so lonely. Or maybe it’d just felt that way lately - or at least, more so than usual.

Funny, that was, when he literally had company in his head again now. (Well, not that there was much of an ‘again’ about it.)

It was enough to make the corners of his lips jerk up in a smile. It was something the old Bismarck would say. God knows what the old veteran was teaching the others. He was amused on how he tried his best to fit into the description of not being extra polite. He silently appreciated the effort that this unit is giving out just to communicate. Its social ineptitude gave him out, along with his introduction as a 'unit'. The fellow standing over him is an AI, no doubt about that. It was in this moment that Jefferson realized the categorization of names. Jefferson, Missouri was discussed in his 21st Century American History, so is Olympia, Washington, Bismarck, North Dakota, and Helena, Montana.

"Pegasus huh?" he smiled. "Peggy."

The other one was Ara, so obviously these guys are constellations. He placed his tablet over his chest and inclined all his attention to Peggy. "It's radical to meet you too Peggy and I'm really sorry for my rudeness. I can't really stand up. It would be so much trouble for the both of us so just, bear with me here." then he went on and continued to swipe screens in his tablet, minimizing all unnecessary windows.

"I can't stop being in love with you. I can't stop thinking about you. Well what am I supposed to do?" another song started playing. It was more mellow, sounding almost like late 1900s.

Well, Pegasus was making a point of facing his fears. It was stupid that he was scared of the Observation Deck, just because it was where…yeah. Just because it was the Observation Deck. In fact, most of his fears were stupid! Especially now they’d proved to be so restricting, binding, like chains that tethered the mind and body to the crumbling ground.

You couldn’t be tethered to the ground when you were in space, and you couldn’t be tethered to anything when your namesake was the most free-spirited of legendary creatures. A horse that sprang from the wounds and battles, to rise into the sky and spread protective and magnificent wings across the night. Triumphant. Resilient. 

Nothing like him - - and he was done with it.

So he stood next to the door, next to the wall. He remembered when his own battered body had collapsed in this very spot - well, no, he didn’t remember that at all. But he did remember focusing the last of his energy into the task of activating Annapolis’ enhancement. Which had apparently been a pretty good move because, well, she’d thanked him for it later. Turns out she would’ve died if he hadn’t done it.

But that wasn’t really all that made it special - what made it important to him was that it’d awakened just that little bit of trust between them. Maybe it had made her see that he wasn’t so bad after all. And he wasn’t. It was a shame that-

"Oh, you can’t keep letting it get you down. No, you can’t keep letting it get you down."

Ah. How fitting.

Pegasus blinked. Leant back a little, bracing himself against the wall with his hand, peered through the door. Took a few stumbling steps back because, idiot he was, he’d lost his balance. When he regained it, however, it came to his attention that there was a lone figure on the floor. 

Oh, there were a multitude of concerns here. Pegasus himself had been walked in on during a time of reflection, and he wasn’t sure how much he’d appreciated Lyra’s presence, as much as he liked her…but then this guy was unfamiliar and also probably cold. Those tiles are pretty cold and pretty hard and not at all comfortable. 

He squinted one eye and rubbed the back of his head. What do. 

Pegasus relaxed his shoulders, and came to a decision: he’d go see if the guy was okay.

He was already scanning the Agent as he approached, but only when he got close enough did the full facial recogni-

This was a medic. From the medical base.

Where they’d left Annapolis.

Pegasus stopped in his tracks. Time seemed to freeze over in an icy gust of anxiety, realisation, and a twisted little feeling of hope.

"When the morning comes." the song continued in a discreet volume.

Jefferson set his tablet aside first to get a better look of the person standing beside him. He recognized him as the new medic. Not only that, he recognized him to be the new medic that they picked up from the medical base. The medical base that suddenly roared in a mighty buzz when the ship started unloading some agents.

The senior medic only glanced back at Jefferson upon his conclusion. “Why’s that?” She would’ve thought an ‘old doctor’ would’ve been reassuring; when she first signed on, Helena had not expected that she would be the sole member of the medical staff, calling all of the shots. It was a lot of responsibility for a combat medic. Despite the way she spoke and carried herself, Helena wasn’t even thirty yet. She had several years of field experience, yes—but she wasn’t technically a doctor, either. Did he have a degree, though? Helena had studied the agents’ health records when the Director uploaded the new dossiers, but those files didn’t divulge much in the way of service history.

Maybe she would ask later, though an insecure part of her hoped the answer was ‘no’. It was hard enough getting the agents to submit to treatment without potentially being undermined by her co-worker. The morally upright, professional side of her disagreed. Maybe Jefferson would have more knowledge or different methods to contribute. She was still the ranking medical officer, regardless. There had been no preventable fatalities under her watch, and hoped the record stayed that way.

Before he could even answer her question, Agent Helena inclined her interest more onto proceeding with the orientation. She was the medical supervisor, as far as their service dates are concerened and it's only proper that he shut himself up and listen to what she would say. She doesn't look like someone who'd be cruising in her thirtees and he tried to reason with himself to whether he should be bothered or not. In the end, the answer would be the same, she's in the leaderboards and he wasn't, she served longer alongside these elite warriors, he just got here and only had breakfast as far as meals are concerned.

"Older doctors are hard to work with." he said, following behind Helena like a lost puppy. Jefferson almost bumped into things as he wasn't aware of the medical bay's layouts and his eyes are preoccuppied with 'other' things. "They stick to what they know, not use it to find something better to be honest. Besidesm you're a sight for sore eyes and please.. Please don't ask why." he chuckled. Jefferson gave up on answering her rebuttals but it's not like she would take his words seriously.