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"So, to hit both objectives, Nowak and my squad will fly to Saguaro to launch operation at 06:00 on Friday, while Triplicate and his detail simultaneously confront the New York syndicates. A coordinated operation."
Raven CallSign leaned against her desk with her arms folded, looking assertively at the agents standing in her office. The picture lights that hung atop the few oil paintings on the walls cast a warm ambience in an otherwise brutally decorated room. Concrete walls and a stone bookshelf. Black leather furniture and an imposing swivel chair behind an exceptionally organized desk. Everything - and everyone - in this room had its place. She tilted her head and the tips of her jet black hair brushed her shoulder, held back behind the sleek antennae supplementing her hearing aids. "Is that understood?"
The dispatch agents beside Nowak reflexively raised salutes and verbal assents. Nowak stood absolutely still. She raked her green eyes down the line to him, already anticipating him being difficult. His mask prevented clear eye contact, but she knew he was pointedly meeting her gaze. Saguaro City would be physically dangerous but would be the easier of the two missions. She knew it might annoy Nowak but thought he knew better than to challenge her. CallSign waited for him to back down.
The tension began to thicken in the room. "I will ask again. Is that understood?"
Nowak made no move to lift his arm. "Yes, Adianna."
The other agents suddenly recoiled and stiffened. That's disappointing, shoddy training. CallSign did not flinch. There's a detail he clearly doesn't like in the plan. Nowak and CallSign continued to stare each other down. "Everybody else, out." She clears the office without raising her voice. The door shuts behind the last person and the pressure continues to build as they stand off for at least a minute. She finally submits, taking a sigh, uncrossing her arms, and moving to sit in her chair.
CallSign flicks her computer on from sleeping and pulls up the mission details. Nowak stays stationed across the room. She flicks her eyes up to him and then to her side. He follows her command. As he steps closer, she leans back in the chair and gestures to the screen. "Alright. Tell me what part of my assignment you don't approve of." Nowak leans against the desk, ignoring the computer, and looks at her directly.
"We're better used fighting the fucks in New York than Triplicate. And you know that. Why would you deal with the hand-off at all?" he digs. She looks up and meets his gaze, her eyes entirely different from before. Considering. Ever so slightly softer. She pulls her knuckle up to her lip to weigh his words. Ever so slightly softer in return, Nowak continues, "You're not getting to Magpie if you don't delegate more of this grunt work."
She flicks her gaze back to the monitor. Even if she's irritated at how he chose to express it, he's right. Triplicate's abilities are the correct choice to ambush a weapons hand-off. Taking out a national operation by splitting forces and hitting two command centers in one day would be flashy to the higher-ups at MURDER, and she needs to gain edge over the other Ravens. The rumored gathering in New York would potentially mean fighting up to 5 meta-equipped syndicates. She wanted Triplicate's squad to get stronger with large scale combat. But making sure other agents get field practice wasn't her job. CallSign and Nowak could take one city each and tie the whole operation up by noon.
Nowak interrupts her thinking by carefully reaching a hand across her suit jacket to the small Raven pin and giving it a polish with his thumb. He's so effortlessly intimate. Her eyes flick back to him. "I know you're right," she says behind her fist. His hand slows, but doesn't pull away. CallSign rotates the chair until she's facing him and Nowak catches her knee with his, keeping her in place. After a moment passes, she leans her head back onto the chair and huffs, "if you want me to be Magpie you should knock off trying to humiliate me in front of the Crows."
He makes no move to respond, but keeps his finger circling on the pin. She stacks her head and arm on the armrest and lets him continue. It's disconcerting when she can't tell what he's really looking at. Plaintively, Nowak says, "Is it your name that's the humiliating part?"
Her mood darkens. "That's not who I am here." His hand finally falls back to his side and and he regards her. A moment passes, CallSign's eyes stay glued to the reflective glass on his face. What the hell is he thinking? Is she still flustered under his gaze after all this time? She's a Raven for gods sake. She glowers and waits for him.
"Switch the teams and let's go home early," he orders. Asinine. She outranks him in command, she can't have him questioning her authority. Even alone.
"Sorry, do you have somewhere you need to be, Nowak? I still have to get read up for this Absolution council tomorrow morning." Nowak's hands both clench the side of the desk at the same time. Oh, he does know. That's the problem. In unfortunate timing her phone buzzes behind him on the desk, like it had been doing exceptionally often today. And CallSign quickly put together the reason for his moodiness.
"If i tell you that nothing's going to happen tomorrow, does that ease your mind?" she plainly asks. It should. She can reassure the transactional nature to Nowak as much as she wants but it doesn't change the fact that she keeps the nationally renowned hero Pollux wrapped around her finger. And in her sheets. Actually, never her sheets. That should ease his mind too. It never seems to.
Nowak's grip on the desk doesn't loosen. CallSign reaches her arms around him to her phone and pushes it off the other side of the desk. "There. I'm not even going to look. See? It's just you and me."