Just as the two had entered together, they left in the same way. Cassandra was the first to walk out, holding the door for her superior. It was a small gesture, but one she felt was necessary in the conversation that would begin in just a moment. It wasn't like she had to think hard about what it would be. There were only so many things that could garner the officer to look at her like that.
“I see that your condition has improved in the last few hours,” Officer Grunwald said, starting the whole thing up with no real small-talk beforehand. Maybe the man had no time to spend talking with her for too long, or maybe the man just believed that they had no reason to waste time on the unnecessary subject.
But, nevertheless, Cassandra would play the game set up for her. This was a position she needed to take, ranking stopping her from playing smug or anything close to it. She had a specific role to play here, one that she had played for as long as she had been at the station. And even if she had broken that character earlier that day, there was still the need for it to be remade. The officer needed to see her the same way as before, without the facade being broken. And the woman thought she could handle that requirement flawlessly.
“It indeed has, sir. Time on less intensive tasks seems to have been the right choice in the end,” Cass stated, leading back to the conversation they had had during the time she had first returned from the station. Grunwald had wanted her off the cultists and she had fought tooth and nail to be allowed back in. Now, as a showing of her progress, Cassandra said just the opposite. Yet, the man showed little reaction to this statement.
“I am glad to see you share the same opinion in that regard,” Grunwald stated, not showing off that apparent happiness of his. He had grown into stone, talking professionally and nothing more. That was understandable. Emotion from one side would just leave the other side mirroring it, and Cassandra was during her best to do just that. She would show exactly as much as him and nothing more. “Has the conversation with the automation worked as intended? I was unsure if the positions set out for you would work, seeing as you have worked with the construct before.”
Setting Jules in a therapeutic position was extremely stupid, and Cassandra knew just how wrong it could have gone. If she hadn't reacted positively to it to start with, there was a good chance that it would have done nothing but infuriate her even more. Not that she stated this, instead simply nodding along as if all was well in the world. The asses did indeed shit sunshine.
“It worked flawlessly, sir. There were complications to begin with, I must admit, but the events further on helped put me back in the right spot,” Cass stated, letting the man know of some minor flaw of hers. Seeing weakness in others was always good to make people feel more relaxed. It was a weird quirk of the human might, but damn was it a good manipulation tool. Making others feel at ease around oneself was the first real step to making sure nothing negative came in one’s way.
“By the events after, am I to guess that you mean the further classification of your files?”
What a blatant way to say that he breached Cassandra’s privacy. Sure, due to his position, it was fully allowed to do such a thing. There was nothing stopping the man, be that law or protocol, from snooping around in her file as much as he wanted. But, he wasn't supposed to do that, due to the issues with trust it would cause. And the fact that he stated it so blatantly made Cassandra wonder just what kind of company that had been run during the time she wasn't there.
“The automation notified me about the feeling of me being without control being one of the causes for my… mental inconsistency. The construct promoted the action as something that would help me get back on my feet,” Cass answered. There was no real way that they were ever going to be told that the actual cause of it was that she had said some very controversial things. The work required to gain access just wasn't worth it. “Is there a problem with this cause of action?”
“Oh, of course not!” Grunwald quickly informed her, hands up to showcase openness. The man was clearly having a problem with the fact, yet social constraints were clearly not on his side. The officer couldn't easily force her into showing him the details of her time with a therapist without making it seem like a good reason to go to the press about it. “The rules are in place for a reason, and the mental health of my people needs to be assured. If this is what’s required to keep you in the position that you are currently in, I see no reason to be dismayed by it.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
That was good to hear. A proper speech from somebody backed into a corner. It had become less about Cassandra being alright and more about the officer above her doing his tasks as a leader. It was always a good way to divert attention.
“That is good to hear. I do agree with your ideas about needing to keep us working. With the state of Jared, I believe we will need every helping hand that we can get our hands-on,” Cassandra said, once again throwing a rope to another topic. It was one she needed more knowledge on, more discussion to be made about.
“Indeed,” Grunwald said, that tone of his growing back to a more tactical one. Cassandra hadn't been the only one deliberating what Jared’s word had meant. “The potential damage that would have come from your peers not surviving the fight would have been catastrophic. While you got him to the medical centre, I searched through the car for an assessment. The man had been transporting all the guys back with him during his last run. If Jared had not performed perfectly, there is a good chance that a new force would have been rallied against us. The chance of surviving that onslaught would have been extremely low for us.”
Cassandra thought about firing back with the idea of getting more personnel over to them, yet she already knew what the man would say. It was apparently an impossible idea to get through, everybody else also asking for reinforcements. There weren't enough to handle anything anywhere, so there was little chance of one city being allowed ten more officers on their side.
“I had not known previously that he was capable of such things,” Cassandra said, thinking back to the car. An ambush was a hard thing to get through without losses. The fact that the man had been able to do it alone was something of an achievement. The pain tolerance, the nonchalant mood about being so close with death… just what had that man gotten through before?
“This is not the worst we’ve seen out here, but you are right in how incredible it was to do,” Grunwald stated. “Jared is one of the better ones I’ve had over the years, and his skill is the only reason he’s still with us. But, you would expect that from the one who always went first during the yearly searching through the forest. It isn't his first time fighting between the trees if you can believe it.”
The woman could, in fact, believe it. She had read about the forest and what it held. It wasn't surprising that they had been both trained and experienced fights in that terrain. She had personally not been a part of that regiment, her training having mostly focused on more urban and modern areas. She fitted best into the places that held no grass or trees. Concrete was her friend, one could say.
Not like what the small city here had. The buildings were small, no real cover anywhere, and the treeline was a place she had never fully been equipped to handle. There wasn't any training in store for her around it, and the manuals she had prepared taught little about what there really was in store for her. Each forest was unique, after all, and she needed to adapt as well.
“Do you think there will be more fighting in the forest this time around?” Cass asked, wanting the man’s opinion on the subject.
“I don't believe so. Groups the size we’ve seen are a once-a-decade occurrence. And when they arrive, they mostly dominate the entire place,” Grunwald answered after a few seconds of seeming deep in thought. “If there are other parties out there, I don't believe they will lay a finger on the city, or barely even get close to it”
“I thought you might say that,” Cass stated, her mind wandering for a second, thinking back to what she had seen before they finally arrived at the clearing at the beginning of the day.
“…is there anything that caused this chain of thoughts to appear?”
“There is, actually,” Cass answered, her mind settled on the subject she had at heart. “Since I haven't written a report yet, and with all the time we’ve spent on other tasks, I haven't been able to give a full description of the various locations I came across during the initial search.”
Grunwald’s interest was clearly piqued, the man raising his eyebrows a bit and nodding to show that he wanted to know more this instant. The woman was glad to oblige.
“During the way over to the clearing, a house was found on the way. It was one of the unregistered ones, likely built by an amateur with the tools at hand. It was half-collapsed when we found it, if that sets the picture of it perfectly,” Cass began. “The inside had clearly been used and left suddenly within the last week or month. There were various pieces of electronics that were clearly valuable and very restricted. From the search online during the identification of the objects, some were estimated to be worth over fifty thousand dollars apiece. I realise that I should have notified you of this hours earlier than this, and I apologize for it.”
Her superior opened his mouth, looking like wanted to say something, but closed it again not long after. It opened up again… and closed again. The man seemed at a loss for words. Cassandra tilted her eyes down on the floor for the next seconds, waiting in apparent shame while the officer could get his head together. That was expected of him, after all.
“I… don't think it's as big a problem as you think. Some of your choices in the last hours have been muddled due to the extreme events you saw with your own eyes. Therefore, you shouldn't be blamed for things that you missed during that time,” Grunwald said with a sigh. “If you could send the location over to me, I’ll have it noted down in official reports and you or Jared can take a look at it tomorrow.”
“Of course, sir. Thank you for the help,” Cass said, giving a nod of respect to the man.
“Think nothing of it,” Grunwald assured her. “However… If there are any other occurrences like this, which have happened as of late, I would appreciate it if I'm told now.”
Cassandra didn't have to think long for another event to come up in her mind. It had been the one which she feared most, not because of the repercussions that would come from having excluded it for so long, but due to the image of it still being in her head.
The woman showed her superior officer the scan of the beast that had been found. The human skull on the non-human body was something that still taunted her eyes.