The Doctor is In

[thecounselor]

[Dr. Price's office is just about exactly what you'd expect from a psychologist's office in the year 6972. There's a large chair next to an equally large and comfortable couch, and a coffee table within reach of both. On the other side of the room, there's large desk with some kind of a computer screen made of glowing light. The metal walls in here have been covered with dark wood paneling, and the lighting is warm and comforting.

There is one of those shitty brass-handled green plastic-shaded lamps on the desk. Why is it there? Aesthetic, apparently.

The desk is flanked by bookshelves filled with nonfiction. There's of course the DSM-40, right next to the DSM-238. Both editions look about the same age, curiously enough. There are also various other books on psychology, psychiatry, and... Artificial Intelligence?

Huh. Everyone's gotta have some hobbies.

There's a long counter with various kinds of tea and a kettle that sits on the counter next to a button, as well as a small sink expressly for washing dishes. There's also a door in the back of the room that probably leads to Dr. Price's personal quarters (good fucking luck).]

((OOC: This is where you can tag if you want to chat with Dr. Price one on one. Y'all know how office hours work by now.))

Comments

[tuskenlancer]

[ Her throat goes dry, and her eyes open wide in alarm. It's everything she'd feared. She's been kicked off the Project. Worse, she's being punished. Left to rot, because she'd fucked up just that badly.

Except...it still doesn't make sense. Because the Counselor's here too, and he'd said we. Why would he have left the project? And... ]

What...what do you mean, what I don't remember?

[ A note of real fear enters her tone now, her voice wavering. ]

Did something happen? Why aren't "we" with the Project anymore? Where...where's everyone else?

[ Wash. South. All of them. Where are they now? ]

[thecounselor]

[He appraises her with a neutral expression, wonders how much he can test the limits with someone from his own world.]

...The Project - and the war - is over. Several agents were discharged when the Project's assets were returned to the UNSC. Agents Washington and Carolina were reassigned to a conflict on a former colony planet, but from what I have been told they are both alive and well.

[His tone is even and consoling.]

When I was brought on to help with this project, I was not made aware that any agents of Project Freelancer would be involved.

[tuskenlancer]

[ She's reeling.

The Project and the war, both over? She'd never thought ahead to such a time. Both had seemed eternal, a fixed state. And the others...He'd only mentioned Wash and Carolina. No one else. CT shakes her head in bafflement and denial. ]

But...but how can that be? How much did I forget?

[ Her voice is anguished, lost. ]

Did I hit my head? Was there an accident? Why can't you tell me anything?

[thecounselor]

...Everyone here has some level of memory loss. I was not briefed on the extent to which each individual is affected, but the memories should begin to recur naturally within the next couple of weeks

I...am sorry, Agent Connecticut.

[Of all the Freelancers, why couldn't they have just let her go?]

[tuskenlancer]

[ It's not an answer at all. But then, she should never have expected anything else from the Counselor. She looks at him unhappily, then visibly steels herself again. ]

What is this project?

Why are you here? Why am I?

[ That word on her profile. Her supposed crime. She shakes her head, desperate. ]

I didn't do anything!

[thecounselor]

I'm here because this project required someone with...experience.

You're here for the same reason that everyone else is: because you've taken a life. And apparently, those with the security clearance to choose participants don't understand the price of war.

[tuskenlancer]

[ He's still avoiding half her questions, and it doesn't escape CT's notice. Even so, he's giving her more than enough information to process, and she goes quiet, absorbing it all.

That's it, then. If - if - he's telling the truth, the Counselor had had nothing to do with her being sent here. There's no secret mission. No undercover collaboration. She isn't any different from any other prisoner here. She isn't special.

Just like in Project Freelancer. Just like always. She isn't special, and never will be.

She breathes out slowly, then swallows hard. There's something else, something he'd said back in the lobby, with everyone clamoring for his attention. Something that had made so little sense that she'd dismissed it out of hand as obviously, blatantly untrue. But now..

The Project - and the war - is over.

She looks up, stomach twisting in knots. ]

Back there, someone said...they said they were from the year 2008. [ Impossible. Isn't it? ]

And you said -

You said it was 6972.

[ He'd also said a whole bunch of stuff about Earth's history, most of which she's trying to forget, and all of which she's hoping isn't true. ]

[thecounselor]

[He doesn't tell her that they were all there because they were "special," that they wouldn't have been chosen for this program if there wasn't specifically something about them worthy of notice. Just because he didn't point them in her direction doesn't mean he doesn't still know what makes her unique.

Instead, she asks him about the year and he lets the previous topic drop.]

...That's right.

[Said like he's...also trying to forget the other things he learned about Earth's history.]

[tuskenlancer]

[ Of course. Of course he wouldn't give her a break and actually respond to the implied question without being asked directly. She resists the urge to snap, or lose her temper. ]

Is it true?

[thecounselor]

It is. We've both been brought approximately forty four hundred years into the future.

[From the year 25[warthog playing polka music drives by].]

[tuskenlancer]

Then they're all dead.

[ Wash. Maine. The Director...

Everyone. ]

...I still don't understand.

What...what are we doing here? What is this? Why me?

[thecounselor]

It's...more complicated than that, Agent Connecticut. They still exist, in their present. But from our perspective at this moment, their present is in the past.

This Earth is not the same one that you fought to save.

[tuskenlancer]

[ CT just stares at him mutely. This hasn't been helpful at all. She still has more questions than answers, and nothing she'd thought she knew had turned out to be the case.

She thinks through everything he'd said, trying to piece together a narrative that makes sense. ]

This isn't a prison at all, is it.

You said I was chosen. A participant.

It's another experiment.

[ Like Freelancer. ]

[thecounselor]

[He looks at her evenly. Sympathetically.

She was the first one to blow the whistle on Freelancer, even if she doesn't remember that right now. It was her actions, her death that led to the UNSC getting involved, and he should by all rights be angry with her.

But the Director's mission wasn't sustainable. Everything would have fallen apart eventually anyway. He can't blame her for being the first to smell smoke before the fire was visible.

And he can't tell her about any of it because she doesn't remember.]

My task is to see to the needs of the 25 inmates in the Starfield Penitentiary. This is a prison ship.

[tuskenlancer]

[ She gazes at him warily, saying nothing.

The more he says, the harder it is to convince herself to believe him. Not that she'd exactly trusted him to begin with. But - apart from the way he smoothly ignores half of her questions - what he does say makes no sense whatsoever. Four thousand years in the future. The Project, over. The war, ended. Her memories mysteriously (and conveniently) gone, and the Counselor unable or unwilling to fill in the gaps. ]

Okay.

[ It's not. None of this is okay, and whatever he's hiding, she'll figure it out. Somehow. She takes a breath, straightening up and lifting her chin. ]

...So what do I do?

[thecounselor]

[He watches as she shutters herself off from him. He can't say that he blames her. He's handicapped by how much he can't tell her because she doesn't remember (and he doesn't flatter himself by thinking that she won't be even more furious with him once she does).

But she's a soldier. Every freelancer was one of the best and brightest that could be found outside of the SPARTAN program, no matter how they ranked on the leaderboard.

He smiles, guardedly.]

Far be it from me to tell you how to spend your free time, Agent Connecticut.

[tuskenlancer]

[ She scowls, expression darkening. He knows, he knows what she means - knows that her life for months now has been focused on the next mission, on climbing (trying to climb) up the leaderboard. Free time at the Project had been an almost alien concept. There's always something to do. More training. More preparation. Wash wasn't the only one who had pored over his field manuals between missions.

Here, with nothing, no mission, no purpose, she feels...lost. Adrift.

He must know that. And yet, once again, he gives her nothing. A closed-off smile, a non-answer. CT glares at him, then nods once, sharply. ]

Understood.

[ She hesitates, uncertain even of her next move. Does she ask to be dismissed? Simply turn on her heel and go? She doesn't think she's quite ready for that yet, even pissed off as she is. ]

[thecounselor]

It is always hard for a soldier to readjust to civilian life.

Let me know if there's anything that I can do to make the transition easier for you.

[He leaves the option up to her- if there's nothing else she wants to say, then she can take it as a dismissal.]