thecounselor | The Doctor is In

[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.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She hesitates, not sure if there's a right answer - had it been part of her mission to look at the intel herself, or was this more like one of the Director's missions? Complete the objective, and don't ask questions. But in the end she nods, stepping closer to better see the display. ]

There was - there's a video, of a trial like ours. They were investigating someone named Bolton White. And a medical file -

[ But he's got it up on the screen now, and she gestures to it, her expression solemn and intense. ]

...There's no name. But whoever he was...it's amazing he even survived that.

[If that's a wrong answer, he gives no indication. He skips over the video file and opens the medical file instead, something that he can more easily process at a glance. He glances over the medical record, and then scrolls down to the automated records. And keeps scrolling. And keeps scrolling. A frown forms between his eyebrows, and his lips tighten just slightly.]

It appears as if their condition has continued to deteriorate since this incident happened approximately a year ago, but there's no death record and these logs are all recent. Perhaps a better question would be who he is.

[He uses a pen to indicate to her the date of the original report, in late 6971, and then the dates that progress through most of 6972. Then he looks back up at her, something like intrigue and satisfaction in his eyes.]

Who do we know who has appeared to have sustained severe deep-tissue injury, Agent Connecticut?

[ For a moment, she looks confused. Then her eyes widen, as she remembers. The coughing. The black, tar-like substance. ]

...Blaze Dudely? But...

[ She falls silent, looking back at the report on the screen. ]

...He's getting worse.

[He turns back to the screen before the expression in his eyes turns to something more like pride.]

It certainly would explain the sense of...urgency, to his vendetta.

He's dying.

He wants revenge, before it's too late.

[ She's thinking hard, both caught up in trying to figure out the mystery and still, somehow, driven by a need not to disappoint the Counselor. To prove herself. ]

Those machines. He's dependent on them. If we could shut them down, or - or sabotage them, somehow.

[He hums in thought, examining the time stamps.]

By the time stamps on these reports, he administers his dialysis overnight, before his office hours.

[There's an implication, but not a direct order.]

[ It’s one thing to gather intel, to analyze it, to put the pieces together and even theorize about what they could do, how they could change things.

It’s another to think about actually doing it.

CT goes quiet, staring silently at the screen. Overnight. He’d be asleep, unable to defend himself. But not stupid. ]

...He’ll be guarded. Those robots...

Striking the machines while he's not there would be easier.

[During his office hours.]

It's asking a lot of you. You've done well getting us this much information. We can lay low, perhaps organize a united strike or at the very least a diversion.

[But then again, you've all seen how much of a chance you stand against his robots when he expects you to resist.]

[ She considers it. A united strike...Varric, she knows, can fight. Pyrrha, maybe Noctis.

The others, she's not so sure of. Reluctantly, CT shakes her head. ]

The longer this goes on, the more people will die. We have to do something soon.

[ It's already been too long. Too many weeks of waiting helplessly, doing nothing as more and more of them are lost. Just getting the information, as terrifying as it had been, had given her a rush, a sense of accomplishment and defiance that she's eager to replicate.

Besides. She shakes her head, setting her jaw. ]

And if something happens...if we're caught. He'll punish whoever was involved.

[ She won't see anyone else suffer for this, won't watch another execution of someone that might have been a friend, if only they'd had more time. ]

I'll act alone.

[He pauses. Meets her eyes.

He nods. In understanding, or approval, or possibly even pride. It's hard to say. But his lips turn just the slightest amount.]

If you succeed, you will have struck a killing blow. Whatever happens...

[He's been aloof this whole time, the formal, straight-laced Counselor, practically the same she knew from Freelancer except harder, in places.]

You'll be their hero. [Our hero. But it isn't him that she's fighting for, so he leaves himself out of it.]

You're a good soldier. [He pauses, where he would normally address her as Agent Connecticut. Put distance between them, hold her at bay. Instead he tilts his head a fraction of an inch, gives her a half-smile and keeps his expression hidden in his eyes.] ...CT.

[ Oh.. She stands up a little straighter at the praise. Lifts her chin. And then hesitates. ]

...I betrayed Project Freelancer.

[ She's not sure why she's telling him this. If it's a confession, or a boast. If she's looking for absolution, or approval. All she knows is that she needs to be honest now. That she can't leave this unsaid. She'd told Varric, but Varric hadn't been there. No one here could really understand the full implications of what she'd done. Except for one person. ]

I stole intel on the Director's experiments. I downloaded it and I defected with it to the Insurrection.

[ Her voice goes quieter. ]

...The other agents...they came after me. And...I...died.

But if that intel gets...got...to the right people...it was enough to bring the whole Project down.

[He knows. Everything that she says, he knows, he's the only person still alive who knows exactly what information she stole, who knows that she bartered it, where she went, what happened.

She deserves the whole story. Now that she knows everything.]

The Project fell apart after your defection. Agent Texas rebelled. She abandoned the Project, and she convinced Agent York and Agent North to go with her. They broke into the Mother of Invention, and...tried. To steal something integral to the project. The Alpha AI.

Agent Carolina was presumed killed in action during the attack. In its aftermath, the Director moved the Alpha to an outpost of sim troopers and assigned Agent Florida to watch over it.

Agent Washington led an attack that destroyed the Freelancer storage facility, along with the Alpha and most of its fragments. I...was arrested, while the Director went underground. [He said bitterly, with a bitter expression.] By the time that the UNSC reached him, he was already dead.

[ After so many sessions in which he'd refused to betray anything, so many weeks of prying and begging for the tiniest scrap of information, this outpouring is almost too much to take in. She listens, rapt, doing her best to process and analyze everything he says on the fly.

Too much. There's certainly too much to respond to it all. But a flicker of triumph, of victory, makes her eyes light up when he mentions Agent Texas. It worked.

It had worked. Maybe not exactly in the way she'd imagined, but the Director...

Well. The Project had been halted. And hopefully, some pain and suffering had been avoided. ]

...Thank you, sir.

[ She pauses, watching him. Hearing what had happened is one thing (assuming, of course, that it's all true at all), and it's certainly better than not knowing. Still, that doesn't tell her what the Counselor thinks of the whole thing.

But he'd told her the facts. Maybe his opinion on top of it is too much to ask. You're a good soldier, he'd said. She has to believe that he means that.

She nods, and this time, she lifts her chin proudly. ]

Thank you for telling me.

The Doctor is In

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