UN Special Forces Poland Research Base

[albatross]

Tiger glances at Khris and he can see emotions warring on her face. Her cautious hope fighting with her grief. The news of Rock's sudden healing is as much a surprise to her as it is to Khris. Unlike him she had heard of such things, but her knowledge had made her more skeptical not less. She had been sure the healers would fail.

"I want to go see Rock." Tiger says slowly. Because she needs to see it to believe it? Or for the same reason she wanted to be there when his body was brought in? She didn't know.

Struggling to compose herself, wiping away tears of shock as she walks Tiger makes her way into the Poland base. Above ground is an airfield. An elevator in a hanger takes them into an underground base. Not a huge open cave like in Vietnam, a converted mine with long tunnels leading to a few scattered caverns.

Dancer and Peacemaker had put their robots on ships and taken a jet to the base. As Tiger and the others approach the underground medical wing in the Poland base they find a modern looking hospital in the midst of a mine tunnel. Upon entering, they are lead to the well lit hospital room where Rock sits up in bed chatting with Dancer and Peacemaker.

Rock takes one look at Tiger and begins screaming. Hysterical, terror filled. Peacemaker and Marv attempt to calm him but he brushes them off as if they were leaves. Tiger turns around and walks out of the hospital. A few minutes later, Rocks screaming stops. His breathing ragged and shaking with fear.

[dakota]

Khris was caught off guard as Rock freaked out. " Calm down , boy. What the hell is wrong with you? Tigger just wanted to see how you were doing, same as me." He intentionally left out the reincarnation part.

[albatross]

Rock is still trembling and shakes his head, confused. Doctors and and one of the Egyptian pyschics, Dante and Bel start ushering everyone out.

Rock says, "When I see her... She...the" His eyes roll back in his head and he faints. Dancer is crying and Marv gently takes her arm to bring her out. Peacemaker steps out after them.

[dakota]

"Peacemaker, go find Tiger for me, please. don't let her go too far while I figure this out." Khris asked as the girl was leaving. He sat down by Rock," It's okay, you're safe here with friends. What was that about? You know Tiger is your biggest supporters, right?"

[albatross]

Peacemaker says, "I will." And she goes to seek out Tiger.

Rock looks at Khris and says, "I don't know what happened... I.. I..."

The eygptian psychic grabs the arm of the doctor, "Doctor, a word in private please." The doctor frowns, but the psychic insists, "I have a diagnosis."

The doctor pauses then, "Will he be Ok alone for a moment?"

The eygptian nods, "He will be fine as long as Tiger doesn't return and he doesn't watch any TV."

They step outside for a moment. A few minutes later a psychology team arrives with a laptop. The hook Rock up to some monitors and start showing him images on the laptop. They start with common objects, animals, boring stuff. Eventually they transition to pictures of the other members of the team. Rock is fine with pictures of Dancer, Peacemaker, Marv, White, Jeckle, Dante, Bel, Akane, Roan and Khris. They talk to him for a few minutes before showing him Tiger's picture. They ask him questions about her. Ask him to describe her. Ask about his feelings. Then they show her picture. Rock recoils, collapsing into himself in terror. He screams.

They turn off the picture and wait until Rock recovers. The doctor and the psychologist look to the psychic. "A phobia."

The psychic says, "Not an ordinary one. Don't show him any pictures of the demons. It will trigger the same response or worse."

"Can you operate mentally?"

"There is residue of psychic damage from the demon. Psychic surgery won't heal this. You'll need to use conventional methods."

The doctor and the psychic retreat to the hall to continue their discussion, while the psychologist talks to Rock.

Rock asks lots of questions about the possible treatments for phobias and then says, "I'll start tomorrow. Early. Five A.M." He looks at Khris, "Tell Tiger that I will be back. I won't quit."

Exhausted, his eyes drooping. The doctors usher everyone out to let Rock sleep.

[dakota]

" He must be relating Tiger to his going after that thing Do what you need to do to help him, I'll work something out with Tiger." he said to the medical team. He gave Rock a thumbs up," I know you will kiddo, but you rest for now and get yourself some rest."

Outside the room, he looked at Marv," I want security on him 24/7, people we can trust with him. I don't want anyone in there poking and prodding the boy intil he's back to rights. I gotta find Tigger and tell her what that was all about."

[albatross]

Marv nods, "I'll take shifts with the others." He pulls Dancer aside and sends her to find him a chair.

Khris finds Tiger waiting in an office set aside for her. Peacemaker is with her looking at the books the U.N. staff choose for Tiger.

Tiger is standing, pausing in her conversation with Peacemaker.

[dakota]

Khris waited in the doorway,"I can wait"he said, stepping back into the corridor, far enough that he isn't eavesdropping on the conversation.

[albatross]

Peacemaker says, "I was just leaving." She bows to Tiger and moves to the door. Just before she leaves she looks back. As she departs she says to Khris, "I'm going to find Dancer. Do you know where she is?"

[dakota]

Khris nodded," She's Marv, setting up a watch for Rock." Once Peacemaker left, he looked at Tiger, and explained what the doctors had said.

[albatross]

Tiger sighs. "A phobia of only four things in the world is better than being dead. We'll destroy the demons and then he will only be afraid of me."

She looks up at Khris, her eyes are are filled with guilt and pain. "I'll talk to the doctors. I'm going to ask them to take Rock's treatment slowly and do it right. No timetable for return to active duty." She shakes her head, "The plan was for us to use three robots to team up on lone demons and overwhelm them. And that is what we'll do."

She steps closer and says, "I need you and the others to find another team member for Peacemaker and Dancer. You can pick anyone but Vessel. He resigned to join Division One. The Gates team has replaced him with a huge girl, black feathered wings who can teleport. I need a name by tomorrow."

Tiger looks at the floor, "Rock's robot was destroyed. We have one spare, so now there are no spares. The current director is being blamed for failure of the operation. The U.N. Security Council will announce a new Director tomorrow: me."

[dakota]

"Sure, I'll round the two of them up shortly." Khris nodded, then couldn't maintain his surprise, " They what? Tigger, that's quite a responsibility. You'll do great." He embraced her," Except I'll see you even less. Wait, " He backed up to hold her at arm's length," does that make me the director's bitch?" He smirked.

[albatross]

Tiger blinks at Khris, "I'm sure most of the base will think I'm the bitch, but mean it differently." She sighs, "It is a big responsibility, but we'll make time." Her eyes cloud over for a moment. "A week ago I would have jumped at the chance to replace the director. A decent scientist, but no knowledge of combat. But now..." Rock killed brought back to life and suffering terror.

Her voice is tight, "Next time we'll do it right."

"I'll need to announce Rock's replacement when they introduce me. Find someone to partner with Peacemaker and Dancer while I work out the rest."

[dakota]

"I'll make you make time for me, Tigger." Kissed kissed her again and breathed a" Congratulations" before heading back towards the infirmary to find the others watching over Rock." At the same time, he pulled out his comm unit," Yeah, can I get the summary of all the active robot operators, both personal reviews and scoring. I need it right away." He showed his credentials to justify his request.

[albatross]

Three teams are on the base. Peacemaker, Dancer and Rock. The other two teams are the Gates Foundation team of Vessel, Veil and Merrow - but Khris just heard from Tiger that Vessel is being replaced. He has met Veil - the one who was looking for an arranged marriage. If she was betrothed to Vessel than his leaving for division one would be a big disappointment - division one were those who intended to attack the demons directly. All dead as far as Khris knew. Merrow was an aquatic alien, but not too impressive with the shield generator so far.

The other team was the Egyptian team: Dragon, Foxglove and Zee. Khris knew the dragon was a dragon hatchling, whatever that meant. Some kind of experiment maybe? Foxglove was the dangerous young woman they had met in Japan. He knew Tiger was paying her for information, and that she was trouble, but little else. And Zee, who seemed more like a robot than a human.

The scientists had assigned them all aptitude scores, but those scores hadn't necessarily been born out by real work results.

Aptitude: (the number calculated by the scientists)

Dragon 600+
Zee 500+
Merrow 500+
Dancer 400+
Peacemaker 300+
Rock 200+
Foxglove 200+
Veil - less than 200.

In the actual results, Rock ranked number one.

Shield Generator Rating:

Rock - one degree of magnitude higher (shield indestructible to all normal attacks)
Dancer, Peacemaker, Foxglove and Veil were all at the same level (shield vulnerable)
Dragon, Zee and Merrow were all further behind.

In terms of piloting ability, Merrow, Zee and Dancer were the best - though the others were all doing fine.

Of course, the fact that the aptitude and the results didn't match up meant that some part of the picture was missing.