The X-Project

Scott and Alison at work - a tactical snapshot.


Alison opened the door to the conference room in the team area of the underground levels, pulling in sound just a bit, just enough to make sure that anything that might have given her away just this second was safely muffled. Bent over the files he was going over and occasionally glancing up at one of the screens in front of him, Scott was working. She took a moment to observe, looking for the small tell tale signs - less tension in the way he moved, files being read over carefully only once instead of twice now. They were small signs, perhaps - but the ones she'd been looking for each day now.

She allowed herself a small smile, nodding just a bit to herself. This was better than at the beginning of the week. More balanced, within and without. People spoke with their bodies, if you knew what to look for, and she didn't envy Doug or what he must have read in Scott's motions, at the beginning of the week. It had been obvious even to her then - it might have been like a howling scream, for the younger man, laid bare in each move Scott had made. There was more focus now, though, in each motion. More calm, she dared to hope. She made a small clicking sound, the back of her heel hitting the doorframe, announcing her presence.

Scott looked up, startled, but then smiled, waving her over. MacInnis - well, he doubted this had been MacInnis' idea, but Morgan's - had sent over updates to the Mistra operative files, and he had been going through them, making notes. Copious notes, actually.

Crossing the room, Alison felt another loosening of tension - her own this time, at both seeing the smile and the reams of notes and post-its on the table, and the myriad files open on the screens. Someone had indeed been very busy. Leaning over the table she looked over the entirety of the documentation laid out, the neat way Scott organized the information flow making it easy to get a sense of the entire picture.

Scott paused, yawned, then reached for his coffee as the printer smoothly extruded another of his tactical summaries. He reached for it with his free hand and then handed it to Alison, knowing that she didn't need to be told what points were his and which had been Morgan's, attached to the file when it had come in.

The sheets of paper were accepted, Alison muffling a yawn of her own and shooting him a half-amused, half-reproachful look over the chain reaction. Reading them over she wandered over to the small table to the side, to claim a mug of her own, knowing the coffee in the machine was still fresh judging from the quantity in there. That done she wandered back, holding the mug so that she'd be able to point at something on the paper as she wandered by him, with a faintly interrogative look.

Scott nodded, smirking a little to say that yes, he saw it too. There were definite trends in Morgan's analysis of his former fellow operatives. Not surprisingly, it reminded him very strongly of the analysis Nathan had provided when he and Pete had first drawn up these files. It wasn't cockiness, per se, but it was definitely a matter of looking at the operatives from the perspective of being more powerful and versatile than almost all of them. Well, that and the pack leader mentality creeping in, too, he supposed.

If she hadn't been busy doing something about her sorely lacking intake of caffeine thus far that day, Alison would have been cooing. Instead she took a few swallows, carefully going through the rest of the data before smiling - it was a satisfied sort of smile, really, as though confirmation of something had been obtained. Setting the papers down in front of Scott, she wandered over to the keyboard and tapped a few keys, bringing up another report and analysis, from months ago. Data scrolled by until Alison brought it to a stop for him to read, even as she allowed herself another sip of coffee in reward. Sometimes, the details you noticed could be put to use in such wonderful ways.

Scott blinked, then nodded thoughtfully. Interesting. That definitely hadn't been in any of the material MacInnis had provided about "recruit" training. Then, that data had focused mostly on the basic process, and the information from Alison and Nathan's little escapade in Leuven had been from a working conditioning facility. It had some interesting tactical implications, he thought.

With a faint sigh of satisfaction, Alison leaned back in the chair and looked over the room. Scott was finding steady ground. There was something big coming up. Big enough, she knew, that having one of those talks with Miles would be required. And even though the loss of the link with Betsy still nagged at her, now and then, she held hope her friend would be all right, and find what she needed somehow. Setting the mug down, she nodded to herself and then shot Scott one of those looks. She had a few hours - and a sense of how they could be spent, now. Planning it was.