0stinato
In Bhaal's name.
That’s what SRG stood for?
Lyster was going to have to pretend he knew that all along.
In his defence – not that he deserved one, he reasoned – every year of his life had introduced a bushel of ripe acronyms, fresh off the plentiful vine of jargon. Most of them meant something, as any good acronym should, but when it came to teams, sometimes it was all Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot this, and Bravo-Romeo-Bravo that. Was it such a stretch to just assume he had been assigned to Sierra-Romeo-Golf-whatever?
Oh well. He wasn’t paid to think. That burden could go to Oscar-November-India agents for all he cared. Unless ONI stood for something too. And what with all the nonsense in this crazy universe, something like that could be possible. Just about possible. Maybe. Millions to one. Billions. Trillions.
Fortunately for Lyster’s general standing as an ODST trooper, and indeed a passably sane human being (the psych report said so), while one hemisphere of his brain was juggling with these massive realisations, the other one was mission-focused. He moved efficiently and didn’t even complain at the tightness of the elevator – not much, anyway, and barely audibly.
All that counted was, when the sergeant started speaking about the situ, he paid attention.
‘What if your name was Charlie Oscar?’ he said to himself in the privacy of his own helm.
So, Kinsley was eccentric, was he? There was a philosophical research paper waiting to be written about that, Lyster decided. The oddest of birds always made it through the wildest adventures unscathed. Or, maybe they didn’t, and the survivors were just so odd – possibly traumatised – that they occupied headlines or made scandalous art of the ordeals. However, Lyster liked to think the reason was more of a cosmic joke. The image of some mad scientist type tottering through a battlefield clutching at his conical flasks amidst the plasmafire and demanding silence was too infectious not to want to believe. Perhaps Kinsley would be that mad scientist, shielded from fatal harm by a forcefield borne of being God’s own favourite character.
When the elevator opened to the pulsing of the shard in the centre of the huge space, Lyster’s hopes peaked as he blinked in the light. The archetype was coming true! But, Kinsley standing before it bore no silhouette of an Einsteinian genius. No hair frazzled out into a lion's mane of intellect; no old-school blackboards flanked him and his creation. He did, however, wear glasses, so that was a point in the right direction.
And behind those glasses… yes, there was a glint in that ever-so-slightly twitching eye.
When the next firefight broke out, Lyster knew who he was choosing to take cover behind; if there was a rocker, this guy was half-off his.
Unsupervised and delighted, Lyster decided to answer Dr Kinsley’s question as he stepped out of the elevator with the group.
‘Um… traffic? Toll bridge?’ He shrugged. ‘Alien invasion? Think it was one of those.’
Lyster was going to have to pretend he knew that all along.
In his defence – not that he deserved one, he reasoned – every year of his life had introduced a bushel of ripe acronyms, fresh off the plentiful vine of jargon. Most of them meant something, as any good acronym should, but when it came to teams, sometimes it was all Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot this, and Bravo-Romeo-Bravo that. Was it such a stretch to just assume he had been assigned to Sierra-Romeo-Golf-whatever?
Oh well. He wasn’t paid to think. That burden could go to Oscar-November-India agents for all he cared. Unless ONI stood for something too. And what with all the nonsense in this crazy universe, something like that could be possible. Just about possible. Maybe. Millions to one. Billions. Trillions.
Fortunately for Lyster’s general standing as an ODST trooper, and indeed a passably sane human being (the psych report said so), while one hemisphere of his brain was juggling with these massive realisations, the other one was mission-focused. He moved efficiently and didn’t even complain at the tightness of the elevator – not much, anyway, and barely audibly.
All that counted was, when the sergeant started speaking about the situ, he paid attention.
‘What if your name was Charlie Oscar?’ he said to himself in the privacy of his own helm.
So, Kinsley was eccentric, was he? There was a philosophical research paper waiting to be written about that, Lyster decided. The oddest of birds always made it through the wildest adventures unscathed. Or, maybe they didn’t, and the survivors were just so odd – possibly traumatised – that they occupied headlines or made scandalous art of the ordeals. However, Lyster liked to think the reason was more of a cosmic joke. The image of some mad scientist type tottering through a battlefield clutching at his conical flasks amidst the plasmafire and demanding silence was too infectious not to want to believe. Perhaps Kinsley would be that mad scientist, shielded from fatal harm by a forcefield borne of being God’s own favourite character.
When the elevator opened to the pulsing of the shard in the centre of the huge space, Lyster’s hopes peaked as he blinked in the light. The archetype was coming true! But, Kinsley standing before it bore no silhouette of an Einsteinian genius. No hair frazzled out into a lion's mane of intellect; no old-school blackboards flanked him and his creation. He did, however, wear glasses, so that was a point in the right direction.
And behind those glasses… yes, there was a glint in that ever-so-slightly twitching eye.
When the next firefight broke out, Lyster knew who he was choosing to take cover behind; if there was a rocker, this guy was half-off his.
Unsupervised and delighted, Lyster decided to answer Dr Kinsley’s question as he stepped out of the elevator with the group.
‘Um… traffic? Toll bridge?’ He shrugged. ‘Alien invasion? Think it was one of those.’
