DT 2022: Things Bigger Than Me

A short story connecting Alexander Redford by to my own work with his permission.
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“Sir, we transferred the Spartan to the holding room. He’s not up to anything, we gave him a comms pad to pass time but he spent most of the time just reading public weapon forums.”
On a secured government retreat in upstate New York away from the bustle of worldly New York City and ONI North American headquarters, a civilian secretary passed Captain Alexander Redford a tablet as the first thing he saw entering his McMansion-fashioned black site overlooking the Hudson River. Outside the mixed facility, the dull roar of a retreating Pelican aircraft confirmed its takeoff back in the direction of the Big Apple.
“Thank you, Miss Madre. And the rest of the time?”
The long-haired secretary shrugged with indifference but continued, “He looked over some of the assessment releases from his unit from the last year, only content from after his graduation. He also inquired once about updates regarding the two rogue Spartans from his unit but we’ve told him it was still need-to-know. He seemed understanding, just nodded at the camera and continued with his scrolling.”
Redford nodded in acceptance of the report, offering no response to Madre’s assessment. He did ask after a moment, “And you’ve only spoken to him over the intercom, yes?”
“Yes sir.”
The captain nodded at her, “Alright, you can get back to work. I’ll take things from here.”
“Sounds good, Director. You have a sit down with Rear Admiral Ghanem about Spartan Operations in four hours after that. It’s at the Baltimore eatery with the steaks he likes.”
“Thank you,” Redford dismissed the secretary. He opened the camera feed and peeked in on the reinforced holding room. Its interior walls were covered in dry wall but layered with bulletproof titanium behind the wood. The Spartan-III his personnel brought in was short, a common trait for his kind of supersoldier and their inconsistent puberties.
Observing the barely-teenage-teenager didn’t reveal a lot about him, even with the double screen showing his mindless scrolling of military enthusiast for what seemed like ‘optimal holo-sight configurations for the M20 PDW.’ The data stream glance only confirmed what was in the boy’s file: patient enough with authorities, a technical skill for weapons. The usual Spartan behavior, nothing of interest or note.
How very boring of a Spartan. Only asks about his renegade teammates once. Acts exactly how he expects his superiors of him. How child-like, how Spartan-like; Spartan Zachariah Weaver, D111.
Redford let the footage play as he navigated around the estate to four security officers, former orbital drop shock troopers, stood by the sealed two-door entry into the holding space.
“I’m here now, you can go back to loitering the halls. If something goes wrong, just call some of the Spartan-IVs in from perimeter duty. They can handle a rogue Spartan.”
“Understood, Captain,” One of the security officers confirmed the order and gestured for he and his buddies to walk off in pairs down different hallways.
Redford pounded one of the reinforced doors and clicked the intercom button on his datapad, “I’m coming in.”
Zach-D111 shuffled a little bit only offered a quiet “okay” to the announcement. He shut down his tablet, set it aside, and placed his folded hands on the table in view of the camera.
Redford pushed the door open into the holding room and set his own tablet on the table. The boy didn’t move or speak up, his eyes trailed after Redford who took a quick visual tour of the space.
It was a decent holding cell, much nicer than the ones in the basement meant for detaining criminals. This one had a slit window near the ceiling which let in some natural light, enough so to tell it was still late morning outside. The furniture was a simple steel table and some foldout chairs which were also barebones.
Redford turned back to the Spartan, “Petty Officer Third Class, Zach-D111. Correct?”
Zach nodded in confirmation, and gave a small open hand gesture. “And you are?”
Redford didn’t wear any insignias or rank tabs on his black suit and tie, a small ONI pin rested on the lapel but nothing identified him as a superior besides how he carried himself.
“Captain Alexander Redford. Naval Intelligence.”
Zach quickly corrected himself, sliding his chair out from the desk and standing at attention and threw a salute in for good measure. To put it simply, Redford could tell the Spartan didn’t know what he was doing. Was he a prisoner or on duty? A reasonable deduction of thinking, but pointless where they would go.
Redford gave him a quick salute and gestured for Zach to sit with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“How has your stay been?”
Zach looked to the right corner above Redford’s head to think on the question.