Authors: Palladian
“Pretty much. We all keep fairly separate schedules here, so we usually make our own meals. Oh, one more thing,” Casey said, pointing to a pad of paper near the door. “The list for the shoppers is here. Just make a section with your name and list your items if you want any food that’s not already here.”
“OK, thanks,” Lex replied, putting a spoonful of sugar into her tea. “I’ll have to look at that later, I guess.”
Casey shrugged. “Don’t worry about it now. If you like, you can join me for dinner tonight so you don’t have to think about it.”
“I’d like that.”
“Good. All right, let me take you downstairs. Clara should be waiting,” Casey said with a smirk.
Lex looked at her curiously for a moment but decided not to ask.
Whatever problem exists between Clara and Casey is between them,
she thought. She followed the blonde straight out of the kitchen, past the staircases, up to the far wall of the building and went through a door to follow a staircase down. They descended two flights of stairs and then came out onto a hallway with a number of doors on either side, the setup reminding her of being back in school, since she could see classroom-style setups through the windows in the top of the doors that she passed. Lex followed Casey two doors down to the left and peered inside as the blonde opened the door.
“I think this is where she said she’d be,” Casey continued.
They saw Clara inside, sitting on the edge of a large desk at the front of the room. The rest of the room had been set up like a classroom, with rows of smaller desks facing the large one in front. Clara seemed to have been watching the door and glared at Casey with some irritation.
“I thought that I told you that Lex was to be brought straight down here as soon as she arrived,” Clara barked, continuing to stare at Casey.
“Come on, Clara,” Casey replied with a shrug, “Lex at least needed to put her stuff down and get herself situated here. How do you think
you’d
feel if you arrived at your new place and weren’t even allowed a few minutes to make yourself feel comfortable?”
Clara continued to glare at Casey for another few seconds before breaking it off to look at Lex. “Welcome back. Why don’t you take a seat over there? The packet you were reading yesterday is in the envelope.”
Clara had gestured to one of the desks in the front row, so Lex sat there. She pulled out the papers and found the five stacks she’d been reviewing the previous day, and felt pretty confident that they were the same papers when she noticed a stray pen mark she remembered having accidentally made on one of the sheets.
“Hey,” Casey’s voice sounded out again. Lex lifted her head to look at the woman, and Clara did, too, with a bit of a scowl. “If you’re still here by lunchtime, do you want me to bring you a sandwich or something?” Casey asked.
Lex smiled. “That would be great.”
“OK, I’ll check on you around noon time, then.” Casey waved over her shoulder as she went out the door.
Clara shook her head at the retreating figure before turning back to Lex. “All right, let’s go over your questions.” Lex found herself shooting Clara a surreptitious glance before beginning, due to the woman’s almost nervous tone. Along with reading on the train ride over, Lex had thought over this question and answer session, and realized that if she was going to be asking these questions to Clara that she’d probably have to pay close attention to the woman’s reactions, since she seemed professional enough to mask most of what she didn’t want to show.
“I do have a few of them,” Lex said as she brought out her notes from the previous day and tried to decide where to start first. “OK, I noticed that in the Probationary Period and Reassessment sections, I read language about being found ‘lacking’ during those times, but with no real explanation of what that meant. Could you elaborate?”
Clara looked surprised for an instant, as if she’d bitten into a hot pepper, before the professional look she usually kept slid over her face like a mask. “Well, you probably know that we’re searching for certain types of people for this team. We do extensive testing and training during the probationary period, as well as throughout your time on the team. If your abilities are not as expected, it may be grounds to drop you, which is what we’re getting at here.”
“Abilities? Such as?”
“Well, for instance, you probably remember from your interview with Mr. Sauer that he took great interest in your martial arts skills. If we found out that our expectations of you outpaced what you could actually offer, it could be grounds to drop you from the team.”
“But I already mentioned that I’m not going to be as practiced as I was when I was younger, or as much as someone who has hours every day to work on it. Does that mean you plan to drop me later on? If so, we should probably just keep it short and get it over with now.” Lex found herself watching Clara closely as she asked each question, looking for the slightest change in expression as a clue to what the woman actually meant but would never say.
Clara appeared annoyed and a little confused. “No, we understand all of that. In your case, we know that it may take some time for you to get back to where you were before, and I understand that we’re planning to teach you some new things, as well. As long as we have a clear idea of the situation we’re going into, there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“So, does this have something to do with potential as well as what I can already do?” Lex asked, still not sure exactly what would be expected of her.
“Exactly,” said Clara, nodding. “That has a lot to do with it. We realize that we may have to do a lot of training and practicing to get people to the level we eventually want them to be at, but as long as you keep up with the regimen we agree on, that’s usually all that’s needed to stay on the team.”
“Well, what is it you’re expecting me to become?”
Clara looked at her with a puzzled expression. “A better martial artist, of course. But, when we do more testing, we’ll be able to get a full look at your potential, so maybe we can start growing you in other areas.”
“So what would that mean as far as the team’s duties? I saw some examples, but I can’t think how I would be able to do anything to help with law enforcement or national security. I don’t have any training like that currently, so I’m hard pressed to understand how I might be able to help.”
“Those were really just examples of things the team might be called to do. Since our abilities as a team are logged into databases that law enforcement agencies across the country can access, when they have a need for people who can do something extraordinary, they call us. We have been able to help out in a number of instances.”
“Extraordinary? In what way?” Lex asked, her eyes narrowing. She felt a little beat of excitement as she asked.
Maybe I’m onto something, now.
In contrast, Clara suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Well, in the different abilities we can offer. As a team, we can offer a number of special things that regular law enforcement doesn’t necessarily.”
Lex sighed. “That doesn’t really tell me anything. What could we offer that normal police couldn’t? Why would we be special?”
Clara stared at her, seemingly annoyed. “You’ll find out more as you become a full member of the team. You’ll discover that your team members can do things that ordinary people can’t. We think you can, as well.”
“What do you mean? Anyone can learn martial arts.”
Now it was Clara’s turn to narrow her eyes as if calculating Lex’s response. “Yes, but they can’t always learn them as fast as you did. And you burnt up the tournament circuit while you were in it.”
Some of Lex’s young life flashed before her eyes and she saw herself fighting opponents at matches, terrified to lose because of the beatings she’d get once she got home. She made a sound of distress and confusion in the back of her throat in response, thrown off balance by Clara’s reference and not understanding how the woman would even know what she’d done as a child. It took her another few moments to regroup, so she looked at her notes as she did, finally finding a new thread to follow.
“I guess that pretty much answers my questions about that. I also wanted to ask about the fact that my responsibilities will be determined over the first six months. Would this include anything I really didn’t want to or couldn’t do? Is this something that we can negotiate until we all agree on the details?”
Clara nodded, obviously relieved to be away from their previous topic. “Yes. Sometime near the end of the probation period we’ll go over with you in detail the things we expect you to work on for the team, and we can work the expectations over until we are all in agreement.”
Scanning her list to find her next question, Lex continued. “I also noticed a transfer clause in the paperwork that kicks in after your first three years with the team. Do people get transferred from this team often? Why would it happen?”
Clara shrugged. “Well, I don’t think anyone has been transferred off of this team for the past five years I’ve been working here. I’d have to look at past records to see if anyone ever transferred to somewhere else. At any rate, I don’t think it’s a strong possibility; we screen our candidates here very thoroughly, and the people we choose generally fit into the team well enough that to remove them would be disruptive.
“As far as why someone might get transferred, as you probably read, there are teams like this one across the country. All team members’ abilities are entered into a central database. The sponsors of the other teams can then request a transfer after a team member’s initial three years if they think the team member’s talents would fit into their team well.”
“I understand the team and sponsors have to agree on the transfer, as well as the person up for the transfer,” Lex replied. “I can tell you right now that this area is my home, and I don’t want to leave. I’d want to quit the team before transferring, but I understand I can’t unless the team and sponsors agree to that, too.”
Clara shrugged again. “I figured that would be your response, but I don’t see there being a high probability that anyone would request a transfer for you. In general, requests aren’t common, and like I said, I haven’t ever known anyone to be transferred off of this team or to want to quit. At any rate, three years is a long time away, so it’s probably not worth worrying about now.”
Lex nodded, mentally noting that Clara hadn’t directly addressed her comment about the requirements for leaving the team. “True, but I wanted to get my feelings on the table, so you know where I stand.”
Clara nodded in return, looking Lex in the eye. “Understood. What else do you have?”
Glancing at her notes, Lex next asked, “Who is the Confidentiality Officer?”
“I am,” Clara answered.
Lex lifted an eyebrow, surprised but now thinking she should have anticipated that answer. “Good. I have some questions about your Confidentiality Agreement. After reading that you could be jailed, probably forever, or killed if you release confidential information about this team, I have to say I’m not comfortable with the idea. Have these penalties ever been enforced against anyone? What if someone makes a genuine mistake?”
Clara sighed. “Really, the penalties laid out are just to underscore the seriousness of what we’re doing here, and what the outcome could be if someone maliciously let out confidential information about the team. If that happened, you or your teammates could die or be terribly injured on assignment if the wrong information got to the wrong people. My general guidelines to you are to keep secret all information about the agency, your teammates’ abilities, the entire team’s resources in general, and any testing, training, or treatment regimen prescribed to you. As long as you stick to those guidelines, you shouldn’t get into trouble.”
She paused for a moment then, studying Lex’s expression as if trying to determine whether to continue. “I don’t know of any time the penalties have been enforced against anyone. I do know that there have been a number of times that people have been given warnings on various teams for revealing secret information. So, you won’t be hit with severe penalties right away; you will be given further guidance about what to keep secret. This is to cover the genuine mistakes you asked about. Anyway, I don’t see it as too different than some of the other requirements for secret or top secret positions in the DC area, and perhaps better than some. Does that answer your questions?”
Lex shrugged. “I guess. The whole idea makes me feel nervous, though.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Clara said with a nod. “I think it’s like any other change: you just need time to adjust. If you have any more confidentiality questions, feel free to ask me anytime,” she finished, handing Lex a card.
Lex looked at it; the card had the initials “MSI” and an address, followed by Clara’s name and a telephone number. Filing it in her notebook, Lex continued to review her notes.
“OK, thanks,” she said with a nod in reply. “Next, I wanted to ask about the section called Testing Informed Consent. I have to say it looked a lot like some of the Informed Consent documents I reviewed during my time at the NIH, like something that medical trial participants would read and sign if they wanted to be in a drug study. Are we expected to participate in things like that here?”
There was a flash of a look in Clara’s eyes that Lex couldn’t get a good handle on before her work expression replaced it. Fear? Anger? A feeling of being caught? Lex mentally filed that away as she sipped her English breakfast tea and listened to Clara’s response.
“No, not really. The section is in the contract since sometimes the tests we do here to determine abilities or mark progress are still new and haven’t been used much on humans. Of course, we wouldn’t knowingly do anything to put our people in danger, so we believe all the tests to be safe. But we allow each team member to opt out of any tests we run if they are uncomfortable with them.”
Lex nodded evenly, watching for Clara’s reactions carefully. “I had one more question about this section. It goes into some detail about the physicians here perhaps prescribing treatments based on the tests run. Why would treatments be prescribed, and are we free to refuse any that we find objectionable?”