THE CHARACTERS
R. Harris
D. Jones
M. Kramer
GSGT C. Jackson
CAPT R. Holmes
SSGT J. McEvoy
CPL E. Wolfham

     Deirdre Jones rather enjoyed life on an American Military Base.
     As something of a special government agent, she enjoyed many privileges, and very few responsibilities, other than typing essay-like reports regarding Canadian military changes in the past several months, any political conversations she’d been privy to, and outlining any of her special training that might be helpful to the country to which she now pledged her allegiance without hesitation.
     She enjoyed being in an underground complex, though the lights were always kept too high for her taste, and she normally kept her quarters unlit, except for the clock face, which she dimmed. She kept her dark shades with her, for those frequent times she’d receive a visiting officer who had thought of some question or other that wasn’t in the files, and would come down and speak with her, in person.
     Deirdre was scheduled for an MRI, and a CAT scan, later that day. The doctors told her they wished to see if there was something wrong between her brain and her eyes that made her so susceptible to bright lights. Her own thought was that they wanted to see what was different that allowed her to see in the dark without the use of night vision equipment, and see if it was able to be duplicated in their own ranks.
     She did not, of course, voice this opinion, and simply responded with a “Yes, sir” when the request was made of her.
     She had been reading the news reports regarding the goings on in Canada with interest, and was particularly interested in the fact that a Defense Minister had been appointed within a day of the noxious cloud cover over Nova Scotia.
     She voiced this to the base commander, in passing, to gauge his reaction, but made no more mention of it, when it was apparently ignored.
     Deirdre Jones had met General Sharkey on a number of occasions, and she was somewhat unsettled by his odd questions regarding things about her physiology that she had told nobody. She always got the impression that he knew more about her than she did, and he always gave her a case of the creeps.
     This was doubly unsettling in that nobody else that she had encountered had that effect on her.
     Deirdre mainly kept to herself. She was usually in her quarters writing reports as her workday, but could be found in the rec room watching the news, or reading newspapers and periodical magazines, in her off time.
     Recently, a young soldier working under the Quartermaster had been sitting himself at the same table with her, and even striking up small conversational topics regarding what was going on in the news, or things he’d overheard other soldiers gabbing about.
     He had also been trying to keep up with her during the running portions of PT, but had found that she was surprisingly fast; and quite nimble when she took time to run through the training obstacle course.
     Deirdre had also been considering inquiring of the base commander if she would be allowed to qualify with weapons for the American Military. After so many years carrying a sidearm, at least, she felt naked and vulnerable without anything of the sort, now.
     But that was for later.