I'm not sure this even makes sense, but... but. I'm foisting it upon you anyway. ------ This was a job for Gabriel. Infiltrating close-knit cells required finesse and arrogance and an easy smile. Gabriel was the best at it. He knew the government militias better than any other agent at HALO Strategies, Inc. because Gabriel had lived on the outside under deep cover, pretending to be one of the aimless masses.
But Gabriel had done his job too well. He learned too much about the people he was supposed to be monitoring and grew too close to them, grew fond of them. Gabriel went off the grid three months ago, abandoned HALO, his garrison—his brothers and sisters, really—for the working class "mud monkeys" outside the compounds.
Castiel found himself overwhelmed by the task before him. He had never been outside the dome of the main HALO compound. Those fifty square miles had provided everything he ever needed—clean water, acceptable food, and even better than a job, HALO offered him a purpose.
Languages, and the symbols of communication, had always come easily to Castiel. He enjoyed the puzzle of figuring out correct syntax or learning how the precise order of brush strokes could change the meaning of ancient Chinese characters. These skills did not go unnoticed. Teachers tipped off HALO executives who recruited him into service of the company. They talked of preserving the HALO way of life, of protecting the outside world from itself. The lure of doing something noble, for the greater good, had appealed to him even at twelve.
Training had been intense. His fellow recruits became like family. Gabriel and Uriel, the pranksters. Anna, the studious one. Raphael, the troublemaker. Castiel had been the quiet one. He used this to his advantage. In the sparring ring, Raphael consistently got in painful blows, but never could anticipate Castiel's fake with the right. Because he never expected it from “the quiet one.” While Uriel used both size and bluster to intimidate opponents, Castiel found silence to be just as useful.
It was the human part of intelligence gathering that Castiel avoided. His superiors encouraged this, too. Every HALO agent was trained in the basics of each intelligence collection operation, be it human, signal, imagery, or other. During training on how to collect human intelligence, Zachariah continually reprimanded Castiel for staring. For speaking so gravely. For not using colloquialisms and idioms. Zachariah said in order to get information out of the "mud monkeys" one had to get close to them and to get close to them, one had to be able to relate to them. Zachariah said Castiel could never relate to the "mud monkeys." It was that assumption on Zachariah’s part that had Castiel outside, in field, among people he was finding to be very different from himself.
After Gabriel’s defection, the garrison’s intelligence gathering success had faltered. Which meant Zachariah was under pressure from his bosses to produce or prostrate himself at the altar of Michael. Without Gabriel, the garrison lost their most valuable asset in tracking the militias. Following their communications and deciphering their codes and encryptions only worked when Castiel knew where to look for them.
The government militias had gone quiet. They knew HALO was watching, Gabriel had likely told them. Had likely told them how exactly to go unnoticed, how to avoid HALO-operated broadband, and which virtual meeting rooms were not as underground as the militias had been led to believe.
Until Castiel had picked up a local cell’s trail. One of their members had received travel documents using government-encryption on a wireless hub run by a HALO front company. It was the best lead Zachariah's team had received in months.
Team Free Will (1/2)
------
This was a job for Gabriel. Infiltrating close-knit cells required finesse and arrogance and an easy smile. Gabriel was the best at it. He knew the government militias better than any other agent at HALO Strategies, Inc. because Gabriel had lived on the outside under deep cover, pretending to be one of the aimless masses.
But Gabriel had done his job too well. He learned too much about the people he was supposed to be monitoring and grew too close to them, grew fond of them. Gabriel went off the grid three months ago, abandoned HALO, his garrison—his brothers and sisters, really—for the working class "mud monkeys" outside the compounds.
Castiel found himself overwhelmed by the task before him. He had never been outside the dome of the main HALO compound. Those fifty square miles had provided everything he ever needed—clean water, acceptable food, and even better than a job, HALO offered him a purpose.
Languages, and the symbols of communication, had always come easily to Castiel. He enjoyed the puzzle of figuring out correct syntax or learning how the precise order of brush strokes could change the meaning of ancient Chinese characters. These skills did not go unnoticed. Teachers tipped off HALO executives who recruited him into service of the company. They talked of preserving the HALO way of life, of protecting the outside world from itself. The lure of doing something noble, for the greater good, had appealed to him even at twelve.
Training had been intense. His fellow recruits became like family. Gabriel and Uriel, the pranksters. Anna, the studious one. Raphael, the troublemaker. Castiel had been the quiet one. He used this to his advantage. In the sparring ring, Raphael consistently got in painful blows, but never could anticipate Castiel's fake with the right. Because he never expected it from “the quiet one.” While Uriel used both size and bluster to intimidate opponents, Castiel found silence to be just as useful.
It was the human part of intelligence gathering that Castiel avoided. His superiors encouraged this, too. Every HALO agent was trained in the basics of each intelligence collection operation, be it human, signal, imagery, or other. During training on how to collect human intelligence, Zachariah continually reprimanded Castiel for staring. For speaking so gravely. For not using colloquialisms and idioms. Zachariah said in order to get information out of the "mud monkeys" one had to get close to them and to get close to them, one had to be able to relate to them. Zachariah said Castiel could never relate to the "mud monkeys." It was that assumption on Zachariah’s part that had Castiel outside, in field, among people he was finding to be very different from himself.
After Gabriel’s defection, the garrison’s intelligence gathering success had faltered. Which meant Zachariah was under pressure from his bosses to produce or prostrate himself at the altar of Michael. Without Gabriel, the garrison lost their most valuable asset in tracking the militias. Following their communications and deciphering their codes and encryptions only worked when Castiel knew where to look for them.
The government militias had gone quiet. They knew HALO was watching, Gabriel had likely told them. Had likely told them how exactly to go unnoticed, how to avoid HALO-operated broadband, and which virtual meeting rooms were not as underground as the militias had been led to believe.
Until Castiel had picked up a local cell’s trail. One of their members had received travel documents using government-encryption on a wireless hub run by a HALO front company. It was the best lead Zachariah's team had received in months.