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'Your next energy turn-in is this coming Tuesday,' Quartz had sent the message to his new charge via a courier from the General Operatives branch. 'Have one of the Gen Ops captains ferry you to the Dark Kingdom as usual, then report to me directly for your hand-in. I have an office in the lower west wing.'

' - Quartz'

This was the message he'd left for Chrysotile. Quartz had only been instructed that he was being given a lieutenant to train, and a name. As a member of the Intelligence branch, this wasn't exactly a problem -- he'd pulled Chrysotile's file and begun sifting through it immediately, looking for his background history, any notes of commendation, any demerits. Anything that said what sort of s**t show Metallia was sending him to work with.

Quartz's office in their grand fortress was a small and mean enclosure, mostly tenanted by a worn wooden desk and a mismatched chair; he'd improved it with the addition of a pair of cheap filing cabinets and a plastic cooler for ice and wine. Otherwise, it was currently mostly papers in a few small piles: reports he was working on filling out, background information he'd pulled from some of the older files to review, those sorts of things. A magazine advertising its annual wine review poked out from beneath one of the stacks -- a tempting diversion.

Quartz sat with his feet up on the desk while he waited, gold boots heavy against the wood. A file was open in his lap, and he thumbed through it idly -- but mostly he was interested in the glass of red wine on the table nearby, which he sipped from at intervals that were slightly more than periodic.

Chrysotile would arrive, or there would be problems. He'd find out which, either way. There was no point in really wondering about it.

Quartz belatedly looked up, taking in the crispy turned out young officer in front of him. He glanced back down at the file in his lap, then made eye contact. "Emory Counsel," he confirmed. "Transfer from Chicago. A legacy appointment." His voice drew out the syllables of the word 'legacy,' rolling through the L with an obvious note of criticism. "Here to make a name for yourself outside of Daddy's shadow, I take it." He didn't wait for an answer -- but he did take a moment to sip at his wineglass again.

"You have an evil goatee, Lieutenant," he said matter-of-factly. "Get rid of it."

Looking up at Chrysotile, still standing at attention in the doorway, was giving Quartz a bit of a headache. He shook his head. "At ease. For ******** sake, just have a seat." He gestured to the cooler on the floor. "Tell me how long you've been in Destiny City, Lieutenant Chrysotile."

Chrysotile looked jarred already. That was good. The first thing any bright-eyed, bushy-tailed lieutenant like Chrysotile ought to learn was disappointment.

Learn to be disappointed but do your work anyway. The disappointment's inevitable, and so's the work. If you can't handle both, we're both wasting our time here. I've got no sunshine for you.

"Just under a year," Quartz repeated back, still glancing periodically down at Chrysotile's folder. "And in that year, no one's considered you for promotion? We've seen people make captain in as little as a month, before. Why do you suppose you've been passed over?"

Quartz leaned back in his chair, letting it tip up onto its back legs before falling forward again. He took another sip of wine.

"No one's ever going to promote you for meeting your quarterly metrics, kid," he said flatly. "Not in this outfit. I'm in the Intelligence Branch, you might as well get used to thinking of yourself as working for the Intelligence Branch, too. So here's your first assignment, as a member of the Intel division. I want you to figure out why some people get fast-tracked for promotion and others don't. What they have in common. You can tell me your answer the next time you report back to me, and I'll see how well you did. Use whatever methods you think make the most sense. In the meantime . . . "

Quartz picked his legs up off the desk and settled them on the floor. He let Chrysotile's small file flop back onto the desk.

"Your first lesson for the day is understanding why you were assigned to me. I've got two files here."

He picked two other folders out of the pile on his desk and slid them across the table to his new subordinate. They were each a little thicker than Chrysotile's folder, but neither looked especially substantial. "This is my file," he said, tapping the first folder with his knuckle. "And this is the file for General Schörl in the Special Operations division," he indicated the other. "General Schörl is my direct commanding officer. That makes her your direct commanding officer, above me. I've given you all the parts of each file you have clearance to access, at your rank. Give them a read."

At a lieutenant's level, Quartz's file was descriptive, but not very explicit. It told his story in clinical terms -- his former place of employment and capture, the name and details of his old life, the name of the officer who'd caught and been assigned command over him -- all this spelled out on the first page. The next few pages were neat printouts, a series of reports in Schörl's own words summarizing her periodic progress on Quartz's reconditioning. Even at Quartz's level, most of their contents were redacted, aside from sentences here and there. The version Chrysotile was given was nearly all blacked out -- to the end result that details and methodology were screened out, leaving only vague phrases from which the reader was meant to draw a basic understanding. His service record was short, but it listed the missions he'd participated in and rough scorings of how he'd done -- with particular notes of approval for his self-motivated efforts in tracking the Dark Mirror senshi Amytis as well as his information-gathering which had led to the further capture of a few other senshi and knights over a short period. This was concluded with a note of recommendation for placement in the Intelligence Division. His folder showed a promotion date in late May.

Still, if Quartz's file was pared down, it was nothing compared to the mostly picked-over skeleton of Schörl's file that he handed to the lieutenant. At her rank, even the mundane details of her service were sometimes pared down to generalities, in order to preserve the army's confidence in its chain of command. Her file showed an apparently splotless service record, some commendations and dates of promotion, some brief notes regarding certain types of missions she'd excelled at, compared to others, and -- of course -- a cross-reference to Quartz's own file.

"Go ahead and give them both a read," he instructed. "Let me know when you're done."

He drank while he waited.

Quartz had had to refill his glass twice in the time it had taken Chrysotile to read through both files. At least he was taking his time -- that was good.

"What I would like you to glean from this," he searched for the word, "review, is that you have not been assigned to me because you are promising. You have not been assigned to me because you come from an impressive military lineage. I am not well-regarded in the Negaverse, except as General Schörl's great experiment."

He set his glass down.

"You've been sent to the s**t-show, kid. You should accept this assignment for the embarrassment that it is. You came here to Destiny City to make a name for yourself, and you probably think that makes you someone who looks like they're trying to make it on their own, fair and square. Actually it makes you look like you're coming in acting like you own the place and you're better than everyone. You don't have to actually think that -- people will see it anyway. It can't have escaped your notice that you've been here a year and barely managed to befriend any of your coworkers."

Quartz leaned back in his chair again. It wobbled a little more unsteadily, this time, but he didn't fall.

"Now that you've been assigned to me, your career's officially been sentenced to an untimely death of miserable obscurity. But congratulations, Lieutenant -- now you really do have to start from the bottom and work your way up. No one thinks I'm worth two shits, so they won't think you're worth two shits either. I'm literally the only person here who expects to be impressed with you anymore. And here's why."

He rapped on Schörl's folder with his knuckles again. "If you make me look bad, I make Schörl look bad. You don't ever want to ******** do that."

He stared hard at Chrysotile. "Do you have any questions, Lieutenant?"

Quartz studied Chrysotile hard. He was behaving, in some ways, correctly (yes sir, no sir, nothing sir), but his reaction wasn't -- well, he didn't seem to be getting over it instantly, unsurprisingly.

"Suck it up, buttercup," Quartz said smartly. "Either you can make the best of your s**t situation or you can't, but if you want to wallow in your own sadness, well -- that's a strategy that has worked for me in the past -- " He raised his glass in a toast in Chrysotile's direction. "But don't do it stupidly. Get drunk and feel sorry for yourself on your own time, if that helps. But get your goddamned work done, and not just by the metrics."

He blinked. "Speaking of which, you'll be picking up a third of my energy draining quota from now on. You'll be moving into my line of work -- I don't want you engaging in enemy combat if you don't have to, or antagonizing the enemy. That's not your job anymore. Your job is to keep your head down and gather information without gathering notice. You're a spy now. Spend some time thinking about what makes a good spy."

Quartz put his glass down. "Next week, you and I are going to take a walking tour of Destiny City. You didn't grow up here, so you need to make sure you know it like the back of your hand. We'll be picking out landmarks for you to memorize -- if you're ever getting your a** kicked in a fight, and you need me to pull you out, I need to know what the nearest landmark is I can teleport to to find you. It's a better method than memorizing every intersection and having to picture it in your head."

His tone was still cool, unconcerned. "You don't want your coworkers to be impressed by you," he said. "This place is full of sharks. Do you get what I'm telling you, kid? You're better off not riding the fast track to fame."

Quartz slid a business card across the table. Lazarus Klein, it read, Massage Therapist. There were some accreditations behind it. At the bottom was a cell phone number and an email address.

"Here's my contact information, when you need to call me for energy turn-ins." Chrysotile's information was in his folder. "Any questions, Lieutenant?"

Quartz gave Chrysotile a look that said, quite clearly, I've had a few. But also a look that said, even more clearly, wrong answer.

"No questions? That's certainly an interesting choice for a member of the Intelligence Branch. Well, in that case, Lieutenant, no -- you're dismissed. Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you."

He didn't stand or salute, but simply flicked his hand in the direction of the door. Begone now, child. I'm done with you.

This was going to be a long assignment.