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Jaden N. Walker~

~Psychologist/Nurse

Jaden looked almost disappointed as Andrea retreated at their presence, taking note of it in-spite of his mildly deflated enthusiasm. Aw, but that took all the fun out of it. He'd been hoping he could put their relationship in a forum that he could observe... but it seemed that the girl was even more reserved then he'd thought. She didn't like crowds. The again, it was unlikely that anyone here would. The most brilliant minds in all the world were being gathered here, and it was a common trait among the brilliant to be reclusive. Often the price for quality was a the mark it left behind, and people of quality were often seperated out from their fellows, till the point when being alone was simply the more comfortable environment for them. The Joesph Dilemma. A reference to the story of Joesph and his brothers, he the chosen child, held on high above his brothers, eventually causing separation and enmity between them...even hate.

Yes, he supposed he should have assumed such a thing...still, what an odd mind they both had... he turned a smile to Free. "Heh, while I appreciate the offer of a tour Mister Williams, I assure you that I don't want to trouble you unnecessarily. Particularly when I seem to have robbed you the opportunity to speak with Doctor Lark." he gave a slight hum of a laugh. "We seemed to have scared her off." he raised a brow at the programmer, looking rather at ease. "I'm sure Echo would be more then capable of giving us a tour herself if you've other pursuits. After all, I'm here to help relieve people's stress, not cause it."

Free Williams. So this was the man capable of programming a human mind...? He was too...easily ruffled...too easily forced into accommodating for others. This painted a rather interesting picture, really. He was clearly not used to dealing with other people...but at the same time, he seemed to be trying, even if his social ability wasn't yet to level of finesse. Before, he hadn't really known what to think about a man capable of programming an artificial mind...but now the answer was obvious. A Gepetto complex. True, on a level virtually unheard of, as the man had ACTUALLY made an essentially living and functioning companion to fill the void in his life, rather then merely substituting it with imaginary persona's placed on inanimate objects, but none the less, that was surely what it was.

Perhaps even a Pygmalion complex, if he eventually fell in love with his creation. Yes...this was certainly fascinating. That spoke volumes for Echo as well. That her base purpose and function was to be...what was the word. A friend, a companion. More so, a friend and companion to one who possibly held a more idealistic vision of what those terms meant...

Fascinating...

It was sad when things went wrong with his plans, but there always tended to be a silver lining, always a lesson to be learned in defeat, always something new to focus his attention upon. Sometimes, even, he found the greatest lesson to learn after a defeat, is that you have been defeated. Acceptance of a loss, could teach infinitely more then many might think. Andrea had been scared off, but it didn't mean that he couldn't learn from this...

The dull scratching of the needle on the edge of the vinyl was the first sound that caught Quincy's attention in her slumber. It was that repetitive, low hum that she used to fall asleep to back when she was a child waiting up with her mother for her father to return home from work. She had never been able to stay up late enough to finally see him, but the next morning she would always wake up in her bed again knowing that her father had taken her there from her little spot on the velvet covered sette in their living room. Now all she had left in her concious recollection was the familar scratching that she couldn't explain why it made her feel good inside.

"...cy...incy....Quincy...." a female's voice continued to succeed in breaking through the barrier of darkness that sleep brought yet at first she didn't respond. Normally she wasn't such a heavy sleeper except for a first time in an unfamiliar place. Quincy had taken to believing that it was just her body's way of forcing her to get used to such a change. It had gotten her into trouble her first day of basic training - she remembered the very angry face of her RDC as he shook her awake and she tumbled from her bunk. "Quincy..." the voice continued again, and somewhere in her mind it sounded like her mother.

"Nuh now mum, give me a fiver..." Quincy suddenly murmured, frowning. Whatever it was, it could wait couldn't it? Suddenly, in a slightly louder tone Echo called out again.

"Captain Fairchild." Quincy's eyes opened and slowly she looked around. That's right, she wasn't at her childhood home. This was her new room in her new assignment. "I refered to you as you requested but you did not respond."

"That's alright Echo, you were just doing your job. Is everyone here then?" the woman replied slowly sitting up in her bed. Her hands were still clutching the picture of Daniel which she placed next to her photo album with one last glance before smoothing her hair back with one hand.

"For the time being Captain, yes. They are beginning to congregate."

"Wonderful, thank you Echo that will be all for now. I suppose I will make myself known." Quincy rose from her bed and stretched her limbs out to their full extent out from the center of her body. She certainly wasn't amazingly tall for a woman, but standing at 5'9" she was certainly above average. Checking her appearance in the mirror of her bathroom, she fixed the tight standard bun her hair was usually done up in to make sure nothing was loose before leaving her room and pocketing her keycard in the hidden inside pocket of her trousers typically reserved as a space for money or something of the like.

Normally she would have made an extreme effort to appear in full dress, but she knew she was not among this new group of people as a Naval Captain and perhaps she would be less intimidating without her rank insignia and ribbons flashing in front of the others. That and even she liked the idea of being able to "fit in" once in a while. With a leisurely pace Quincy wandered the halls taking in more of Atlantis. She heard voices every once in a while but did not see anyone until she made it back to the main lobby.

Several people were nearby, but her first order of business was to speak with the military personel near the entrance. "Gentlemen, I trust that everything is going well?" she began, standing before them. Quincy must have startled them as they looked around and, upon seeing who it was, gave the customary salute they had been taught to do to a higher ranked official. She merely chuckled and shook her head. "At ease, though I do appreciate it."

"Captain." the taller of the two responded. "Including yourself 7 have arrived that we have been briefed would be arriving."

"Excellent, carry on gentlemen." QUincy offered a smile and a short wave before turning on her heels and looking around the lobby once more. How on earth did any of them ever earn a great enough right to so much luxury? It would certainly be nice for most but to her it was almost boardering on too much excess. It was time then after all to find the others who had also arrived and at least make an appearance. Following the sound of voices she wandered for just a bit more until she came upon a small group of people which included the one other man she had already "met" so to speak. At first she merely observed as she approached, not wanting to push her nose in where it might not belong, but after all she had to do it at some point and now was as good a time as any.

Clearing her throat Quincy finally met up with the small group and offered a welcoming, practiced smile. "Forgive me for interrupting, but I heard you all talking and thought I should follow it to the source. I'm glad to see others have arrived, and to see you again Mr. Williams." she said with a polite bow of her head. "I do hope I am not intruding though if I am forgive me."

"Well rest assured Mr. Walker that although I'd rather be in my lab tinkering with different aspects of Echo's personality, I would like nothing more but to show the two of you around. Besides this is Echo's first day here in Atlantis as well, and I want her to familiarize herself with her new home," Free said in response to Walker's brief pitch about having Echo show them around. He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear as he turned to Sophia and smiled that warm superficial smile he had trained himself so well to do. He was quite a nervous nelly at the moment truth be told, but he remained resilient and tackled the problem head on as he usually did.

"Then Sophia it shall be, " Free replied warmly as he was about to continue on down the hallway before being interrupted by Echo's voice again. "Free, it seems we have a problem back in the barracks area. Mr. Marccotte was caught tinkering with the access pad to his room by Officer Kallisti, and she requests your presence...she seems quite agitated Free, shall I prepare some tea to soothe her nerves?"

He sighed at the situation and somewhat frowned a bit. As he turned his back to the two he removed a small PDA from his pocket which was linked to the video feed, and reviewed the incident. He also briefly glanced upon the personnel files of Officer Kallisti and Mr. Marcotte to get a better insight on what he was dealing with.. "Echo please inform Freya to meet us in the lobby with her detainee. Also inform Freya that I will rarely answer to summons, if she needs anything in the future, direct her to where to find me," he chided defiantly. Military, police officers, rent-a-cops, he hated them all. "Oh and disregard the tea...good suggestion though Echo," he chuckled as Echo replied back with a warm your welcome. His recent bout in a federal prison didn't help his distaste for authority any more than pouring gasoline onto an open flame in the middle of a dry forest. He had access to everything...despite his lack of clearance. If there was one thing Free was known for was his spontaneity as well as his massive curiosity, which was the sole reason he had really agreed to continue on with the tour. He was truly excited to have a look at the mini-sub and all of it's features, and nothing was going to stop him...he was a man on a mission...nothing would stop him except...

He sighed upon hearing the voice of Captain Fairchild. He spun around to face Fairchild, and glanced down at his PDA momentarily pulling up her file. So she recently lost a husband...whatever...as long as she doesn't assume to push me around we'll have no problems," he thought to himself. He was sure she had been briefed on his file quite a bit due to the fact that he was still after all under direct custody of the military. Like any of that mattered though. Since he had been picked up by the government, he had broken rule after rule that they tried to impose on him. First was the curfew...he showed them a thing or two after he went missing for damn near a week. Time and time again they would try, and time again he'd defy them all the more. He broke protocols, damaged property, and showed blatant disrespect to his handlers. So why keep a guy like him around? Well it's simple really...his mind. He was truly a wonder to see at work as he calculated complex algorithms within mere seconds. Many of his peers found him too much to even keep up with and considered that Free himself was an A.I., but that was just jealousy on their end.

Glancing once again at the personal preferences stored by Echo on each user, he placed his PDA back into his jean pocket, and smiled.

"Mrs. Fairchild...your actually not interrupting much except for a hectic day, and a few brief jokes about my earlier bout of half nudity. As a matter of fact I was just about to take them on a tour of Atlantis...first stop, the sub docking bay," he chided.

Jaden N. Walker~

~Psychologist/Nurse

Jaden's eyes slowly seemed to turn gleeful squints at the prospect of someone being agitated, his smile a positive beam now as Echo finished her report of Mister Williams. Marcotte and Kallisti. He didn't really figure those two to be a comparable pair. Marcotte was... well, even his file painted a rather eccentric picture, and as for Miss Kallisti, her file really gave the impression of the female equivalent to the modern major general. Authoritarian, dedicated, and unrelenting. He supposed he would most closely compare such behavior traits to those of a trained military dog...but he for one knew that such personalities were rarely so simplistic.

Those who put themselves in position to assert a higher authority, were generally not so much loyal dogs, but more often then not had a great deal of personal insecurity or self loathing, which they dealt with by burying it under a sense of duty, patriotism for a cause or authority greater then themselves, and of course, emotional repression and defensive tendencies. Oh he did so LOVE people like that. The other option was a of course the naive hero-complex who actually believed what they were doing was right...but from the file that was most certainly NOT the impression he'd picked up.

Then again, the people who made them were so frightfully incompetent, who was to say?

As Free replied to the message, the voice of the newcomer caused Jaden to turn about, still with the cheerful beam in place. Quincy Fairchild. Ah yes. The good commander and chief of this operation...

His smile faded slightly.

He didn't buy it for a minute.

An impressive resume, a personable attitude, and most of all the recent tragedy that she apparently suffered. Every detail of her file read out like an alibi. If she wasn't the token cover placed here to make everything seem perfectly presentable and unassuming, then he was...well, overly paranoid, but he'd also go with something outlandish, like a Duck. This entire operation was far too corporate, and yet at the same time far too...clean. This woman wasn't in charge, no matter what she suspected, or was told. His smile returned to full blast. She was just the idealistic personable, undeniably competent commanding officer that anyone perusing the personnel files would have to admit was a perfect choice.

All this being said...he wondered if the woman suspected this... probably not. She seemed like a...good person? A Good soldier, even. Questioning the motives of one's superiors was more something someone like himself was prone too, and at a mere glance it was clear they were nothing at all alike.

Still, that was exactly the sort've person he LOVED talking to the most! He chuckled softly, seemingly rolling it into his pleasure at meeting her. "Ah, Missus Fairchild, is it? A pleasure." he gave a nice bow of his head, sparing the generally attached title of captain. Just because he was on military pay, and once again from the lavish decor he greatly doubted even that, didn't mean he he was apart of the military itself. Besides he often considered titles in the military pointless anywhere below colonel...such a nice sounding word colonel.

As Mister Williams brought up the few brief jokes, Jaden chuckled, taking time to note "Those would have been from myself, I'm ashamed to say." he said still with his rather jovial smile, not sounding so much ashamed as delighted.

He raised a slight eyebrow at the captain as Mister Williams finished. "And my but he isn't kidding about that hectic day. Being caught at inopportune times seems to be a slight curse of yours Mister Williams. First The good doctor and myself, secondly Sophia and myself, and lastly this Mister Marcotte and his mischievous indiscretions." he shrugged. "Although now I think about it," he looked over to the captain still with his cheer well and far away intact. "I suppose that the latter would be more the duty of the good captain here."

He gave a turn of his eyes upward. "Echo, my dear?"

"Yes Mister Jaden?" The A.I. responded in her usual cheerful demeanor, still recollecting his request she address him on a first name basis..

"You tell that Mister Marcotte from me that he shouldn't bully you so. And if you truly believe Miss Kallisti is troubled," he check his watch. "Well I'm not technically on the clock yet, but feel free to convey my open door policy to discuss any emotional stress she might be experiencing."

"I shall be overjoyed to relay your message Jaden. Perhaps that will make her feel better."

"Oh I do hope so." Jaden assured in a perfect semblance of pleasant sincerity.

Not likely. Jaden had an almost gleeful look on mischief on his face now. As though he was a victories child that had won a game that only he knew they'd been playing. Though of course he was a far more high minded individual then the common persons one often found drifting about the internet these days, this was the eccentric Psychologists equivalent to a "U mad bro?" and though it was a terribly immature of him, he did so enjoy a good...what was the term...? Trolling? Or was that fishing? Never was much of a fishermen, him. Still, that was probably it. Trolling, now and again.

Quincy could feel the dense air of apprehension and mistrust fill the air and she could not deny knowing that it was because of her. It happened a lot the woman found especially when she met new people who had at least a basic understanding of who she was. These two gentlemen however would most likely know more about her than most, and in turn have developed their own opinions of her true nature. She hated people who could judge so fast or believe the worst at the very start before they even got to know her.

Nevertheless she put on the calm and tolerant front she had learned to use and smiled as they responded. It did not irk her that neither of them had addressed her by her title since they were not technically part of the military, merely hired by them. After all Quincy also didn't expect anyone to respect her at their first meeting - she was a firm believer in respect being earned. She had heard Echo speak of the issue with Freya Kallisti and just to confirm she added to Free's order to have her join them. Quincy was after all her superior officer and she may respond better or at least quicker to a response from the captain.

Looking to Jaden she remembered the face from the files but not the name. He had appeared harmless enough, except for his occupation. She had been to her fair share of psychologists and they always seemed in the end to walk away with more of a piece of her than she was able to replace with feelings such as relief or closure. Needless to say unsatisfying. "The pleasure is mine, sir."

"Well I hope you won't mind if I tag a long. I haven't done much exploring yet, and it's more entertaining to do so with others." Quincy admitted with a slight nod. Realizing that she was being rude to the other woman standing there she apologized and offered a hand for Sophia. "Captain Quincy Fairchild, it's a pleasure to meet you." Quincy was glad that she wasn't going to be the only woman on this whole adventure. Even though it would have been awkward though if need be she had dealt with that sort of atmosphere many times before and could hold her own.

After awaiting Sophia's response she looked back to Free. "Mr. Williams, I am sure you will be hearing this a great deal, but your system is incredibly impressive. The programming, from what I've experienced so far, is sophisticated beyond its time. Congratulations on such a success."

Free wasn't sure how he felt exactly about his creation being treated like some sort of childish messaging system, to a minor extent at least. Certainly Echo could be employed to deliver information when it would take too long to find the person in question or if there was something keeping them busy. Yet to use it for petty jabs at one another? No, that wasn't his intent at all. For now however he would let it go as everyone was still getting used to the system and well living together for that matter. He wouldn't go around with a stick up his a** and their first day.

"Come along..." he repeated himself turning towards the lobby and motioning for the others to follow. Listening to Mrs. Fairchild's comment he smirked to himself. She had better be impressed, it was the think keeping her and everyone else alive down there. "I appreciate the remarks. I am very fond of Echo and what I have been able to accomplish with her. And who knows what my work on her will bring in the future, once we leave this place." Free was looking forward to the prospects of even bigger and better projects to follow if this was all a success.

As he had mentioned they would begin at the sub docking bay. "Well as you all remember the docking bay was the first place you saw when you arrived, other than the lobby of course." Free said nonchelantly continuing along. "But there are some other features we should all probably be aware of before we continue. In case of emergencies, as it were."

The path he took bypassed the lobby - he figured what would await them there and he was only concerned that if they stopped there now this whole ordeal with Mr. Marcotte would take longer than he cared for. The two could wait a little longer the lobby would be right after the sub docking bay regardless. "Here we have our way out of Atlantis in case anything goes wrong, the probability of which being extremely slim." he noted, showing them to the hatch that led to a small submersible which was anchored down. "Inside there are suits that will withstand the extreme pressures of the deep, one for each of our happy little family. For security reasons the hatch will only open when the system detects a malfunction, for instance to our oxygen supply or if the place were to flood. Keeps the expensive merchandise from being taken out for a joy ride I suppose." he added shrugging.


(((sorry this isn't much everyone. I hope that Karu will return soon as I am not as involved with this plotline as I usually am and am unsure of how far he wants to go...carry on)))

Instead of being a drag and falling asleep once more, the tiny little Doctor proudly pushed open her door and peeked from the room. No one was around... so she slunk out, shutting the door behind her with a quiet - yet audible - yawn.
"Oh, Andrea... you need to sleep more..." she mumbled quietly to herself, rubbing her eyes like a small child before slipping to her right and trailing slowly down the hallway. As she wandered the sound of voices eventually reached her ears, a slight wince escaping her.
Huh.
Wonder why.

Normally Andrea would have been excited to see her co-workers, most of whom she'd already met and had short conversations with... but right now she'd rather be on her own.
Well, not exactly true.. but she'd rather explore on her own then with a group. She found she paid more attention when others weren't around... as did most people.

So she avoied the voices and trailed off down a side hallway, wondering where she would end up and who she would find.
If she'd find anyone.