<div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/Dg0ZyMR.png)</div><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Name:</strong></td><td>  Riley Saberhagen</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Location:</strong></td><td>  XCOM Barracks, Sleeping Quarters</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Action:</strong></td><td>  --</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Tagging:</strong></td><td>  Open, Sam</td></tr></tbody></table><br/>Riley accepted the magazines from Sam and placed them with the rest of her gear. With that done, she turned around to speak with Sam. Her voice died in her throat as she saw the bulge in her pants continue to grow. She stared at it, transfixed, her mouth open slightly in surprise. After she managed to pull herself together, she sat up straight and began attempting to answer the Lieutenant's questions. She fumbled a bit, both distracted by Sam's attributes and her attempt to recall the answers she'd been told to give.<br/><br/>"Buh... I, uh, I've been training. My school kind of... stopped existing after the aliens attacked, so when the organization offered me a position, I accepted." That was<em>mostly</em>true. The organization had made her an offer, and her college wasn't exactly ready to continue educating students, but she'd had a nagging feeling that their offer wasn't exactly and 'offer'. Nothing had been explicitly stated, or even suggested, but the tone of the well-dressed man when he mentioned the organization's interest in her 'gifts' as he offered her a carrot implied the presence of a rather large and unpleasant stick.<br/><br/>"I'm some sort of field researcher now; apparently the bureaucrats can't decide if I should be considered 'Intelligence' or 'R&D', so I'm stuck in the middle at the moment. Since they needed some sort of asset in the field quickly, my training was accelerated. They choose me because, ah, 'training a meathead to do science would take too long, and more experienced researchers are too valuable to risk.' So yeah, I'm here because I'm smart but expendable. Fun."<br/><br/>The first part was mostly true, actually. The Intelligence and Research divisions had been arguing over who had primacy over the psionic. From what she could tell, the argument was still ongoing, but had subdued until they could see her combat performance. Her training had been accelerated to get her into a 'viable testing environment' as quickly as possible, but it had also been as minimal as possible. Some of the researchers were concerned that conventional training techniques (breaking people down and building them up again) would have a deleterious affect on her psionic potential. Of course, her death would have an even greater negative impact (although some of the creepier researchers had pointed out that it would allow them to dissect her brain. That line of thinking had been brought to and end not because of the grimness of it, but because there was no guarantee a combat death would leave her brain intact), so she was given the bare minimum of training thought necessary. She was a great deal fitter than before. Only so much could be accomplished in a few months, but she actually had muscles now.<br/><br/>True, you had to feel them to realize most of them were there, but still.<br/><br/>The part about her being expendable was kind of true. The organization wanted/needed psionics for combat, and the only way to know if they were combat viable was to put psionics in combat. They had seemed reluctant to place such a valuable intelligence/research asset in danger, but ultimately advancing their goals required doing so. The 'meatheads' quote was real, if paraphrased. A few of her superiors had been mildly pleased with finally having a viable field asset, although Riley doubted how useful she would be in that regard.<br/><br/>"Have you seen the showers, Riley?  Come on, you have to check them out."<br/><br/>Riley slid out of her bunk and followed Sam. Before she left the room, she turned to the other Valkyries in the sleeping quarters. "Anyone want to come along?"