<div class="floatleft">(http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/c8/3a/49/c83a497a08787b1ec184bf4e995dc170.jpg)</div>For the duration of the journey of the 13th Recon, there was a presence that moved around with them in a way similar to a ghost.  A civilian placed with them for the investigative purpose of learning everything possible, documenting every notable detail they came across or experienced.  At the first settlement, it mingled with the local indigenous people to get cultural notes, observe physical differences and document other notable intelligence.  There was also the difficulty in keeping it from indulging on the mead, which was now stored inside a backpack alongside other things for future study.  This presence was known as Antoinette Danescu, a thirty one year old so-called 'occult investigator' who recently lost the man she loved after fourteen years worth of a relationship.  If she had not already have had connections to the military through him, she wouldn't be here and she wouldn't be willing to do this.  As far as she was concerned, this was her 'going out with a bang' act.<br/><br/>She had been seated with the STRYKER during the larger duration of the journey, glued to her books and studies if not killing her liver with alcoholic consumption.  Antoinette was rarely sober but she didn't change from its effects.  Instead, it just made her stay mellow and numb, neither happy nor sad.  It didn't detract from the need to be social when it was required but she felt out of place among the soldiers of the 13th Recon.  She wasn't a soldier and during combat she was a liability.  Luckily, she knew how to fire a gun and this is the very reason she carried a .38 caliber underneath the black leather trench coat adorned over her rather risque style of attire.  Underneath the jacket was a fishnet shirt over a black tube bra that went horizontal across her small breasts, giving view to the majority of her pale, slightly toned flesh.  The rest of her attire followed the combat boots and cargo pants for the purpose of carrying multiple items in various pockets.<br/><br/><em>"C'mon, Miss Danescu.  We gotta get out,"</em>said one of the soldiers, earning a delayed reaction when she pried her nose out of her book.<br/><br/>She didn't seem to register his words at first.  Instead she stared past him to the horizon beyond the opened door of the STRYKER vehicle.  A decent five seconds later, she took hold of her sidebag, slipped it around her shoulder, and climbed out to join the other military personnel.  Her eyes fell back to her book, clearly having found something of immense interest.  She had a few questions for their new companion, Niko, at some point but the need to cross the bridge took precedence.  Urged to keep her eyes ahead of her, Antoinette sighed out in mild exasperation and closed the book only to tuck it into her bag.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: andale mono;"><strong>"I thought you military types were supposed to be fearless,"</strong></span>Antoinette said with a neutral tone, derisive and goading in nature towards Jessie's distress of heights.