Surly?<br/><br/>Stubborn?<br/><br/>Dr Christopher Lascelles was many things. But surly? Or stubborn?<br/><br/>Well, maybe stubborn. After all he was the son of an aristocrat, a man born to be obeyed and followed even if this new world he inhabited hadn't quite reached the level of civilisation where such things were ingrained. Of course there was a stubborn streak in him... a stubbornness that did not make him bend his knee and tug his forelock to the new status quo regardless of whether it was in the ordering of society or his arts and passions. Not that you would be able to tell; Christopher never seemed stubborn, never seemed confrontational. It was wasted effort, wasted energy. Yes he'd go his own way, yes he'd back his side... but he was cunning enough to never do it directly. If you told him to do something he disagreed with he'd of course debate the point but, if ordered he would do it. The fact that he'd also do whatever it was he wanted done in such a way as to not contradict whatever order was given was beside the point.<br/><br/>But surly?<br/><br/>If Christopher was stubborn on the inside but not on the outside he was never surly. Yes he could be rude on occasion... normally in ways that most of these peasants failed to understand but bad tempered? Dr Christopher Lascelles had never been bad tempered in his life. It was so very...<em>common</em>. Breeding and the best upbringing the world could offer had wiped all traces of bad temperness from him. It just wasn't cricket was it? Being bad tempered, being obvious, being such a lout. Christopher was none of those things. He was a man born to the wrong age, a man who would have been perfectly at home in the Regency when culture and manners were respected, when Sir Arthur Wellesley had so brilliantly demonstrated the superiority of breeding over the rabble who screamed for "liberty" and "equal rights". Yes, Christopher was many things. But surly?<br/><br/><em>Surly</em>not!<br/><br/>Christopher had of course read all the files already. It would have been rude and unprofessional not to and in his own mind he was the perfect professional. Not that the so called "professional bodies" would agree... but they simply lacked his vision. Infiltrated by the rabble. He'd read and reread the files, glancing at every detail, every little speck of information that could be of use. Not that he expected it to be worth much; the vast majority had come from facilities within this disgusting country and the standards there were little more than you'd expect cattle or trained monkeys to achieve. Alas, such is the price of talent, of always being the best at what you do... you had to clean up the mistakes of others.<br/><br/>With the files already read there wasn't a huge amount for Christopher to do. He'd heard there were some new staff members coming but he was also sure that Alexandria would organise one of those infernal sitdown sessions where all the staff talked about who they were and what they'd done and why they were all so very very important. Perhaps by now they'd have found someone who could make a decent cup of tea... and god forbid maybe someone who could bake a scone that didn't taste of death. He could of course have simply sat in his office continuing to listen to opera... and he did admit the thought had crossed his mind. While the thought of new victi... sorry, patients... was exciting to him the mundane routine of actually getting them here was far less so. But a man had to pull his weight and so he left his office... locking the door behind him of course... and wandered across to the observation gallery. It was such a pretentious name for a room that was little more than a box with one-way glass in the windows, allowing him to look out at the entrance to the facility where the new inmates came and into the first processing room where they would eventually find themselves. It appeared he had picked his timing perfectly... a small scuffle appearing to be about to break out between the new arrival and orderly and a girl he could have sworn looked like Kathleen Anzaker... a former patient although not one he had got to spend any significant time with. Utterly loyal to Alex from what he recalled. How interesting...