PMC Recruitment Drive

The other three prospects, Leckie, Sledge, and Basilone, all nodded and/or offered their hands in greetings as the remaining ones arrived to the table, before resuming to their food for a little bit.

Basilone winced a bit at the strong smell of the Vodka, but gave no more thought to it; after all, appearances could be deceiving, as he had learned in the past.

Somewhat later, the prospects came back into a period of discussion again.

"Hey there... do you think they might be setting us up for something? They said we need to come ready for a workout, only to be served lunch... somethin's up," Sledge noted.

"Yeah, well, maybe they'll make us do the trials after lunch, just to see if we can hold back on our food," Basilone replied, nodding over to the testers, who were the same three Medics that they'd met on day one.

"Huh... you might be right about that. Perhaps it might be a good idea not to stuff ourselves then," Leckie suggested, upon which he immediately slowed down his food intake; the other two medics did the same. It had appeared none of the other tables had done anything but, however; second servings were now available, and the table the three were at was the only one that didn't have people getting up... yet.

"So... what do you guys think?" Sledge then asked the other three people at the table.

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Spooks would find an interesting outcome: the Pasta, Meatballs, and Sauce had all come out of the frozen mass-produced area, from which the local grocery store practically had all of the above bought out of it for the day.

The vision would then move to the kitchen, where the food would be mass-prepared in many large canteens, although special care was taken to ensure that the food quality was still relatively high and clean.

Finally, the vision would conclude at the serving table line, earlier in the day, where the chefs could all be seen preparing the canteens to be served, and the hospital doors locked to prevent anyone from sneaking into the place. From here, the vision would end; as a whole, the food was overall honestly prepared fairly well.

Dmitry only stopped when he heard his name mentioned. Then, he saw the sense in what he said. Oh, how he hated it when things he disliked made sense. Looking rather forlorn, he slowly lowered his fork to the table, and leaned back, and sighed. As something of consolation to himself, he took a flask of vodka out from his overcoat and took a quick gulp. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and returned it to its place in his coat.

"I hate to give up free food, but if it means job, I think is for the best."

The other three at the table simply nodded in response, as they turned to see practically everyone else get up and rush for more. Sledge turned to see the recruiters at the far side; they appeared innocuous, but upon further inspection, Toye appeared to have a slight expression of mischief in his eyes... perhaps the call to stop eating was a good one.

"It might be some time, though," Basilone commented. "They'll probably wait for the guys to be almost full before they spring it on us. For now, we'll just have to wait and hope it was the right call..."

"So let's try to while away the time," Leckie commented. "I guess we can start with... our pasts. Yeah; what did you all do before you decided to enlist?"

Dmitry leaned back in his seat, his eyes now mostly obscured by the khaki green helmet he always seemed to wear. His past? Well, that wasn't something he liked to think about, much less talk about. He shuffled around a little bit in his seat, trying to get comfortable before responding.

"I do not like to talk about it."

That did no go over well with Dmitry. The man was only slightly over half his age, and claimed to have already lived a harder life than he had. He shot right up out of his seat and slammed his fist on the table, almost as if he forgot he was drunk. His helmet was out of place from the sudden movement, and his eyes were now partially visible. It was clear there was no real amount of positive emotion in them at this point.

"Really?! Were you born into poverty? Have you known nothing but want your whole life? I don't think so, comrade!"

The other medics turned their heads upon hearing the argument spawn between Gem and Dmitri; Basilone was the first to intervene.

"Hey, hey! Calm down, Dmitri, no need to get upset now... and, Gem; try to be careful on stuff like this... I'd think we all have an odd past to share," he stated; Sledge and Leckie both nodded.

"Well, I don't have much to say, admittedly," Leckie commented. "Raised here in the City of Progress in a middle-class family, got a decent schooling, went to medical school... but found no job. Heard about this place, and so here I am."

"Hum, my story sounds exactly the same, save for one part," Sledge added in, "and that's regarding my social stature: my parents were originally homeless until my dad saved a banker from a mugging; the banker bought him a house and gave him a job as a bank teller, but even then, we only got a modest apartment downtown."

"I learned to shoot straight from my mother, who came from a family of wandering hunters. As to my medical experience... well, I'll admit, I got close to none, but I like this kind of medical thing, and so I came," Sledge concluded.

"...well, it sounds like I might have the most diverse of these backgrounds here... unless you two perhaps have it?" Basilone stated, looking at Gem and Dmitri, seeing if they had a more interesting story to tell about their past.