Chapter 10 - Briggs Requested Me Before Anyone Filed A Complaint
Mason Briggs had requested my incoming packet seven weeks before I arrived.
Before Jonah used my name.
Before Price copied the trick.
Before Bell filed the third complaint.
Vale pulled the access request.
BRIGGS, M. — INSTRUCTOR PREP.
Legitimate reason.
Still specific.
“Why me?”
I asked.
Briggs sat across from us.
He no longer looked angry.
He looked cornered.
“You were transferred from Fort Evans.”
“So were six other trainees.”
“You served under First Sergeant Paul Carter.”
I stared.
Paul Carter.
My uncle.
Not biological father.
My mother's older brother.
Retired three years ago.
He raised me after my mother died when I was thirteen.
“What does he have to do with you?”
Briggs looked at Vale.
Vale knew something.
I saw it.
“Don't.”
Vale frowned.
“What?”
“Do not turn this into one of those conversations where everyone waits for the senior man.”
Briggs looked back at me.
“Your uncle inspected this course two years ago.”
I hadn't known.
“What happened?”
“He recommended I be removed as lead instructor.”
My pulse shifted.
“Why?”
“Same reasons everyone’s yelling about now.”
Public humiliation.
Uneven pressure.
Failure to distinguish between stress training and personal punishment.
Paul Carter had written a blunt evaluation.
Briggs kept his position after Sloan submitted a remediation plan.
“Did my uncle tell you I was coming?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I saw Carter on the roster. Previous unit Fort Evans. Checked.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know.”
“Know what?”
“If he sent you.”
I almost laughed.
“You thought my retired uncle planted me in your course?”
Briggs’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
That was absurd.
And emotionally obvious.
Paul had threatened Briggs's identity as an instructor.
Two years later another Carter appeared.
Briggs built a story.
Jonah saw Briggs searching my packet and assumed my name carried weight.
So he used it.
The entire chain started before I knew Fort Talbot existed.
“Did you mark ‘problem child’?”
Briggs looked down.
“Yes.”
That answer landed harder than expected.
“Before I arrived.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly was my problem?”
“Your last name.”
The room went quiet.
Briggs continued.
“I told myself I was preparing.”
“For what?”
“An evaluator disguised as a trainee. Someone collecting evidence.”
“So when the complaint appeared under my name…”
“I thought I'd been right.”
Of course.
Confirmation.
He didn't ask how I could complain before arrival.
He enjoyed the fact that reality seemed to agree with the fear he already had.
Vale asked:
“Why not tell Sloan you had history with Carter’s uncle?”
Briggs looked at him.
“She knew.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Sloan was here for the inspection.”
Of course she was.
“Did she tell you to pull my packet?”
“No.”
“Did she know you did?”
“Yes.”
The same two people.
Again.
Vale leaned back.
“When Jonah's complaint arrived, Sloan knew Carter had not arrived. She also knew Briggs had already flagged Carter because of Paul Carter.”
I looked at the door.
“Where is Sloan?”
Nobody answered fast enough.
She was in another interview room.
Vale brought her in.
I asked before she sat:
“When you saw the first complaint, did you know exactly what Briggs would think?”
Sloan held my gaze.
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you stop him?”
She took a breath.
“Because I wanted to know how far he'd go.”
My stomach dropped.
“You used me as a live test.”
“No.”
“You showed an instructor who already hated my name a complaint with my name on it.”
“I expected confrontation.”
“You got one.”
“I did not expect him to put hands on you.”
“That sentence is not helping.”
Sloan looked at Briggs.
“I needed evidence he hadn't changed.”
Vale stared.
“You were his supervisor.”
“I needed something he couldn't explain away.”
“So you let Rachel walk into it.”
Sloan said nothing.
Briggs finally understood the full shape.
“You set me up.”
Sloan looked at him.
“I gave you a chance to prove me wrong.”
He laughed once.
“Using her.”
Neither could escape that word.
Using.
Jonah used my name.
Price used my name.
Bell used my name.
Sloan used my body.
Briggs used my last name.
And I had spent the morning proving myself to all of them like that was somehow different.
Vale closed the folder.
“We're done for tonight.”
I stood.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“I want my decision in the record before anyone else makes it.”
“What decision?”
I had a certification event in eleven days.
My next assignment depended on it.
If I left this course now, I could lose the slot.
If I stayed under the same structure, everything that happened after would become evidence for somebody else's argument.
“I’m staying in training.”
Briggs looked up.
Sloan did too.
I continued.
“But not under him. Not under her. And not as anyone’s test case.”
Vale asked:
“If the course pauses?”
“Then I miss my qualification window.”
“You understand that.”
“Yes.”
May you like
That was the cost.
Finally one with my name attached because I chose it.
