It's shaping up to be a perfectly normal Friday afternoon.

Given the nature of her job, Ananke doesn't really subscribe to the cycle of workdays and weekends like the civilians tend to. Her job is very... 'ad-hoc', to say the least, entirely dependent on whether there are nests that have been discovered or infected needing to be put down. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, there periods where the need for soldiers like her is limited. This happens to be one of those times.

It's a rare relief that she makes sure to take advantage of. Time to recover, at the very least physically (she just managed to take off the last of her bandages last week). Sure, there is paperwork to do (which she has been doing) and reports to make (which she has been making), but with a lack of more pressing matters to attend to Ananke has taken upon herself to 'relax', at least as much as she'll ever allow herself to. She has a mug of coffee. Her papers are neatly stacked in piles of 'done' and 'to-do', the latter of which she's been gradually chipping away at over the course of the day. The compound is quiet, with most people around being nest elimination soldiers like herself with little more to do than busywork.

Barring anything crazy happening, this should be as pleasant as a workday could possibly get. For once.

Oh no. Ohhhhhh no.

North hadn't intruded in Ananke's life in a while, and for a few peaceful weeks the specialist had thought
that he'd simply gotten tired of her. That he'd found some other poor, hapless soldier to haunt, like a poltergiest moving house because the current tenants had died. Alas, she now realizes, as he kicks down her door (her locked door) that this will never be.

Silently, she wonders if it's too late to pretend that she's not in.

"...hello sir." After glancing up to confirm that he is, in fact, standing in front of her and not just some stress-induced hallucination, Ananke immediately goes back to staring at her papers. After all, making sure your paperwork is in order is very important. North carries on like normal, as if the last time they'd met hadn't ended abruptly, awkwardly, and incredibly strangely. "I thought our unit was to be grounded until the next nest was found." Translation: there's no reason for North to be here. Not that this ever stopped him in the first place...

North appears to be a great deal happier to see Ananke than she is to see him, which is strange considering how how their last encounter ended. She'd expected him to at least gloss over it- the rude interruption, the sudden exit on his part, the... the licking, but apparently he's chosen to go the 'ignore everything and pretend it never happened' route. Well, that's fine by her. Just as long as he doesn't go around trying to lick people again.

Instead, the Major decides to invade her personal space again. Not that this place is particularly personal; the specialist doesn't spend much time in here, since her job mostly takes place outdoors, so she'd never bothered to decorate. But it's still annoying that he chooses to do it.

The distinction between her 'specialist' self and the rest of her is what's really troubling. Whatever North has planned, something tells her it's not a strictly work-related endeavor.

Ah, yes. There's that word again. "Personal."

Briefly, she wishes she wore glasses, so she could take them off and not have to look at North so closely. Or acknowledge the way he closes in on her from her seat, like a shark circling prey. "You mean to tell me," the specialist intones, "that the secret service officers, whose jobs are to do their missions in secret, are not secret enough to do this job." It's bullshit and they both know it. They also both know that North will not take no for an answer.

Ananke sighs. "What exactly did you have in mind?" She needs to know how elaborate her lies needs to be to get out of this.

'Understand.' Yes, Ananke would like to think that she understood her superior office well, that she'd come to be able to predict his inconvenient whimsies and flights of fancy. But every once in a while he strays a little farther from... let's be generous and call it 'the socially acceptable', and the specialist is re-evaluating whether or not he is in fact insane.

Because only an insane person could pull half the shit he does on a daily basis and still manage to be (and stay) a Major.

She turns over the possibility that he's saying nothing but lies in her head. His explanation is vaguely feasible. After the stunt the Jabberwocky had pulled with the infected arena she'd had to deal with a few weeks prior it's possible that this too is vaguely related... that, and the demands of an irrationally demanding higher-up is something she's all too familiar it.

There is one word that sets Ananke off on edge a little more than usual. "So we are going undercover... as employees?" It's almost too much to hope. No, scratch that, it's definitely too much to hope for, but if there's the slightest chance that she can obfuscate her way out of what she thinks North is trying to do, she'll take it.

Like she'd thought, there's always a catch. Always a little bump in the road hand-crafted by North to make everything as difficult as possible for her. Ananke frowns at the excuse- just because North is known as a customer already doesn't mean that she necessarily had to pretend to be one too- but his real plan for her has her gawking. This is going too far, even for him. She has done some loathsome things in the name of the military- and even under North's orders specifically- but nothing quite so... so...

"...Sir?" He's already walking away, Ananke following helplessly along, and she'd protest harder if she'd known it wouldn't be falling on deaf ears. But of course that's too much to hope for. "What did you mean by 'last time' wh-" and then it comes to her in one horrible realization. She almost stops in her tracks. "You didn't."

The specialist knows as soon as the words come out of her mouth that yes, he absolutely did. Because of course he did.

What has he done?

It takes her brain a few crucial seconds to process the situation, really think about it, and come to the conclusion that yes, this is happening. He's actually doing this. Not only that, but North planned this, well in advance considering what he's already done as preparation. Preparation being, finding her size (somehow?), getting a dress, and concocting an inane story as to why she should wear it. She knew he'd been put out when she'd refused that day, but the specialist didn't realize his resulting tantrum would take the form of... this.

"Be that as it may," Ananke says, careful not to grit her teeth, or clench the slinky, slippery thing he called a dress too tightly her in hands, "even if you're recognized as a customer there doesn't mean that I would be. If the Jabberwockies are actually using the place as a front, it'd be more effective for me to infiltrate their employees instead." It's a very reasonable proposal. In fact, it's by far an improvement upon... this.

She takes a moment to hold out the garment and look at it. Really look at it. "Besides, this seems like wholly inappropriate attire for... anywhere." Not that she knows what people wear to clubs, but this can't possibly be it, can it?

Ananke wants to ask many questions. Like, why does North insist on doing this? Why her? How did he find her exact size? Why is he like this? Alas, after working under him for so long, the specialist knows that she will never get the answers. North tends to follow an insane line of logic that Ananke can barely comprehend, let alone get behind. She's long since learned it's easier not to even try. The woman looks at the dress again. And then at North. Then back to the dress. It does seem like the kind of thing he'd go out of his way to buy, isn't it?

Briefly, she wonders whether filling for a sexual harassment suit would work at all. Who is she kidding, of course not.

"I see." Her eyebrow twitches at the very thinly veiled excuse the man delivers. Unlikely or not, his reasoning has her boxed in now, and call his bluff would probably b e more trouble than its worth. The specialist really, absolutely, under no circumstances wants to play along... but when he gets like this, North is hard to say no to. Not physically, obviously, but the ramifications of doing so are... annoying at best.

And so, Ananke turns and stalks off too get changed. But not without getting at least one word in edgewise. "Well, if we're going to do this," she asserts, "it'd be prudent for you to keep the food throwing to a minimum." Not to mention the licking. "We wouldn't want to get thrown out, after all."

Lately, Ananke has started to do something quite unlike herself. She catches herself doing it at her desk. In her bed. On the ride to and from missions, when there's a lull in the activity.

She's started to fantasize.

Well, perhaps that isn't the right word to describe it. She's started to hypothesize. Imagining different scenarios that, while not probable, are certainly possible. Sometimes she wonders what it would be like if one day she just stood up and... left. Took a truck and drove into the wasteland and became a drifter. Maybe took up mercenary work. Even if it meant a life of instability and uncertainty, it would mean freedom from the Military and never having to follow an order again.

The fantasies become more vivid the more time she spends with North. And they have never been so strong as when she walked out of her office wearing her ridiculous dress, and looked up to see the Major waiting for her as if he'd followed her there. Knowing him, he probably did.

"You neglected to leave it long enough to hide any weapons," is her most pointed complaint among many. She had managed to fit a knife in there somewhere, but the tightness of the garment meant it had to be hidden on the inside of the leg, which made it considerably more uncomfortable. "What are your plans for if the Jabberwockies catch on and decide to make an example of us?"