CURRENT DATE CORRELATION: JUNE 1915 AD
LOCATION: NEW YORK SECTOR / NORTH SHORE SHIPPING DISTRICT
VANGUARD ACQUISITION STATUS: INITIALIZING
To the average surface citizen reading the morning papers in the summer of 1915, the United States was a fortress of proud, peaceful neutrality. President Woodrow Wilson publicly maintained a strict policy of non-intervention, and the bustling streets of Manhattan ran red, white, and blue with isolationist pride.
But David's tracking arrays told a far more complicated story. The European meat grinder was hungry, and hundreds of young, idealistic Americans were already slipping across the border to enlist early in the Canadian Expeditionary Force or taking secret berths on British merchant vessels to join the fight. They were men driven by a raw, unoptimized urge to participate in the conflict, and now, the first silent wave of them was drifting back to American ports, broken, discarded, and entirely unacknowledged by a government that technically forbade their early service.
Deep within the upper offices of Bater Ltd, the corporate net was closing with absolute precision. Selene's strategy had proven flawless. The administrative desks and executive suites of Bater Labs and Bater Engineering were entirely staffed by highly capable, impeccably dressed women. They were managing the massive influx of modern capital with clinical efficiency, and through Selene's subtle social tutoring, several of her top secretaries were already attending high-society galas, smoothly drawing the attention of young military logistics officers and early bank directors.
"The front infrastructure is fully stabilized," Selene purred, stepping into David's private office and setting a leather-bound personnel ledger onto his desk. "Two of our chief account managers have just accepted dinner invitations from the senior aides to the Governor. The data lines are planting themselves beautifully."
"Optimal," David replied, his green eyes flashing as his internal network suddenly flagged a priority telemetry feed from the harbor. "System, isolate the maritime tracking data."
ALERT: SECLUDED ARRIVAL DETECTED
VESSEL: BRITISH ROYAL MAIL STEAMER (CHARTERED)
CARGO: EXOTIC HUMAN CAPITAL / REJECTED WOUNDED VOLUNTEERS
TARGET RECOGNIZED: SUBJECT MARK DAIDLY (FORMER SARGENT, CANADIAN INFANTRY)
David reviewed the biological file streaming across his HUD. Mark Daidly was a proud man, a skilled carpenter from Queens who had left his wife and six-year-old daughter to fight in the trenches of Flanders under a foreign flag. A high-explosive German artillery shell had torn that life away, leaving him with a shattered right leg that had been hastily amputated at a dirty field hospital near the coast. Now, he was being quietly ferried back to New York on an off-the-record transport, facing a grim, agonizing reality: a disabled veteran in a pre-welfare era, unable to work his trade, watching his family slide into absolute destitution.
"Subject Daidly has entered the parameters of our acquisition protocol," David stated, standing up, his tall, chiseled human form moving with mechanical grace. "He possesses twenty-six months of raw trench combat experience and a psychological profile anchored heavily by familial loyalty. He is an ideal baseline asset for the security vanguard."
"And he is desperate," Selene added, her dark tresses shifting as her eyes flashed with an ancient, predatory understanding. "A proud man who can no longer feed his child will give anything for a second chance. Shall I coordinate the invitation?"
"Coordinate it through the sanitized medical front on the North Shore," David instructed. "We will offer a standard, low-wage assembly desk position to forty selected veterans. Ensure they bring their families to the facility. The physical contrast between their current decay and our optimization catalyst must be absolute to secure immediate systemic compliance."
By six o'clock that evening, a thick, cool mist began to roll off the harbor, cloaking the clean, unbranded warehouse building David had acquired near the shipping docks.
Mark Daidly limped heavily down the stone-paved alleyway, his wooden crutch scraping loudly against the damp ground. Every step was a direct assault on his pride. His wife, holding their six-year-old daughter's hand, walked closely beside him, her face caked with a quiet, exhausting worry that broke Mark's heart more than the phantom pains in his missing limb. When her friend, the wife of an alderman connected to the Mayor's office, had whispered that a new, wealthy firm called Bater Ltd was quietly looking to hire wounded veterans for light clerical work, Mark had swallowed his shame and come. He needed a miracle, or his family would be on the streets by winter.
He pushed open the heavy cedar door of the warehouse reception hall. The interior was astonishingly clean, smelling faintly of high-frequency ozone and sterile medical spirits. Rows of benches sat on the polished floor, already occupied by thirty-nine other men. Some were missing arms; some bore deep, jagged facial scars from shrapnel; all of them carried the hollow, haunted look of the trenches.
Mark Daidly adjusted his crutch and took a seat right at the front, tightening his grip on his daughter's small hand. He was a soldier, and if he was going to fight for a job to save his family, he wanted to face the employer head-on.
The room went dead silent as a side door slid open with a frictionless, hydraulic click that felt entirely too advanced for 1915.
Stepping into the hall was a young man in his early twenties, standing with an imposing, flawless posture, his sharp features and piercing green eyes radiating an absolute, non-negotiable authority. Beside him walked a blonde woman so breathtakingly beautiful she looked like a classical marble statue brought to vibrant life.
David Bater scanned the room of broken human capital, his HUD mapping every missing limb, every decaying cell, and every tracking metric of their desperation.
"Hello, men," David's level, clinical voice echoed through the hall, entirely devoid of human pity, yet carrying the solid weight of an absolute promise. "My name is David, and this is Selene. We are about to offer you something for free, and then, we are going to offer you a new life."