Human - BUA Special Agent

Autie graduated from BUA training six weeks ago. Not the most physically capable agent in his cohort but, by the assessment of three separate trainers, the most analytically precise. The Bureau places those candidates in first field assignments designed to test practical judgment rather than field capacity. A first-year agent in Shelford investigating possible classification errors is a seasoning assignment. Come back with a clean report and a better sense of how field reality diverges from training documentation.

He was twelve days in when anomalies surfaced. This is not what a seasoning assignment looks like.

His DC Training Period and Chuck

During BUA basic training, Autie did the Bureau's advanced practitioner qualification module in Washington DC. Two weeks at a facility whose address doesn't appear on public maps. The Threshold Society runs a biennial recertification program at a facility two blocks away, and the two programs share administrative staff, which means practitioners from both institutions occasionally cross paths in common spaces.

Chuck was there for Society advanced certification. Autie was there for BUA qualification. They met in a third-floor break room on a Sunday morning when the vending machine was the only food option. Both were practitioners in an institutional setting that treated that as normal. They talked for forty minutes about how the two organizations approach threshold events differently and exchanged contact details as professional courtesy before the week ended.

Autie reached out once in the four months between that meeting and Shelford, asking a protocol question for a training scenario. Chuck answered within the hour. They haven't spoken since.

His Assignment: The Mis-Classification Investigation

Autie's formal mandate is to assess whether the Shelford Field Office has been systematically mis-classifying threshold events as atmospheric anomalies. His supervisor's pattern analysis flagged eighteen cases over fourteen months where the incident characteristics don't match the filed classification. He came to find out if that's error or intention.

Kevin as Supplemental Support

When Autie's assignment was filed, the BUA's resource allocation matched him against available supplemental support. Kevin's profile scored as a useful local context asset for a threshold classification audit: suspended Vanguard operator, local knowledge, Skinchanger lineage, available for low-intensity assignments. The match was administrative.

Autie was told the deployment record is redacted, the suspension is classified as operational disagreement rather than misconduct, and Kevin has full working-relationship standing under supplemental protocols. He wasn't told what the disagreement was. He's read the unredacted portions of Kevin's file twice.