"Macayle, will you show Agent Helms to the Sciences lab?" Director
Shaw asked as she ushered the man out of her office and into her
secretary's. She didn't even wait for the other woman's reply before
she turned around and disappeared again. She had so much work to do.

The secretary, Macayle Parker, raised a delicate eyebrow before
muttering, "Sure." She stood up and then looked at the man, narrowing
her eyes every so slightly. "You look familiar," she said flatly
before heading towards the door. She didn't give him a chance to say
anything before giving him a lazy wave and adding, "Come on."

Ajax stood there kinda confused for a minute; this wasn't his cup of
tea really. The minute he noticed the secretary leave he snapped out
of his and quickly followed her. "I look familiar?" He asked his
Greek accent coming out walking towards the elevator with Macayle.

"Yes," was her reply. She slid her keycard through the lock when they
reached the elevator, put her code in, and then pressed her thumb on
the scanner. A moment later, the doors slid open and the pair stepped
inside. "What are you?" she asked.

"I'm an Archeologist…why?" He asked stepping into the elevator. "Is
it a good kinda familiar? Or a bad one?" Jax raised an eyebrow at her.

Macayle didn't answer his questions directly. She stared at him for a
long moment before saying, "You'll be working with my sister. Do you
have a twin?"

"Sister ok… and no I don't have a twin." Jax answered. "I mean I
have a cousin… we look practically alike though…" He shrugged and
walked out of the elevator with Macayle and flashed his newly printed
bag to the security office at the door. Jax was about to keep walking
when he noticed Macayle stop at the desk placing her hand on scanner.
He stopped and walked over doing the same, he had gone to the
security office before heading to Director Shaw's office going through
all the clearance procedure; finger and hand scans, codes, and an ID.

Macayle waited for him to finish before she started walking again. "On
your right you have the security office, the locker rooms and the
gym," she began, deciding she might as well give him a little bit of a
tour. "On the left is the infirmary and the vault." When they reached
the end of the hall, they turned the corner and she continued with her
tour. "On your right here, you have the bunks, Intelligence,
Linguistics, and the restrooms are all the way at the end. And on the
left is still the vault and then the Sciences lab."

"Alright gotcha…" Ajax nodded and looked at everything as they walked
by. He had a knack for remember detail it was like encoded into his
genetic make up. You could say a photographic like memory was one of
his talents but he tried not to have a big head because of it.

They reached the Sciences lab and Macayle slid her keycard through the
lock, entered her code, and scanner her thumb just like before. The
light turned green and the glass door in front of them slid open. "We
like security here," she said randomly. "This is the Sciences lab."
She pointed out the different stations, labeling them as she went
along. "And the last one in the corner is Anthropology and that Jolly
Green there hovering over that tribal vase thing and squinting as
though she thinks it squeezes more intelligence out of her brain cells
is my sister, Justice."

"I noticed…" He nodded slowly and looked around at the large science
lab. It was very high tech. The Smithsonian was high tech but this
was like way beyond that. "Cool…" He said softly looked around before
he looked over to Macayle was pointing. Jax couldn't help but raise
an eyebrow at the woman; he couldn't help but stare for a moment.
"Sister huh?"

"Yes." She stared at the man just for a moment, noticing the way he
was just gazing at her sister. Men. "I can introduce you. Come on."
She wandered over to her sister's station and leaned forward to stare
at the vase just as her sister was. "Where'd you get this one?" she
asked, making Justice jump just a bit. "Looks like something you'd get
at Pier 1 Imports."

Justice straightened up and glared at her sister for just a moment.
"It's /not/ from Pier 1 Imports, whatever that is. This is a
Panathenaic vase similar in design to the one housed at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was once filled with precious Attic
olive oil from a grove sacred to the Greek goddess Athena."

"You sure? I'm pretty sure I saw something similar next to the African
Tribal Elephant Flower Vase."

Jax slowly walked around the table to the other side looking at vase,
"Panathenaic Amphora very preserved. I found one at a site once… not
this enacted though." He looked at the vase before looking up at the
girls across from him.

Justice glanced at Jax and then back at the vase. "It's exquisite,
isn't it? It's rare to find anything akin to this in one piece."

"I found that Roman Hero Vase thing from whenever on eBay and bought
it for your birthday," Macayle offered unhelpfully.

Justice didn't even look at her. "Roman Herodian Vase from 50AD, and a
sad imitation of it."

"Seventy dollars worth of sad imitation," Macayle countered, crossing
her arms. "And besides, isn't it the thought that counts?"

"That's why I kept it."

"And what's your reasoning behind it being in your bedroom closet?"

Justice cocked an eyebrow as she turned her head to look at her little
sister. "You went in my closet?"

"Yes, I was looking for shoes."

"You /have/ shoes."

"Yes, I know."

Jax looked at the two girls, they were an odd bunch. He reached out
to tip the vase a little bit to get a better look at. Jax shrugged
his jacket looser on his right arm slightly, so he could use it to
touch the vase with.

"Don't touch it!" Justice suddenly exclaimed, carefully scooping the
vase away from the man she didn't know. "You could compromise findings
by just touching it, sleeve or no sleeve." She frowned and placed it
back down gently. "Who are you anyway?"

"I'm Ajax Helms," he raised an eyebrow a little watching her scoop
away the vase from him. "Call me Jax though."

"Named after the legendary king of Salamis from Homer's 'Iliad'?"
Justice questioned.

"Or the Ajax Cleanser?" Macayle chimed, smirking ever so slightly.
"You know, 'You'll stop paying the elbow tax, when you start cleaning
with Ajax!'" Her rendition of the commercial jingle didn't quite sound
the same given that she had deadpanned it.

The older of the Parker sisters looked at the younger and said, "I
don't know what that means."

"You know your Greek mythology." He smirked. "And yes I was." Jax
looked at the two girls then narrowed his eyes a little bit at
Macayle. "Never sing that again." He couldn't help but smirk a
little bit after. "Did you know he was worshipped at Athens, where he
had a statue in the market-place, and the tribe Aiantis was named
after him?" Jax looked at Justice with a smile, letting one of his
random facts come out.

"Of course," Justice replied. She knew lots about this sort of thing.
"I had the chance to look over some of the artifacts excavated from a
Mycenaean palace on Salamis that's believed to have maybe been home to
Ajax."

"Ajax was killed by Eric Bana in 'Troy'," Cayle decided to input.

Justice gave her a look. "I don't know what that means either."

"Never mind."

"I was on a dig there once." Jax smiled at her. "It was
fascinating." He watching her, it was kinda nice to know someone that
actually knew the strange facts he did. It was hard to find people
like that. Jax looked at Macayle, "Troy was a good movie." His
glanced at Justice. "You've never seen the movie before?"

"Justice doesn't watch TV or movies," Macayle informed him before her
sister could say anything. "Especially movies that are based on
historical fact. She says they're always taken vastly out of context
and they're completely unbelievable."

Justice was unfazed. "They are."

Cayle gave him a "See?" look before saying, "She doesn't even own a TV."

"You don't own a TV?" Jax asked shocked.

"I don't have time to watch television," Justice stated simply. "Nor
do I have a desire to anyway."

"I actually had to buy her an excuse to go home or else she'd just
stay here," Cayle told him, shaking her head.

"What did you buy here?" Jax asked glancing over at Cayle. He looked
back over at Justice… she was a unique one, that was for sure.

"A puppy."

Justice shook her head and let out a slightly annoyed sigh. "A dog
that I don't need nor want."

"She secretly adores him," Cayle told Jax.

"What is there to adore? It uses my floor as a toilet, it smells, it
drools, it chewed up my Makonde Likola mask-"

"That thing was freaky anyway."

"Beside the point."

"How could you not like puppies?" Jax asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I personally love dogs and have two of them." He smiled he loved his
dogs. "You didn't want a puppy?" What was this girl on?

"I don't have time for a puppy," Justice said. "And no, I didn't and
still don't want it." She couldn't understand why she should want one.

Macayle smirked slightly. "She doesn't want it and yet she named it
after her favorite novelist. I think that says something."

Justice frowned. "You told me that I should name it something that
showed thought and stop just calling it 'Dog'."

"And I'm very proud of you for doing that." The younger of the Parkers
smiled cheekily and then looked at Jax. "It took me over a month to
convince her to name him."

"What did you name it?" Jax asked with a smile. These two were
interesting that was for sure. Definitely sisters. Odd sisters, but
related none the less.

"Reichs," Macayle answered when Justice didn't speak right away.
"After Kathy Reichs. She writes the only fiction that Justice will read."

"Why do you insist on telling everyone everything about me?" Justice
asked, obviously annoyed. She was a private person and she didn't like
to just blurt every little fact about her life to random people.

"Because."

"That's not an answer."

"I've read some of those books." He smiled brightly. "They're pretty
good." Jax turned his attention to Justice. "You know we will be
working together from time to time, it's good to find out some things
about the people you work with. It creates a better atmosphere."

"When we're working together, we'll be /working/ together," Justice
pointed out. "We won't be here to socialize."

Cayle opened her mouth to reply, but was distracted when her headset
was paged. She touched the button on her ear, saying, "I'll be right
up." She dropped her hand. "Director Shaw needs a coffee fix." She
paused a moment, pulling something out of her pocket and handing it to
Jax. It was a little black wrap-around-your-ear radio like she had on.
"This is how everyone keeps in contact. Welcome to APO." She patted
Jax on the shoulder and gave him an offbeat smile. "Good luck." And
then she turned and headed off to get the Director her coffee.

"Umm… thanks I think?" He watched her walk away and looked over at
Justice. "She's an interesting one." Jax smiled brightly at her.
"So you're an Anthropologist huh?"

"Yes," she replied, "And you're what? An archeologist?" She wasn't
really in the mood to hold a conversation, but she was always being
told by her sister and other people that she needed to be more
personable. Maybe they were right?

"That would be me." He smiled brightly. "Archeologist and Linguist I
might add." Jax was proud of his work and degrees.

Justice raised an eyebrow at him. "Wonderful," she said after a
moment. "Your work station is over there." She pointed to the
archeology section and then turned back to what she was working on.

"Thanks…" Jax raised an eyebrow at her. "You're not the social type
are you?"

"Not particularly, no," she answered, "Especially when I have a ton of
work to do."

"Right…" He said softly and looked at her as she started up her work
again. "So where did you work before this?"

Justice didn't bother to look up at him. She just sighed and then
finally spoke. "I was a professor at UCLA," she told him, not really
sure why she should bother. It wasn't that she wanted to come off as
cold; she just had a lot of work to do.

"UCLA nice," he smiled and watched her. "You look busy I'll leave you
alone for a while… It was nice meeting you." Jax gave her a soft smile
before walking over to the Archeology station.

Justice turned her head to watch him go out of the corner of her eye.
She really didn't want to be mean, but she really wasn't good with
people. Her sister was "working with her" on it, but they hadn't
progressed very far. ...Maybe she'd try working on it later and try to
be nice to the guy...Yes, definitely /later/.

=====

Agent Ajax Helms, "Relic"
Archeologist
A Team, A.P.O

Agent Justice Parker, "Bones"
Anthropologist
Squints, A.P.O.

Macayle Parker
Secretary
A.P.O. Base