"What happened?" Ramos asked, his mouth wide with shock.
"Stradivari won the fight," I said, quickly getting to my feet. "Congratulations."
"I thought you would be…" Stradivari said, but he cut himself off.
"You thought I would be better?" I said, finishing his sentence. "Yeah, usually I am. I think there's something about your fighting style that counters mine. That was Judo, right?"
In my mind, that wasn't necessarily a lie. Stradivari's fighting style countered mine, but that was only because of his mental condition.
"I guess," Stradivari responded. "I took Judo as an elective in high school."
"It looks like you're my new sparring partner now, Officer Stradivari," I said with a smile.
"You can get back to beating each other later!" Wei shouted from his seat a dozen meters away. "We still have about seven hours of paperwork to do over here, and I suspect the process will be slowed somewhat if you concuss Captain Dogwood!"
"Hey, guys," I said to Ramos and Stradivari. "Do you think you guys could take my place for a bit? I need to make a call. Start working on the battalion-level officers, and just do whatever Wei recommends."
"Got it, boss," Ramos said.
I found a phone booth on the outskirts of the park and inserted a few quarters before entering the phone number for Helen's friend's home. The line buzzed for a few seconds before there was a click.
"Hello?" a woman's voice that I didn't recognize came through the phone.
"Hey, this is…" I paused for a second, remembering that this was one of the few contexts where I used my first name, "...Sebastian. Is Helen there?"
The woman's tone filled with disapproval as she said, "Let me check. Helen!"
Based on the resonance and volume of her voice, I could tell that she had called out into her empty house. After a few seconds, the woman said, "Why did you leave your home, anyway? Are you really in danger? Everybody loves you, but you felt the need to make Helen move out. It sounds to me like maybe you just realized your options expanded, and you wanted to keep Helen on the hook."
It might have just been me, but I was sensing a bit of hostility from Helen's friend. "Everyone loyal to Zeon loves me," I said with a tight smile that I was sure could be heard over the phone, "but there are plenty of disloyal people in Zum City."
I didn't blame them, of course. In different circumstances, I would be leading an anti-Zeon insurgency myself.
After another few minutes of that annoying conversation with Helen's friend, she handed the phone off to Helen who said, "Hey, Sebastian. I'm sorry about Bianca. She's always been a bit protective of the sisters in our sorority."
"Is that where you're staying right now? A sorority house?" I said, trying my hardest to keep the distaste out of my mouth. I was at a phase in my life where I really shouldn't have been hanging around sorority houses.
"Right, you wouldn't know that," Helen said with clear disappointment in her voice. "I'm staying at the Alpha Omega Epsilon sorority house just off the main campus of Munzo Technical College."
"Yeah, I have the address," I said. "Something, uh, work related came up. I can still make it to our date, but three guys from my unit will be there too. Is that okay?"
"I was hoping we could be alone, but that's fine," Helen said with muted disappointment in her voice. "I had a plan for a date destination which works decently well with a few more people."
"That's great," I said. "Uh, I'm really sorry about this, by the way. Some really high-level stuff is going on behind the scenes. I wouldn't interfere with our date unless it was really damn important."
"Don't worry about it. As long as you show up, that's enough," Helen said.
Minutes later, I was back at the picnic table with the others. Ramos looked over at me with a frown and said, "Sorry, Captain. We couldn't get much done. Wei said that battalion-level organization was most important for our unit."
"It is," Wei said without looking up from his papers. "When soldiers of the 3rd Brigade go into battle, they will move at battalion strength. You know, groups of five hundred. Each battalion will be composed of 1 battalion-commander, 3 mobile suits, 10 Magellan-class tanks, and 4 infantry companies."
"Is there any way to speed this process up?" I asked with a sigh. "We've been here for thirty minutes, and we've only picked out four names."
"Well," Wei paused for a few seconds, "considering your specialty, Captain, you don't necessarily need to handle officer selection for the infantry and tank units. If we just need to pick out the battalion commanders and the mobile suit pilots, that should significantly cut down on the amount of time we need to spend on officer selection."
"Let's do that," I said quickly.
Over the next few hours, I picked out ten battalion-commanders and more than thirty mobile suit pilots. The only name I recognized on that list was Iria Solari, and she was made the squad leader for the Zaku unit of 9th Battalion (3-3-9). On an operational level, I was put in the same position for 1st Battalion (3-3-1) for when I decided to deploy with Oracle Squad.
"Don't units typically have names?" Ramos said after a few hours to alleviate his own boredom. "Oracle Squad, the Black Tri-Stars, the Red Wolves. Just calling it the 3rd Brigade would get boring over time, don't you think?"
"Sure," Wei said, "but you can't force nicknames. Do you have an idea for a unit name?"
"I'm thinking 'Cerberus Brigade,'" Ramos said, gesturing theatrically.
"Cerberus?" I asked.
"The three-headed dog. Get it?" Ramos said. "This brigade is being built around the three-man unit commanded by 'Dog'wood."
"So, it's a pun?" I asked. It seemed to me like everything in Zeon was a pun about something.
"Isn't Cerberus supposed to be a guard dog?" Wei asked rhetorically. "This brigade is going to be much more similar to an attack dog than anything else."
"Counter point: it's a cool name," Ramos said. "Cerberus Brigade."
"You got me there," Wei said with a muted chuckle. "What do you think, Captain?"
"I won't stop you," I said. "You're free to call it that."
"All right!" Ramos said, pumping his fist in the air. "It's gonna catch on; you can bet on that."