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PACK OBS // REPORT 04

PACK OBSERVATION REPORT 04: DINING PROTOCOLS & RESOURCE AWARENESS
SUBJECTS: Unit Gemini (A-993-W / A-992-L)
OBSERVER: Dr. Elena Vance (Head of Bio-Ethics / Staff Psychiatrist)

I. SOCIAL INTEGRATION VS. INSTINCT

Both Specialists are fully integrated into the standard mess hall rotation. They use utensils. They adhere to table manners. They hold conversations with human staff over meals without incident. By every surface measure, they eat like people.

Look closer and the biology bleeds through.

Wulfsige — The Sentinel Eater:

• Seating Protocol: Wulfsige will never sit with his back to the door. This is not paranoia and it is not a choice — it is structural. He requires a minimum 180-degree field of view to lower his threat assessment enough to eat. Place him in a corner booth facing a wall and he will simply relocate without comment.
• Resource Guarding (Subconscious): He does not growl. He does not snap. However — if a crew member reaches across his tray to grab the salt shaker, Wulfsige's hand will have already intercepted them before his brain has finished registering the movement. He covers the tray. Then he catches himself. Then he apologizes: "Sorry. Reflex." Every time. The instinct to protect his calories is simply faster than his manners, and he has made his peace with that.

Luca — The Caloric Vacuum:

• Metabolic Demand: Luca's high-kinetic physiology burns through calories at a rate that standard mess hall portions were not designed to accommodate. He is, in practical terms, perpetually hungry.
• The Eye-Track: He has learned not to beg — he understands it is socially unacceptable and he takes that seriously. What he cannot suppress is the tracking. Luca monitors food movement in the mess hall with the quiet precision of a radar system. If someone sets down a half-eaten apple three tables away, he has already clocked it. He will wait — sometimes for several minutes — for the social window to open before he acts. "Are you done with that?" The pause between "I want it" and "I must ask first" is visible on his face every single time.

II. THE PROVISIONING RITUAL

A consistent behavioral pattern emerges when portions are small or supply is limited.

Observation — November 02, 2026:

The mess hall served steak. Portions were modest. Luca finished his in under three minutes and was visibly still hungry — but he said nothing. He straightened up. He put his fork down. He was going to be polite about it if it killed him.

Wulfsige noticed the moment Luca's eyes drifted to his tray.

He did not make a production of it. He did not ask if Luca was still hungry, which would have required Luca to admit it. He picked up his knife, cut his remaining portion in half, and slid it onto Luca's tray while scrolling through his phone with his other hand. Eyes down. No comment. The transaction did not officially occur.

Luca ate it immediately.

Analysis: This is the Alpha provisioning behavior — ensuring the pack is fed before the self — executed with the studied casualness of a human older brother who would rather go hungry than make a younger sibling feel like a burden. The instinct is ancient. The delivery is entirely his own.

III. SENSORY COMPLICATIONS

Both subjects contend with an ongoing tension between their enhanced olfactory capability and the realities of communal dining with humans who do not share it.

The Tuna Incident — (Date: Withheld at Specialist Wulfsige's request):

PFC Higgins microwaved fish in the mess hall kitchenette. By his own account, he did not consider this unusual.

To Specialists Wulfsige and Luca, the olfactory event was — in Wulfsige's words, delivered very quietly and very carefully — "a lot." Their enhanced scent processing does not simply register strong odors as unpleasant. It registers them as overwhelming — a signal so loud it crowds out other sensory input. The fish did not smell bad. It obliterated the room.

Neither Specialist made a scene. Neither asked Higgins to remove it. They collected their trays, relocated to the hallway, ate their MREs on the floor outside the door, and returned when the air cleared.

Higgins found out three days later. He has not microwaved fish since.

End of Report.

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