[ Cisco's reactions to things operate on a different logic than one might expect typically. For relatively minor stuff, he tends to be loud, exaggerated, flamboyant even. But when something is truly shocking, he mostly gets still, and quiet, and understated. And that's what happens, now. He's had this happen before - run into people who casually mention something that makes it clear how rough their life has been, or else talked to people from dystopian hellscapes, from planets that were destroyed, from worlds in the middle of the actual apocalypse. It's not something he's really getting used to. ]

You were in the military when you were twelve?

[ Normally, Cisco's not one to comment on age in this particular way - which is a legacy of being tired of people asking him why he was so much younger than his fellow students or coworkers. But for there to be a preteen in military service, well, that's so far from normal that he has to ask. Maybe that's normal in Ed's world, which would be fucked up. Or maybe he'd been an exception, which... is still super fucked up. ]

I know a few people in the Guard. People I trust.

[ Impossible to be 100% certain, of course, particularly when it came to the folks who were complete strangers to Cisco. But Wally and Billy, at the very least, wouldn't be party to anything awful or even a little bit fishy. Cisco doesn't trust widely, or easily, but he trusts those two. ]

I haven't seen any signs that there is. And believe me, when I first showed up? I looked.