Miss Pauling

Miss Pauling in Expiration Date

“

Oh, and Mr. DeGroot? Your friend's employers made him the same offer. — Miss Pauling instigates the war between Tavish DeGroot and Jane Doe

”

Miss Pauling is a loyal assistant to the Administrator. She performs a number of duties including reporting unusual background checks, ordering and delivery of goods, opening communication channels and murders. Miss Pauling generally complies with her employer's views for fear of incurring her wrath, even if she does not necessarily agree with them. Despite her boss's stern demeanor, Miss Pauling insists the Administrator is "not so bad when you get to know her". When pressed by the Administrator on what exactly friends do, her reply was "Um. Go skating... look at gun catalogs... sometimes we just talk..."

It has been shown that the Scout has taken a romantic interest in Miss Pauling, which she tries to completely ignore.

In Expiration Date, she is voiced by Ashly Burch.

History

WAR!

“

In my experience, Miss Pauling, nothing kills friendship faster... than a healthy competition. — The Administrator on her evil deeds

”

The Administrator considers inter-company friendships a profound breach of trust, forbidden by contract. It was during a routine background check that Miss Pauling discovered the RED Demoman and BLU Soldier's friendship, which she then brought to the Administrator's attention. Under strict orders, Miss Pauling personally delivered a number of highly volatile custom-order Mann Co. weapons to Demoman in exchange for agreeing to kill his friend Soldier. Just as intended, this quickly destroyed their blossoming friendship and thus beginning the seven day war.

Director

The Administrator hired a Director to record background information about what the RED team members might say if asked questions about their jobs. Miss Pauling felt the surveillance was unnecessary due to the low IQs of the mercenaries, but nevertheless oversaw the interviews. She assured the team that the purpose of the interviews were merely a PR stunt to help improve the reputations of the mercenaries to the citizens of Badlands. After the interviews were finished, the Administrator gives the order to Miss Pauling to give the director an "interview" of his own. This involved luring him to an abandoned mine shaft, where Miss Pauling followed him in with a loaded Big Kill, a Shovel, and a bag of corpse-grade quicklime. The Director has been missing ever since.

A Smissmas Miracle

After the BLU Scout, Soldier, and Spy are sentenced to community service at a local mall, Miss Pauling is shown on the phone with the Spy who is asking for help being released. Miss Pauling wants to hear how the Soldier became a public defender, and the Spy dismisses it with a reminder that a magician is the Soldier's roommate. She asks the Spy to ensure their problems don't escalate, the Spy assures her as he watches the Soldier punching an angry father. After the sudden arrival of Old Nick, Miss Pauling orders the Spy to quickly eliminate him, but is horrified to find the Spy's plan involves the help of a young boy instead of simply getting him to safety.

Death of Poopy Joe and Loss of Australium

Miss Pauling, along with Helen and Saxton Hale, were all questioned by several senators about the death of Poopy Joe (who they launched into space for one dollar), and the disappearance of all the Australium in the world. The Administrator gave them the undisclosed info, which included talk of her stockpiling Australium for years, and eighteen idiots to help her with it. The senators all were shocked by the story, and decided to end their questioning quickly afterwards. The document that contained the information had the word 'INCINERATE' stamped on it.

New Assignments

While Saxton Hale is busy fighting a yeti, Mann Co. comes under attack by Gray Mann's legion of robots. Miss Pauling shows a prerecorded tape of Hale to the mercenaries that informs them that with the death of the Mann brothers, they are now unemployed. However, with attack of the robots on Mann Co.'s headquarters they have been re-hired to fight them. Although they are not being paid for their work, to their dismay, Pauling reveals that the robots somehow run on piles of money, and that any money left after destroying them belongs to the mercenaries. Miss Pauling emphasizes to them that it is not just a fight for Mann Co. or Saxton Hale, but a fight for their jobs.

Infiltration

Along with the RED team, Miss Pauling discusses the latest defense job against the robots in a dark room in Coal Town. She tries to figure out which of the many Mann Co. buildings the robots will invade next, and when. The Soldier claims that he knows the exact time and location, since he supposedly infiltrated Gray Mann's robot base the day before, but no one believes him. After some shenanigans which involve keeping the Soldier thinking that all of his teammates are American, he mentions the eagles that raised Gray Mann, something that only Miss Pauling and the Administrator should know, thus cluing to Miss Pauling that he may be telling the truth. The Soldier reveals that he used his cardboard robot costume to sneak into Gray's facility and eavesdrop on their plans. Miss Pauling asks him to make a disguise for the Heavy and herself so that they can infiltrate Gray's facility once more.

In Gray Mann's facility, the three discover that he is frustrated at his robots' stupidity, as well as how they have a problem with security leaks due to a "tactical mastermind" in their base. Gray states the he has found a solution to the problem and unveils his newly-built Mecha-Engineer. The new robot activates and quickly identifies the trespassers.

Contingency Plan

Upon Gray Mann's acquisition of Mann Co., Miss Pauling ran to warn the Administrator only to find a note telling her to hide. Six months later, she received orders from the Administrator to assemble the mercenaries back together. Miss Pauling first finds Soldier in the middle of giving celebrity house tours and murdering Tom Jones. By impersonating a police officer, Pauling is able to keep Soldier out of legal trouble while simultaneously recruiting him. She next lures Pyro from his job as CEO of Frontier Engineering by setting a large fire to a nearby building. Demoman, having become overweight and even more of an slovenly alcoholic, readily joins her crew for a chance at his old job. While preparing to fly to Siberia to pick up Heavy, she finds out that Scout and Spy have both been arrested and are set to be hanged for their crimes of vandalism against Teufort.

The Rescue

Putting the flight to Siberia on hold, Miss Pauling drives the team to Teufort to rescue Scout and Spy. While Demoman and Soldier are assigned to delay the trial and Execution, Miss Pauling visits the library to destroy the Administrator's birth records with Pyro's assistance. She stops the Execution of the Scout, Spy, Demoman and Soldier, citing that the mercenaries could not have been responsible for the various zoning errors in Teufort, for which they are being executed. Fooling the mayor with a pamphlet, she directs him to the library, followed by all the townspeople, effectively calling off the Execution and angry mob. Privately, she admits that the entire population of Teufort all suffer from madness induced by lead poisoning, and so the mercenaries were not charged with the murder and property damage they actually caused.

It is later revealed that Miss Pauling also met with a heavily concealed Administrator, who gave her new orders to obtain the last cache of Australium.

To Australia

Having assigned the mercenaries to various duties, Miss Pauling searches for Sniper's home in Australia along with Demoman, finding it apparently abandoned. They are quickly ambushed by Sniper, who had discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Mundy were not his birth parents, and threatens Miss Pauling for information on his actual parentage. Miss Pauling placates Sniper, telling him they are headed to meet his true parents, convincing him to join. Piloting a submarine obtained by Spy and Soldier, Miss Pauling leads the team (sans Scout and Heavy) to the sunken city of New Zealand, where the last cache of Australium lies. However, Miss Pauling discovers that the cache was depleted by Sniper's real father, Bill-Bel; unaware of the metal's potential, he exhausted the supply painting his prototype rockets which have long since exploded. Sniper's mother steals away with the only functioning rocket, prompting Miss Pauling to despair that she has failed in her mission.

Trivia

• In the December 22, 2010 Patch, Miss Pauling gave a Stocking Stuffer Key to all owners of Team Fortress 2 for the holidays, much to the Administrator's disgust.
• Miss Pauling is most likely single, judging from a personal advertisement found in the Teufort Reader magazine.
  • Miss Pauling works 364 days out of the year and enjoys gun shows and quiet nights of surveillance.
• In Meet the Medic, (0:56) there is an outline of a woman on the balcony who closely resembles Miss Pauling.

Gallery

• 

  Miss Pauling as she appeared in the WAR! Update.

• 

  Miss Pauling as she appears in the Meet the Director comic.

• 

  An early version of Miss Pauling's model on the cover of Shadow Boxers

• 

  Miss Pauling warning the Administrator that Gray Mann has taken Mann Co. in Ring of Fired.

• 

  Miss Pauling ran to warn the Administrator only to find a note telling her to hide.

• 

  An edited part from comic Ring of Fired page 44.

See also

• Administrator
• TF Industries
• Saxton Hale
• Non-player characters