"Alaska...? Alaaaska?"
Alaska rolled over under her sheets.
"Alaska? Hey, Miya, come on and get up, won't ya?"
Alaska groaned and lifted her eyelids. A man with gray and red-trimmed armor with a recon helmet and a standard chestplate was standing at the side of her bed.
"Dammit, Ohio. Really?" She sat up and glared at him. He shrugged neutrally and left the room. The door snapped shut behind him, leaving Alaska to stretch out before dragging herself out of her bed. She shuffled over to her armor, rubbing her eyes. She routinely put on her armor, which was white with icy-sapphire highlights. She stared at her scout helmet for a brief moment before putting it on over her face. It reflected her dark skin, hair, and light blue eyes with an orange tint from her visor.
She went out into the labrynthine halls of The Mother Of Invention. She knew her way around fairly well, since she and the other agents had been there for about a quarter of a year. She made her way down to the kitchen for breakfast. She took a tray and grabbed a muffin and a carton of milk. She sat at an empty table. A slender man in completely standard, dark teal armor with steel trim came over to the table, carrying a very cheesy omlet and a glass of tangy orange juice. His strawberry-blond hair was parted across his face and exposed his navy-colored eyes.
"Hey, Alaska," he said, biting into his omlet.
"Hello, Hawaii. How did that strike mission go yesterday, by the way?"
He shrugged and shook his head darkly. "Tennessee got shot up. She wasn't paying attention to her tracker, as usual." He hesitated. "And... I rushed in again. Man, it was bad."
A small, glowing figure popped up above his shoulder. It had a female profile wearing a slim silver bodysuit with sleek black hair and eyes: Hawaii's artificial intelligence unit, Psi.
"At least your systems and biological enhancement stayed intact."
Hawaii had had hypertrophy, or super strength injected into him when he was entered into Project Freelancer and was one of the last people to have biological enhancements given, since a freelancer, Rhode Island had received high vital organ damage done after the medics had tried giving him a healing ability, nearly killing him.
Alaska shuddered thinking about it; she had been due after Rhode, and was still mortified by what had happened to him.
Alaska decided to finally take a bite out of her food and removed her helmet. She bit into the muffin she had selected from the counter, chewing slowly. Ohio approached the table with Washington. She smiled at them as they came closer. Washington's smile was a bit more friendlier than Ohio's, and Alaska felt her neck grow warm. He parted with Ohio to go sit with York, North and South Dakota, Carolina, and Connecticut. Ohio sat across from Hawaii and they began to chat. Alaska finished her food and began to re-read a book that she had brought down to the cafeteria with her. It was an old fictional book that had been published around 1997 and was around 1,375 pages long.
"Readin' those books again, Alaska?" A cheerful voice rang from Alaska's shoulder. She turned aroun to see a woman with long, black hair, soft brown eyes, and was wearing cobalt- and- pink armor. She was carrying her ODST helmet under her arm.
"Yep. You always gotta ask that, Tennessee?" Alaska turned around to the smiling face behind her.
"Hey! Guess what," she said in a sing-song voice.
"What, is it, Tenn?" Hawaii said interestedingly.
"I'm gonna get... an AI!" She was bouncing up and down on her heels in excitement.
"Wow," Ohio said. "Congrats, Tenn!"
They all started to chime their joy for her as another freelancer, who had blue armor and pale yellow accents came over.
"You're getting one, too?" He was somewhat apathetic as usual, resting his head on his fist. His unit, which was dark indigo and wore a hood that half-covered his eyes poked himself out from West's shoulder.
"Speaking of A.I. did you hear about Carolina? She's getting one, too," Zeta said.
Alaska glanced over at Carolina, who was talking to New York. Her vivid red hair and sharp green eyes were visible from the other side of the cafeteria, and she had her cyan armor on. York said something and she started to chuckle.
"Hey, Alaska," West said, "we got a mission to start later. You guys are in, too," he adressed Tennessee, Ohio, and Hawaii. "Kansas is also tagging along."
"Where is he, anyways?" Ohio asked.
"I think he was talking with Maine again," Tennessee replied.
"Well, we may as well go and find him. We should be prepared to start," West said tiredly.