Suzanne scrolled through her iPod, looking for the perfect workout music. Choosing some EDM, she started bouncing slightly, getting ready for her workout. She slid into stretches as the drum and bass pulsed in her ear.
She finished her lunges, loosening her hamstrings, closed her eyes, and delivered a quick but powerful kick to the hanging punching bag in front of her. The old bag released a bit of dust into the air and she smiled- it had been too long.
She spent the next 30 minutes practicing her kick boxing then moved on to a near-sprint, fast run on the treadmill.
As she was sweating and swearing, breathing hard through her increased heart rat, she barely noticed someone entering the previously empty gym. She weighed the options of continuing her workout or stopping to find out what they wanted.
She chose both. Sliding off, she grabbed the jump rope lying by her feet. She started jumping and spun like a little girl doing her rhymes. Jumping, she looked at the person who had violated her favorite gym time.
It was a man with an eye-patch and a woman with her hair in a tight bun, both tall and somewhat intimidating.
Suzanne didn't take her ear buds out and continued circling to face the mirror, checking her form. She had decided they could wait.
In the moment it took her to close her eyes, she felt her ear buds being yanked. She stopped swinging and jumping, grunted, and turned back towards the duo.
"What, do, you want?" Suzanne asked in between breaths. She let out a half-grunt-half-sigh and leaned over. It had just been about time to stop but she wasn't about to let them know that, not with them in their black-all-over uniforms.
"Miss Hewlett?"
"That's," one final sigh, "me."
"Suzanne Hewlett?"
A nod.
"Lamar University?"
A nod.
"Physics and biochemistry?"
A nod.
"Working under Dr. Caldwell?"
"Excellent."
The man lifted an eyebrow, prompting Suzanne to pull a face. In far less than a moment the unknown woman was in front of her, performing a swift kick meant to trip our heroine.
Suzanne side stepped and quickly recovered from the shock. She didn't think about what was happening, only that she had to win. She didn't know what these people wanted from her, only that they didn't quite seem like the "bad guys" from the old kung-Fu movies she grew up on.
She blocked, hit, and kicked- each move with more and more intensity. The woman was a skilled and exciting opponent.
After a short amount of time, the stranger stepped back and held her hands up, "I-"she gave a deep breath, "concede."
Suzanne was thoroughly confused and it evidently showed. She grunted and turned towards her water bottle. With one instant movement she recreated the step the stranger had tried on her to begin with, the main difference being the result. The woman fell to the ground, shocked.
The man started laughing, gave his comrade a hand, and said, "You're exactly what we hoped."
Suzanne grunted, actually reached for her water bottle this time, and downed it. She looked at the pair again, shrugged, grabbed her things, and walked right past them to the door.
The man grabbed her shoulder as she passed, suddenly serious. "You're not leaving."
She rolled her neck around before paying more attention to the people in front of her and saying more words she had before, "Alright. I'll play."
The man introduced himself as Nick Fury or something like that and the woman as Agent Hill.
Fury, (it was obvious he was a man who commanded the use of his last name), asked more questions than he answered, much to Suzanne's annoyance. She evaded most of the questions but it seemed like he knew most of her expected answers anyway.
"Fine, no more questions. I see what you're doing. Now, I'll talk."
He was obviously waiting for a response, and Suzanne made him wait. He opened his eyes a little more and tilted his head down. She sighed, "Alright then."
Fury released a sigh that was more of a grunt.
"We're with an organization called SHIELD."
This caught Suzanne's attention. One of her uncles was a conspiracy theorist and she had sworn she had heard him mention SHIELD more than once.
"Alright then," she said.
"We'd like to invite you to join our ranks."
"Alright then."
Agent Hill pulled a face and exclaimed, "Can you say anything else?"
"Yeah."
Hill was quick to groan until Fury shot her a look. This time Suzanne groaned and continued speaking, "You know where I go to school, even my major and who I'm working with. Now, I don't have any social media accounts so you must have gotten this information from someone. Either you got to an acquaintance of mine or you have a reason to know this."
Fury grinned and turned to Agent Hill, "See?"
Hill smiled, "Alright then." She turned back to Suzanne.
"We have reason to believe you will be of some… use… to our operations."
Now it was Suzanne's turn to smile, like a dog that knows it's guilty of something, "Alright then." She was bent on aggravating Hill and seemed to be succeeding. No one attacked Suzanne and got out of it without a few quips, even if the attacker was quite obviously asked to do it.
The sun had begun to rise and its gilded light seeped through the blinds, leaving Fury and Agent Hill with an aura around their bodies. Suzanne smiled her first real smile since the strangers had interrupted her workout.
"Okay. Talk to me while I finish this up."
Agent Hill began explaining the organization they wanted Suzanne to work with in rather vague details. SHIELD, the organization lead by Nick Fury, was a counterterrorism and intelligence agency. And that was it. No more information for Suzanne. Not even what it stands for, so she asks.
"We are the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."
"Oh."
"For Christ's sake, are you coming with us or not?" Agent Hill was obviously irritated.
Suzanne shrugged, "Sure. Why not?"