The sun sat high in the sky of New Mexico, glaring down on the drab orange landscape and forming shimmering heat waves on the dusty ground. Among the desert scene sat a large facility, a light gray building that had large air conditioners running all along its roof. Around it was a tall chain link fence that had large KEEP OUT signs bolted to it at intervals. As if the locals didn't know enough to stay away.

The only openings in the fence were two narrow gaps, one along each short end of the rectangular compound, wide enough for your average pickup truck to fit through. Through each gap was a parking lot, and a metal sliding door entrance to the building. A multi-colored line ran horizontally along the outer walls, half of it red, the other blue. On the blue half, a slightly rusting 1959 Pontiac Bonneville made its way into the lot, pulling into one of the lopsided parking spaces. As the engine's roar died, the driver's door swung open and a woman stepped out. She raised one of her hands to shield her face from the sun, squinting up at the building. She shouldered a brown leather backpack and self-consciously straightened her pleated yellow dress. Taking a deep breath, she started across the parking lot towards the entrance, shifting the bridge of her glasses as she went.

Dust swirled around her ankles, and a warm breeze toyed with her pigtails as she walked up to the metal sliding door. Raising one pale, calloused hand, palm reddened by the heat, she knocked; a reverberating clang cut through the tranquil desert. As she waited for someone to answer, she examined the logo on the door. The door itself was painted blue, gray peeking out where the paint had peeled off the corrugated metal. A large white wrench had been stylistically painted on it, the lower half of the tool made up of the acronym "BLU". The top half of a bolt was held between the teeth of the wrench, and in the middle of the bolt was a yellow and blue globe. Beneath all of this, in block letters, were the words "BUILDERS LEAGUE UNITED".

Humming to herself, she wondered what she'd look like in an all blue uniform.

Suddenly, the door began to slide upwards, making a rattling noise that she could only associate with ball bearings, and she shook herself from her thoughts. In the doorway, illuminated by bright fluorescent lights, was a short, stocky man wearing overalls and a yellow hard hat. Around his neck was a pair of what appeared to be some form of welding goggles. His brown eyes were small and deeply set, and the skin around them was rather paler than the rest of his face, but nonetheless they shone brightly and had a warmth to them. The man that the kind eyes belonged to smiled at her brightly.

"Well, howdy there. My name is…well, we ain't supposed to share our birth names, just our class names and any nicknames that come besides, but for simplicity's sake let's just call 'em our names. Might as well be, I reckon, since we been using 'em for so long. But as I was sayin', th'name's Engineer. If that's too long for your fancy, you can call me Engie."

The woman nodded; she'd been informed of the "no-names" rule when she had been registered by Miss Pauling. The secretary had claimed that it was for "security's" sake, but she assumed it was to stifle as many bonding opportunities as possible.

The man had extended a hand, so she shook it. His grip was firm

"My name is Sa-…sorry, I mean, Apprentice." She replied sheepishly.

Engie just grinned at her. "That's alright, it takes a bit to get used to it. Now come on in, it's just about suppertime. Normally th'whole team don't all sit in the rec room to eat, but since we've got a new recruit Miss Pauling had... suggested we use the time to get introduced, to save time later."

Read: threatened. For some of them, at least.

But Apprentice nodded as she was led into the building. She sighed as a blast of cool air hit her. Engie led her down a long, gray hallway. There were doors leading off of it, all marked with signs. One read "BUNKS", and a few others, "BATHROOMS". Another large sliding door sat on the right, with a sign above it that read "RESPAWN". She shuddered as she remembered the RESPAWN chip she still needed to have implanted.

Engie pointed at the RESPAWN door. "Through there'd be your ammo lockers n'such, and then there's another door in there leadin' to the battlements. We'll go over this tomorrow when y'all're given the tour. We get Sundays off, o'course, and when we move to the next compound we get the whole weekend to get settled."

Apprentice nodded again. She wasn't much of a talker. The same could not be said for Engie, however, who was talking quite a bit, and the more he talked, the thicker his Texan accent grew. Most of it was just bits of random trivia about the facility and offhand comments about its name ("Ya ain't gonna wonder why it's called 'Turbine' once ya see the battlements, that's for sure!") and the team ("Y'all might think I'M talking much, but you just wait'll you meet Scout! That boy could outtalk a lil yappin' dog, I'll tell ya that").

He led her through a small kitchen (the sink was piled with dishes; covering the pile was a towel, and on it was a piece of paper, on it scrawled hasty note: Outta site, outta mind, Engie.)

The Texan snorted at this and muttered, "Darn it, Scout."

He rolled his eyes at Apprentice. "That boy hates doin' his share of the chores, 'specially the dishes. And he can't spell worth a darn, neither."

Apprentice smiled at that and followed Engie through the kitchen doorway, into a room that was the dining room and rec room, according to the sign above it. She frowned a bit when she saw the sign; was everything here labelled?

There were eight men sitting in various places around the rec room, absorbed in their own activities. None of them noticed her walking in. Engie leaned towards her.

"I'm gonna go get the grub, now go'n get yourself settled." He headed back into the kitchen.

Apprentice took a deep breath and walked forwards. She hated meeting new people, and always felt that they were judging her, that they thought she was weird. But as she got closer, she realized that she was probably one of the most normal ones there. One of them, a light-skinned man in a baggy fireproof suit, sat on the floor, criss-cross style, in front of a couch. He was shifting back and forth, a deceptively childish grin on his face, as he clicked a lighter on and off. His eyes shone bright with the reflection of the flame, but there was a fire to them that definitely wasn't a reflection. She decided to steer clear of him for now, and looked around for a safer person to sit near. Unfortunately, none of the other options seemed to be very good.

On one of the three lumpy couches in the room sat a lanky man with thinning brown hair. A pair of yellow shooting glasses were pushed up onto his forehead, and he was sitting on far end of the couch closest to the wall. He was drinking coffee and reading Catch-22. He appeared calm, but the way his eyes were darting around the room and the way he seemed to be trying to collapse in on himself suggested that he wasn't used to being around the rest of the team after matches.

A bottle flew past her head, drawing her attention to the far end of the room, towards the dining table. Two of her teammates were in, from what she could see, a fight over a…cupcake. One of the men was wearing an overly large army helmet, and the other was a scrawny young man with buckteeth. He had a bloody nose, and the army guy was screaming something about "cupcake communists". Sitting at the table was a black man wearing an eyepatch, who was laughing at the two so hard that he was punching the table. Also sitting at the table, watching the fight in disgust, was a rather short, skinny man wearing a ski mask and a suit. He was smoking a cigarette daintily.

He looked over at Apprentice, appraising her for a moment, before sniffing and turning back towards the fight (the army guy now had the skinny one in a headlock, which Skinny was valiantly trying to escape).

She glared at him. What was his problem? Rolling her eyes, she moved to the couch in the middle of the room, closest to the television set. Two other men were sitting on it. One of them was wearing round spectacles and reading a thick encyclopedia, titled Gray's Anatomy. A glance over his shoulder showed her pictures of organs, scientifically labelled. She wrinkled her nose. The spectacled man acknowledged her with a nod, then returned to his book. He turned the page and laughed at something. She scooted a bit farther away from him. The man farthest from her was tall and muscular, with beady blue eyes. He was knitting what appeared to be a pair of gloves. She sat awkwardly on the edge of the couch, waiting for Engie to come back. She raised her arm to check her watch. Five o' clock, exactly.

A large hand tapped her elbow, and she turned in surprise to the large man at the end of the couch. He leaned across the man with the spectacles, who grimaced at him and leaned back.

"You are new recruit?" He asked. His Russian accent was prominent in those few words.

"Uh, yeah, I am. My name is Apprentice." She awkwardly extended her hand. He shook it lightly.

"I am Heavy Weapons Guy. I have question for you: do you have woolen stockings?"

She scrunched up her face in confusion. "Umm…yes? It got pretty cold in Nebraska, so I have a couple of pairs. I brought 'em just in case, but, uh, doesn't seem like I'll need 'em."

Heavy Weapons Guy simply shrugged. "It will get cold in the nights."

Apprentice nodded slowly.

"Right, but, uh, wh-why did you want to know?" She tilted her head to the side, squinting at him.

"Wanted to know if Heavy would have to knit you some. I knit them for new people. Knitted them for Doktor", he pointed to the man with the anatomy book, "the little rabbit Scout," he pointed to the boy fighting, who was still in the headlock and slowly turning blue, "and the Demoman." he motioned to the man with the eyepatch. "But you do not need them, da?"

Apprentice twitched her shoulder. "Nah I guess not, huh?" She smiled at him.

"Pretty nice of ya, Heavy. I can call you that, right?"

Heavy nodded at her, and returned to his knitting. The "Doktor" leaned forwards again. He flipped another page, revealing a very realistic drawing of a transparent human body, with all of the organs, nerves, and skeletal system visible. He turned to Apprentice and grinned in a manic way.

"Zis is my favorite part!"

She stared at him for a second, then slowly nodded.

"That-that's. Nice."

He nodded his head feverishly, still grinning, still without blinking, then returned to the book. Just as she was wondering if she should maybe switch places, Engie came back into the room, holding a large cast-iron cooking pot. She stood up quickly and moved towards the table.

Finally.