Name: Rachel Elizabeth Dare
Occupation: Environmentalist Lawyer, Artist, Hero
Alias: Oracle
Date: December 28th XX24
Argonaut Anthology: Glimpse of the Future
Rachel sits in her room after talking to Annabeth. She would admit that she was being stubborn not accepting help from her after her small stumble. Climbing stairs with limited depth perception was not the best idea that she has ever come up with. Honestly she wanted to be alone. Not because everybody was smothering her or anything like that, but because she saw a future that she needed to know more about. This was the first time that Rachel had ever seen the future and not seen her herself. She bent the truth slightly when she told Annabeth that she only gets a small glimpse of the future, she had actually seen quite a bit. Rachel feels her stomach churn and she grabs a granola bar and a cup of tea and sits at her desk. She glances at all of her art utensils and decides that she will draw the future using her colored pencils again. She takes a sip of her tea before taking a deep breath. She hears Delphi's scaly voice whisper incoherent words in her mind. The glowing green serpent appears in front of her before she has the vision.
Rachel looks around in her green ghostly form. She was in the hallway that she drew before. She turns and sees her niece, Lucy Charlotte Dare, standing next to Cassie. They were outside of a room just talking. It sounds a bit garbled, so she floats closer to hear better. As she gets closer, their voice become clearer.
"What is taking them so long?" Cassie says looking at her watch.
"They are getting their physicals done, of course it will take forever." Lucy brushes some of her bangs out of her eyes and she makes eye contact with Rachel, or they would if she was actually there. Lucy stares at Rachel, smiles then winks at her. Rachel turns around, but doesn't see anyone there. Had she actually seen her?, she thinks to herself. The door that the duo were waiting outside of opens and the teenagers that she saw before come out.
"Told you I was stronger," Sally says as she comes out of the room with a Chinese girl. "You owe me five bucks."
"It was so not fair. Your brother was making his wolves do tricks, I got distracted," she says putting her hands on her hips.
"Excuses, excuses."
"At least I'm stronger than him," she says pointing to Freddy.
"Mei, you are like three years older than me, so you should be stronger than me," Freddy says. At his side were two fairly large wolves made of water. He strokes the head of one of them as he speaks.
"Well...shut up," she says turning around. The hispanic boy comes out rubbing his head.
"That was so not cool Freddy," he says as Freddy laughs.
"No, but it was funny." Sally comes over and looks at his forehead.
"A bruise might form, but you should be fine Sammy. Stop being a baby," she concludes. The boy and girl that look like siblings walk out together. "What took you two so long?"
"Little Jane over here didn't want to get shots," the boy says leaning on the wall.
"Not true and I'm older than you John," the girl says. The Japanese girl walks out very quietly. She holds her arms up covering her chest, biting her thumbnail. She seems to be trying to not draw attention to herself.
"Hey Noire, how did it go?" This seems to scare the girl as she jumps when Sally calls out to her. "Sorry." She looks back and forth between all the people.
"I..um..it...went...good...um…" Noire says nervously. The boy that looks like Frank exits and taps her shoulder. She yelps and scrambles away, hiding behind Sally.
"Just wear your ring and be confident," he says. Lucy clears her throat and all the teens turn to look at her. They all scramble and line up.
"Alright, your physicals are over, so you guys get a thirty minute break before you need to be at the armory for the briefing," Cassie says. The teens salute at her and they are dismissed. Mei puts an arm around Sally and Freddy as they walk down the hall. Sammy follows next to them while the other four head in a different direction. Rachel looks at Lucy. Lucy looks back at her and taps her wrist before turning around to talk to Cassie. Rachel knows that Lucy was reminding her not to spend too much time in the future. Rachel floats behind Sally and her friends.
"So, what are you going to do with the break? I say that we have a ping pong tournament, what do you think?" Mei says, her arms around Freddy and Sally. "Let's call it team building exercise." Freddy rolls his eyes.
"Your idea of team building is to get into a competition with each other?" Mei ignores him and turns towards Sammy.
"You're in right?"
"Sure, why not?" he says giving in.
"Sal?" Mei asks turning towards Sally.
"As much as I'd love to, I promised Mr. Leo I'd help before we head out," Sally says ducking out of Mei grasp.
"Lame," Mei says going down a hallway, dragging Freddy somewhere. Sammy stops and turns to Sally.
"Be careful around him. You know what he's done to my family," he warns before catching up the Mei. Sally shakes her head and pulls out an ID card. She holds it up to a door and it opens. Rachel quickly follows her in and sees that it was just like the rooms on the Argos, a decent size with a desk, bed, a closet, and a mini-fridge. The room was neatly kept, much cleaner than Rachel's room was. Everything was neatly put into a stack or a container. This was a surprise because of the fact that she was related to one of the more messy people on the ship. Rachel looks back to her desk. On the wall above her desk were a series of pictures that she took as she grew up. Rachel recognizes the picture that she just drew her in the present. Next to that was a drawing that Rachel had signed, but she did not recognize it. One picture stood out to Rachel as it was a picture of Sally as a five year old in a large jungle. She turns back and sees that Sally was changing into a white t-shirt covered in grease stains, jeans that had a bunch of burn marks in them. She pulls her hair into a messy bun. She opens a drawer and pulls out a toolbelt, gloves, a small rage, and a hard hat. She plops the hard hat on her head, tucks the gloves in one of her back pockets and the rag in the other. She folds the uniform that she was just wearing and puts it in a bag. She grabs the bag, pats her front pocket, and then leaves the room. Rachel follows her out and watches her walk down a series of staircases and into a familiar door. She hits it twice, waits three seconds then enters.
"Hey old man, you awake?" she says as she enters. Rachel hears something hit metal followed by a groan.
"Hey Sally," Leo groans out. Rachel floats in and sees Leo half was in one of the components of the ship. He slides out and he had a large grease mark on his forehead. "And I'm not an old man." Sally chuckles and throws the rag that was in her pocket at him. He catches it and wipes his face before standing up.
"So, what's on the docket today?" She asks putting the bag in a cubbyhole.
"Diverting power from Jason's room into my gaming room," he says smiling. Sally rolls her eyes.
"Come on, what are we really doing?" Leo laughs.
"Just simple maintenance. Honestly I can do it myself, you don't need to hang out with me."
"I like hanging out with you Mr. Leo," she says pulling her gloves on and grabbing a pair of goggles.
"You only get to be a kid once, hang out with your friends," he says hooking a device up to a circuit breaker.
"You're one to talk, all your friends are in DC."
"That's different and you know it."
"Besides all they are doing is playing ping pong. I'd rather do something productive," Sally says flipping a switch. One machine shut off and she starts to do some maintenance.
"You know, I'd say you were just like your mom..." Sally tenses at this. "...but I know how much that pisses you off, so I won't." Sally turns around at looks at him, her hands on her hips.
"You do realize that saying, 'I would say this, but I won't' is actually saying the thing."
"I know," Leo says throwing a rag at her. The device that he was holding beeps and he unhooks it. "How's the transmogrifier?"
"It is still running, but there is some build up that needs to be cleared," she says turning around and grabbing a bucket. Leo nods and turns to work on some wiring.
"Oh hey, did you ever figure out what name you are going to use?" Sally seems to perk up at this.
"I had a realization, the answer was right in front of me. I'm going with Tactician."
"Nice. It's short, sweet and sophisticated. It fits you."
"Thanks."
"You know what the rest of your squad is going with?"
"Mei decided to go as Mercy. She wanted to go with something similar to her dad, or Will I should say." Sally starts to fill a bucket with brown powder from the machine.
"She is a healer right?"
"Heal Enhancer and she has her Emotepath ESPer powers."
"Oh yeah, I heard about that. How does that work again?"
"She is able to detect people emotions based on pheromones and facial expressions. Not only that, she is able to extrapolate actions that people will do based off of that. She is able to get exactly what she wants by pushing people's buttons."
"I get it now, she's called Mercy because you will be begging for Mercy when you have something she wants."
"Exactly." Sally flips the switch to turn the machine back on before throwing the whole bucket into the machine. She presses a button and a new bucket is made from the machine.
"What about Freddy?"
"Freddy is going as Hunter." Sally closes the transmogrifier and walks over to the computer terminal.
"Hunter? Well I guess it makes sense since he can make those water wolves. How many is he up to?"
"Four adults, two cubs."
"He has is own little wolfpack. A weird wolfpack, but a pack all the same." Sally taps on the computer and runs a diagnostics report on it. "Gloves," Leo says without looking at her. Sally looks down and pulls her gloves off before wiping the keyboard with a clean rag.
"So, uh, what about Freddy?" Leo asks nervously.
"He is going as Titan."
"Titan. That's...cool," Leo says taping the ends of the wires with electrical tape.
"Just talk to him," Sally says with a groan, clearly tired of whatever is happening between the two.
"Sure, sure. I'll totally get right on that. Speaking of which, when do you have to report to the armory?"
"1600, why?"
"It 3:55 right now," Leo says. Sally looks up from the computer and curses. She rushes over to the cubby and grabs her bag of clothes.
"Can I…" she asks pointing to a corner that has a bed.
"Go for it." Sally runs in and pulls a curtain close. Rachel hears rustling on the other side. The curtain opens and Sally was dressed in her uniform once again. She rushes and puts the bag in the cubby hole before making her way towards the door. "Hair," Leo says not looking up. Sally pulls her hair out of the bun, letting it fall loose before pulling it back into a ponytail.
"Thanks, see ya Mr. Leo."
"Bye, don't die," Leo says without looking up. Sally rolls her eyes as she leaves the room. Rachel follows her walk up the stair and enter the familiar armory. As Sally enters she salutes Cassie and Lucy who are sitting at a desk.
"Sally, perfect timing." Rachel looks at the clock and sees that it perfectly ticks four pm. "So where is the rest of your squad?" Sally looks around the room and sees Noire, Jane and John.
"That is a good question," Sally answers with a sigh. She hears people rushing down the stairs and sees Sammy, Mei, Freddy, and the Asian boy.
"Are we late?" Mei asks.
"Technically. Why is Lee with you?" Sally asks.
"We needed a fourth," Mei says pulling out a handkerchief and handing it to Sally. Mei pulls out a compact mirror. Rachel floats over and sees that Sally had a small grease smear on her forehead. She quickly wipes it off and mouths a thank you to her friend.
"Great, now can we get started?" Cassie asks. They all turn and take a seat. There was an extra chair out. Lucy looks right at Rachel and winks at her. Rachel floats over and takes the extra seat. Everybody seems to notice the extra chair, but decide not to bring it up.
"So you guys will be shadowing our squad today, with Matt and Bobby's trainees shadowing us next week. Today you will be assigned a locker with your codename and a lock combo. We have already put all the equipment that you gave us when you checked in at the start of the year," Lucy explains. "For example, this locker belongs to Tactician," she says pointing to a locker. Sally snaps her head before looking degected.
"Who is Tactician?" Mei asks.
"Sally is." Sally looks confused at Lucy.
"I haven't told anybody about that."
"It's my little secret," Lucy says with a smile. "I figured out where you got the name from." Sally smile. "Speaking of which," Lucy says turning to look directly at Rachel. "Isn't that enough of a glimpse?" Suddenly, the green serpent appears and the vision ends.
Rachel blinks her eye a few times and looks at her notebook. She had started a few sketches while she was in the vision subconsciously, something she discovered when she was ten years old. She looks through the sketches and sees that she drew Mei with her arms around Sally and Freddy, Sally in the engine room, and Sally standing next to the locker that says Tactician. She smiles at her sketches and looks at the clock. She downs her now cold tea and gathers her colored pencils. She heads up to the command center. She activates her power to look at the still images of the event and she starts drawing, waiting to reach their destination.