"Are you sure she's eligible?"

"Yeah. She's a bit... erm... short."

"Forget short, man. She's fucking young." I watched as two man and a woman looked down on me.

"Please watch your language." Alaska spoke up, "She's still ten."

"I don't know if you're head is screwed on properly, Alaska." The woman sighed, removing her helmet.

"Didn't Vermont say something about how children are the future?" Alaska joked.

"I'm sure he meant that in a different way." One of the men spoke up as they too took off their helmets. To my surprise, they looked practically identical with dirty blonde hair and deep blue eyes.

"Are you part of the Aryan race?" I murmured, cowering behind Alaska.

One of the men kneeled to eye level with me, "Now how are you even able to learn about a tragedy like that when you're in a place that teaches you about nothing but God and pacifism?" He laughed

"I knew a guy who also used to smuggle in the PlayBoy magazine for the older boys. He helped me get some magazines and textbooks while he was out. It didn't help that I stayed in the same room for most of the day at that God forsaken place."

"I wouldn't call it 'God forsaken.'" Alaska scowled at me for just a moment, "I think a place like that would be considered the exact opposite... And which magazines did you read if that boy was passing out PlayBoy?"

I pulled a wrinkled pile of paper out of my backpack, revealing a magazine with stuff about Freelancers, "This right here."

"I didn't know we had a magazine." The woman was shocked.

"Yeah, Cousin. I though all our stuff was top secret." The man who had still been standing spoke up.

"It's mostly comics portraying how awesome we are." Alaska chuckled, "Not anything that we hadn't previously released into the public. If there were a leak, then we would've had some issues to deal with."

"Quit groveling, Mexico." The woman pulled the man by his short hair, forcing him to stand up, "There's no reason to make her anymore scared. You could at least introduce yourself."

"Can you go first, Cuz?" He was shaken.

"It really doesn't matter." She kneeled down, but didn't stand as close to me as this 'Mexico' guy, "You may refer to me as Agent West Virginia or W.V. Which ever floats your boat. These two dumb a- I mean numbskulls behind me are Arizona and New Mexico. Please don't let them be your influences." She smiled a dull, but disheartening smile that sent divers down my spine, then stood up.

"Alright. Thanks for introducing us... I guess." Arizona moved his hand to the back of his neck.

"Hey Bro? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" New Mexico started laughing, shifting his weight to one foot.

"And what may that be?" He turned toward his brother.

"I wanna see what spunk this girly has. Do you think they'll let her use the training room for evaluation."

"Probably. My fear is that she probably doesn't have and skills in hand to hand or weaponry."

"Hand to hand, probably. Weaponry, hell no. She was raised in an orphanage not a military base like us"

"Of course, though, you're not planning on putting her in a room with actual people, right."

"Fuck no."

"You better not be planning on turrets either." Alaska intervened.

"Do you think we'll leave a little girl alone in a room with X amount of turrets?" They practically said in sync.

"It's hard to tell with your crack-pot schemes, anyway." W.V. laughed.

I was left in a room with probably a bakers dozen of testing dummies. Not even Alaska stayed behind with me. What made me even more afraid was that I found however many people were in an observation room watching me. Probably waiting for me to screw up again.

"Round begin." A feminine, metallic voice echoed through the room. I clenched my hands. I was afraid of getting in trouble, but this wasn't like the orphanage, right? They encourage people to defend themselves, right?

I took a deep inhale and a slow exhale, realizing my muscles and forgetting about the observers. I lunged forward and delivered a punch to the first target. It somehow fell off it's scrawny post. I was afraid of getting scolded at, but at the same time, it felt great. I was finally free. I did a few kicks, spinning exercises, and probably whatever else you could think of in regards to attacking. I'm finally free! I ran through my head over and over again until the last dummy fell.

"Round over in fifty five seconds." The voice went off again. I heard cheering. It was then that I remembered I had an audience. I would've fainted from fear if I hadn't been relieved. I had almost forgotten what a congratulatory cheer sounded like, "Name saved." The voice spoke once more, "Welcome, Agent Tennessee."

"I-I'm actually... in?" I let out an exasperated sigh. I couldn't believe it.