I follow Barton wordlessly to a discreet door in the side of the building. He pulls out an id card and holds it up to a scanner. The scanner makes a beeping alarm sound and the door swings open. Barton and I walk in to a tunnel like hallway that leads to yet another door. He holds his id up to that one as well and it swings open.
I jump back a little warily at what it reveals. A woman in S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform is standing with her arms crossed, obviously waiting for us. She is obviously muscular and a very imposing 5'11" for a woman. Her face is blank of emotion while her piecing blue eyes flick over everything. Her platinum blond hair is pulled back into a professional, military bun, only emphasizing the rigidness and lack of curves on her entire body. Her jaw is wide and strong with a large nose and forehead while her shoulders are broad and lined with obvious muscle along her entire body. I swear, if I didn't know better I would have said she looked like a man. She isn't pretty, not by a long shot, but she doesn't look like she wants to be pretty. She looks like she wants to beat the crap out of you.
"Agent Hunter," Barton acknowledges curtly.
She doesn't move or acknowledge Barton back but gets straight to the point. "The Director said you'd be coming with a new recruit."
"What else did he tell you?" Barton questions. She barely waits for him to finish before answering.
"Not much."
An awkward silence settled over our little group while Barton and Agent Hunter have a staring contest. I try to make myself the smallest and attract absolutely no attention. Of course, she turns her unnerving blue eyes straight to me. I avoid them and look at the ground, wishing Barton would get me out of this situation.
"So this is the recruit?" she questions as if I'm not standing right there. Neither of us answers since she already knows the answer. With her hands clasped behind her back, she slowly circles me and I can practically feel the line of her sight all across my body. "Not what I expected for putting up this much fuss," she comments to herself, which I find very rude.
"She was in medical for three months. Her physical condition is degraded," Clint adds. I send him a death glare from under my eyelashes. He is NOT helping.
"We are already full, I don't see how we can accept another recruit—"
"You don't have to worry about that. I'll be the one training her," Clint interrupts. Agent Hunter gives him a slightly surprised look before watching me with even more interest.
Dang you Barton!
"Fine," she clips curtly before heading to a computer and typing something. I breathe a sigh of relief now that her eyes are off me. "Your room will be 563 and you report at 0500 for your PT (physical test) and ME (medical exam). The rooms are through that door and straight down the hall. Dismissed," she cuts off.
I don't even glance at Barton before practically running out the door, thankful for any excuse to be out of there.
I hear the two agents talking in low tones, before the door slams shut behind me.
"Through that door and straight down the hall," I repeat softly to myself, "number 563."
Sure enough, I come across it in the millions of doors down the infinitely long hallway. I rest my hand on the door knob for a moment and pause. I cast a quick glance around. I wonder briefly how many of these rooms are occupied, and how many sleeping people are in here, just waiting for the sun to come up and bring another day.
I push the door open to reveal a cell like room, no different from the hospital ones I have been staying in; save this one has no tubes, wires, needles, and weird machines. A simple white cot is tucked in the corner with white sheets and a white bed stand on which sits a white alarm clock and all this blends in with the white walls. Two white doors to a closet and a bathroom are barely visible against the walls. I don't bother with anything, since I have no gear and no possessions, I have nothing to worry about. I practically fall into the cot that is a poor excuse for a bed and pull the itchy covers over my head, tunneling myself down as far as I can go.
So here I am, on my own, in a foreign and not very friendly place where I will learn to become a killing machine (the thought makes me shiver. I couldn't kill a person, right? I don't want to kill people. I quickly move on from that thought) with the mentorship of an assassin, right… this is going to be good.
Ouch. That is the only conscious word that registers through my mind as pain tears through my entire body. Hawkeye's blows keep coming while I'm still recovering from the ones he gave a minute ago. Though they hurt like hell, I know he's holding back because I felt his real punch before I ended up in the hospital. Compared to that, these are nothing, but they still hurt. They're quick. They're concise. They're too fast for the naked eye to follow. But I start to realize what he wants me to do. In the beginning of the spar, I tried to block all and every of his blows, but now that he's worn me to the point of exhaustion, I start to calculate the ones that will cause the most damage, and the ones which seriously need to be blocked, or they would knock me out. He also seems to be using the same tricks over and over again. I know he has more of an arsenal then that, but he keeps using the same ones so that I can learn from experience (rather than school room teaching) the best way to cope with them. But the most important of all, he's training me to take a beating, to keep fighting when I know there is no hope for my victory, to take the hardest hits but be so accustomed to them that they barely sting, which they are already doing. My body is growing accustomed to these brutal shots, and what used to sting like hell before I barley blink an eye at now.
I don't even see his fist coming, but suddenly it slams into my temple. I feel my neck twist and my back arch, being forced backwards from the weight of the blow. It was so unexpected that my body doesn't even try to resist. I see black spots, well, more then I already did, and my hearing buzzes.
I slam into the ropes around the ring and slump against them, clinging desperately. My legs shake and tremble underneath me so I doubt they can hold my own weight, but I push them to at least keep me up with the support of the ropes.
Suddenly, I'm flying through the air. Years of doing this has made me stay calm, so I start to twist my body the way I would to land feet first, but something is holding onto my legs. I feel panic well up in my throat as I see the ground looming closer. I thrash out and wiggle desperately, trying to rid myself of the imprisoning weight that is pulling my body down. The desperation gives me an extra rush of adrenaline (which, if I'm completely honest, I love. I love the feeling of exhaustion, and then the rush that pushes your sweat soaked body to do things that you never knew possible, all the while feeling the nearest to death from dehydration you've ever felt before) but it seems to do nothing.
My mind calculates before I consciously do that I will not have time to land on my feet anymore, so it reflexes me to cover my head and curl into a fetal position while twisting so my back will take the landing.
It comes all too quickly and I can barely breathe as the air leaves my lunges in a whoosh. The fact that Hawkeye's hand is pinning down my abdomen doesn't help as I struggle to breathe.
Of course, this isn't enough for him. One hand forces my defensive position open while the other wraps around my neck, cutting off my already minimal air supply.
"I think," I barely manage to wheeze out, "you won."
My mind is already turning, and he has made one big mistake. When he forced my legs straight and out of their curled position, he forgot them as he straddle them in order to get a good position for the choke hold.
"Mistake number one: you turned your back to your enemy."
"Mistake number one," I respond, "you thought I was down."
Barely before I finish speaking, I use the leverage of his hand against my neck, and even though it is extremely painful, I push against it to give my extremely weak legs a boost. I hit him right in the crotch and immediately feel the tension on my neck slacken. I use my left hand and shove his choke hold sideways. Since his grip was already slacked, he just slips off my neck. I backward roll away from him and bound to my feet in a defensive position.
I don't know how he recovered so quickly, but he is already up by the time I face him. He doesn't lunge at me, nor is he even in a fighting position. He is simply observing me with a calculating look. I don't let my guard down. He might just be waiting to pounce. As far as he's been playing, anything goes. It doesn't matter how you win the fight, what matters is if you win.
"So who wins?" I ask.
He grins at me. "Technically I did."
"Um, technically you had me down and you underestimated me and I took the opportunity and outsmarted you," I snort.
"Outsmarted me? You just managed to slither out of my grasp."
"I managed to stay alive. If this had been a real fight, I would have gotten up and had enough time to run away before you were able to catch me again."
"If this had been a real fight, I would have given you a knock-out punch and overpowered you during the first thirty seconds."
"Ouch. I guess that's why you're training me, isn't it?" I grin back. Suddenly, all my adrenaline leaves and I see black spots again. I feel my legs shake and they tingle with exhaustion, barely able to hold me up. Not able to hold me up at all, in fact. I slump forward and fall to my knees. To keep myself from falling completely over, I fall forward on all fours and hang my head, retching and gagging, but nothing comes up.
Hawkeye is there with a bottle of water, lifting up my face and holding the bottle to my lips. I can barely get any of the water down though.
He laughs, "Good fight."
I roll my eyes the best I can.
"You ok?" he asks with enough decency to act as if he has a speck of concern. I don't answer, but just hang my head. I'm still struggling to breathe after that trip through the air and back down. "Breathe," he commands. What does he think I'm trying to do? Hold my breath? I would indulge my first impulse to say this out loud, but I decide not to waste precious energy on something as trivial as pacifying my own wounded pride and need for sarcasm.
I think over the day. The past few hours have been pretty much hell. It's only about eight in the morning, but I was brutally roused at five. Then I was dragged off for my ME (medical exam) which was horrible. Doctors, again. Hordes of them, bleeding, scoping, scraping, and puncturing me with needles, heart monitors and the like. My paranoia of hospitals and records nearly got the best of me, but I managed to stay calm enough not to kill one of the docs before they delivered me to Hawkeye. I remember his ironic words. Had a bad morning? He had asked. It was nightmarish, I responded. After that was my PT (Physical Exam), which I understand I will be taking monthly for the duration of my training. If I'm correct, Barton was rather unorthodox with it though. Then again, I don't think either of us is following the rules as far as my training goes.
So here I am, in the aftermath of an extreme beating and wondering what exactly is going on the file for my "physical exam." After all, getting the crap beat out of you on your first fight (true, I didn't have any training, but still…) can't look very good. The very fact that I'm here under constant observation and monitoring by a government agency and possibly everything I say and do might end up on a file under my true name is rather distracting. While on this topic, I still doubt whether I was in my right mind when I decided to come here or if Hawkeye hit me harder than I thought.
Either way, I'm here now, for better or for worse, and I comfort myself with the thought that I could sneak away and return to my old life if I ever felt the need to. Part of me knows this is a lie though. Part of me knows that I've seen behind a curtain only a select few ever even get a glimpse of. There is no going back.
No! I tell myself fiercely, I can leave WHENEVER I like. You know how to disappear. You know how to vanish into thin air. If things go wrong, you can always hack their systems, erase anything they have on you, and then vanish into thin air.
My ruminating is interrupted when Hawkeye grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. The sudden movement causes the black spots to return with a sudden fit of dizziness. I gasp and clutch at his arm, trying to steady myself. My sweat is already drying cold on my skin. I feel the shakiness in my legs, no longer from complete exhaustion, but from the after effects of a severely taxing workout.
"Get a drink, breathe, and then meet me on the floor."
This place, which looked like an oversized hanger from outside, is really an elaborate network maze of dorms, eating areas, offices for the trainers, and the biggest part designated to what is called the "Training Center" and inside the Training Center is a floor rather like the one used in gymnastics on which moves for close combat that include acrobats such as flipping or moves that need an open space.
With a nod, I duck under the ropes and jump down, heading towards the drinking fountain. The Training Center is the main center, but also there are many (thousands) of individual training rooms that can contain anything from the basic lifting, to an obstacle course with elaborate traps and snares, testing the agility and endurance of the trainee. There are also lap pools, diving pools, running tracks, treadmills that are sleek and shaped like hamster wheels, and many other types of elite equipment that have not been released for the use of the general public.
Five minutes later, I'm standing with Barton on the floor.
"So, show me what you can do."
"What do you mean?" I ask, confused.
"Just what I said."
"Stop being so damn cryptic and answer me," I can't help but snarl. I'm tired, sore, in extreme pain, and I know things are going to get a whole lot worse from here, thereby not helping to improve my temper.
"Let's start off with the simple skills. In hand-to-hand combat, the most elite of the assassins can use any trick they need to outwit their enemy. That includes basic maneuvers such as back flips, front flips, hand-springs, long jumps, so on and so forth, and use these maneuvers on items around them. First, though, you need to master these skills on the most basic level."
"So basically you want me to show you how much of my gymnastics training I've lost over the past threeish years of not practicing," I say in a flat tone.
"No, I want to see how much it will come back to you, and if I'm correct, it should take minimal time to get back into your muscle memory."
The next three hours are spent on mostly gymnastics tumbling. I feel tentative with each skill as they gradually increase in difficulty, but soon I'm starting to feel at ease. It feels so good to practice my standing-back-tucks over and over and over again, just like I used to years ago. It feels so good to have Hawkeye coach me on kips from the ground, focusing on changing this bit of form here, a bit more there, tweaking it until it hits perfection.
I was in the middle of a simple round-off-layout when suddenly, the last time I had been flying through the air and things went terribly wrong came flashing before my eyes. My pass had been a triple-twisting-double-back. Everything had felt wrong from the start, even the run. I remember taking off. The world flashed before my eyes, but I was at the wrong angle. I was too low. I knew it was wrong. I wouldn't have enough time to twist. But I was already moving, my muscles automatically obeying the move they had practiced a thousand times before, never doubting its fellow muscles that had made a miscalculation from the start. I was right and I didn't have enough time to twist. Or at least, finish the twist. I came down still twisting, cleanly snapping the tibia and tearing numerous muscles holding my knee cap in place. I didn't know this at the time of course. All I knew was a horrible pain stabbing up my leg, then everything going black, and then blazing white. People's muddled voices babbling in the background, and foremost a horrible screaming. It took me a long time to find out that it was my own scream.
I land my simple layout, but my eyes are wide with horror. I can barely breathe, and I stand in the same place where I stuck my landing, stiff as a board, arms extended in front of me, knees bent under the impact of the land, and eyes unseeing to anything in front of me. Did it really happen? Did I just relive that horrible experience in my mind, or actually in my body? No, I couldn't have. I just landed the layout. Than why am I hyperventilating?
I snap out of it as Hawkeye waves in front of my face.
"Keira, you listening to me?"
No, I just heard absolutely nothing you just said, "Yeah, sorry. I was… just thinking about something."
"Ok, good, cause we need to work on your form on the takeoff. After your reach your hands to the ground—"
I tune out the rest of the sentence, going through the motions mechanically. That was the first time I'd allowed myself to think of the incident in years. Now it all came flooding back to me. All of it. Including the fear.
The fear of flight. One of the most terrifying there is, and a gymnast lives in it consistently. But that wasn't all. Sure, I'm afraid of the physicality that I have to face, but more than anything, I'm terrified of losing confidence in myself. What if Hawkeye asks me to do some amazingly crazy stunt, and I just can't do it? What then? Do I go back to the street?
You just told yourself you wanted to go back there, I remember.
I said I wanted to, IF things went wrong, not because I didn't cut it. Not because they kicked me out and I have nowhere else to go, I argue desperately.
Riiight, so you got yourself working for a national security top secret government agency, and then you expect to just walk away? No. They will never let you leave. They will keep using you until you are of no more use to them, and then they will abandon you and throw you out onto the street like an old shoe. It has its perks right now, but later, you're going to regret ever trusting that deceiving wretch.
NO! Hawkeye helped me! He is still helping me!
Of course that's what you think right now, but what about later? What about—
"Keira!"
I snap my head up and find Hawkeye's demanding eyes boring down on me. What am I doing on the ground? How did I get down here? What has he been saying?
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing," I lie, quickly standing up.
"Get your head in the game, you don't have any more time for daydreaming," he snaps.
I wasn't daydreaming you idiot, I was contemplating the possibilities of being killed or used in my bleak-looking future.
"You have a thirty minute cool down, and then go to lunch."
With that, he turned heel and left.
Whatever, I grumble as I ease myself into cool down stretches. I spend my thirty minutes enjoying the tug and loosening of my taxed muscles. I can already feeling them cramping and tensing. As I stretch out my limbs, I inspect the black and blue bruises that have already started rising in welts on my arms, legs, abdomen, and face. Those are going to look bad in a couple days. I find I also have a busted lip and what feels like an angry, red welt across my cheek bone and of course a bruise on my temple from that immense hit I wasn't able to block earlier.
I realize my time is up, and I quickly make my way through the endless maze of corridors to the cafeteria (with the help of numerous maps and signs along the way. I pull open the door and freeze.
It never hit me before how many recruits there actually are. There must be thousands, all chattering and mingling like one big organism of crawling insects. Granted, my metaphor is not the most flattering, but it aptly describes the sight that greets my eyes. Some of them seem older than me, but a minority might be a few years younger, which surprises me. How do they get these kids here? Orphans? That is my guess. What parent in their right mind would ship their kid off to military/assassin training school at the age of twelve? Maybe ones with extremely limited financial situations and extremely bright children.
Then it dawns on me just how ratty I must look. I'm in the standard S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee uniform. A latex suit-like unitard with light combat boots. No fancy gadgets, no pockets or belts. The suit itself is a drab, dark grey color with a S.H.I.E.L.D. patch on the shoulder. These suits breathe nicely, but seem to stick to your skin in sweat.
Of course, I'm sweaty as hell and my hair is ratty, falling out of its ponytail, and frizzled. Everyone else seems to have perfect hair; all smoothed back and perfectly pulled away from the face. All he boys have theirs in longer crew cuts, like Hawkeye's, and the girls either have their hair wrapped in a military bun or pulled back in a ponytail.
After getting a tray and filling it with random stuff, I sit at the end of a table that seemingly no one has claimed. I hunch my shoulders over my food and hope to get through the meal unnoticed and go back to my training.
"That's my seat," a calm and quiet, yet firm, voice states behind me.
"Really? I didn't see your name on it," I shoot back, not bothering to turn around.
I keep eating my food, waiting for some sign of an oncoming attack, but nothing happens. The person just waits behind me for a long time, as if deliberating what to do.
Well let them deliberate and I can eat in peace.
Finally, the person seems to have made up his mind and rounds the table into my vision line. A boy who looks about fourteen with dark hair and ice blue eyes meets my gaze. He is small, but I can tell right away he is incredibly smart. I have no doubt he got into this program if only for that. Like I said, he's small, but that does not seem to diminish his size. Rather, he seems to be emanating a calm, quiet sort of leadership.
I realize he wasn't telling me to move out of spite, but he was just showing me how things are done around here. Or rather, how they should be done. I never do things how they should be done.
He sets his tray across from me deliberately. Everything this kid seems to do is deliberate. He never once broke our gaze.
"So you're new here?" he asks quietly.
"How could you tell?" eye roll.
He ignores my sarcasm and keeps staring at me with intensity. "You didn't come with the new batch of recruits, and you're too old to have anyways."
"Ya, I'm what you consider a… late comer."
"How'd you get here? I haven't seen you train before," he inquires. All his questions are concise and to the point, each and every one meant to get an answer to the question he wants.
"I got here last night and it's none of your business how I got here," I respond snappishly.
He nods curtly, but I can tell it's more of a we'll-continue-this-conversation-later-but-right-n ow-I've-gotten-all-I-need-out-of-it kind of nod. "How'd you get the bruises?"
"Training."
"And you've only been here half a day?" he asks skeptically.
"No one's beating me up if that's what you're asking. I haven't even met anyone except you."
"Who's training you? You weren't assigned in a group. Did you have training before hand?"
"Those answers are classified."
"Bull," he states bluntly.
I grin at him. No matter how annoying he is, I kinda like him. I mean, he's not mean, arrogant, and intrusive in a meaningless nosy way, but he just wants information.
"What about you? How long've you been here?" I ask to divert the conversation to him. No doubt he knows what I'm doing, but I don't care.
"Sometimes it feels like months, sometimes like centuries," he says with what may be a ghost of a smile. I still can't tell. I smile obligingly, but he's not giving me answers. His statement is clear, give me straight answers and I'll give you ones back.
I study his face. It's thin, but not shallow. His skin is white, but not pasty. His nose and chin are small, but not delicate. He has a determination and a cold fire behind those ice blue eyes that I can sense.
"What's your name?" I ask bluntly.
"What's yours?" he shoots back.
I stare at him a moment longer before replying, "Keira Matheson."
"Nathan Ortuso," he replies without skipping a beat.
"Now we're getting somewhere," I grin.
"How old are you?"
"Fifteen, you?"
"Sixteen."
I'm dumbstruck. This kid looks easily fourteen years old. True, he's about exactly my height, but I look like a twelve year old…
"I know, I look fourteen," he echoes my thoughts.
"No older than me," I laugh amiably.
"So you want to know how to survive here?"
"What do you mean?" I ask, bewildered.
"What I said, do you want to know what it takes to stay alive in shark-infested waters?"
"That doesn't sound comforting," I remark dryly.
For the first time I get a grin, but it's more a grin of cynical realism than actual humor, "Nothing here is comforting."
"I don't think I'm going to be actually spending a lot of time with you guys," I shoot back warily.
"Doesn't matter. You get beat alone, you get beat in public. Same, see? Trainers not always be there to save your ass, and after you get beat, they won't. See?"
I do see. He's telling me that if I get beaten alone in the bathroom, I'll have the bruises to show it to the world, than it would be as bad as if I got beaten in public. The trainers will label me as a coward, someone who needs the toughening up. They will use the pecking order as a way to make sure all of the trainees rise to the top. As for Nathan's lapse in language, I'm guessing it's some sort of slang they use here. I'll pick it up eventually. But what he doesn't know is that after my first week of training with Hawkeye, I won't have to even worry about the stupid pecking order.
"I see," I answer slowly, not breaking his gaze. "What else do I need to know?"
"You tell me what you know then I'll tell you what I know," he counters.
"I don't know anything," flatly.
"Bull," he says again.
"Well how 'bout this. What do you think I know that you would like me to tell you?"
"You've been on the other side."
"What other side?"
"Figure it out, Keira."
I study him carefully, turning the wheels in my head and working the problem out in my mind. He said I've seen on the other side. The other side of what? The other side of the curtain. That phrase was in my mind earlier this morning. I'd seen the other side of the curtain of a national security government run agency that a select few were allowed to know about, let alone see. Is it possible that even these trainees, these to-be elite of the elite don't even know what they are training for? Or maybe they do, but they only have a vague idea. Or maybe they have no idea at all. Maybe they are taking a leap of faith, trusting to dumb luck that they are spending their adolescent years training for something worth giving up your life for. This should be enough for them, but not for Nathan.
He wants to know what it's like on the other side of the curtain. He's like me. He doesn't trust in dumb luck, he makes his own. He doesn't trust what everyone tells him. He's calculating, cynical even, but damn is he good. So if he doesn't trust, then why is he here? Maybe we have more in common than I first thought.
"You're off the street." I state. The words come out without my permission.
"So are you," he counters again. I don't deny it.
"You know I've been in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s bases."
"Obviously."
"How?"
"You didn't come with the group of new recruits. You're too old to have anyways. You're physical condition suggests you've been in quarantine for a while, but my guess is the hospital. You're off the street, I can always tell a fellow brother of poverty. You came in the middle of the night, no explanation, no introductions. That suggests that you're not following the "curriculum" they teach here. They are training you for something special. They didn't even put you in a group. How did you get here? We are in the middle of nowhere in some of the toughest terrain there is. My guess is you came in a quinjet. In order to have come in a quinjet, you needed to first have come from the dock, and to come from the dock, you had to have come from a S.H.I.E.L.D. base."
"Good deducting, except for one small fact you skipped over."
"Oh really? And what is that?"
"I was in quarantine the whole time. I didn't exactly get much of a chance to see how the system works."
He looks disgusted. "You mean you didn't find a way to hack their systems?"
"Not exactly. They kept me on a… tight leash."
A buzzer startles both of us out of our conversation. Lunch break over. I guess half an hour went faster than I thought.
"What's your room number?" he whispers urgently.
"Why?"
"Just tell me!" he pushes.
For some reason unknown to me, I tell him, "563."
"Fine. See you tonight."
"Wait—" but he's already gone, mingling into the crowd. In mechanical movements, I clear nearly all the food on my tray into the trash bin, we were talking so much I was able to eat hardly any of it. So, I made a new friend, or what I hope is a new friend. Nathan Ortuso. He's smart. I like smart. He might not have a lot of friends, but he knows how to stay alive.
I take a quick glance around, and sure enough, some of the big kids (the bullies) are eyeing me like candy. I'll have to watch my back for a while.
So how does Ortuso survive? He's small, but I think they leave him alone because they know that no matter how much they try, he will always be smarter than them. He has that quiet demeanor, but calm leadership. They back away because they know that he has more command over himself than they could have over him by beating him up, and they know that no matter how much they pick on him, he will never lower himself to trade punches at their level.
Smart kid.
I'm so wrapped up in my thoughts, I don't realize until too late that I am lost in the maze of corridors. I wasn't keeping track of where I was going, and now I'm lost. Crap.
Suddenly, I hear a voice blare over the intercom, "Keira Matheson," I can't help an involuntary flinch at my name, "report to deck 307 for review."
Whatever that means. I quickly locate a map and look for deck 307. Soon, I'm off walking again until I come to deck 307.
It looks like a computer room, and I guess it's where all the trainers and instructors run this place. There are at least twenty computers lined up across all the walls with desks at each one.
The room looks empty and it's dark, save for the light of the computer monitors, that is, until Agent Hunter stands up.
I quickly put my cool mask on, not betraying any of the terror I feel as she walks towards me.
"Matheson," she holds out a silver stick, which I guess is a flash drive, "here is everything you will need for the duration of your training here. I trust you will review it tonight in your room."
I nod mutely, even though I'm burning to ask her where the stupid computer I would need to plug this in is. I don't remember one being there last night.
"Next you have Military Tactics in the simulation room number 9838 pod number 6720 which starts in three minutes. You better run if you want to get there on time. A mark off on your first day cannot look good on your record."
Once again I nod.
"Dismissed."
I snap a quick solute before turning and running off. This isn't fair, and she knows it. All the other kids had a good five minutes extra to get where they had to go, whereas me, on my first day, was set up to be late.
Once again, I have to locate a map and sprint to my "Military Tactics" training. Whatever that is.
Luckily for me, I have, if not a photographic memory, something pretty dang close. I have an image of the map in my head, and the places on it that I studied are crystal clear, but this place is extensive, so I don't bother trying to memorize the whole map. When I need a new piece of information, I simply study it and memorize, storing it away for later.
I find the "simulation" room as it's called, or room number 9838. I enter and something I did not expect greets my eyes. The room is completely dark, save for pods that are semi circled down into the floor. A faint glow, relative to a computer monitor, rises from them. There are steps leading down into them, and the floor, which has about a two foot radius, seems to be lit up. I cannot see clearly from here what is on the walls of these pods, and I cannot see where all these pods end. They seem to be stretching out forever, their faint glow rising from the floor of this dark simulation room. I'm dumbfounded. I've never seen anything like this before.
"Recruit, state your name and pod number," a clipped voice says behind me.
I whirl around and find a trainer staring down at me. "Keira Matheson, 6720."
Soon, I'm climbing down the stairs of one of these pods. My pod. I realize what is on the walls. They are holographic 3d images. Right now it's simply on "screen saver" mode and fish, sea urchins, and marine life all float around me. I reach out to touch a rainbow fish that swims by, expecting to just be reaching into thin air, but the fish reacts. This scares the shit out of me. It jerks its position away from my hand as if I was really swimming with it.
I jump back, tangling my feet in the process, and go sprawling against the far wall.
"Careful," the trainer who is standing above me snaps. Then she leaves.
The place where I landed is devoid of fishes. They all seemed to have gathered on the opposite side. I guess that my movement must've scared them. Now I know what they mean by "simulation room."
The program must be responsive to movement and is intelligent enough to move its holographic images in response to my movement. I slowly stand up, regarding the shark that swims within a foot of me warily. I know it's just an image, but it still creeps me out.
Suddenly, the sound of machines whirring above me makes me crouch reflexively and cover my head with my arms, scattering the fish that had begun to swim lazily nearby. Nothing comes down on to me, but a sound similar to a projector being let down in a home-theater comes from above me. I remove my arms to find that a ceiling is being rolled over the top of the pod. I bound up the stairs, desperate to get out of this pod before it traps me in, but I'm not fast enough. It seals shut just as I reach the top of the stairs, trapping me inside. I run my hands across where it is shut, and then throw my shoulder into it, but I already know it's futile. I feel panicked.
It is a large enough pod, it stands about two feet above my own head, and the bowl like walls give it the feeling of a wide space along with the depth perceptions of the holographic images, but I know I can't get out, and that is enough to frighten me.
Suddenly, the holo changes. It reflects the incredibly life-like reflection of water all across the pod, changing the ceiling (which I see now also reflects 3d holo images so that I feel immersed in the environment) to seem as if I am deep in water and I can see the fragmented images of sunlight beaming ahead. Even the floor has the images of deep sea underneath me with a coral reef to my left.
I stare down in marvel at my hands and feet and find them covered in the reflections of water, as if I was truly in it. I walk forward to touch the walls of the pod, but the ground underneath me moves as well, matching my pace. I almost fall over in surprise. At first I think that perhaps it moves so that I may not touch the walls, but when I look to my left, the coral reef seems farther away. I take more steps, and soon the coral reef is simply a speck far away in the sea.
"It's beautiful," I murmur, looking all around me and seeing ocean as if I was underneath the surface.
"Voice activation required," a mechanical female voice sounds.
Voice activation? "Keira Matheson," I state.
Suddenly, the wall opens up and a small screen pops out. "Palm scan required," it says again.
I lay my palm on the screen and a laser quickly scans it.
"Please insert your USB drive."
The flash drive? I forgot I was holding it this whole time. I quickly plug it in and immediately the ocean setting vanishes and is replaced by an array of selections I don't understand.
Suddenly, a horribly distorted, computer voice starts speaking. "This is your AI speaking, please select the following preferences to personalize the program to your tastes."
I wince the tiniest bit, repulsed by the voice. So I have an AI, and what for? Why would they spend easily thousands of dollars on software so intelligent for a mere recruit? The AI must be linked to the pod and everything else I do. By the extensive array of personalizations, I estimate there must be thousands of options. Then it dawns on me. They want to know everything about you. They want to know how you think, how you move, what you think, and basically have a road map around you psychology so that when they send you on specialized missions, they can team you up with people who will compliment you, set you up on missions that will best suit your abilities, how you will react to those missions, and basically all the logistics that would affect the out outcome of the mission.
If you think of it that way, it makes a lot of sense.
But I don't apply to those rules. I'm not going to be that "average agent." I'm going to be an assassin. At least, if Hawkeye can be trusted. Either way, this AI is a way to get inside your mind. It's a way for them to learn your thoughts, your dreams, your preferences.
Well, two can play at that game.
Also, I'm absolutely sure they are testing my intelligence right now based on how I'm able to adapt and learn to program this thing. Tentatively, I reach out and tap a random preference, which is simply a hologram image. I think maybe it will react like a computer, and by tapping it, it will open as if I clicked it with a mouse, but I'm wrong. Instead, if follows my finger as if I had grabbed it.
I wrench my hand back, and the image goes flying to the other side of the room before bumping to a stop against the curved wall.
More confident, I reach out for one that says "voice." I grab it and hold it like it's a small box in my hand. I study it for a moment, confused as how to open it or get a response. I put both hands together, and then pull them apart as if pulling it open. Sure enough, it opens to a whole new set of more extensive and precise preferences.
So this is extremely similar to a computer, or a hacking device, both of which I'm wizards at. Soon I feel as familiar with this as I did with my own devices. It's also kind of fun. I mean, what computer geek wouldn't love a 3d hologram complete submersion inside the computer itself? Not even that, this is one of the most advanced of technologies I've ever seen. Whoever built it is in the cutting edge of technology.
My memory comes into service here. I can open a file, close it up again or leave it open, and when I come across something that would be useful in that category, or vice-versa, I remember exactly where everything is and exactly how to get back to it.
The first thing I decided to focus on was the voice, but then I changed my mind and decided to work on commands, personalizing them, reprogramming them, until I have the most sensitive commands. I don't know how long it takes, but after what feels like hours of working, I have this thing answering almost as if it was a real person. I know that I'll keep tweaking it over time until I can develop her into as real a person as I ever can.
I think for a long time over what name I should give it. I know that I would prefer female, but what name? It had to be meaningful to me, in a way that would baffle psychiatrists, but would make sense to Hawkeye, or simply people how know me. What drove me here? What forced me to be found and brought out of hiding? The war. The war that was started by the villain, Loki. Hey, I had a lot of free time before Hawkeye actually found me and I'm sure the CIA are still trying to find out who infiltrated their systems… even if they do, I'll probably have full immunity. Loki, the brother of Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Loki made his war out of pure malice, only to take the world from the brother who he thought slighted him. Sif. Sif was a beautiful maiden from Norse mythology who was stunning, who had hair like the golden sun, and in a fit of spite, Loki slashed it all off. I'm the maiden. The one who was a victim of Loki's pure spite. Rather self-pitying, I don't deny it, but it's relatively true.
With that settled, I focus on her voice, tweaking it, while I listen to the before recorded voice activation over and over again, reprogramming it over and over again, changing the pitches to create the perfect combination, changing it from the repulsing computer, mechanical voice it was before.
Finally, it suits my tastes. I look over my command programming once more before finally being satisfied.
I take a deep breath and call out tentatively, "Sif?"
"Yes?" a quiet, almost childlike and girlish voice answers back softly. I can't help but let a smile spread across my face. I close my eyes, savoring the feeling of that sweet, innocent voice. It's exactly how I always imagined the real Sif's.
I don't know what to say next, so I decide to start it as I would a conversation with a stranger. "Hello."
"Hi," she answers back shyly. I smile again.
"How are you?"
"Considering the fact that I was just brought to life and given a voice and a person, I feel rather well. How about you?" she asks a little rhetorically. I almost forget that I was the one who programmed her to have that.
"That's good." I want to ask her if they are recording this conversation, if they are listening to everything we say. There is no way she couldn't know, but until I know exactly how to program her, and we get more comfortable, I'll just have to stick to small talk. After all, they might block what her true answer would be, so until I figure out how to bypass their security systems, I'll be able to expand Sif past the normal intellectual design that they have restricted us to. "What time is it?"
"According to the S.H.I.E.L.D. data bases—"
Suddenly, her voice cuts off like a dying computer, a burst of static, and then the lights flicker out and the whole pod shuts down, leaving me in the dark.
"Sif?" I call out timidly. No answer. It's deathly quiet. Not even the normal, quiet hum of the computer screen around me.
Suddenly, the machines start whirling and I see the ceiling retract. I guess I either passed or failed the test. Well, at least they are letting me out now.
The mechanism in the wall opens and my flash drive pops out. I yank it out.
I slowly climb up the stairs, realizing just how exhausted I am. Hours of standing in one place takes more energy than one would think.
I barely notice that all the other kids are pouring out of their pods, like spewing forth the children from their bellies, yielding them to a cold world.
I don't know what time it is, but my internal clock tells me it's time to sleep. I start heading towards my cabin, and no one intercepts me. I vaguely wonder where Hawkeye got to all day, but I'm so tired I could care less.
I push open the door to my room, slam it behind me and make sure it's locked (it seems to lock on its own. Probably so the trainees don't roam the halls at night. I guess the doors won't open until the morning when they intend to let us out.
I don't peel off my suit, but just flop in bed, already feeling the effects of over-taxed muscles. Burying my head in my pillows, I shut my eyes, but I can't sleep despite my weariness.
The flash drive is bothering me. She said I should plug it in and review it tonight, what the hell does that mean?
I make the humongous effort of lifting my head and scan over my room. Then I see it.
Resting against the far wall, a completely white desk has been placed and I can see something on top of it. I drag myself out of bed and pad to the desk on silent feet. A device similar to an ipad, but much thinner and larger by about triple the size, is waiting for me. I pick it up, and immediately it turns on, requesting me to palm in so as to encode this particular device to me.
I let it scan my palm, and then it clicks open, directing me to insert my flash drive. I fumble around my wrinkled bed sheets where I dropped it until I find it and plug it in.
"Keira," I hear Sif.
"Sif!" I respond, a little startled. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm installed in your flash drive. Wherever you plug me in, I'll be a part of the software, easily adapting to it so that I control all of the connections."
"Why did they give you to me?"
"They transmit all information you need through me. I'm basically your calendar, reminder, and computer wrapped in one."
"I see. What am I supposed to be studying right now?"
Another 3d holo image immerges from the screen, this time of a whole file of information. I reach for it and find that I can manipulate it just as I did in the pod.
The first thing that reaches my eyes is the phrase, "override to protocol 3290, recruit Keira Matheson will be said 'fit for missions' as soon as the first period of her training has commenced. She will not be integrated into the normal S.H.I.E.L.D. training curriculum, for hers is made specifically to her unique needs for the role she is to play for S.H.I.E.L.D. undercover assignments."
This is just the beginning of a whole bunch of protocol breaches. I pour over them, seeing that this is their way of giving me a glimpse of what the next years of my life will be.
I'm so wrapped in my work, I don't notice the slight vibrations in the ventilation system above my door, or even the slight thuds that steadily grow louder. It's not until the screen actually falls through, clattering to the ground with the most deafening noise, that I jump, startled from my quiet contemplation.
Except something falls through with the screen. I'm hampered with the computer on my lap, unable to react as fast as I normally would.
Since I know I can't get up and run around it (also, the stupid door is locked) I decide that my best bet is to scream bloody murder until some trainer comes in and saves me. I'm about to let out a scream, but the thing (or person) reacts faster than I do. I just see a shadowy blur, and then a hand clamps down on the back of my neck and another over my mouth so my scream is effectively muffled, but this person doesn't stop there. He (or she) forces my mouth open, jamming two fingers down my throat. I gag, retching forward, all thought of screaming gone from my mind like they had never been there.
I lean over, coughing violently. I try to get up to defend myself, but every time I move just brings a-whole-nother wave of nauseating coughing.
Finally, my lungs calm down enough that I turn my head, finding the person standing next to me and looking down at me.
"Ortuso," I gasp angrily before launching into another spurt of coughing.
"Good to see you too," he murmurs, but his voice is odd. He seems to be preoccupied. Suddenly I remember, I left all my files open for him to see. With a quick motion, I clap, bringing all of the holo images to a condensed format in my palm.
"Deactivate," I hoarsely whisper to Sif. Immediately the whole system shuts down, leaving me and Ortuso in pitch darkness.
A light clicks on and I see it is coming from Ortuso's hand, he must have a flashlight. Its blinding beam shines directly in my eyes.
"Hey," I protest, throwing my arms up to shield my face.
"What did you shut it down for?" he asks quietly, not moving the light.
"I don't want you snooping."
"Who said I was snooping?"
"If you were, then I stopped you, if you weren't, then you shouldn't care, right?" I challenge.
I caught him and he knows it.
"What are you doing here?" I bark.
"Come with me," he commands. With that, he jumps up lightly, his amazingly strong and flexible fingers finding purchase on the edge of the metal ventilation shaft. He pulls himself up with a small amount of struggling, kicking, and wiggling before gliding his whole body through and disappearing into the dark shaft.
I stare dubiously after him for a moment before jumping up, pushing the screen (which was still lying on the floor) under my bed, and doing the same as Ortuso. Why I'm following him, I have absolutely no darn idea, but he seems to know his way around the system, and that is good enough for me.
I follow the sound of his crawling until suddenly he stops and clicks on the flashlight. Around us is simply the duct work we are in, and we seem to be at a crossroad. The path we followed continues straight, while another crosses and goes who knows where.
"The rooms are bugged and taped, we couldn't talk there," he explains. I nod, looking around me. "So they had you working on you AI?"
"Yup."
"Odd," he murmurs.
I snap to attention, "What?"
"I said it's odd. They usually don't have trainees working on them until a month of training."
"How do you know what I was working on?"
"I keep tabs on every kid in the program."
"How?"
"Follow me."
And follow him I do. He leads me through many twists and turns, which I carefully observe and route the way back, just in case, until he comes to a deck similar to the one I was in earlier.
He stops, shifting over to give me room to slide up beside him and peer into the room. Unlike the last one, this one is teeming with activity. Trainers sliding from computer to computer, printing, faxing, calling, ordering, all a hive of activity.
"I keep an ear out. I also learned how to infiltrate their systems, but they caught me. They don't kick me out, but apparently they don't think that the level of security I have is dangerous. As long as they keep me there, I'm not a liability."
I nod again, not taking my eyes from the scene below, "So the level of security they let you breach is the one that keeps the tabs on all the students in the program."
"All of them, except yours," he says pointedly, penetrating me with his dark eyes. I snap my gaze to his, eyeing him warily. Stripes of shadow cross his face from the screen in front of us, making it hard to read his expression.
"So that's why you were surprised to see me today; not that I was put in a different program, not that I was pushed ahead and at a faster pace, but because you hadn't even seen me on your data."
"Apparently your information is a higher pay grade."
"My information has always been a higher pay grade," I grumble.
"You're a New Yorker," he suddenly switches. This kid keeps throwing me off.
"How could you tell?"
"You have a slight accent, especially when surprised or showing emotions."
This rubs me the wrong way. It makes it sound like he has been documenting everything I do, not letting a single face slip past him. It makes it sound like I'm a science experiment to him and that he doesn't care for any of my emotions save to see if they give him information. I immediately let my walls come up, steeling my eyes and my face into a cold mask. "Well maybe you shouldn't know after all, if the superiors don't want you to get too close. It never ends well for the people who do anyways."
"I'm a Californian," he adds as if ignoring my obvious anger.
"Neato," I say, exasperated. Honestly, I could not care less where he's from.
"How did they recruit you?"
Um, no way kid, "It's a long and heartfelt story of which you would not want to hear, I am sure."
"We have a lot of time."
"You're just trying to get information to put in your little documents so you can keep tabs on all of the trainees, so go to hell."
"Ah, I see. We misunderstand one another."
"Really? Well it would help mucho mass if you would explain to me what you want rather than leaving me to guess at your ambiguous questions."
"You're good with computers, I can tell already, and I want your help."
"With what? Penetrating all the layers of SHIELD's firewall so we can take over the whole system through their computers. Sorry, no can do."
"No, I don't mean that, I mean that if we work together, we can figure out more things than if we worked alone."
"What would I want to figure out? I'm happy with the situation as it is."
"Don't tell me you don't have questions, Keira."
This stops me. Of course I have a lot of questions, but what could working past SHIELD's firewalls do to change that? What could infiltrating possibly the most secure government run organization do to give me answers? Oh that's right, because it is the only one that has any information on me. The one with the most actually, and that is a very powerful weapon over my head. If I can have an assured means already in place of being able to completely erase any existence of myself so that it will be as if none of this nightmare with SHIELD had ever happened. Now I will have a weapon over their heads, a double cross if anything goes wrong. I'm sure that if I can bypass their mainframe without falling into any traps or tripping across any wires that will set off alarms, I can keep my intrusion secret. Then all it would take is a simple software to be installed that would allow me to erase the files with a single touch of the keys. I'm sure I can use Ortuso's methods of hacking, coupled with my own, and use them behind his back, serving him, but mostly my own purposes.
Suddenly, partnering with Ortuso doesn't seem like such a bad idea. It's a delicate game, but I know I can play it.
"I'll work with you, Ortuso, but on one condition," I say, cautiously.
"Listening," he responds, watching me intently.
"If we are going to be partners, I'll need complete guarantees that we are working together and you aren't going behind my back," a little bit of irony since I had decided to double cross him, but being a guttersnipe off the streets, I know how to be ruthless.
"That is all very good, but how do I knowyou aren't going behind my back?" he retorts
"Simple, my condition will go both ways. We merely have to have complete access to each other's work and files, keeping everything public between us, linking our systems so we know the other cannot make something private, that is related to work of course, without the other being noted. No tricks, no lies, just straight honesty."
He debates a moment. I can see the wheels turning in his head, assessing, probing, analyzing any possible double cross, but he can't see any. That is because he's thinking along the lines of progressing, that I would screw him over to elevate myself above him, using the advantage to bypass him and leave him in the dust. But what he doesn't take into consideration, and I know he won't, is that by the time his system noted him of any of my activity, I would be long gone and my files erased.
He holds his hand out, offering it as a sign of friendship, mutual trust, and partnership. But I know that if you are from the streets, deals and double-crosses fall down every day and betrayal is rampant.
I reach back and grip his hand tightly, a façade to both of us. That is all it could ever be. He gives me a grin for the first time and I give him one back, but I can see lies behind his eyes, and I know he can see ones behind mine. We will never trust, ever.
Be careful, Keira, the little voice whispers in my head. For once, I don't silence it.
Don't worry, by the time we are gone he'll still be wondering what hit him, I promise. I grin just a little bit bigger, laughing at my own wonderful scheme
