May 18, 2013
A low hum buzzed in Meghan's ears, occasionally punctuated by looped monotone voices over the airport intercom. Passing pedestrians in varying amounts of thermal clothing carried on idle conversation, ignoring the sea of faces around them.
Meghan yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and rubbing her eyes with her wrist. She fought sleep with each passing moment, regretting the redeye flight she had to catch to get to her destination in time. A flash of pink amongst the endless stream of black suitcases caught her eye, and she swiped hers from the motorized belt. She made a mental note to thank Coach Jackson and the team, all these years later.
Can't believe I gave them shit for getting me this. Say what you want about the rainbow unicorn, it stands out in a crowd.
She strolled through the wide halls and causeways, with an exuded purpose that made others swerve to avoid her. The journey had not been made idly, and Meghan would waste no time in the day. Turning a corner, she stepped into the designated pickup area and scanned the waiting faces. An older woman stared intently at the door with her husband, a pair of girls giggled at something on their phones, men in sharp suits read this morning's news.
Her eyes settled on a russet-haired woman in smart business casual, leaning against the wall with her hands stuffed in her pockets. Meghan smiled tiredly and made her way around the benches to take the outstretched hand.
"Thank you for having me, Dr. Melnikova."
Meghan spoke candidly with Lera, as she insisted on being called, during the trip to Novosibirsk State University. She asked Lera just how she had obtained a doctorate at such a young age, and how she had arrived at the line of work she had chosen to align herself with. The good doctor turned out to be a woman of few words, but was surprisingly blunt about her past - growing up in the looming shadow of the Chernobyl disaster, mistakes of a dead nation weighing on her family like a lead blanket. Lera's diagnosis had done nothing to dampen the drive she possessed, in some ways even fueling it to defeat the sins of the past.
Meghan could certainly relate to that.
The door clicked shut, sealing off the lobby of the research lab from the outside air. Few people populated the sterile halls, the clicking of shoe heels the only sound permeating the air as they passed room after room. Meghan felt compelled to speak before she lost her mind. "Did they tell you why I came all the way here for this?"
Lera turned to look at Meghan, keeping her relaxed pace. "Nyet. I assume it must be for a very good reason, because my research is not exactly common knowledge. It surprised me greatly when the General Secretary informed me that I would be testing the second round of my creation, and a heavily modified one at that, on an American. I almost asked if he was joking with me, but Russian politicians wouldn't know a joke if it pissed in their vodka."
"To be totally honest, I don't know who in the chain of command arranged this for me, either." Meghan did a double take. "Did you say second round?"
Lera smirked. "You Americans have a saying, 'don't get high on your own supply?' I do not follow that rule."
The gears clicked in Meghan's head. "So you have a personal investment in the success of this 'supply,' then."
"It is why I was so quick to accept. This isn't the Soviet Union anymore, so 'willing' test subjects are not normally coming to me." She held a badge up to a black square reader on the wall, pushing the door open after a short beep.
Meghan hummed, putting a finger to her chin. "Well if it makes you feel better, I can act like a prisoner and bitch about my living conditions… comrade."
Lera chuckled, looking sidelong at Meghan. "Can't do that. You're too pretty to be a prisoner… kotyonok." She flourished her head with a sultry wink.
Meghan turned to avoid the smug gaze, but the sudden rosiness of her cheeks gave her away.
Her skin bristled the chilled air of the temperature-controlled laboratory. The room was relatively bare, consisting of a few benches, a rolling cart, and a chair. On the cart were a number of vials and beakers, alongside an intravenous tube and a powered pump. Lera gestured at the chair in the center, previous disposition dropped in favor of a flat, serious tone.
"You know you will be dependent on the nanides from today onwards, yes? After starting the treatment for the months of your training, you will not simply be able to stop. Regular doses will be required, and you must check in with me in person every year or so. Finally, you are not to use the injector more than once in sixty seconds; the rush will do damage to your major organs." She spoke in a low voice, devoid of humor.
Meghan had been afraid of that. She would be forced to make Lera's science project an integral piece of her very basic life functions. Could she do that? The rest of her service career would hinge on the continued effectiveness of the nanides, if they even worked at all. Meghan heaved a pronounced sigh.
I did not come this far to quit now.
She cracked her knuckles. "I'm ready."
"Then let us begin."
August 16th, 2013
In her college days, Meghan would often hear people complain about their workload. With each passing semester she would notice the trend of the low drone of student whining getting progressively louder, until it reached a sound so resonant with the state of her sanity, she sometimes wondered if she might snap.
If only they could experience anything like this.
She'd arrived at the Naval Special Warfare Preparatory School in Great Lakes, Illinois just over eight weeks ago. Before she'd even gotten the chance to take off her coat, they'd shuffled her into the medical quarters for an assessment. Her file raised more than a few eyebrows, surprise washing over as no questions were asked before her record was stamped and she was shunted to a bunk. The very next day she started yet another physical training regimen and had several novels on various topics shoved into her hands.
Falling back into the regular clockwork-like system was almost relaxing; in a way she'd missed the fully planned and standardized itinerary of pure, unfiltered training. What she was being told to do wasn't entirely new to her, but it was elevated to a degree she hadn't seen in typical Naval routine. For weeks on end she ran, swam, and performed group calisthenics.
As per the good doctor's orders, she kept to the prescribed regiment involving the nanides religiously. To this point it had held its effectiveness more than she could have ever hoped, keeping her sharp and pain-free no matter the situation. Lera had told her that the doses would trickle into her system at a slow pace automatically, with manual triggers being possible as necessary, not unlike an insulin pump. The immediate effect of the tiny robots flooding her system held the same uncomfortable, lightly stinging feeling one might experience as they consciously feel blood leaving their vessels during a draw, but when she compared it to the initial burst of her first treatment, she would take the former any day. All she remembered from that afternoon was a sharp, agonized inhale followed by the corners of her vision turning blue, heartbeat thundering in her ears as she felt her nerves scream at the sensation. Sleep didn't come easily for her for days afterward.
Now, when she wasn't grinding away at the track and the pool, she was absorbing a payload curriculum from a machine gun loaded with knowledge, personal conduct, and the very essence of SEAL ethos. Meghan watched her classmates as time went on. In her years, she knew the signs of one losing their will. She'd seen it before, and she was seeing it again, even before the modified physical screening test, on which everyone's graduation hinged. And here she was, standing next in line to take said test. Her dream would live or die within the next hour.
At the harsh whistle, she dove into the water. Time lost its relative hold on Meghan as she swam, the provided fins slicing through the water like a knife through fruit with relentless efficiency. Her muscles pumped repeatedly, propelling her halfway through the thousand-yard slog with nary a thought. Briefly the memories of the pool at her school flashed in her mind, but she ejected them as quickly as a bullet from a firing chamber.
She pulled herself from the water and tossed away the fins before dropping to the floor for the push-ups segment. The timer in her head silently ticked on as she fired off as many as she could within two minutes.
Seventy-eight will do.
Meghan ran to the raised bar tying two concrete pillars together and hoisted herself up. She pushed a grunt through clenched teeth with every determined lift. Fourteen pull-ups later, she dropped from the bar and assumed a prostrate position on the rubber mat in the next area. The next two minutes saw her curling her torso upwards with a relative per two second pace, keeping her center of gravity pinned to the spot. Another whistle blew, and she slowly pushed herself to a standing stance, hands on her hips. She sucked in air, feeling the mechano-chemical cocktail surging through her veins.
After a brief rest and water break, she took to the track. The physical ramifications of this gauntlet of ability and resolve would normally have started to take their toll, but Meghan would not be denied. She was a flaming arrow, searing all it touched, not to be stopped until it met its mark. She'd practiced for this for nearly twenty years, and the end to this tunnel was in sight. Four miles, and twenty-eight and a half minutes later, she was on the grass, panting like mad, but with an enormous weight lifted from her shoulders. It was done, finally over.
Her head lolled to the side while she watched people complete the test, most dropping on their asses and doing the same thing she was. The following hours were either a springboard or a trapdoor for the ultimate ambitions of the class of SEAL cadets, and everyone got their orders for the future. When all was said and done, half of the initial class remained. Some were sent home.
Meghan was not.
Stage One done.
October 3rd, 2013
The phrase "hell week" held many meanings. To a college student, it meant the week of final exams and projects coming to a head. To a Navy hopeful, it meant the most grueling stretch of physical and mental prowess many recruits will have ever seen.
To SEAL candidates, the first two are morning's breakfast.
Meghan spent weeks doing organized team drills, swimming and doing water exercises with varying levels of weight, and running that goddamned obstacle course more times than she'd gone to sleep in recent memory. She was positive that she'd be seeing that ramped bar ladder for fucking years in her dreams.
This was worse.
It's impossible to know what being awake for 85 of the previous 88 hours is like until one has lived it. An experience Meghan thought was saved for those in hell itself. Her face was oily and muddy, her hair had long since been plastered to her skull, and her fatigues had become a disgusting, second skin. Even through the drugs laced into her bloodstream, her body screamed. Her muscles wept, her nerves burned, her bones groaned.
Nonetheless, she was determined to persevere.
She stood in a line with six others, using a log a foot in diameter as a team-barbell. For the past two hours, they'd stood on the beaches of Coronado, lifting and curling the wooden beam, in full gear. They ran with it, they carried it up hills, held it over their heads. More than once, her peer stumbled under the immense mass. More than once, Meghan picked up the slack just long enough for the next person to recover. Each time, her yells of anguish filled the ears of those around her. Each time, she could feel the very fibers of her muscles ripping and tearing, and the sensation of the nanides rebuilding them just as quickly burned even worse.
They did the same with the inflatable personnel boat they were assigned. They did lunges with it, crawled the beaches with it, ran miles with it - through the base, over the rocks, to the water, where they put it in and paddled for more miles. In the words of the instructor that kept getting in her face, "we're going to beat you with the stick we make you find." Nelson was his name, and every day he watched her eat mouthfuls of sand, washed down by heaps of saltwater, with a dessert consisting of sweat and dirt.
And then they did it all again in the dead of night, to the same bellowing yells of the bearded man.
But she could not falter.
November 15th, 2013
The underwater and diving phase, in Meghan's mind, was where the high impact selection phase to weed out the half-assers turned into the phase that makes frogmen, frogmen. Even as she navigated the flora-filled ocean bottom in full scuba gear, she could tell that this was something the aquaphobes would struggle with.
Meghan, however, was right at home. This was her element, her quiet place. This was the heaven she remembered – languid water flowing every which way, allowing her to lithely push through the waves. She'd learned the physics, and she'd learned the advanced medical concepts associated with combat diving.
It was time to check in with her old therapist.
By now, the exercises had become routine. She knelt at the bottom of the pool for extended periods of time, minutes into hours, with the rebreather strapped to her back. Hands on her thighs, fingers spread apart at two- no, three centimeters tip to tip.
This was the phase where the oft talked about "drowning torture" exercises took place. It made sense to her why they did it, obviously they needed to be prepared for any equipment fault or unforeseen situation. She even supported doing it, but sympathized with the recruits that couldn't handle the prolonged oxygen deprivation sessions.
Meghan found that the nanide surges were akin to a double-edged sword; they allowed her to hold her breath for an obscenely long time, but if she exceeded that limit, the head rush would be remarkably debilitating. Lera would need to know about this. Any excess of stimuli during use would be exacerbated to unsafe levels.
Day in and day out, they repeated the underwater maneuvers. She couldn't lie and say any of it was easy, because every day her body would find new ways to tell her that this was insanity.
But she would not falter.
January 9, 2014
For the third time that afternoon, Meghan shook herself awake, aided by the de facto "squad leader" slamming a map down onto the tree stump in front of her. They'd been sent off to San Clemente island to put their weeks of intensified land navigation, live fire and explosive courses, and small unit tactics, to the test.
"Alright gentlem- ah, everyone…" Meghan fought of the urge to roll her eyes, though she'd become more than used to the stumbling blocks that came with her situation.
The brunet man cleared his throat, making brief eye contact with Meghan. "Anyway, I'm Kieran Nelson, and I'll be leading our fire team in this exercise."
Per their instructions, while there was a team leader, all members were to contribute to the course navigation. They hashed out the details and started the hike. A minute in, Nelson dropped back in formation to fall in line with Meghan.
"So uhh, sorry about the little faux pas earlier, I didn't mean to-"
She held up a hand. "Don't apologize, I get it. The 'No Girls Allowed' club is all confused the instant a second X chromosome is involved," Jenson snickered between her words. "But I appreciate the notion."
Nelson nodded. "Of course. A fighting force is only as strong as the people in it, and that includes strength of character. Wouldn't be much of an anchor if I was alienating my peers."
Meghan turned to look at the man. His face was rugged, slightly higher cheekbones underneath noticeably scarred skin, especially a prevalent gash on his right side. Dark brown stubble dotted his jawline, somewhat extensively, given that the men were freshly shaved before their departure.
She hummed at him. "Nice outlook. You've got my vote, sir." She accentuated the last word, elbowing him in the arm.
He shook his head with a smirk. "Yeah, yeah. Well listen, I gotta get back to the front. Let's kick ass, dig?" He presented his fist, and she tapped his hand.
"Hell yeah, bossman."
Nelson jogged ahead, gear jostling and clanging on his back. He barked out orders to the team, and they got to work. Their next few weeks were full of trials, toil, and success.
And she did not falter.
June 18, 2014
Meghan could never complain that her life was boring. In these short years, she'd seen and done more than her teenaged self could have ever dreamed of. She never lacked that sweet adrenaline rush, and was constantly challenged to be a better soldier, a better person.
Who else could say they've hiked the snow-covered Alaskan peaks, gone ice diving, survived anythingas hardcore as SERE training, and jumped out of a plane – not once, but dozens of times? All of this was capped off by systematic breaching and clearing of mockup buildings, at the peak of a mountain reached by a high-altitude low opening parachute jump.
"Aight, bosslady, what's the plan?" Nelson pulled back the bolt on his marksman rifle and rested the firearm on his knee.
Meghan slung her rifle and smoothed out the building blueprint. "OK, forward recon reveals five rooms, twelve tangos. We stack on the front door, and Keller plants a door charge. Nelson, you flash the room and push in. Team follows, fans and clears the targets. Keller moves hard left, Nelson rear left, Harris rear right, and I go hard right. Flash and clear, be mindful of the hostages. We have twenty-five seconds after the door goes, and accuracy counts, so move quickly and efficiently. Questions?"
No one voiced an objection, so she nodded once. "Then let's begin."
Directional detonations, ear shattering bangs, and controlled staccatos of gunfire peppered the spring-loaded targets, and one by one they fell. Meghan waited for the horn telling them to stand down.
"Chemical explosive!"
The shout from Nelson's room tore her attention from the timer and had her charging to the sound of his voice, Keller and Harris in tow. Meghan tossed her rifle to the side.
"Nelson, get that panel open!" She ripped open a velcro patch on her chest and removed a set of cutters. Muttering to herself as she traced the wiring, Meghan took stock of the mechanisms on display in the recreated crude explosive.
"Keller, turn the pressure valve 45 degrees counter. Harris, slowly pull the lever downwards – slow like it'll bite you if you go too fast." She snipped a red wire, snuffing out one of the two red lights on the housing.
"Nelson, listen carefully. The instant I cut this wire, I need to you smash the junction box as hard as you can."
"What—"
"Please just do it—" she snipped the blue wire, causing the other red light to supernova "-now!" He slammed the stock of his rifle into the electrical hub. A high-pitched whine slowly lowered in intensity as the light flickered and died out.
Meghan slumped against the wall, exhaling slowly. The horn rang in her ears, and her squad looked to the door as their instructor – Jensen – sauntered in.
"Congratulations, you all passed, excellent work. A SEAL has to be ready for absolutely anything and make use of whatever is on hand to accomplish the mission."
Nelson piped up from her left. "All respect, sir, EOD wasn't in the syllabus for this week. What's the situation?"
Jensen, clad in perfectly pristine uniform, looked them all up and down, holding Meghan's gaze last. "Some government team no one has ever heard of is pushing for extra training in chemical ordnance disposal in special military divisions."
Meghan's breathing evened out, and she pushed herself to a standing position. "Back to camp, then, sir?"
He nodded. "Dismissed."
The wakeup call blared loudly and clearly at her – this was it. This was the manner of situation she should always expect, with stakes elevated to the highest degree. Her actions would determine life and death, of herself and her team. This was what being America's finest would be all about.
And she was ready to be the warden to what she held dear.