Pudder's first law: Anything that begins well ends badly.

"Pay attention Riley... remember... Frontsight. Trigger-pull. Follow Through."

"Y-Yes sir." Riley gripped the gun held in her hand more firmly, widening her stance slightly in order to make her center of gravity closer to the ground. She sighted along the shaft of the gun, her arms held straight out in front of her, one holding the weapon while the other helped to support her aim. She fired the gun at the target, unleashing a couple of rounds that ripped through the thick cardboard like tissue paper. Despite her widened stance, her small frame allowed the backlash from the gun to wrench her shoulder slightly each time; it was throbbing by the time she had emptied the barrel and her aim had strayed during the last shots. Lowering her gun, Riley resisted the urge to massage her shoulder, and turned around to look at Mr. Raines as the target was returned by the machine holding it up. His expression was closed, and she couldn't read any feelings coming off of him, but she knew that he was disappointed with her shots. The shots were excellent when compared to any good marksman, all of them, excepting the final two, had pierced near the same hole in the practice target. But the two bullets that she had allowed to stray were about an inch from where they should be.

"You're still allowing the recoil from the gun to shift your position..." Mr. Raines wheezed while examining the target. "You aren't compensating for the backlash with your stance..." He admonished, looking at her sternly. They had gone over this before, she knew, but it was a lot easier said than done. Riley was small, she had the muscle to keep the gun steady, but she didn't have the weight to back her up. Even with these minor disadvantages though, she shouldn't be making such amateur mistakes. Riley had been training in weapons use twice a month with Mr. Raines ever since she was seven- she should definitely have grown out of that mistake.

"I'm s-sorry Sir." Riley answered dejectedly. Trying to control the stammer in her voice that plagued her whenever she was near Mr. Raines; he considered it a sign of weakness, of emotion, and would only tolerate it for a short period of time. These lessons were the only time that she was ever truly alone with Mr. Raines. There were never any sweepers in the room, or anyone watching from the catwalks, it was odd. Except for these times Riley could never remember having a moment when she wasn't being watched over by some odd five people. Riley enjoyed the lessons in combat and weapons training, they were stimulating in a way that couldn't be achieved by mental projects. Riley's fear of Mr. Raines however, often made these particular days extremely trying. She walked closer to the table Mr. Raines was standing near, looking over the weapons that covered it. If it could inflict damage, Mr. Raines had taught her to use it.

She reached out and picked up one of the many knives lying before her, holding it up to inspect it closer. It was new, she didn't recognize it from any of the other times, it had a sleek black handle with a loop up near the blade,and she twirled it expertly around her finger, stopping it when the handle came around again. The blade flicked down into the handle for storage, and the weight felt perfectly balanced in her hand. The blade was of a medium size, and it fit well with Riley's petite frame.

The frame that won't support a stupid gun.

Mr. Raines interrupted her inspection with a well placed "We aren't finished working with the guns yet, Riley." And she reluctantly put the knife back down on the table. She had always enjoyed working with the hand to hand weapons better than the guns, and Mr. Raines knew it. She was better with them-- had more control, and could be a bit more creative. She needed creativity if she were going to attack someone over twice her size. She stumbled backwards as Mr. Raines shoved a rifle into her hands, struggling to hold it up and keep it steady. "Do better this time." He growled at her before backhanding her across the face. Riley flinched at the blow, thinking this was punishment for her poor shots earlier. She nodded her understanding with her gaze trained on the ground, unable to force herself to look up at his angered gaze. She hated disappointing people; it always left her with a sick feeling inside that she would never manage to shake until she had redeemed herself. When she was working with Mr. Raines, exhibiting any such redeeming qualities was a very hard thing to do.

She winced slightly as she held the gun up to her still-aching shoulder, and sighted along the rifle's shaft to aim it at a new target. The gun was terribly heavy, and difficult to keep steady; she could already feel the muscles in her arm tremoring slightly under the weight. She doubted her shots would be any better with this gun, but she lined the crosshairs up obediently, checking herself before she pulled the trigger, turning back to her mentor.

"M-Mr. Raines, may I please a-ask you a question?"

Looking over her shoulder she saw Mr. Raines nod his permission.

"Why did you have the targets d-designed to look like that?" she asked, glad that the stutter had only mutilated one of the words in her sentence.

"Because Riley, he is a very bad man. If you were ever to meet him he would tell you lies about the Centre, he'd try to convince you to change your loyalties. You can't believe anything that he says Riley, understand?"

Riley nodded eagerly. "Y-Yes Sir." She said as she turned back around and reset her sights on the target's countenance. A countenance she knew inside and out. She leveled her aim and adjusted her stance slightly. And, tightening her finger around the trigger,

BANG!

A hole appeared in Jarod's cardboard-forehead.

-

-

Bang! Bang! Bang! Riley fired the gun several times but the bullets wouldn't seem to hit. Everything was grey, the walls, the clothing, the people the air. She felt like she was suffocating, she couldn't draw breath.

'Do better this time Riley.' Mr. Raines rasping voice resounded around the room and she fired the gun again, the bullet hit this time and the cardboard figure of Jarod slowly melted into her own visage. The bullet ripped through a cardboard heart and blood gushed from the wound. The pain became her own and she nearly cried out in agony, but found that her lips had been sewn shut. As quickly as the wound was inflicted it repaired itself, the bleeding stopped and new skin began to grow, within seconds the wound had disappeared, but it left a large, reddish scar. The gun wouldn't stop firing! Bullet after bullet impaled her mirror image and each time the healing process was repeated, but as time wore on the scars became worse, uglier. Riley became aware of a sore throbbing in her shoulder, and looked down to see thata large purple bruise had formed as the gun pounded into her with unforgiving blows. The bruise was growing larger, it now spanned her entire right shoulder. The gun was only hitting her in the one place but the bruise was still growing rapidly. It felt as though it were eating her alive. The pain overcame her and Riley felt as though she were exploding, ripping, shattering, fragmented into a thousand pieces. And then it was over. Riley was no longer inside the grey room, and she could breathe again. The color of a world surrounded her. But her scars remained. Riley slowly recognized the area she was sitting in and the memory was reinforced as a small figure darted across her vision. A small girl with dark brown hair and darker eyes smiling at her happily before turning and sticking her tongue out. She laughed and ran off as another figure darted into her vision. Sarah.

Riley recognized her old friend as if they never parted. But they had, they had parted long ago, Riley knew. At some point in time Sarah had been transferred to another project and she had left without even saying goodbye. The pain of the memory still fresh in her mind, Riley stared down at her skin as slowly another scar marred her flesh. Riley looked up as more phantoms appeared in the room. They were nameless, faceless haunts, but she felt a spark of recognition run through her, though what it meant she hardly knew. One of the men was holding a gun pointed at Sarah, and the other gripped a hauntingly familiar oxygen tank. Recognition flooded her for a split second, before the whispy tendrils of her memory left like smoke in the wind. Her mind distracted as the gun was fired and a small red hole appeared in Sarah's suddenly grey figure. She reached up tentatively and touched the blood pooling on her forehead before collapsing, her gray form melted away like a whisper spoken in a barren room. Riley cried out and clapped her hands to her own forehead as she felt overcome with blinding, white-hot pain. Red-warmth spilled out over her hands and through her fingers, and when she pulled her arms away from her face, they were gray. Dead. And gray.

"Help!" Riley woke with a start, yelling and sucking in breath like it was the last she would ever take. The thin woolen blanket covering the small bed was soaked in sweat and tangled around the lower half of her body, evidence of her tossing and turning. She scrambled out of the sheets as though they were burning her. She stood before the bed and reached under the pillow to pull out something hard, she flicked it open and revealed a small knife. It was shiny, with a blade that flicked into the black handle for storage.

Slowly Riley's breathing calmed as she looked at it. It was hers. The knife belonged to her, it made her feel safe.

Riley lowered the gun from its perch on her shoulder and exhaustedly shook a few stray strands of hair out of her eyes. She stiffly lowered her arm to her side as burning muscles protested the movement and placed the weapon on the table next to her. She looked to Mr. Raines, painstakingly trying to push the fatigue from her expression.

It had taken many more attempts, but she had managed to pull in those two wild shots, they had finally pierced the cardboard within half an inch of the rest of the holes, the extent of the margin of error which Mr. Raines allowed her, and Riley was too tired to even pull her face out of the grimace of concentration it had formed into. Mr. Raines was studying her target closely, probably thinking about checking with a ruler, Riley thought sluggishly. He almost appeared to look... happy? No, wrong adjectiv; pleased, she decided. He looked pleased. Riley swayed slightly on her feet and dropped into a chair next to her.Trying to push aside the mental and physical fatigue, she turned to look at the man for further instruction. Mr. Raines turned his gaze away from the target and moved to stand in front of the pretender, and Riley was too exhausted to even feel intimidated.

"Well done Riley. I'm satisfied with your performance." He said.

High praise from the man, satisfaction was all that Riley had learned to aim for with him. But it still felt nothing like the 'you have made me proud' that Mr. Lyle had awarded. Riley allowed her eyes to travel over the long table of armaments, until they rested on the knife that she had inspected earlier and she gave it a cursory glance. She had liked how it seemed to fit her earlier, compared with all of the other weapons that she had ever used, that one had just felt right. There were so many weapons before her-- so many ways to kill a person. And yet Riley knew, that she wouldn't kill- even if she wanted to, it wasn't as though she could suddenly open up an attack on a sweeper. And why would she? What was the importance of her being an incredible marksman, when she would never be allowed to shoot anything more than cardboard targets? Riley picked up the knife as she had before and felt the handle almost melt into her grip. Sometimes this training just seemed pointless, so at least this knife gave her some sort of feeling back.

"You like that knife Riley..." Mr. Raines shook her from her thoughts. It was more of a statement than a question and it almost seemed to push the idea into her mind- almost as though she had thought of it herself. The knife in itself wasn't all that special- it was nearly identical to several that she had seen over the years, and yet, now that Mr. Raines mentioned it, she did like it; she liked it a lot. Riley nodded her head in agreement with the statement.

"Why?" He asked.

The question surprised Riley. Hardly anyone ever asked her what she was feeling or thinking. It seemed odd that he should suddenly begin caring now.

"I- I don't really know." Her eyebrows knit together as she thought about it. "It makes me feel safe."

"That's good Riley... Keep it..." Mr. Raines said abruptly.

Riley looked up at him, startled.

"I believe that you are old enough, and mature enough, to use it properly..."

What would I have to use it for? She wondered, anxiety creeping into her mind at the thought of actually putting it to use.

"If it makes you feel safe... you should keep it."

"T-Thank you, Sir." Riley stuttered, wonderment growing as she realized, Mr. Raines had never giver her anything before.

Riley looked up and shoved the knife hurriedly back under the pillow as she heard the door to her room begin to open. A large sweeper that resembled a boulder in a suit stood in the doorway; he looked at her before scanning the room, his eyes resting on the pillow for a second longer than comfortable.

"Is something wrong in here?"

Riley shook her head mutely, hoping that the man would go away soon; she didn't want him finding her hidden security for fear that he would confiscate it.

"I heard a yell." The sweeper pressed further.

"I-I had a n-nightmare. I-I was just frightened Sir."

The guard nodded his head once before barking at her to get back to sleep and closing the door with an ominous slam. She checked the knife again before getting back into her bed and shoving it under her pillow, her hand clasped around the handle; it made her feel safe.

In his office, Raines watched the security monitors, a look of sickening satisfaction growing on his features. His plan was working.