Amanda clutched her old gym bag in a death grip as she strode toward the steel glass door at the end of the echoing lobby. An elderly Vulcan man sat at the welcome desk looking anything but welcoming. He gave her a very obvious once-over, and his slanted eyebrows furrowed as he took in her baggy tank top and leggings. She nodded politely at him but didn't stop walking. Hopefully, he was too busy being appalled at her illogical human gym clothes to notice that she did not belong here.

Beside the door, a number pad glowed dimly on the wall. Here came the moment of truth. Aaron, her dick ex-boyfriend, had given her the security code when they were dating. That was over a year ago, and there was no telling if it would still work. She needed it to work. With trepidation, she tapped in the code.

Amanda almost jumped in surprise when the door slid aside obediently. Whether this lack of security was Vulcan arrogance or a simple oversight, Amanda neither knew nor cared. She simply sent a silent thank you to the universe for finally breaking her recent streak of bad luck, then stepped into the exercise facility of the Vulcan embassy.

Careful to avoid eye-contact with any gym-goers, she scanned the room for obstacles to her plan. The gym looked just the same as it had when she was dating Aaron (that dick). The Vulcans had a thing for the steel frame and glass pane aesthetic, and she had to admit it did look slick. On the far wall were the doors to the locker rooms, and scattered among the weight machines and treadmills under the lofted ceiling were several Vulcans and a handful of humans.

The Vulcan embassy employed a surprising number of humans, and she would give anything to be one of that number, even if it would mean working in the same building as Aaron. He was a dick, but he could be ignored. And Vulcans were annoying and judgmental (case in point: unwelcoming welcome desk guy), but that could be ignored too because they paid very well. With a job like that, she would always be able to pay her water bill on time and would never have to break into allegedly secure buildings to bum a shower. Which was the goal today.

With a job like that, she might even be able to go back to school.

Unfortunately, the chances of going back to school were looking bleaker and bleaker each month. Amanda was barely scraping by. After several years of working seasonal jobs with other free spirits, she had decided it was time to assimilate back into normal society and get a normal job. The problem was that normal jobs were hard to come by when you had no experience and no connections. She was juggling a few part-time jobs — teachers' assisting, waitressing for a catering company, babysitting when she could find it — but she could never quite stay on top of her bills. And when she turned on her shower this morning, she was greeted with a short burst of water that quickly trickled to a stop. Hence today's light trespassing. She would surely get fired if she showed up with oily hair and smelly armpits to her catering gig tonight.

Musing on tonight's job as she strolled toward the locker rooms, Amanda was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes. Tonight was going to be a doozy. They were catering some kind of fancy gala on a chartered yacht. A yacht. Some rich politician's idea of a party was putting around San Francisco Bay on a giant floating mansion with his pals. And all she wanted was a steady job.

She firmly squashed down the self-pity as she stepped through the locker room door. And then suddenly, the world erupted into noise around her, and she was airborne.

The floor bucked beneath her, and she was thrown several feet forward. Amanda landed hard on her knees on the tile floor. Without a moment's hesitation, she threw her arms over her head and scanned the room for cover. Living in San Francisco, she was no stranger to earthquakes, and it looked like The Big One was finally happening. She clambered under the nearest sink as fast as her elbows and battered knees would take her.

After a few seconds of huddling under the sink, however, she suddenly realized the earth was not moving. Through the ringing in her ears she could hear screaming from the main floor of the gym. This was no earthquake.

Cautiously, she hauled herself to her feet and patted down all of her important parts. Nothing seemed to be broken or spurting. Other than some seriously skinned knees and still ringing ears, she was fine. Feeling oddly disconnected from her body, she limped out of the locker room.

The scene was chaos. Shattered glass coated the floor three inches deep. Dust-covered figures were picking their way through the rubble. The only way to tell who was Vulcan and who was Terran was by the color of their blood. Amanda watched as they moved toward her, and then noticed the blown out wall on the opposite side of the gym. She realized she was looking into the lobby. She saw flames and smoke.

Amanda was running toward the fire before she knew what she was doing, thinking only of the little old Vulcan man at his welcome desk. She had to get to him. Slipping and skidding through the broken glass, she wove her way through the dust-caked gym equipment until a wall of heat slapped her face. There was no getting into that lobby, she realized. It was totally engulfed.

Helplessly, she looked around. It was then that she noticed a figure lying near her feet. It was a Vulcan woman, and she was clearly dead. Amanda began to notice more unmoving bodies under the blanket of glass. But a few meters away, she saw movement. A Vulcan man was sitting in the glass and looking at his hands held out before him. Green blood coated the left side of his head.

"Hey!" Amanda shouted to him. He did not seem to hear her. She scrambled over to him through the glass and crouched beside him. "Hey, can you hear me?"

The guy kept inspecting his hands like he didn't recognize them. She took one of his hands in hers and gave it a wiggle. "Hey."

He looked at her hand and then up at her face with wide brown eyes. She gave his hand another firm wiggle. "Can you hear me?" She tried patting his cheek, and he blinked, a little more clarity now shining through his eyes. "What's your name?" Amanda asked.

His voice was hoarse with dust when he responded. "I am Sarek." He turned to look at the disaster area in a daze. "What has happened?"

As he looked around, Amanda saw that his hair was matted with deep green blood, and more blood was oozing out by the second. Thanking her lucky stars that she had decided to complete her gym disguise with a sports bra, she stripped off her tank top to use as a bandage. "There was some kind of explosion. You hurt your head." He allowed her to tie the shirt as best she could. "We have to get out of here. Can you stand?"

It took a few tries, and Amanda had to use every last ounce of her strength, but they finally got him to his feet. He leaned heavily on her shoulder. She thought her knees might buckle under his weight. The guy was only a few inches taller than Amanda and quite fit, but he was amazingly dense. So be it. She was getting this guy out of here. She gritted her teeth and pulled him one step forward. Then another. Step by step, they shuffled to the exit and out into the sunlight.

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