Chapter Three

-Memories of That Day-

It was like any other day in the hospital. Ramona Cassidy took her morning medications and was on her way to her physical therapy and exercise. The young woman hummed a random song while she flexed her metallic limb. The hand, her hand really, flexed its fingers almost fluidly, save a few twitches.

She had made excellent progress since the fever dreams had passed six months ago. Still, she had a long way to go before she could rejoin the army.

The only thing different about her schedule was the hand-to-hand combat matches with her father, one of few things that she tolerated while recuperating. She entered the room, stood opposite to her opponent, and took a stretch before adopting a battle stance. Her father, John, was a man in his late forties, very fit for his age, but his brown hair had started turning gray and never made attempt to hide it. He was taller than his daughter was and much more physically built. He was a man who spoiled her and taught her hand-to-hand combat, on top of how to wield a knife, so she could defend herself.

As usual, her mother stood in the next room and watched from the window. She had short auburn hair, dyed in her natural color to cover the gray strands, and wore her doctor's coat over her red blouse and black skirt. Her mother was renowned in the field of prosthetics. When she learned of her child's survival, Dr. Nora Cassidy insisted that she would have one. That's why she overlooked the sparring matches to make sure that the limb didn't malfunction and that her daughter could take the kicks and punches.

All seemed normal for the most part…except…

There was the man standing next to her mother. He didn't look like any of the doctors taking care of her. In fact, he didn't look familiar at all and made Ramona a little uneasy. He wore a gray suit, dark hair slicked back with a few gray strands and a thin goatee grown on his chin while thick, square glasses framed around his dark eyes. He had a serious look on his wrinkled face with his hands behind his back as if he was here on business.

She shook the feelings off and turned back to her dad. A few minutes later, the match started when she lunged forward. Both fighters had different strategies. The father could take hits and drew powerful punches. The daughter was much smaller than he was, so she used speed to avoid blows and waited for a chance to strike. A few times, she dodged the wrong way and her father would land a blow. The impact would send her tumbling to the ground, but, like always, she would get back up, spit out red and continue.

"Pretend I'm your enemy when we fight." She heard him once say while having a sparring match in her backyard when she turned eighteen.

Some might consider something like that harsh. Nora said it was extreme. But, his daughter didn't complain. After all, it saved her life when the shit hit the fan in New Alexandria.

For the most part.

However, the match ended abruptly when she heard the door open. Her mother and the unknown man had stepped through the door. From the sound of their conversation, they were in an intense argument.

"…and I want to meet her. Her recovery is nothing short of remarkable, Nora." She heard a thick southern dialect in the man's voice, "Someone with such a strong will to live is rare these days."

Nora stepped in front of him and stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder. "…and, for the tenth time, you will have your chance! You will talk to her when I say so, not when you want to, Leonard."

He glared at the doctor, his patience clearly thinning, "I need to see if the girl is as good as you said she is. Do I need to remind you why you came to me?"

The doctor's voice rose to a shrill and she spat out, "I haven't told her, you idiot!"

Ramona saw the unknown man flinch at her screaming, but his serious face remained unchanged. Then she saw her mother cover her mouth, as if she'd said something she wasn't supposed to.

"Nora, what the hell is he talking about?"

Nora turned around as her father blurted out those words. Ramona continued to stare at the unknown man, their eyes meeting for a few seconds before she looked back at her mother.

Ramona remembered the look on her mother's face, her usual stone exterior that she was familiar with began to crumble. It rarely happened and Ramona knew something was wrong. Her voice started shaking when she said, "There's something you both need to know."

Her eyes snapped open and, for a second, Michigan thought she was back at the hospital. The cold feeling in her veins tore her from a deep peaceful sleep and she let a string of harsh curses. The rookie got her bearings and managed to tell herself that she was on the Mother of Invention, not in a hospital room. For the moment, all she could do was lie on her cot and just focus on trying to calm down.

Her eyes stung while something wet trickled down her cheek and tasted salty tears on her lips. Wiping her eyes, she saw clear tears run down her fingers and quickly went into the bathroom. She turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face twice. After drying herself off with a towel, she saw her reflection in the mirror, her green eyes red and puffy from crying in her sleep.

Then a short wave of anger came over her. Why, she thought, out of all the terrible memories, why did I dream that one?!

For twelve months, she stayed on board a hospital floating above Earth, its callsign Angel on my Shoulder. She had a prosthetic implanted into her right shoulder after losing her arm on Reach, in New Alexandria. She remembered the fever dreams, the doctor fretting over her as if she were made of glass, and the frustration of relearning every movement known to man.

Instead of finding the answer, she just took a few deep breaths and stamped that memory out. Old wounds needed to be mended, not reopened. Moreover, the Director would most likely frown upon a Freelancer crying.

She came out of the bathroom and stared at the clock. She'd been asleep for two hours and her training session was in three. There was nothing for her to do but go back to sleep…

…except she kept hearing a slight beep every five minutes. It wasn't loud and obnoxious like an loud siren blaring, but quiet and subtle she could barely hear it. She was able to ignore it at first, but then it started to get on her nerves, like a leaky faucet in the middle of the night.

Standing next to her bed, she looked around and heard the beeping noise coming from under her bed. She knelt down and her hand reached for something small, pulling out what looked a camera with an even smaller microphone attached to it.

The fuck?

Then she saw another small camera this time in the vent above the closet door. She carefully removed the vent and pulled it out. Then a third came into her view, located behind the desk.

You've got to be kidding me…

Then she glanced at the fourth on the other end of the desk and growled.

Green eyes scanned the room for other surveillance devices. It quickly became an Easter egg hunt, but for the small electronic devices. Each time she found one, she put it on the bed and continued searching. While some were in plain view, there were other bugs that were very well-hidden, including a small mic stitched inside one of her shirts in the closet and a bug hidden inside the lamp on her desk. A few required her to move around what little furniture she had, which took some effort as the prosthetic wasn't meant for heavy lifting.

In an about an hour, she managed to find thirty-five cameras and microphones, but she still wasn't done. As minutes passed, she grew more and more frustrated. Just when she'd thought she found that last one, another beep could be heard.

Eventually she searched the bathroom found a few underneath and around the bathroom sink. It was starting to become a bit ridiculous when she discovered a tiny microphone inside the sink's faucet .

How many of these things are there, she frustratingly thought when she pulled yet another one out of the back of the toilet in her bathroom. She even looked in the showerhead, but to her relief she didn't find one.

Good to know the Director isn't a dirty old pervert.

BEEP!

"Oh come on!" she groaned. Where else could it be?! She checked the bed, the desk, the bathroom sink, every nook and cranny, and still nothing.

That's when she looked up at the ceiling and saw the fire alarm, a white plastic disc attached to the gray surface. She eyed it suspiciously.

BEEP!

For the second time, she frustratingly sighed, You have got to be kidding me.

With some effort, she pulled the large, heavy desk from against the wall and dragged it underneath the alarm, making a god awful screeching noise as the legs scraped across the floor. Using the chair and the desktop as a stepladder, the rookie removed the plastic lid off the alarm when she heard a female voice at the door.

"Agent Michigan, what are you doing?"

Suddenly feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, Michigan turned her attention to the woman standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. Her armor was aquamarine with a different design than the standard issue armor that the other Freelancers wore. The woman had no helmet, so she showed her copper red hair held back in a low ponytail with piercing green eyes hiding behind her bangs.

Fierce and beautiful. Definitely a scary combination.

She shook her head and turned back towards the dismantled fire alarm, plucking out the tiny mic found next to the battery, jumped down from the desk and showed it to her visitor. "Do you have any idea how many of these fuckers are in this room?" She asked aloud, not out of curiosity, but of frustration and fatigue. The she added, "Because I sure as hell don't."

The woman raised an eyebrow, looked at the equipment on the bed and then asked, "How long have you been at this?"

"I have no idea." She shrugged, "What time is it?"

"0630 hours."

She stared at the clock on the wall and instantly her face fell. "Oh shit!"

After realizing that her training session started in an hour, she leapt over the desk and quickly exited the room, ignoring her visitor and repeating the word 'shit' like a mantra.

After watching Michigan frantically sprint down the hallway (and sprint back, "Forgot my knife!" the rookie Freelancer proclaimed while she snagged a knife off the desk), Agent Carolina glanced down the small cameras and microphones on the cot.

All which were fake, the field leader knew. She planted them under the Director's orders. He needed to know if Michigan was indeed worth his time and effort to train.

Carolina took a quick count, tallied up to forty-nine devices. A frown showed her face and recounted again. There were supposed to be fifty in total. She scanned the room, which was in complete disarray. The desk sat in the middle of the room, the messy bed left unmade with starch sheets and pillows everywhere on the floor and the showerhead in the bathroom dangled off the wall.

Her eyes settled on the light switch next to the doorway, practically left untouched in the mess that was Michigan's room. She pried open the lid and revealed the fake device behind the circuiting. She looked back at the devices on the cot before she tossed it in with the rest.

Forty-nine out of fifty is exceptional, but not perfect. The Director doesn't settle on anything less. Still, she could be Freelancer material, Carolina thought while exiting the room and into the hallway. She took out a datapad, pulled up Michigan's file, and carefully read over her personal history for anything to work with in terms of skills.

So far, she knew the rookie could fight in close quarters, even throw someone bigger than her over her shoulder according to North Dakota, and find hidden devices. Her military history proved that she could kill and grew accustomed to violence on the battlefield. Fighting a race that systematically tried to exterminate humanity for four years was no mean feat.

Carolina sighed, still reading for anything else that showed what else Michigan could do.