Waking up the next morning was horrific because I woke up three minutes before my alarm went off. I either had the option to go to sleep for 180 seconds more, or turn off the thing before it woke up the entire corridor. I chose the latter because I'm a nice person. Begrudgingly, I rolled out of bed, slipped into my uniform, holstered my sidearm, and tucked my new I.D. into my pocket. After eating a breakfast sandwich, I left the corridor and walked towards the command center.

I was greeted with the familiar site of technicians, engineers and officers rushing around the command center. On the large overhead monitor was the global video feed.

For a minute, an image flashed on the screen and I thought it was the Tesseract. As quickly as the image appeared, it disappeared, and I felt disappointed as I slid into my chair, putting my earpiece in.

"Hi," a giggly voice said next to me. Kat wiggled her fingers at me, as well as her eyebrows. "'Magine that, you're a technician too!" Her blond hair was no longer in pigtails, but a military bun, which made her look a little more mature. Those Tweety Bird pajamas were gone, too.

"Guess so," I said with a sigh, looking at the small application in the corner again. "You don't look old enough to be a technician, though. No offense." I pulled up recent logs and a live feed of all the cameras in the buildings. I wasn't used to having this sort of authority. The majority of the cameras showed members running around the building doing something important. Outside, a squadron was going through morning exercises, running together. Someone else was outside working on one of the helicopters.

"I'm 18," Kat replied, her lip pouting as she adjusted her earpiece. "I know I've got a baby's face, but I'm an adult, Miss Elle."

"Don't need to do that," I said with exasperation, checking logs to see who swiped in and out since I went to sleep. "I'm not even that old, anyway."

"How old are you? And how'd you manage to find S.H.I.E.L.D.? Or did they find you?"

I glanced over the head of my computer station, looking at the global video feeds. "They found me, isn't that how it always happens? And I'm 25. They snagged me fresh out of college."

"True," Kat agreed gravely, typing quickly on her computer. She lapsed into silence. I finished checking the logs, satisfied that things looked "normal."

"Um...how did they steal an 18 year old?"

"I graduated college 4 years ago," Kat sighed sadly. "Child genius, one of those things."

I sank into my chair a bit, feeling moody. Everyone's a child genius nowadays. Feeling sulky, I continued typing on the screen, running antivirus software as protocol required. If any data was stolen or sabotaged, the project was going to be closed.

"You know, Miss Elle, you have really pretty blue eyes," Kat noted absently, still typing on her computer. "They kinda remind me of sapphires...you know, them blue gems?"

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye and smiled a little. "Thanks, Kat."

"You're welcome, Miss Elle."

super short chapter, i made it so short because the next one is crazy long and it would just take forever. and besides, that's where the fun starts. thanks to those who subscribed, hope you enjoy it.