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As if Ax’s words were some sort of signal, the rest of the group relaxed, some coming up to make their own coffees as I made mine. None of them spoke to me, and I didn’t want to speak to any of them. After all, they’d all been ready to take me down, and I still didn’t know how to feel about it. What sort of organisation was Odyssey, anyway? Because this sure a shit was not what I expected by way of corporate training.
I got my ass back to the table, and Ax indicated I should sit by him. For a moment, I toyed with sitting in the exact opposite space, but this was the first hot drink I’d had in a while, and I wanted to get to drink it. I figured I might not get to do that, if I started another fight.
Besides, if I started another fight, I... well, I don’t know what, but I figured there’d be a meal soon, and I was hungry. Once I’d settled myself beside Ax, our instructor stood up from the table she’d taken at the end of the room, and went to stand up near the coffee counter.
“Most of you will finish your medical and occupational assessments this morning,” she said, with a brief glance at the group I was sitting with. “This afternoon, as you know, is set aside for outfitting. Stick with your timetables, and be back here at twenty hundred for a final debrief. Ax, Tyson, Alice, Lyn, stay back. The rest of you are dismissed.”
We stayed, and I, for one, was grateful for the extra time to finish my coffee. When the others had left, the instructor came over, and sat at our table.
“We haven’t been introduced,” she said, and I wanted to ask her whose fault that was, except that Ax nudged me with his leg when I started to open my mouth, so I shut it again. “I am Agent Faridi. You address me as ‘ma’am’, understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I managed, but I was having trouble concentrating.
She pretended not to notice, and got right down to business.
“You four are going to be on extra duty until Cutter catches up,” she said, and I fielded glares from Tyson and Alice.
Ax just looked amused.
“She’ll also need a full assessment schedule, and kit out. She’s come with nothing, and the places she’s been weren’t savory.”
This got me twin looks of curiosity, and one of pure assessment. I was beginning to worry about Ax. While the other two seemed new to the deal, he did not. I tried to work out where he might have been to be this familiar with dealing with trouble. He caught me thinking, and his lips twitched.
Well, I thought, someone’s enjoying himself far too much.
Agent Faridi ignored the byplay, and kept on.
“We’re moving the four of you to a suite of your own,” she said, and that comment earned me more speculative looks. This time Faridi caught them.
“Yes,” she said. “Cutter is trouble on a stick, and behind the eight ball—and you three are now responsible for seeing she stays out of trouble, and catches up. As a result, your training program is going to be slightly modified to compensate.”
Tyson groaned, and Alice sat up straighter. Ax smirked.
“Extra training?” I asked, and Faridi nodded.
Tyson rested his forehead against the fingers of one hand, but Faridi ignored him.
“Agent Keevers said you had too much talent to waste and we should push you until we found out how far it went.”
The look I was getting from Alice turned hostile, but Faridi continued.
“He also said, I should choose my best, and put them through the same program.” Now, she looked at the other three. “Fortunately, Agent Delight gave me the perfect opportunity to select the three of you without me having to tell the rest of the group why. I will be referring to you as the ‘Specials’, and no one is going to want to be in your shoes.”
She gave each of us, a long, assessing look, and then she turned to me.
“And, yes, whatever happens to this group, it is all your fault.”
She rose, pulling a small computer from her pocket, and tapping its surface. A series of chimes came from Alice’s, Tyson’s and Ax’s pockets, and they pulled out identical machines, opening their covers to read the screens. I watched Tyson’s eyes widen, as he glanced from the computer in his hand to me and back down at it.
“You have got to be shitting me,” he said, and was echoed by Alice’s “Seriously?”
Ax just grinned, and gave my shoulder an open-handed shove.
“Oh, yeah.”
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone sound that happy to be hit with extra work, in a very long time.
“What?” he said, looking up and catching the rest of us staring at him, and then he shrugged. “Shit just got interesting, and I’m not bored anymore.”
“Wow. Yeah. Just. Thanksforthat,” Tyson quipped, glaring at me.
Ax reached out, and gripped his upper arm.
“Don’t make me come over there,” he said, and I watched Tyson subside.
“Sure man,” he said. “No problems. Let’s do this.”
“Yeah,” Alice teased. “Just don’t come over here and kick my ass... again.”
Tyson glared at her, glanced at Ax, and said, “What she said, man. What the hell ever she said.”
“Good. I’ll leave you to it,” Faridi told us, and headed for the common-room door.
We watched her go, and then I turned to watch the others. They were all staring at me, and it didn’t feel good. I swallowed, but I didn’t look away.
“What’s up next?” I asked, indicating their hand-helds, and Ax reached out, and laid a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“You get to help us move,” he said. “Come on.”
We spent the morning getting the others moved into a suite of rooms set at the end of the recruiting complex, and then we went to outfitting. We were there earlier than the rest, and I’d figured it was just because our timetable had been moved around—right up until they started equipping us.
My first clue something wasn’t right, was Tyson.
“What the Hell is all this shit?” he asked, as the supply officer handed him a set of body armor and three nicely tailored suits.
The man looked up at him.
“Any reason you don’t think this is yours?” he asked, suspicion edging his tones.
His question made Tyson worried.
“It’s just... It’s not what I expected, is all,” Tyson said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear.”
“Yeah, you did,” Alice said. “You sure as shit did.”
“Shut the hell up.”
“Enough, the both of you,” Ax said, and took his kit with a murmur of thanks.
I stepped forward, last in line, but the cause of it all. The supply officer looked at me, looked at the screen my finger-scanned DNA had brought up, and looked at me again.
“So, you’re the one,” he said, and I felt my heart go cold.
“The one that what?” I asked, and he just smiled, and glanced past me at the other three.
“They have no idea what they’re in for,” he murmured, and his smile grew wider.
“I heard that,” Alice snapped. “Care to explain?”
I saw Ax roll his eyes, as the supply officer shook his head, chuckling softly to himself.
“I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise,” he said, reaching under the counter and pulling out a duffle bag, with my name on the label.
He met my eyes as he passed it across the table.
“Enjoy.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, and I’m pretty sure the others weren’t too happy with me, but they checked their computers, and Ax checked there was nothing else, and then he took us back to the suite.
“Unpack it and rack it,” he ordered, and we did just that, meeting in the small living area that served as a focal point for the four rooms.
“What now?” I asked, and he said the only words I wanted to hear.
“It’s time for lunch.”
We had assessment that afternoon. The others grumbled about having to do theirs again, but our orders made it clear: Anything one of us had to do, the others had to do, also. No explanation was given, but I figured it was something to do with team building. The only thing was, I’d thought we’d be assigned to a team once our training was complete, not made into a team from the get go.
It made me curious as to what our backgrounds were that had us all lumped in together. I mean, I could guess. I knew my background, and I guessed Tyson’s wasn’t much better, given just how much he reminded me of the kids I’d been with in school, but Ax? Alice? I mean, Ax was our age, but he seemed a lot older than any of us had any right to expect—apart from his juvenile enjoyment of anything and everything that came our way.
Honestly, anyone would have thought he was a kid at a fun park, rather than an adult going through the training process for what was a ridiculously specialized company that needed its people as well-versed in combat techniques as they were in table etiquette. Medical came and went. I don’t want to think about it.
I really hate needles. Hate... as in I’m shit scared of them to the point of needing to be held while some medic makes me a pin-cushion. Only problem is I don’t like to talk about it, and the others didn’t know—right up until I burst out of the exam room in my medical-centre-issued nightie and did a runner for the door.
Alice just watched me go by, and Tyson was too slow. Just my luck it was Ax, who finally caught up. And by ‘caught up’, I mean he beat me to the door and waited for me to reach it. I was so busy glancing over my shoulder, that I didn’t see him until it was too late, and then I bounced off his chest and landed on my butt on the floor in front of him.
Ax just kind of looked down at me, and then back the way I’d come. I couldn’t help following his gaze, staggering clumsily to my feet when I saw the medic standing in the doorway, hypoderm in hand, and a very puzzled expression on his face. Ax looked at the man, and then looked back at me.
“Don’t like needles, huh?” he said, and I shook my head, backing away from him, and trying to figure out a way to the door.
Ax frowned, and stepped away from it, and I just bolted, knowing he wasn’t far enough away for me to get by him, but too terrified not to take the chance. He grabbed me as I tried to slip past, coiling an arm around me, and turning my face to his chest.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you. No-one’s gonna hurt you, okay?”
I lifted my face to look up at him, and that’s when he looped his other arm around me, lifted my feet off the ground, and held me tight against his chest. Movement caught my peripheral vision, and I turned my head. The medic stood beside me, without a hypoderm in sight.
“Look at me,” Ax said, and I did, which was when the medic struck.
“Keep looking,” Ax said, when I yelped, and that’s when I realized he was holding on too tight for me to move.
I’m not sure I would have obeyed, but Tyson came to stand beside us, reaching up to grip my jaw and stop me from turning my head. I felt the second round of shots punch through beside the first, and kept my eyes on Ax’s face.
“And once more,” the medic murmured, and I pressed my forehead against Ax’s chest.
“All done. Thanks guys,” the medic said, and patted me on the bit of back not covered by Ax’s arms. “Come back in, and we’ll finish the exam.”
I didn’t move, and, in the end, Ax had to carry me back into the exam room. He set me down on the bed at the side of the room, and got Alice to come and stand beside me. Tyson came in, too, but he leant himself back against the exam-room door, and wouldn’t move. The medic looked from one to the other of them, and then at me.
“I...” he began, clearing his throat, his glance darting nervously between us. “I, uh...”
I decided to put him out of his misery.
“Just get it done, doc. Ain’t gonna happen otherwise.”
“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat, picked up his check list, and got to work.
I can’t say that it was the most fun experience in my life—and neither was waiting in the room while the others had their checks.
“We’re a team,” Ax said. “From now on, we do these things together.”
Tyson opened his mouth like he was going to say to hell with that, but Alice elbowed him in the ribs, and Ax fixed him with a look that made Tyson close his mouth over whatever he was thinking, and signal for the doc to begin.
Oh, we were a team all right. Yeah. Sure we were.
