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It was their first real mission since the project had been set up, and it had gone horrendously.
Carolina found herself running through a seemingly never ending stream of bullets, trying to focus on the sight of the Pelican up ahead. Her head was pounding; all she could hear was the constant sound of bullets and screams and bangs and engines and it hurt. It hurt ten times more than the bullet in her side. She felt like her head was going to explode.
She had to focus. She had to get to that Pelican and then it would all be over. Then the noises would stop.
But her thoughts were getting cloudy. The adrenaline that coursed through her body made her run faster, but it also made her even more hyper-aware of the hell that was her surroundings. Everything was becoming a blur of sound, it was encroaching on her sight. She could barely make out the Pelican, even though she knew it was still there. She could hear its engines. They were so loud.
She wanted to clamp her hands over her ears, but there was no time. No time.
Her feet slammed against the ground. She slipped on something – blood, probably blood. Bullets whizzed through the air past her head. The sound of the Pelican drew nearer.
She felt the Pelican before she saw it. The sounds of its engines were ingrained into the very depths of her skull, but it was only when her foot caught on the ramp and she was sent tumbling flat onto her face that she realised she’d gotten so close. She could have sworn it had still been a hundred metres away only seconds before. But here she was, on her hands and knees trying to find enough willpower to pull herself back to her feet. Everything hurt.
The next thing she felt was a hand on her arm, tugging harshly, trying to pull her to her feet. Even through the thick layer of kevlar covering her skin the touch sent shockwaves of pain through every nerve. Before she knew what she was doing she’d thrown her other arm at her attacker, an armoured fist connecting with an armoured head, and a shocked shout of her new name breaking through the overbearing sounds of everything else.
“Carolina! It’s me! It’s just York!”
York. York. Right, York. He was a friendly, wasn’t he? He was a friendly.
A friendly who’s hand was still wrapped around her arm, sending shots of agony through her with every passing second.
“Get off me!” She barked, in a voice she barely recognised as her own. She jerked her arm away with all the force she could muster, jerking it back out blindly and feeling her palm connect with his chest in an effort to push him away. Even that hurt.
“Carolina, I’m just trying to help! We need to get into the Pelican, now!”
“D-Don’t touch me!” She waved her arm out blindly again, batting away any attempt at ‘helping’ her. She could get up by herself. She could get up by herself.
York’s voice was drowning out the sounds of the battlefield, but that just meant it was just as loud. It filled her brain, penetrating as deep as the grinding sounds of the Pelican engines had been moments before, “Carolina, we have to go! Now!”
“I know!” She scrambled to find purchase on the sloped surface, finally feeling her feet find their ground after what felt like hours. After that she found the will to push herself up, stumbling inside the Pelican. York grabbed her arm again, trying to pull her in faster. The pain shot through her arm again, and her head vibrated with the slamming sound of the bay doors behind them.
“And we are out of here,” The pilot said, followed by the cacophony of flicking switches and beeping alerts. Her head was going to explode. She was sure of it.
York was still holding her arm.
“York. Let go.”
“Carolina, what the hell was that? Are you okay?” York said, ignoring her. He still didn’t let go of her arm.
“York. I said… I said let go.”
“I mean, things went to shit pretty quickly out there but−”
Carolina snapped, tearing her arm away and slamming her shoulder into his torso, sending him tumbling to the floor as the ship took off and the floor moved under his feet, “I said let go!”
Her sight was finally coming back to her. She could see him on the floor, a blur of tan armour splattered with blood. She didn’t know how much was his own.
“Carolina, what the fuck?!”
She tore her helmet off, throwing it full force at the man laying at her feet with a frustrated scream as tears began to prick at her eyes. The dim light of the Pelican’s rear bay burned her eyes without the protection of her visor. She buried her fists into her eyes, lights dancing across the dark expanse of her eyelids.
“…Carolina?”
Carolina cursed, turning on her heel and screaming into the backs of her wrists. Her hands flew away from her eyes and she ripped her gloves away, her fingers lacing into her hair and digging into her scalp. Her teeth tugged at her lip, digging hard and threatening to break skin. She needed something else to focus on. Real pain to take her focus away from the onslaught of sensations coursing through her every nerve.
And then York’s hand was on her back. And then York was thrown against the other wall of the Pelican. And then her fists were in the wall by his head. And then she was on the floor, crying messily and clawing at the skin of her hands.
York had the sense not to touch her again after that; it was that, or he was too scared to approach her at all.
She wasn’t aware of how much time passed before the overwhelming force of her meltdown faded down into a dull, residual ache in the front of her skull. Her only hint was that when her senses finally returned to her they were less than five minutes from returning to the Mother of Invention. She was still sitting on the floor, curled into a ball with salty tears streaming down her face.
York was sitting in one of the seats, harness up and helmet off. She flinched away when she realised his eyes were on her, suddenly aware both of how much of a mess she must look and of how she had acted towards him. It was sort of hazy, but she remembered she’d thrown someone against the wall. Seeing as York was the only one there, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume that person was him.
“We’re nearly back.”
She just nodded vaguely. Then she flinched, the motion hurting her head.
“You okay?”
“I-I…” Her voice felt raw, “I sh-should be… asking you… asking you that…”
The man waved a dismissive hand, “Eh, no biggy. Armour took most of the force. I uh, should probably apologise. I mean, I definitely should. Sorry.”
“No… I-I’m… I’m sorry…” Carolina said, slowly uncurling, “How… how long…?”
“Were you out of it? About an hour,” York said, shrugging a little, “Give or take.”
“Oh.”
“So, as I was saying, you okay?” He repeated, suddenly seeming to be sitting more forward in his seat.
Carolina paused for a moment, and shook her head, “N-No.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
Another pause, this time she nodded, “Yes. I… I’ll be okay. This won’t happen again, I promise. I just got a little… overwhelmed.”
“No kidding. Well, alright. As long as you’re going to be okay, Carolina.”
She vaguely remembered nodding, before finding herself in front of the Director in the briefing room. She must have made her way there on auto-pilot, she didn’t remember leaving the Pelican let alone making her way to this office.
“Agent Carolina.”
“Director.”
The dark haired man peered over his glasses at her, his arms folded behind his back, “What happened out there today, Agent Carolina?”
“I…” She hesitates, her nails scraping across the palms of her hands, “It was different. Than I expected, that is.”
“Different in what way, Agent?” He asked, his stare unrelenting. Carolina couldn’t bring herself to break the eye contact, but it was making her skin crawl.
“Louder. Messier. I am… I’m afraid I have become too used to training room scenarios, sir,” She swallowed hard, and her nails dug deeper as they scratched and tugged at her skin, “I was unprepared, sir. I’m sorry. I promise it will never happen again.”
“How do you intend to make sure of this, Agent?”
Her nails were drawing blood, she could feel it dribbling down the curve of her hand, “I… I would like to be placed on more realistic simulations, sir. And sent on more missions. So I can learn, sir.”
“Very well. I trust you will do your best to uphold this agreement, Agent Carolina.”
“Yes, sir,” There was blood under her nails, and her jaw was tense, “I will do my best.”
It was ten thirty hours on the Mother of Invention, and Carolina was walking through the halls that would take her to the training floor in the shortest time possible. She was booked in for her usual slot between eleven hundred hours and thirteen hundred hours, and had just enough time to get to the locker room and get into her armour before she’d miss the start. She was happy enough with that, she knew her way around the ship better than almost anyone else, she knew she’d get there with plenty of time.
That is, until York crossed her path and interrupted her with a wave.
“Hey, Carolina!” He jogged over to her, and she stopped walking as he stood in front of her, “There you are, I was just coming to find you actually.”
“Is something wrong?” She asked, peering past him at one of the screens that hung from the wall. Twenty minutes until her slot.
“Oh, no, no, nothing like that,” He replied, shaking his head and shrugging, “I just wondered if you’d like to hang out for a little while; I haven’t got anything scheduled today, and also the new guys would like to meet you.”
That’s right, there were four of them now. Two new agents had just been brought in from training a few days ago, a week ago at the most. She hadn’t found time to introduce herself past her name so far, despite York’s incessant bugging about doing so. This had to be the third time this week he’d asked her, and he always managed to do so when she was just about to do something else.
“I’m scheduled for a two hours training slot,” She said, gesturing vaguely past him at the screen, “Starting in twenty minutes.”
“Aw come on, Carolina,” York said, a smile on his lips, “You do plenty of training! And you’re better than any of us even without it. Surely you can miss one itty bitty training session to come and hang out with the new guys?”
Carolina shook her head, squeezing her thumb tight inside her first, “No, York, I can’t. I’ve booked my slot.”
“You could cancel your slot,” York said, nudging her side a little and folding his arms, “Come on Carolina, please? Pretty please? The new agents are actually alright, and you’ve barely said a word to them.”
“I can’t just cancel a slot with twenty minutes notice, York. I’ll talk to them later,” She glanced at the clock again; there were sixteen minutes until her slot.
“You said that the last time I asked. And the time before that, and the time before that,” York said, his head nodding from side to side with each repetition, “Come on, just this once?”
“York, I can’t,” Fifteen minutes. She’d be cutting it close if she didn’t start moving again soon.
“Carolina−”
She sighed, squeezing her fist around her thumb tighter. He meant well, she had to remind herself of that. He wasn’t doing this out of any negative intentions. He simply didn’t understand.
“York, please. I can’t. I swear I will find time where I can meet the new agents, but right now I have to go and train,” She looked him in the eye, despite the shudder it sent down her spine, in hopes that the look she gave him would be enough to convince him.
His brow furrowed and he scratched his head, but with a soft sigh and a shrug his face softened.
“Alright, ‘Lina. I’m gonna hold you to that though, okay?” There was a playful tone in his voice, and a smile formed back on his face. Carolina managed a smile in return and nodded, “Alright, good luck with your training.”
“Thanks. I won’t need it,” She said, giving him what she hoped was a friendly jab in the side as she walked past him. He chuckled, turning over his shoulder to watch her go before heading on his way.
She took a deep breath, glancing at the next screen she passed and seeing that she had fourteen minutes. She was definitely going to be a few minutes late starting.
She sighed at that.
She made her way down to the training facilities and got into her armour, making it down to the floor itself five minutes after her slot had started. She decided to get back at York with some kind of prank about half way through the session that followed.
He got better after that. She found time to meet the others as they arrived, adjusting her schedule so she had a little more free time. Though he didn’t quit asking her to hang out at the most irritating times, he did stop pushing the issue when she said no, so she figured she had to give him some credit. Just a little bit.
“Landing zone cleared. You’re good to land, Four-Seven,” Carolina said, fingers at her ear and her body positively vibrating. The landing zone was more than clear; there hadn’t been a single person for them to fight as they arrived, all of the resistance soldiers having been dealt with back in the compound.
The mission had been a resounding success.
“Copy that, Agent Carolina. I’d stand back, if I were you.”
Carolina nodded to no one in particular, gesturing to the others to step back and moving back herself.
The Pelican landed in position moments later, opening the rear bay. Carolina wasn’t quick to get inside, letting her teammates pass her and onto the ship whilst she took one more look back at the base they had just thoroughly wiped off the map. A grin spread across her face, and she began to bounce on her toes.
“You coming?” York called from inside, breaking her from her excited trance. She nodded, though her grin didn’t fade away, and followed them up into the rear bay. The door closed behind her and she pulled off her helmet, “You did good in there.”
“Thank you. You weren’t so bad yourself,” She beamed, tucking her helmet under her arm and looking around. Her team – and they were now, she was number one, she lead groups missions – consisted of herself, York and Maine. York was there to get them in; Carolina was there for speed and to run the team; Maine was there for brute force. None of them had disappointed, “We were all good. We all did very well.”
Maine grunted in approval (he was a quiet guy, she respected that), whilst York chuckled softly as he took his seat.
“You’re cheerful.”
“Of course I am. The mission was a success,” She said, smiling at him. She was bouncing on her toes again, the sensation serving to make the energy coursing through her grow stronger.
“Well,” York said, pulling off his helmet to reveal a smile of his own, “I can’t argue with that.”
“Nope, you can’t,” Carolina said, popping her lips on the ‘p’. Her gentle bouncing continued as she stood at the bay door, watching through the open window in the top as they took off and the base gradually disappeared from view. At the same time, she began humming under her breath. The positive vibrations of both only added to the excitement buzzing through her.
She was going to have to beat up some training dummies to get rid of all this energy, and she loved it.
When the base faded out of view entirely she turned away from the small window, briefly remembering there were other people in the bay and instinctively stopping her bouncing. The humming, however, continued as she made her way to her seat – humming wasn’t as odd as bouncing.
She dropped into her seat besides York, holding her helmet on her lap. She caught him glancing at her out of the corner of his eye and grinned, never once breaking her steady hum.
Maybe more than a few training dummies. Maybe she’d have to see if Maine would spar with her. That’d be fun.
She nodded to herself with a smile, closing her eyes and letting the soft tune of her humming blot out the noise of the engines.
“I’m fucking telling you, I’m going to be above North on that board in a week. A week fucking tops ,” South said, stretched out over one of the rec room sofas with a smuggled beer in one hand and the other behind her head, “Just you fucking watch.”
“We know, South. You’ve said the same thing about a thousand times since the thing was first introduced. You still haven’t managed it and it’s been much longer than a week,” York drawled, nudging Carolina in the side and rolling his eyes exaggeratedly as she looked at him.
Carolina shook her head with an eye roll of her own, slumping against his side with her legs kicked up over the arm of the loveseat they occupied. She turned her attention back to the data-pad in her lap, flicking through the information she had loaded up on new fighting patterns she wanted to try out.
“Fuck you, York.”
“I’d rather you didn’t, if I’m honest.”
“I’d be offended if I didn’t feel exactly the same way towards you, fucker.”
Carolina glanced up from her data-pad long enough to check their facial expressions. No open hostility, good. Her eyes flicked back to the pad.
“Now now you two, no fighting,” North said, chuckling under his breath. He glanced up at South from where he sat on the floor by the sofa, “South, you’re welcome to keep trying. But I think I’m just better than you.”
“Oh like hell you are,” South said, snorting and taking a swig of her beer. She swung her leg down from the sofa for the sole purpose of kicking him in the side of the head, “I’m the better fucking twin and we all fucking know it. Board’s rigged.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, little sis,” North said, pushing her foot away and leaning back.
“Fuck you too, North.”
Carolina sighed, looking up once more, “Seriously this time guys, no fighting. I do not want to break up any fights tonight. I just want to sit here and read up on my patterns.”
“Don’t worry Carolina, that’s just how we are,” North said, smiling at the red haired woman to reassure her. Carolina furrowed her brow, “Really, Carolina. We’re just messing around.”
“Mostly.”
“South.”
“What? Just being honest.”
Carolina shook her head, unknitting her brow and sighing, “Alright, if you say so…” She must have misunderstood their tones, again.
North nodded, still smiling a reassuring smile, “I do.”
“Well, Carolina’s weird ass scolding aside,” South said, side-eyeing Carolina and downing the last of her beer. The bottle was quickly placed atop North’s head, where it balanced momentarily before falling and spilling the dribble left behind down his front. North sighed. “What about that newbie, huh? Connecticut, was it?”
“What about her?”
Carolina listened closer, mildly intrigued by where South was going to take this. There were six permanent members of the team now; her, York, North and South, Maine and Wyoming. But there were other freelancers too, all vying for a place in the main bracket. Connecticut was one of them.
“She’s adorable, that’s what. I mean, she could fucking kill me in my sleep if she wanted to, duh,” South said, shrugging. She twisted her other arm behind her head so she was now resting on both forearms, “I mean, those knife skills. Seriously. But she’s also fucking adorable.”
North groaned, raking a hand down his face, “South, really?”
“Oh shut up, you know how gay I am. I’m the gayest gay to ever fucking gay. Do not act surprised when I comment on a cute fucking girl,” South said, kicking him in the side of the head again. This time North grabbed her ankle, holding it in place with a flat expression, “Hey!”
“I guess you could say she’s a Connecticutie?”
The room fell silent.
Carolina tensed, her grip on her data-pad tightening and her eyes going wide. Her teeth tugged at her lip. Oh god. She had not planned on saying that out loud.
The silence lasted for what Carolina was sure had to be hours, before it was suddenly broken by South bursting into deafening laughter.
“Oh my fucking god! Carolina just made a fucking pun! Carolina. Carolina made a fucking pun holy motherfucking son of god!” She laughed, her arms thrown across her stomach and her knees up to her chest and kicking out.
Carolina went a little red, but her teeth stopped tugging at her lip.
“And it was a pun about a fucking cute girl! Oh my god. Oh my fuck I’m dying,” South was wheezing now, turning onto her side and curling into a ball with a grin on her face as laughs shook her body, “I think I need fucking CPR.”
“It wasn’t that funny, South,” North said, despite an amused smile.
“Oh like hell it wasn’t! Carolina. Puns. Oh my god,” And she was laughing again, prompting York to throw a couch pillow at her to try and shut her up. She just punched it right back.
York shook his head, deflecting it and letting it fall to the floor, “You’ve seriously never heard her make a pun before?”
“I am usually more subtle,” Carolina said with a shrug. Her cheeks were still tinged red. She was definitely usually much subtler.
York nodded in acknowledgement, but then with a grin he said: “I mean, really though. It’s not pun-usual for her to make puns at all.”
The room fell into silence once again.
“No, York,” North said, after a moment, “Just no.”
You have to do better. You have to do better. You have to do better.
Her nails dug into her scalp, clawing lines into the skin that stung and catching blood beneath them. Her body was shaking, curled up into a tight ball on her side with her hip bone digging painfully into the metal floor. Her knees dug into her chest. Her eyes were clamped shut, her eyelashes dotted with the remains of tears and red streaks staining her cheeks.
You have to do better. You can’t keep failing missions like this. You’re terrible. You have to do better.
Her teeth pulled at the inside of her mouth, pulling too sharply and flooding her mouth with the metallic taste of blood. She doesn’t really feel the pain of the chunk she’s taken out of her cheek, nor of the fingers in her skull or her hip pressing into the floor. All she knows is the maintenance tunnels of the MOI are dark and quiet and empty. And that she’s a failure.
You messed up again! This is the third mission you’ve failed in a row, Carolina! You have to do better. You have to do so much better.
She didn’t know how long she’d been up there. She didn’t care how long she’d been up there. She wanted to be alone, she wanted to be alone. She didn’t want York bugging her, assuring her that everything was fine and that failing three critical objectives in a row was no big deal. She didn’t want to hear South yelling about how this was all ‘bullshit’. She didn’t want to see or hear anything. So she didn’t.
You have to do better. You have to do better. You have to do so much better. You have to make them proud.
She laid there in silence for a long time. No one came by the maintenance tunnels during the day unless there was an issue. No one interrupted her. And, slowly, her nails stopped digging into her skull and her teeth stopped pulling at her cheek. Her body stayed tightly curled around itself, but she shifted so that her hip didn’t dig into the floor.
You have to do better. So much better. So much better.
She took deep breaths, but her eyes remained closed. They remained closed even as she heard footsteps on the ladder that lead up to her hiding spot.
Go away. Go away whoever you are. Go away. So much better. So much better.
She heard someone say her name, but it sounded like it was coming through water.
The footsteps changed to the sound of someone walking on their hands and knees. It sounded distant, but she knew they were close. She could feel the vibrations beneath her.
Go away. Do better. So much better.
Her name again, still sounding like it was coming through water. The person was right beside her, but they didn’t reach out to touch her. They just sat there.
Go away.
There was silence again for a long moment; the intruder made no effort to disturb her, but they also made no move to leave. And, slowly but surely, Carolina felt the world seeping back in. The sound of the engines and the pipes that surrounded her became audible once again, and her eyes slowly opened to take in the darkness of her hiding place.
“Carolina?”
North. That was North, wasn’t it?
She sat up slowly. Every muscle in her body was aching and didn’t want to respond, but she made her way into a sitting position with a little effort. North’s hands hovered close to her back and her side, but he didn’t touch. Once she was seated, he even took a step back.
“Are you okay, Carolina?” He asked. She assumed he must sound concerned. That’s how North generally sounded. She just couldn’t tell right now, “You’ve been gone for nearly six hours. We were starting to get worried.”
Six hours. Huh. That was a record.
She opened her mouth to speak, but found she simply hadn’t recovered enough to form words. So instead she shook her head, swallowing a mouthful of saliva and blood.
“Alright. Do you want to go to the others? Or−?” She shook her head more frantically before he could finish, “Alright, not the others. Do you want me to lead you back to your room?”
Her room. Her room had blankets and a lockable door.
She nodded.
North nodded in return, offering her a hand as he backed up towards the ladder and stepped onto the first rung. She hesitated but took it nonetheless, letting him lead her carefully onto the ladder and making sure she didn’t fall once he’d made it to the ground.
North was thankfully without questions on their way towards the freelancers’ quarters, walking silently at Carolina’s side as she scratched lightly at her hands and watched her feet rather than the path ahead. He led her to her room at her pace, stopping whenever she did and speeding up with her whenever they came to a group of soldiers walking the halls. By the time they reached her room she felt just a little bit more relaxed, stepping into the welcome familiarity of her quarters.
The other freelancer hovered by the door as Carolina made her way to the bed, sitting down and curling her knees to her chest. She swallowed hard, eyeing the blanket on the open shelf at the top of her storage, which she found held out to her moments later. North smiled gently as she took it.
“Want me to leave you in peace now, Carolina?”
She swallowed again, wrapping the blanket tight around her body, “Y-Yes. Thank… Thank you, North.”
“Not at all. Get some rest,” He said, giving her another gentle smile and then turning on his heel and leaving. He locked the door for her as he left.
Carolina pulled the blanket tighter around her, letting the sensation of the soft material begin to overtake all the aches and pains that came with lying on the metal floor for six hours. She closed her eyes, resting her head on her knees. This was better. This was just a little better.
Carolina turned off the water, slipping out of the shower and drying off with a soft towel. She shook her head, her hair flying everywhere and splattering water across the mirror and the walls, and grinned to herself. She slipped on a pair of boy-shorts and a loose, standard issue t-shirt and let her wet hair fall freely down her back.
Carolina was on shore leave. She had as much time to herself as she wanted.
Stepping out of her quarter’s en-suite bathroom she stretched her toes in the fibres of the carpet, grabbing the blanket which was stashed atop her storage unit. Unfolding it she wrapped it around her shoulders, her arms crossed over her chest and holding it tight around her. It was soft against her skin, and she felt herself relax further.
She glanced around her room, familiar if bare. She didn’t see the appeal in going off-ship for shore leave, at the very least not when you were on your own. She had everything she needed to relax right here.
Her feet dragged across the carpet as she made her way back towards her bed, the friction sending a tingling sensation across her skin. She stopped mid-way across the room, twisting her foot and digging the ball deeper into the fibres of the carpet. Her smile grew, and a moment later she began to spin on the spot.
She wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders and let the material that hung free beneath her shoulders fly through the air around her as she spun back and forth, the grin never leaving her lips. Back and forth and back and forth she spun; her hair whipped around her head and her blanket tickled her sides as the motion lifted her shirt and bared skin. The carpet tickled her feet and the warmth of the blanket oozed through her every nerve.
Carolina kept spinning back and forth and back and forth until her feet were numb, when with a relaxed laugh she instead dropped onto her bed and pulled her whole body into the warm embrace of her blanket. She sighed contently, slipping an arm out just long enough to grab her data-pad from the bedside shelf.
“Now where was I,” She mused, opening up her most recently accessed file and leaning back against the wall. She rested the pad on her lap within her blanket cocoon, ducking her head inside to read, “Ah yeah.”
And with that she became absorbed by the information on her screen, a file she had downloaded on the history of the various forms of martial arts and their applications. There, wrapped up tightly in her favourite blanket and with reading material enough to last her hours, she felt content.
Carolina pulled off her helmet, flinching as the effects of her noise-cancelling software disappeared and her ears were assaulted by the sound of engines and the voices of her teammates. The Pelican was bustling with agents, all just pulled from a mission that was moments away from going irretrievably downhill. The tension hit her like a brick wall the moment she tuned back in.
“Fucking seriously, York? Fucking seriously?!” South snapped, throwing her helmet onto her seat and squaring up to the taller agent, her teeth gritted, “Some fucking infiltration specialist you fucking are, you stupid cocksucker! How did you manage to set off every single fucking alarm in the fucking complex?!”
“Because ‘every single fucking alarm in the fucking complex’ happened to be triggered by that one wrong move I made, South,” York bit back, leering down at her, “Hardly something I could have avoided.”
“How about now making that ‘one wrong move’?! Pretty sure that’d have fucking avoided it!”
“South, calm down,” North interjected, only to get a glare off South that caused him to take a step back, “South, really. What’s done is done.”
She snorted, shoving York away and storming back to where she’d thrown her helmet, “Yeah, what’s done is done,” she said, waving her arms in wild, angry gestures, “And I’ve got several fucking bullet wounds clogged up with Biofoam because of it! Forgive me if I’m fucking pissed off!”
“Well if you’d set your trackers like North kept telling you to,” York said, rolling his eyes, “then maybe that guy wouldn’t have gotten close enough on the way out to put a bullet in your side!”
North coughed. Maine grunted, his helmet bobbing from one side to the other in a vague sort of agreement. South looked ready to put a bullet in York’s side.
“Oh I oughtta−” She growled, only to be pulled away moments later by a sighing Connecticut and pushed into a seat, “Hey!”
Carolina sighed, rubbing her head and dropping into a seat of her own. Her teeth dug into her lower lip, chewing and catching on the faint scar from where it had been split many a time before.
“Everyone calm down. North is right; what’s done is done. We still succeeded in our objective,” She said, giving pointed looks to both York and South, who grudgingly (and in the case of South, more than a little sarcastically) responded with a ‘yes ma’am’. Carolina sighed.
The rear bay descended into an uneasy, low level of chatter that made Carolina think about getting up and heading to her seat behind 479er. She was about to stand up to do just that, when a voice piped up from her side.
“So, uh. They always like this, huh?”
She almost jumped. Turning to look at the source of the voice, however, she internally sighed and relaxed. It was the new kid, Washington.
“Mostly, yes,” She said, sitting back from her half-stood position, “We rarely all see eye to eye.” That was perhaps the understatement of the century, she thought. Her teeth dug harder into her lip.
“No kidding,” Washington chuckled, his hand going to the back of his helmet. Probably scratched the back of his head when he didn’t have it on, she figured, “Guess I’ll get used to it soon enough.”
“You’ll fit right in,” Carolina said, “You know Maine already, don’t you?” They seemed pally, at least.
“Oh? Uh, yeah. I do. North and York have been friendly so far too. I think,” He replied, shrugging a little. Carolina raised an eyebrow a little, “I mean, they have been.”
“Uh-huh.”
The chatter around them spiked as a minor argument started back up, and Carolina groaned quietly. Her teeth pulled at her lip more violently and she got up momentarily to dissipate the hostility before turning to head up front. She cursed under her breath when she realised she’d managed to split her lip open, again. She made sure to grab a first aid kit as she passed through into the cabin.
They were back at the MOI a couple of hours of tense atmosphere later, and Carolina was all too happy to leave the Pelican to give her report on the mission and go to her room to recharge for an hour or two. She’d promised to hang out with York later, but that was hours away. She had time.
She was back at her room within an hour, her report given and her lip bleeding once again from a fresh session of chewing at the unhealed wound. She sighed lightly at that, dabbing the blood away and cleaning the wound before she grabbed her blanket and her data-pad with every intention of settling in for a couple of hours reading.
Then, just as she got comfortable, there was a knock on her door.
Carolina groaned, shaking her blanket cocoon away and dumping her data-pad onto her bed, “Who…?” She mumbled, getting up and trudging over to the door.
She was fully prepared to tell whoever was there to leave her alone, expecting it to be York or one of the general members of staff calling her in for some incident, and had an appropriately annoyed expression to match. However when she all but slammed the door open she was instead greeted by a very freckled, very blonde, very intimidated looking Agent Washington.
“Uh, hi.”
“Oh,” She relaxed her stance, her expression becoming softer but more confused, “Washington. Sorry, I assumed it was someone else.” Not that it was any more appreciated that Washington had interrupted her, but yelling at a newbie felt a little wrong.
“Oh, no no, it’s fine. Sorry to interrupt you, I just, uh,” He jittered on the spot for a moment, scratching the back of his head, before holding out the hand that had previously been behind his back, “I thought you could use this.”
Carolina tilted her head, looking towards the offered item. In his freckled hand was a cartoony tank shaped piece of silicone; a chewing aid.
“Washington, I−”
“I disinfected it, don’t worry. None of my, uh, germs on it or anything,” He said, still holding out the aid and shuffling awkwardly on the spot. She could just about tell that he was chewing on the inside of his cheek, “But I have another one of these. And I saw what you did to your lip? So. I figured you could use it.”
Carolina stared at the offering for a moment longer before reaching out a hand and letting him drop it into her palm. She turned it over and examined it, finding it to be in near perfect condition and a thickness she wouldn’t find uncomfortable to use.
“…Thank you, Washington,” She said, a smile forming. She looked up at him and nodded, “I appreciate it.”
“You’re uh, you’re welcome,” Washington said, nodding quickly and doing what could only be described as a slight wiggling motion on the spot. He stopped himself quickly, but Carolina caught it, “See you around then, uh, Boss.”
Carolina chuckled lightly, “See you around then, Washington.”
And then he all but darted away, mumbling something under his breath. Carolina shook her head, closing the door as he went out of sight and looking at the chewing aid again.
She decided she liked the kid.
Everything had been going so well. She was number one, she’d been number one consistently since the board had been introduced. She was leading their team through mission after mission; they’d gotten better at clearing their objectives. Carolina hadn’t had a meltdown in the field since the early days, and she was settled into life with the team even though they constantly got on her nerves. She’d been on a streak.
Then Agent Texas showed up, and before Carolina could even register what was happening she found herself losing control of everything.
Her routines were disrupted as the training room floor was repeatedly sealed off for ‘special training’ for Texas. She found herself unable to focus in the field as she waited for Texas to show up at every turn, and then when she did turn up her aim was inexplicably forced towards the mysterious, unbeatable soldier as she was taken over by anger and sheer determination to prove herself the better agent. Her team didn’t trust her like they did before.
Everything was going wrong.
She did her best to reclaim what she could. The training room wasn’t occupied at nights, so she switched her eleven hundred hours slot to a slot at twenty three hundred hours. She filled those morning slots with simpler training, holing up in one of the MOI’s gyms, working with weights or sparring with York or South. Eventually it was only with South; York was always too easy on her. South was willing to throw punches that would hurt, grab her in ways that if she pulled it off she could break the other woman’s bones. South was willing to let her be self-destructive.
When she wasn’t training she was preparing for missions or doing her AI coursework. She never found free time to recharge anymore. She was running on fuel made up of pure frustration and anger and energy drinks, she’d never felt worse. But she was still on top of her game; she was still doing her best. Her best just never seemed to be enough.
North and Wash would find her hiding in the maintenance tunnels more and more frequently as time went by. York did his best to try and make her feel better, but he didn’t fully understand. No one fully understood. No one would ever fully understand. Especially not after CT.
No one even knew the full truth about CT.
She got worse after that. CT had been a teammate. CT was haunting her nightmares. She began training through the night rather than sleeping, just to avoid her.
Carolina was in a downwards spiral and she couldn’t escape.
Things went by in a blur. She was training and training and doing everything she could to get past Texas. And then Gamma and Sigma were talking to her. And she found out that she’d been lied to this whole time. Texas wasn’t even better than her! Texas had help this whole time!
She knew what she had to do to win.
…Things got pretty blurry, after that.
Carolina realised later that she’d lost four years. Four years of her memory were little more than fuzzy blurs of colour and noise that sounded like it was coming from broken speakers. The last thing she really remembered was Maine grabbing her and the searing pain in her head as he stole her AI. And then nothing.
She’d always known she could go into states of disassociation in times of stress, but four years was an extremely long time. She quickly decided she didn’t want to try and figure out what had happened in that time, if it had been so bad.
It took her another year to get herself back into a position where she could sort out her thoughts, hiding out in abandoned simulation bases to recharge and piecing her mind back together bit by bit. She found old computers, digging into their systems to find information on Project Freelancer and what had happened since she went MIA. She didn’t like much of what she found.
She didn’t really like any of what she found, until she found it. The one piece of information that might give her a way to end all of this, once and for all.
She had to find Washington.
She had to find the Director.
And with that she regained a purpose. She began to focus on her new objective and only her new objective, fighting back the remnants of the past that kept trying to break through and hurt her. She was doing this to make things right, to make him pay for those things. To show him the pain that he caused everyone else. To show him the pain he’d caused her.
But she was becoming everything about him that she hated. She realised that, at the last moment. When Washington and those ridiculous, colourful sim troopers came and showed her what it felt like to have a team that truly had your back. When she realised that she truly had to just let go, because if she didn’t, she’d end up just like the sad old man she found where the man who had tortured her and her team should have sat.
She didn’t want to make the same mistakes he did. Not again.
So she walked away. She started over.
“Alright everyone, take fifteen!” Wash called, echoed by a chorus of relieved sighs and the sound of at least one person collapsing. That was probably Palomo.
Carolina looked more closely. Yes, that was definitely Palomo. She chuckled softly under her breath.
She stood on a walkway above the training room, leaning against the railing and watching Washington as he trained a combination of the new Republic Lieutenants and their Captains. The Lieutenants were as obedient as ever, following his simple orders for laps and for gun exercises with ease; also as ever, the Reds and Blues that made up their captains were doing the exact opposite of following orders. Carolina was pretty sure she hadn’t seen Grif do a single lap, and that Tucker had been complaining the whole time.
As much as things had changed since she and Epsilon left a year ago, much had also stayed the same. She found comfort in that.
Now that they were on break she could watch how they interacted. Grif and Simmons gravitated towards each other’s sides, just as they always did. Their Lieutenants seemed to be sharing a conversation, but she couldn’t figure out the tone from this distance. Palomo was hovering near them, interjecting his own enthusiastic inputs in an attempt to feel included. She figured she’d missed Tucker’s usual rejection of his attempts to talk to him. Tucker himself was simply lazing back, probably rolling his eyes and complaining about Wash or Palomo.
Caboose was a little different, stood not far from Tucker but interacting only with his own Lieutenant. Smith, she thinks she remembers his name being. A man almost as tall as Caboose and who looked up to him like nobody she had ever seen before. She couldn’t say she totally understood the friendship the two had, but Caboose seemed more than happy to have another friend.
Right now she could tell that Caboose was talking animatedly whilst Smith nodded along to every word, his helmet was off to take a drink of water so she could see the sheer attentiveness on his features. Caboose, whilst still wearing his helmet, had never been reserved with his body language. She could see him bouncing on his feet, his head bobbing and twisting in all directions as he told whatever story he was telling, and his hands began to flap at the sides of his head as he got more and more into it.
Carolina couldn’t help but smile. Caboose was a very free, open person she had found. He wasn’t ashamed, or didn’t know he ever should have been ashamed, to be as he was. As she continued to watch him she even found herself beginning to bounce on the balls of her feet, sending positive energy flowing through her in a way it hadn’t in a long time. The longer she watched the more she bounced, and the more her smile grew.
“Is that good for your leg, Carolina?”
Carolina stopped, turning back to look at Wash. His helmet was tucked under his arm; his blonde hair drenched with sweat; his cheeks flushed pale red; and a small but unmistakably Wash-like smile on his lips.
“You didn’t need to stop.”
“It’s probably destroy my strong freelancer persona if I was caught bouncing,” Carolina said, her eyes following Wash as he joined her leaning against the rails. She shrugged a little, returning her eyes to the group below.
“No one looks at Caboose any differently when he stims,” Washington said, shrugging a shrug of his own. He hung his helmet over the barrier as he also watched the colourful soldiers, still smiling, “Why would they look at you any differently?”
“Because people look at Caboose and I very differently to begin with.”
“Carolina, believe me. They don’t care,” The other ex-freelancer said, giving her a pointed look out of the corner of his eye, “Tucker caught me chewing on one of my aids once. Even he didn’t say a word, besides his usual… good-natured teasing. He was more concerned with the fact it was shaped like a cat than the fact I had it.”
Carolina sighed softly, but the corner of her lips twitched. One leg began to bounce slightly, “I guess so.”
“It’s been a long time since I saw you do that at all. I definitely wasn’t trying to stop you. Tone wrong?”
“I think it was a mistake on my behalf this time,” Carolina said, watching Caboose flap his arms out at his sides as he came to the grand finale of his story, “No hard feelings.”
“You been up here watching long?”
“A couple hours.”
“Been watching them drive me up the wall then, huh?” He chuckled lightly, shaking his head. Carolina smiled.
“Sure have.”
There was a comfortable pause, both watching their teammates and their lieutenants with contented smiles and relaxed stances. Carolina even caught Wash wiggling slightly, and his hands beginning to flap where they rested; her smile grew at the sight.
It had been a long time since she’d seen that, too.
“I’m glad you’re starting to settle in a little, Carolina,” Wash said after a few minutes, standing straight and pulling his helmet back on, “Really, I am.”
“Me too,” Carolina said, not taking her eyes away from those below, “Time to get back to training them?”
“Yup. Hey, later on pop by my quarters. I have that old tank chew I gave you, back in the project? Figure you might want it on hand, just in case,” Wash said, stepping to head back down to the others.
She raised an eyebrow, “You still have that?”
Wash shrugged, “One of the things I grabbed. Got a box of all kinds of old stuff from back then. I was going to give it to you before, but circumstances weren’t in our favour.”
“I’ll come pick it up later, thank you.”
“No need,” Then with a loose salute he turned and jogged back down to the training ground, leaving Carolina alone.
Well, alone except for the tingling that surfaced in the back of her head, “Hey C, you can watch for like another hour before you have a meeting with the generals.”
“Thanks, Epsilon,” She said, glancing to her shoulder as a flash of blue appeared, “Want to stay out and watch with me? The company would be nice.”
“Sure. Don’t see why not.”
The AI ‘sat’ on the railing, and Carolina chuckled. She bounced on her toes, watching the training session restart.
She knew that it wasn’t going to be like this forever. They still had to deal with the Mercenaries and Charon itself, this brief reprieve was just that: a brief reprieve. Soon enough there’d be no time for training, no time for telling stories, no time for idle conversation and relaxation. War was looming, and it was unavoidable.
But for now she was… content. For now, she’d found her place.
And anyway, what was the worst that could happen?