A wooden staff swings within a centimeter of Nate’s face. His batons cross in front of him, keeping its end from colliding with his nose at a speed that would surely leave it broken. He didn’t plan on sparring with Murphy tonight, as is evident by his lack of a shirt; he was just about to change out of his uniform when his colleague offered up a fair fight. It’s not often that he gets to spar against someone else with a melee weapon.
“She listens, I’ll give her that,” Murphy says through a strained inhale. He spins the staff around in his palm and tries to read Nate’s body language for a clue into his next move. “I hated being told what to do when I was a teen.”
“I’m sure that Val can attest to that,” Nate answers. “You guys were neighbors growing up, yeah?”
“Sure were,” Val says. “He was always playing catch with his brother in the street and his mom would poke her head out and say, ‘why can’t you do a more… appropriate sport, like ice skating or dance?’” The chuckle that follows is condescending, but a twinge of rage seeps through. She almost dislikes Murphy’s mother more than he does.
Even as he goes toe-to-toe with Nate, he manages to laugh. “I played rugby, I started going by Lane, I got excited when weight training made me bulk up, and it wasn’t until I was twenty-two years old that my mom considered, ‘maybe this means something’. And by then, I was hundreds of miles away and I looked and sounded a hell of a lot different,” Murphy explains.
Nate protects his right side from an aggressive swing of the staff, the chain around his neck swinging around with every ounce of body movement. He tries to fling it out of Murphy’s grip, but his sparring partner keeps a tight fist around its center. He throws a fast kick with his good-- or rather, enhanced-- leg into Nate’s side, bringing him to his knees. Years of doctor’s appointments and surgeries meant that going under for his cybernetic leg enhancements felt like child’s play.
Beyond the buzzcut and the square shoulders, Murphy carries himself as a man who can stare the devil in the eye and consider it an unimpressive display. After youth of walking on hot coals turned into an adulthood unafraid of footsteps that echo, he can only hope to prevent the former from happening to anyone else. Being a rescue agent isn’t just about saving people from physical disasters; it’s about emotional ones, too.
Nate finds an opening and jams his baton into Murphy’s side. When one hand reaches to cradle the impact, he manages to knock the slender piece of wood from his other. The batons cross around his neck. Uninterested in being tackled to the ground and pinned, he raises his hands in surrender. “What were we talking about again?” he asks.
“You said that Adya’s a good listener,” Nate answers. He glances at the small, red spots on his back and stomach before pulling a t-shirt over them and tucking away his necklace. Murphy only managed to land a few hits on him this time and none of them should bruise too bad.
“I wonder how much of her is her and how much is… you know,” Tristan says. He wiggles his fingers up and down next to his head before downing the rest of his energy drink and crushing the can.
Nate rolls his eyes and shoves his batons into the side of his backpack. He doesn’t have the energy for an argument right now. “I trust that she’s entirely herself. I’m confident that any extra programming added to her brain would send the world into a fit. Her existence birthed a whole new genre of activism.” He throws his bag over his shoulder, wincing at its weight. “I’m gonna go talk to her before I go home. I'll meet you guys there. Murphy, you owe me one for winning that fight.”
He smiles and tosses his wooden staff from one hand to the other with a single, graceful spin. “Put it on my tab, Anastasio.”
Adya spends her evening unpacking and feverishly decorating her dormitory. She’s spent the last two years jumping from hospital, to home, to research facility, and repeating; all of her previous residences were temporary and had no room for decor. This one is different. This one is hers.
Her window opens up to a view of an enclosed courtyard in the center of Goddard’s first-floor research wing. All 12 second-floor dormitories, which usually house visiting agents or recovering patients, have a view of the courtyard’s grassy center and perpetually flowing fountain. Bothering the neighbors won’t be an issue since she lacks any. It’s as close to home as she’s gotten in years.
She rests her hand over the glass and gasps in excitement when she notices a handle; the balcony is accessible and not just for decoration. She pulls a tangled set of lights from her bag and wraps them around the railing. Hopefully she isn’t breaking any policies. A cool breeze curls through the air and the sound of running water swells up from the fountain beneath her. It’s a sound she hasn’t heard in a long time. To call it songlike would be an understatement. I can’t wait to spend every free minute of my time down in that little courtyard, she thinks.
A gentle knock, followed by the cracking open of the door, draws her back into the room. She tosses her empty duffel bags into the closet to her left.
“Settling in okay?” Nate asks.
“Yes! I mean, yes. I’m good. Thank you,” she answers. She tries to ease her expression, still grinning wide from the excitement of decorating and hearing new sounds. She beckons Nate to step in and take a look around.
“Not bad, Cadet,” he says. “I tried to decorate a little when I was living here. Didn’t have much, though. Still, it was home.”
Adya straightens out a stack of books and the candle beside them on her dresser. She’s accumulated a hefty assortment of both in recent years. “You lived in the dormitories?”
“I did. Just a couple doors down from you, actually. Goddard helped me straighten my life out, and I threw myself into cadet training as soon as I could.”
“Oh. I’m sorry that your life needed straightening out.”
He smiles. “Don’t be. It brought me here today.”
She can’t help but be drawn back out to the balcony. “Um… am I allowed to have these on the railing?”
“Sure. You’re a bit of an exception since you’re the only permanent resident of the dorms, so I doubt anyone will care that you’re making the space your own. If they do, I’ll take care of it.”
They stand outside and listen to the trickle of water and the rustle of the surrounding trees. She’s pretty exhausted from the day, but the thought of going downstairs tomorrow and dipping her hands in that fountain gives her an extra burst of energy. So many new sensations, so little time.
Nate asks if she has any siblings, mentioning how far she is from home. “No,” Adya answers. “I’m an only child. I have a lot of cousins, though. What about you?”
“Half brother and a half sister. I’m like a bootleg only child.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger. One is eighteen, the other is thirteen. Older one is my dad’s, younger one is my mom’s.” She holds back the urge to point out how that sounds like a lot to unpack, but he’s already unpacking it. “I visit my mom and her daughter every once in a while for holidays and weddings and whatnot. My dad, not so much.”
She taps her fingers on the railing, her artificial nails ringing quietly against the metal. “Do you miss home? Elora told me that you moved across the country to become an agent.”
He laughs as if the answer is obvious before he even says it. “Not at all. Home changed constantly for me until I came to LA. First, it was a one-story rambler just outside of Raleigh. Then, my dad’s duplex and my mom’s new house. Then, the rec center I’d walk to every day after school.” He inhales the spring air deeply before continuing. “For a while, home was a group of radicals who gave me what I wanted, but not what I needed. I’m not proud of who they made me, but I’m glad I got out. Groupthink is one hell of a drug.”
He never seems bitter or sorrowful when he talks about himself-- just accepting. He’s won his biggest battles, but lost plenty more.
“I’ve had to answer the question ‘do you miss it’ a billion times,” she continues. “Whether ‘it’ is my home, my parents, food, my old life, or something else. I never know what to say. Of course I miss my family. But then they ask if I feel like I’m missing out on life, and I don’t. I have no other experience as a nineteen year old. I can’t miss what I’ve never felt.”
Nate scoffs. “Missing out on life? They say that to you?”
“You’d be surprised at how… honest some of these reporters are.”
He weaves the straps of his backpack straps between his fingers and cranes his neck to look up at the early night sky. There’s still a faint glow of dusty color now that the spring sun has begun to set later. “You should say that. ‘I can’t miss what I’ve never felt.’ I hope that this new beginning means that you’ll get asked more questions about the present than about the past, but if that’s not the case, well… make it the case.”
The thought is enticing. Forcing people to ask about who she is rather than who she was. She’s more than the victim of a freak accident and the recipient of a miracle surgery-- but that means nothing if she just keeps going along with it. She nods, putting Nate’s advice in her back pocket for whenever her next interview comes up.
Her mentor stands up straight and steps back into the room. “Didn’t mean to dump my life story on you on your first day,” he says.
“No, it’s okay. I appreciate it. I’m so used to sitting in a chair and answering questions about myself that I don’t get much dialogue anymore.”
He’s already halfway out the door when he says, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Cadet. Get some rest and resume decorating tomorrow.”
Adya eyes the tangled pile of plugs and cords that still need to be attached to the wall beside her bed with contempt. She considers forgoing the plug-in process and just seeing how long her energy reserves last. “See you tomorrow, Agent. Thanks for coming by.”
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