To say that Adya and President Armstrong “got off on the wrong foot” would be an understatement. He might as well have bound her feet together before the race even began. Months later and his gaze still lingers on her body-- child, it said when they first shook hands. Charity case. Lacking in potential. To his knowledge, his opinions have remained behind closed doors. Only Adya knows how loose the hinges truly are. She doesn’t even begin to wonder what he tells other ACA officials unaffiliated with Goddard. Ten minutes before a meeting with the devil is not the time to be worrying if he thinks you a sinner.
Her trips to the third floor are few and far between. Still, the researchers value Adya’s presence just as much as they value their privacy. All of them know her by name. As bionicists, they’d be fools not to. She follows Val and Elora close behind, making a beeline down the white halls for the office at the end. The double doors slide open and produce a wide-eyed Leighton pushing his glasses up onto his head of hair. He smiles at Adya. “You live here and I’ve seen you, what, twice in two months?” he asks, extending an arm through the doorway. “Come in. Nothing to be nervous about.”
“Guess I’m just notoriously elusive,” she says.
The windows curve in a semicircle, covered in black curtains that keep the sunlight from getting too glaringly bright. To Adya’s right, a wall-sized digital display that sits idle on a looping background; to her left, a table littered with scraps of metal. Being the ambassador for Goddard sure hasn’t stopped Leighton from tinkering like he always has.
He walks across the room with a skip in his step, but not an excited one. It’s merely a means to an end for shaking his nerves. He tries to stack up the papers strewn about his workspace.
“Everything okay, Doctor?” asks Val.
“Oh, boy. How do I put this?” He wipes his palms on his lab coat and rests them on the singular empty spot on his desk. “I’m a bionicist, not a diplomat. Shaking hands with higher-ups isn’t really my idea of fun. I want to do my best to represent Goddard and represent you in the best light. President Armstrong gets the final say in your progress and I do not exactly adore his company.”
Makes two of us, Adya thinks.
“His faith in you outweighs his anxiety,” Elora whispers. “Don’t let him scare you.”
“Why do you guys keep telling me not to be nervous? I’m not.”
But as a chiming ringtone goes off from the display on the right wall, she starts to chew on her words. She lifts her chin and straightens her shoulders in front of the camera, the room dimming to low, ambient light.
Adya almost stumbles back at the faux-dimensional image of President Armstrong that materializes in full color before her. The pixels seem to pop off the wall, creating a hologram viewable from almost 360 degrees. Even amid the growing nerves, she holds back the urge to admire the piece of technology.
“Good to touch base with you again, Mr. President,” Leighton begins.
“You as well,” President Armstrong says. His eyes land on Adya for only a second before they skip over to Elora. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time, so let’s get started, why don’t we? I’m confident Miss Prisham would like her progress to be evaluated as fast as possible.”
“I don’t mind,” she mentions. “Two months feels a lot longer when you’re--”
“Dr. Beck, Dr. Alvarado, I’ll begin with your diagnostics. Has her system been operating properly?”
Val offers her silent acknowledgment. Adya steps back and folds her hands in her lap.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” says Elora. “Her muscles and joints are responding well to intensive physical activity, showing no sign of wear.”
“No motor errors or mishaps with her ocular or auditory interfaces?”
“Yes, her eyes and ears are just fine,” she answers. “Any issues regarding listening can be attributed to the motions that accompany being a teenager. Just Adya being Adya.”
For once, Adya smiles. President Armstrong, not so much.
“Dr. Beck, I know you’ve been monitoring her neural activity,” he continues, eyeing the tablet in his hand. “Anything I should be concerned with?”
“Heightened responses to stress, focused tasks, and verbal communication have shown gradual decline since her arrival. To put it simply, she’s settling in well and gaining mastery over new skills.”
“And her interface is capable of adapting to these skills? I wouldn’t want us to reach a wall so far into her training.”
Val furrows her brow. “Mr. President, she’s been able to handle everything I’ve thrown at her so far and I anticipate it’ll stay that way," she interrupts. "I feel that a term like interface evaluates her bionics before it evaluates… well, her.”
He leans forward and looks her up and down the way you’d eye a stray cat from across the street. “I’m using these terms for the sake of a formal evaluation, Agent. Surely you understand.” His eyes stop at her arms, folded across her chest. Begrudgingly. Val, nods and steps back. “I have to say, I’m still cautious, Doctors.”
“As am I,” Elora continues, “but I have full faith she is up to the task. I’ve watched her grow since the moment she woke up in this body. She’s earned her place as an agent of Goddard and of the ACA.”
President Armstrong faces the wall and drums a finger on his tablet rhythmically. When he sets it down, it disappears from the holographic display. “Promote her to a communications agent,” he orders without turning back. “We can evaluate her progress a second time in a few months.”
For the first time in her life, Adya sees a look of utter shock pass over Elora’s face. “Mr. President, she’s been trained for field work. That’s what she was recruited for.”
“And I still think she requires more time and more training. Unlike the American mind transfers, her body is not predisposed for combat. It will take her a long while to get where she needs to be.”
Val steps forward, but Adya reaches a hand in front of her. Giving her lieutenant an order is bold, but a little boldness is what this room needs.
“I don’t understand. She has passed every evaluation with flying colors. You believe her bionic makeup is the reason she’s not ready?”
“She is also proficient at disobeying orders, Doctor.” A hush falls over the room. Adya becomes keenly aware of the electronic hum that emanates from almost every surface-- including herself. “I've been briefed about recent... sightings of her in the field. Let it be known that someone with a face as prominent as hers is not immune to consequence. I expect you to enforce that.”
Adya takes a deep exhale. She needs not to, but the sensation is familiar and comforting. “Could I have a word with President Armstrong alone?” she asks over the muttering arguments of the doctors. He cocks his head, unfamiliar with the Adya in this room versus the one he shook hands with. Hesitantly, he accepts. Adya nods for Val to retire to the far side of the room while Elora and Leighton slink out the door. Being bold doesn’t mean being fearless entirely; an empty room except for her and Armstrong might make her short circuit. She’s disinterested in testing that theory.
“You’re curious, Miss Prisham, I’ll give you that.”
“The term I remember you using is ‘science experiment’,” she begins. His jaw hangs open, ready to spit out a rebuttal, but Adya spares no second in keeping him behind the picket line. “I heard it all. I’m not built for combat like the American mind transfers-- I didn’t even choose to be this way. But I’m here now. You might as well make me useful.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a heavy sigh. He stares out across the room for an answer, finding it on the young woman in cargo pants and a compression shirt against the back wall. “You!” he says, raising his chin. “Agent Rivera, is it?”
Adya can almost see the chill icing over Val’s shoulders. “Lieutenant,” she says with a step forward.
“If your cadet’s ability to take orders matched her physical capabilities, I might consider the proposition. I take it that you two still have some work to do.”
Chewing on her words, Val bites her cheek for a second. Her arms unfold from behind her back and hang at her sides. “Discipline and obedience are two very different things. When my teammates give me pushback, when they bend my rules, it’s for a good reason. Cadet Prisham is no different. As law enforcement, people have faith in agents-- but do people have faith in the ACA?”
“What are you saying?”
“I can’t force you to have a change of heart, Mr. President. But if a modern marvel of cybernetics is suddenly under your supervision and you sideline her-- turn her into a pretty face for expos and interviews and documentaries-- the ACA will never acquire the conviction that it lacks. She’s the face of your association. Make that mean something.”
He looks to the left, letting his voice soften as if he were crouching down and resting his hand on the shoulder of a child. “The whole world is watching you, Adya. If you go in, guns blazing, into any vulnerable situation, how am I supposed to explain that? I cannot afford to speak on your behalf every moment of my day.”
“So don’t!”
The silence hangs in the air when his gaze looks straight through Adya. She lets her shoulders drop and her fists unfurl.
“I haven’t made a single decision for myself in two years,” she explains. “Therapy, diagnostics, therapy, sleep, repeat. Every day. And when they finally told me I was ready to start a new life, you know what the first decision I made was? Coming here. Joining the ACA to protect people who look like me. All of me. I’m not disposable just because I wasn’t built for the job, like the rest of the mind transfers here. Just one chance is all I’m asking for-- one chance for both of us to see if this was the right decision. Please.”
President Armstrong stares for a long while. His eyes absorb every inch of her. She can feel them crawling through her chest circuitry and sliding down the metal of her arms. It’ll take much longer to see her as an agent first and a piece of hardware second.
“One. And only if your mentor truly deems you ready. I don’t want any shortcuts, Lieutenant.”
A quiet smile passes across Val’s lips. “Oh, I’m not her mentor. I’m just training her,” she answers, offering half a glance at the wall to her right. “I’ll have a chat with him, but I think I already know the answer.”
Adya turns and looks back at the door through the dim, one-way glass. Leaning against the wall is Nate, a uniform neatly folded in his arms. She has never seen him smiling so wide.
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