“Midterms are right around the corner,” Julie said. She sat cross-legged on Dean’s bed, turning through a newspaper article about a police officer’s assault on a forever unheard-of suspect named Rodney King. “Are you prepared?”

“Yes,” Dean answered, as he sniffed snot back up his nose. He leaned back in his office chair, then sneezed. A polite gesundheit came from Julie’s mouth for the tenth time in the past half-hour. “I swear I’m not contagious.” He pushed himself away from his desktop Macintosh subconsciously, thinking how their hour-long timer is almost up but actively ponders a certain midterm. He tightened the belt on his robe and exhaled. “I do, for the most part. My Algorithms’ midterm has too many question marks.”

“Are there too many numbers or something?”

“No,” he ignored her joke. “Too much material. We’ve already gone through a textbook, and after midterms, we’ve got another to go through.”

“Well, a smarty like you should have no problems with this midterm,” she said, as her natural optimism flowed out. “What’s a Journalist doing taking Algorithms?”

“I like to challenge myself—”

The egg timer on the desk buzzed as Dean fumbled, turning it back to zero before he put it back down. Dean opened the desk drawer and reached in for his pen, paper, and clipboard. Julie’s hour-long grace period ended following her short study of the material. With only one minute to memorize, a photo for an hour seemed tougher than it should, but this isn’t her first exercise on this test. After four workouts on four separate photographs, Julie built up enough confidence in this particular test. He turned back to her. “How much is this for you? 42? 43?”

“Performance Exercise 46,” Julie said. “43 was on my 21^st birthday.”

Julie is the newest member of a thieves group called: The Anti-Federalist. Mark coined the name due to an early heist where they allegedly searched and destroyed evidence of the Iran-Contra for over $1 million. Morgan never liked the name, but everyone else did. He disliked it because they weren’t anti-government, and names give birth to a symbol, making it easier to be caught. Despite not having political agendas, the name stuck, but in reality, they were a glorified group of thieves. By day, they enrolled in college; by night, the fun began. An average gig was robbing a bookie or loan shark, where something elaborate was targeting a foreign ambassador before wasting money in Vegas.

Julie is one year in and is doing more training and performance exercises than anyone. Mostly to catch up to all the others who perform at their physical and mental peaks. This memory exercise is just a pinch of powder on the donut. Just a simple exercise in memory building; remember it today and forget it tomorrow.

“Ready?” Dean asked in a matter-of-fact all-business tone. “Describe the picture to me.”

“A man and woman are jogging on the sidewalk,” she said. “On the couple’s right side are large bushes. A gray-” The gears turned in Julie’s head. “A silver car is passing them,” she paused, recalling the picture. “There’s a license plate.”

“Did it say anything?” he asked, marking something on his clipboard.

“R.6.P—” Julie stopped for a moment, recalling the picture and slowly continued spelling out the plate.

Dean marked on his clipboard, “Is there anything in particular that stands out?”

“Uh—” she closed her eyes and recalled the image. “A black box. With a red logo.” She opened her eyes with a cocky grin. “A Nike shoe box.”

“What time of day?” Dean ignored her and kept things as professional as possible.

“Undetermined,” Julie swallowed in hesitation.

“Time of day?” he asked again. Come on, Jules, you’ve got this.

“Um— Daytime?” she shrugged her shoulders.

“Time of day?” Dean’s all business tone made Julie change tactics. She coughed and covered her mouth with a closed fist. Now her face gave a neutral state.

“I don’t know,” she said. You don’t got this, Jules.

“Exercise over,” Dean said and showed her the picture. He pointed at the male jogger’s watch. The hands read 9:40.

“Okay,” Julie’s eyebrows were high shocked that she missed such a small detail. “Anything else I missed?”

“No,” Dean put the photo in a folder. “I didn’t expect you to be so hesitant. We need you to be sure of yourself, unwavering, and confident. Next time, recite the license plate place like you know it. The team needs you to be confident in giving details because the next time we’re prepping a heist, we can’t use uncertain information.”

“Thanks for the advice,” she said as Dean led her to the living room.

“What’s your next training exercise?” he said as he followed her to the couch. The two sat with a full couch cushion between them.

“Week three of rifle training with Curt.”

“Ah, no heist is complete without the Remington 700,” he said. “Jules, you’re a fast learner, so you’ll do fine.”

“Thanks,” Julie said and gingerly placed her feet on the couch, allowing her knees to press against her chest.

“Midterms got you down?” he tried Julie’s optimism but failed.

“No, not that.” She stared into the abyss of used napkins full of Dean’s snot. “I’m starting to feel—” Julie sighed. “Dean, this is getting heavy.”

“Heavy? Heavy, how?” Dean asked.

“Dean, I’ve got a lot going on. With all this training and—”

“It’s the mental training, right?” Dean asked.

Part of each member's first eight weeks is physical, mental, and muscle memory training before they could even earn money. It was a laid-back version of boot camp; the only difference was they were enrolled in classes.

Mental training almost breaks everyone. Once a week, members were tasked to learn commands via sign language from a different member. Rudimentary signs such as “cover me” or “watch my six” are given. Each week there was an exam, and once passed, they would get another member to train in sign language; only this time, the same signs translated to something different. Again, this task is done for eight weeks, and the reason for the changes is to get them comfortable with an ever-changing environment.

“No,” Julie shook her head, “It’s not.”

“Oh,” he coughed wheezing mucus out of his respiratory system. “Excuse me.” He paused and caught his breath. “I suppose that just leaves physical training.”

Physical training combined: Ju-Jitsu, Krav Maga, weightlifting, cardio every day, shoot wrestling, etc. All of which caused a mile-long list of injuries, including many sprained ligaments, a dozen rolled ankles, quite a bit of cracked ribs, and a partially torn MCL.

“So, it’s the physical stuff that kills you,” Dean said as Julie nodded her head. “Not the Ninja Training?”

Ninja training is actually muscle memory, which lasts eight weeks. Members would relearn walking up steps only this time quietly to avoid a creaking board. The trainers would make a flight of stairs and get new members to go up and down without making a sound. They are built purposely with rotted boards and rusty nails for louder squeaks.

Another part of muscle memory is working with handguns. New members are taught how to assemble and disassemble their secondary firearm in a time limit. With enough practice, they can achieve the task blindfolded.

“I kinda enjoy the Ninja stuff,” Julie said. “Although I still suck at knife throwing.”

“That is a tricky one. But I’ve heard it’s all in the wrist,” Dean said. “How many surgeries have you had on your right one? Was it three?”

“Just two,” Julie rose her right arm revealing a surgery scar. “Summer camp ’83. Fell off the top bunk.”

“Fell off the bunk?” Dean covered his mouth and nearly coughed out a lung. “Jules, your cat-like reflexes didn’t save you?”

“A girl with a hockey mask woke me up,” she said as Dean attempted to laugh. “At the time, Jason was the scariest character ever. Besides, we were at camp.”

“So that was the first,” Dean said. “What was the second?”

“Senior year, cheer-leading nationals. The girls tossed me up, I did a toe touch, and the catch was subpar. Maybe it was the throw, but I landed on one girl’s head and my wrist. I went home with a concussion and a fractured wrist. And she was knocked out. Held overnight at the ER.”

“That’s why you had on a cast when we first met,” he said. “Hard to believe you can still use a firearm after all that.”

“I get by,” she said. “Sometimes gargling bottles of Aleve. Anyway, I should let you study.” Julie got up, and he walked her to the door. “Get well, Dean.”

He opened the front door, “Thanks, Jules.” She left Dean to study for midterms.