~o~O~o~

~o~O~o~

 

Insert standard disclaimer here: The one that reminds everyone that this is a work of fiction. No one is real and any resemblance to someone who is real is purely coincidence, honest. This is also a Fan Fiction set in the Whateley Story Universe. No Canon characters were permanently harmed in the making of this story. I hope. :)

 

Note: Sorry it took so long to get this one out. The holidays were kinda busy. Special thanks to Warren over at TCH for not getting mad at me ( I think ) and giving me some insight and feedback into his character. Any deviations from Whateley Canon are all my fault. Thanks go out to my beta-readers/editors/sanity checkers as well as djkauf for his magical editing.

~o~O~o~

 

I watched as Olivia’s eyes widened with alarm when she realized she had just yelled out my ‘secret’ and everyone had heard her. “Oh no…” She gasped, and started to cry.

As much as I would like to claim to be a tough girl, there is no way I can let her cry. I got up and grabbed her hand. “It’s okay, Princess Olivia. You were just surprised and so was I, but I’m glad you’re on the plane with me.”

The line was beginning to back up and people were starting to look a little impatient. “Y, you are?” Olivia sniffled.

“Of course! I feel so much safer knowing you’re here to help protect me.” Now, let’s go find your seat, shall we?” I pulled her gently along. “What seat are you in?”

Olivia glanced back at her mom and dad. “Umm…”

“20C, the window.” Her mom answered after a quick glance at their ticket stubs.

I helped Olivia to her seat, but when I tried to return to mine, I got trapped by her cuteness and the horde of passengers trying to get to their own seats. “Don’t leave me, please…” She begged me.

“I have to get back to my seat, but after we take off, maybe I can come back and visit you?”

“I’m scared!” Olivia whispered as her eyes pleaded for me to stay.

The poor girl. She had the puppy dog eyes look down pat; I could learn from her. “Hey, can I tell you a secret?”

Olivia nodded with agreement as I leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Well, don’t tell anyone, but Sara, my Guardian Pixie, is afraid of flying.”

“What!?” Olivia gasped and covered her mouth, her eyes wide with surprise. “But, she flies. She’s a pixie!”

“I know, I know.” I helplessly shrugged my shoulders and grinned. “But she doesn’t like human airplanes. She says that if humans were meant to fly, they would have been born with wings! She’s very grumpy about it, but she’s glad you’re here because she would like you to protect her from the human’s infernal winged contraption.” I glanced at my shoulder, pretending like Sara was sitting there. “Shhh...not so loud.” I whispered.

Olivia giggled and addressed Sara the Pixie as if she really was invisibly sitting on my shoulder. “It’s okay Sara, I’ll help you.” She held out her hand for Sara to jump onto.

I couldn’t resist. I used my body to block Olivia’s parent’s view of her hand and cast my Sara Pixie illusion. There was a brief glow as Sara materialized. Olivia gasped with delight when Sara giggled and snuggled herself into her hand before fading out of sight. I frowned as if worried about her abandoning me. “Traitor.” I sighed with mock frustration. “Well, it looks like she wants to stay with you instead of me. Do you mind?”

It took me a lot of apologies during my upstream return my seat, but it was worth it because it seemed to help Olivia. Heck, maybe ‘Princess Olivia’smistake was for the best because the people in first class looked at me like I was a movie star or someone famous instead of a dangerous mutant.

Once we reached our cruising altitude and the captain turned off the seat belts sign, Olivia’s mom came up. “Thank you so much! It was amazing how much your invisible friend Sara was able to help Liv with her fear of flying.”

I wasn’t used to dealing with a parent praising me for how I treated their child. Heck, children in general were a big scary mystery to me. “Oh, it’s not a problem, ma’am. I’m glad I was able to help her. How’s she doing now?”

“She’s asleep.” Olivia’s mom smiled contently. “For the first time ever, she fell asleep on the plane.” She giggled. “Of course, the take off was interesting. Instead of crying and hugging me, she spent the entire time talking to her hand and reassuring ‘Sara’ that everything was okay.”

I had to laugh at the idea of cute little Olivia talking to an invisible Sara. She proudly returned Sara to me just before landing and I couldn’t resist her cuteness, I had to hug her. Being a girl and expressing my emotions a little more openly alarmed me sometimes, but Olivia was just so darn cute and her imagination, amazing. Her parents thought she was just pretending, but I decided she deserved a little something extra. Probably while we were in baggage claim versus on the plane because it would be bad if I freaked the pilot or the crew out with what I had in mind.

I was pleasantly surprised when I exited the plane in New Mexico and there were no armored MCO troops waiting to take me into custody. I wanted to wait for Olivia, but I quickly spotted a matching pair of plain clothes MCO agents hanging out and I didn’t want her to get involved if they tried something stupid. I really didn’t know why the MCO seemed to have such a hard-on for--

Excuse me, my time hanging out with the military folks at Whateley had given me a slightly larger vocabulary and it snuck out sometimes, but I didn’t understand exactly why Special Agent Lainer from Virginia was gunning for me. Apparently, he was still a little upset about my H1! adventure and hated the fact that he wasn’t able to bring me to justice. I suspect his idea of justice was a little wonky since I had clearly acted in self-defense. Maybe the trial next month would clear everything up.

Mom, Dad and Lindsay ambushed me in baggage claim. Well, I let them, because it was kind of hard for me to not notice my alien, screaming with joy sister as she ran for me. I didn’t understand why she was so happy to see me because when I was her brother, she never wanted to have anything to do with me. Mom and Dad were much more reserved in their public display of affection. They simply hugged me and told me how glad they were to see me.

“Welcome home, Princess.” Dear old Dad timed his address perfectly. First my sister and now my Dad giving me the same pet name he sometimes used for Lindsay. Well, ‘Princess Olivia’ and her family caught up with us and if she wasn’t convinced enough before, she was now because she ambushed me with a hug from behind.

“Princess Brianna, Princess Brianna! Thank you so much for letting Sara stay with me during the flight!”

Lindsay snickered while my mom and dad looked at each other with confusion. “Princess Brianna?” They mouthed.

I crouched down and faced Olivia. “Oh, hey, Princess Olivia. Sara told me she was hoping to run into you before we left.” I glanced around and we had a good amount of concealment with my parents and Olivia’s parents crowding around. Lindsay was clearly amused by all this and was struggling to contain herself, but she was nice and didn’t ruin it for Olivia.

I cast my Pixie Sara illusion and this time, Olivia’s parents got a ringside seat to the show. I heard their intake of breath and Lindsay crouched down to get a better view of my illusionary pixie; further helping to block any outside observation. “Thank you so, so much Princess Olivia! You helped me a lot with the nasty old human plane.” Sara giggled and flew up, kissed Olivia on her cheek and vanished, leaving behind a rapidly fading cloud of sparkles.

“Wow, that was so cool!” Lindsay gasped, her eyes wide as saucers as she looked at me with something that looked suspiciously like adoration. It felt strange because she hadn’t looked at me like that since she turned 10.

Olivia rewarded me with a hug before she spun to face her parents, her arms crossed and her face scowling. “See, I told you Princess Brianna’s Guardian Pixie Sara was real!”

Her parents took a few seconds before they could form a cognizant reply. Her father took his cues from his wife and relaxed when she smiled at Olivia and crouched down. “I’m so sorry sweetie. I should’ve known that a real pixie wouldn’t show herself to an adult.” She looked up at me and my parents standing anxiously at my side.

Thankfully, it didn’t appear like the MCO agents had seen my little impromptu magic trick, but if Olivia’s mom freaked out, things could go very wrong, very fast. Expecting the worst, because no good deed goes unpunished, I was pleasantly surprised when she smiled and reached out to grab my hand. “Thank you so much for letting your Guardian Pixie stay with Olivia during the flight.” She even sounded grateful about it instead of scared and trying to cover up her real feelings to protect her daughter.

I glanced back to my mom and she was relaxed and smiling. So, I knew things were probably going to be okay. “Not a problem ma’am. I knew Sara didn’t really like flying and I figured Princess Olivia was probably the best little person for the job.”

The lights started to flash and a warning buzzer sounded for our luggage carousel. Lindsay surprised me with a ninja hug as Olivia’s father and my dad stepped over to the carousel together. “Hey, I can get it Dad.”

He turned back to me and grinned. “It’s okay, Princess’s shouldn’t have to get their own luggage.”

Grrrr.

“Hehe, I can tell this summer is going to be the best evah!” Lindsay giggled, giving me a quick and sneaky side hug.

Double, Grrrr.

Olivia stayed by my side as her mom and my mom began to chat. I found out her name was Kathy, her husband’s name was Tony and they lived in Albuquerque, but were planning on going to their vacation cabin in Taos for a few weeks during the summer. Phone numbers were exchanged and my services as a babysitter for Olivia were volunteered if they were ever in Santa Fe and needed a few hours to themselves. Me, a babysitter, what about Lindsay? She had a lot more experience with this girl stuff.

Triple, Grrrr.

The conversation between the Moms continued all the way to the parking garage. My dad took it upon himself to drag my luggage to the car and as part of my possible role as a babysitter, I somehow managed to gain the job of holding Olivia’s hand as we crossed the street. On the plus side, I was invited to join them for a day or two at their cabin, if I wanted. Well, maybe being a babysitter for Olivia wasn’t ‘that’ bad a deal. Taos was pretty darn nice and if they had a cabin there, I might be invited to visit it during the winter break, during ski season.

“Well, that was certainly nice. Kathy and Tony are great people and Liv is such a dear, isn’t she Bree?” My mom turned back to me as we pulled out of the parking ramp.

“Oh yeah, she’s kinda cute, but did you have to volunteer me as a babysitter?” I had to complain about something, right?

Before she even spoke, Mom gave herself away with a nod of agreement. “Well, she certainly liked you and it wouldn’t hurt for you to have some responsibility during the summer. Kathy said she would pay you.”

“And you turned her down…”

My mom frowned at my reminder. “Well, yes, but you were invited to their cabin.”

“As a babysitter...” I didn’t approve. Cabins in expensive resorts are for fun, not work.

“I’m sure it will still be fun and babysitting isn’t that hard, right Lindsay?”

Lindsay smirked at me before turning to mom and with a completely honest, butter doesn’t melt on my tongue expression, she agreed with mom. “Oh no, babysitting is actually pretty easy. You just hang out with the kids and make sure they don’t get into trouble.”

She was lying out her butt. I knew perfectly well how much she hated sitting for Mr. and Mrs. Latimer because their eight year old son was a little spoiled brat. “Liar! You know full well that’s not true. I still don’t know how you can lie to mom-”

“I did not!” Lindsay huffed and glared at me.

“Girls! Please! Don’t make me pull this car over.” Dad yelled.

How could they not know and why couldn’t he have said ‘kids’ or ‘hey, you two’ like he used to when I was a boy? “But-”

“No buts and no fighting! I didn’t expect you two to start fighting so soon. It’s almost like it was before…” Dad trailed off without finishing his thought because he caught Mom’s warning glance.

“David.” Mom primly reprimanded Dad before turning to Lindsay. “Lindsay, you should know better. Now, apologize to your sister.”

Lindsay nodded, sighed and turned to me. “Sorry Bree, I was just trying to get back at you for all the times you grumbled at me for how easy it was for me to earn money babysitting.”

Now I felt like a meanie. “It’s okay Linds,” I sorta, accidentally used my old, affectionate nickname for her, causing her eyes to tighten like she was going to cry or something. “I was just surprised about being asked to be a babysitter for Liv.” I shrugged apologetically. “I never considered myself as babysitter qualified since,” I glanced down at my breasts like I was still surprised to see them sitting there. “You know...”

Lindsay giggled and leaned over, giving me a quick hug. “I’m so glad you’re home now big, little sister!”

Again, Grrrr.

I debated threatening to turn her into a frog, but Mom preempted me. “Well, Bree and Lindsay, now that that’s resolved, riight?” She focused her attention on me.

Dang empathy power of hers!

“Uh, huh…” We both quickly nodded with agreement.

Mom graciously smiled at me. “Bree, since it’s your favorite place, we’re planning at stopping for dinner at the Pizza Palace. Sound good?”

I enthusiastically nodded my agreement. “Heck ya, thanks Mom!”

John and I ate there every chance we got. I loved their pizzas. Especially their Pizza Royale, but the Royale was also what we called a ‘garbage’ pizza. Not because it tasted bad, but because it had a lot of everything. A lot of cheese, three different meats ( bacon, sausage and pepperoni ) and the token vegetables for color. It was totally awesome, but now I wasn’t so sure about it. I guessed I could just order my own personal sized veggie pizza while everyone else ate the good one.

Of course, Mom picked up on my change in enthusiasm levels. “It’ll be okay. John and Lisa are planning on meeting us.”

“Cool!” Well, there was a plus. It would be nice to see the two of them.

Mom spun back around and glanced over at Dad. “Can you turn the radio on?”

Ordinarily he would’ve just told her that the button was right there, but this time he simply reached over and hit it for her. “Sure dear.”

The local top 40 station came to life playing some song about a chick stealing another girl’s boyfriend. I had heard it far too many times already and I kinda tuned it out as Lindsay danced in her seat and lip synced all the words.

At the end of the song, the news came on.

“This just in, the FAA and the FCC are investigating the MCO for the use of powerful communication jammers in the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport this morning. The MCO claims it was just a glitch in their software and that they need the jammers to prevent and limit the communications of a mutant terrorist group during an attack. The FAA and FCC are both reported to be considering levying massive fines for disrupting and endangering air traffic in and around the airport at the time of the glitch. In related news, As more allegations of abuse against U.S. citizens continue to surface, Democratic Senator Josh Lindstrom’s resolution calling to modify the MCO’s Force Authorization Treaty is gaining support in the House and the Senate. He and his supporters propose to restrict the use of military weapons by the MCO inside the U.S. and limit the organization to an advisor role. MCO Spokesman Ron Hokst made a prepared statement, refuting all allegations made against the MCO. He stated that while no large organization is incapable of making mistakes, all of the claims of abuses were all without merit or made by mutants whose only goal is to weaken the security provided by the MCO. The United States would be foolish to even consider such limits.”

Next up was a short blurb about some local politician getting caught cheating on his wife, followed by the weather. Compared to the weather in New Hampshire, it was going to be hot, darn hot. The bit about the MCO kind of surprised me. I didn’t expect my little flight home adventure to make the news. Ordinarily, the MCO just made the ‘Eek! It was a filthy mutant! Run for your lives!’ claim and no one said Jack, umm, Poop about it.

After that bit of news, I visually checked our six to see if we were being followed because I expected the MCO would be even more pissed at me now, but I didn’t spot anything suspicious. Well, no black SUVs or other stereotypically MCO full sized vehicles. I also performed an extra scan of the frequencies to see if there were any suspicious radio communications going on. Again, nada.

Hmm, maybe the MCO had learned their lesson?

Once I felt relatively secure that we weren’t being followed, I turned back around to find my mom looking back at me with a questioning glare. She reached over and turned off the radio. “So, Brianna, is there something you want to tell us about the MCO and your little flight delay?”

“Umm, no, not really?” I shrugged my shoulders and hoped she would let it go. I mean, it was hours and hours ago.

Clearly, my parents weren’t on the same wavelength as me. “Bree…” They both impatiently chorused.

I sighed with frustration. Thank god the MCO hasn’t hired my mom. “Fine, like the news said, the MCO had a ‘glitch’ with their threat identification system. Somehow, they had me flagged as a level 4 super-villain and they reacted by locking down the airport and siccing a pair of their powered assault troopers on me.”

“What?!?” My mom yelped.

“Whoa, cool.” Lindsay grinned, briefly drawing Mom’s impatient glare to her, before she returned her full attention back to me.

“It wasn’t a big deal, really. We were ready for the MCO to try something. General Evans had a pair of military police waiting for me and I was streaming the situation back to him at Langley. As soon as the MCO went postal, he called the Sec Def and I’m not sure what was said after that, but I was let go an hour later.” I shrugged apologetically and smiled. “See, no big deal.”

My mom didn’t look convinced. She grabbed my dad’s arm for reassurance causing him to quickly glance over his shoulder with concern before returning his attention to the road. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, Honey, and it sounds like it’s been handled. Do you want to call Mr. Reilly, see if he has any additional information or recommendations?”

“I dunno, Dave…” Mom sighed. “It’s Saturday and a little late. If nothing else happens this weekend,” She directed her voice in my direction. “I’ll call him on Monday.”

“Sounds good to me dear. I’m sure everything is okay, but if it will make you feel better; maybe you could call and leave him a message instead?”

I nodded with agreement and smiled encouragingly at my mom when she glanced back to look at me again.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I’ll wait until we get to the restaurant. I think I need some time to think about it before I call.” She sighed with worry before turning the radio back on.

Fortunately, music was playing and it helped distract the ‘rents from my little MCO problem, but after the third or fourth song and no conversation into our expected hour long trip to Santa Fe, Mom turned off the radio again. “So, Bree, every time you called home, you seemed to be a little vague about your new school and friends. Is there a reason for that and should we be concerned?”

“Umm, yes and no?” Mom glanced anxiously over to Dad. After the MCO thing, I needed to fix this fast. “I mean, it’s complicated because the place is kind of crazy, but cool at the same time.” I could see I wasn’t helping make my case. “Well, I mean, all the students there have super powers and some more super than others. So, there were some, umm, issues, but I dodged most of them and there isn’t much for me to say.”

Mom was not so easily put off. “Brianna Nicole Peters, you’ve been gone for three months and I barely know what your grades or classes were. I expect a little more candor now that you’re here, in the car with us. Got it, young lady?”

Ah, man. If she found out everything, she probably wouldn’t let me go back in the fall, but maybe I could tell her about some of my classes. Those were pretty safe. “Yes, Mom. Umm, well, I have my report card here.” I reached into my laptop bag, extracted a manila envelope and handed it to her.

She gave me a suspicious glance before she opened it. “Is there anything in here I need to be warned about, like anything less than a C?”

“No Mom. Since I got there kinda late, they had me take a lot of core catch up classes. I got four A’s, well, three A’s in AP Physics, Chemistry, Pre-Calculus, an A minus in Biology and a B in Intro to Magical Arts. I wanted to take Survival and Principles of Spacecraft engineering, but because of the JROTC thing, I had to take the Basic Firearms Safety course and move on to the Combat Pistol class so I can eventually get my Federal Conceal and Carry Permit. I got A’s in those too, but I did run into some issues when I met my instructor in the Combat Pistol class.”

“What, Combat Pistol, Carry Permit?! You’re not?” My mom looked alarmed and confused.

“Really?!?! Cool! Can I see?” Lindsay gushed with anticipation.

I could see my Mom started to panic at the thought I might have brought my pistols home with me. “No Mom, I left my 45’s locked in the arms locker at school. I still have a few additional required classes to take before I can legally carry and I didn’t wanna make you worried about having weapons in the house.” I said, attempting to reassure her before she got worked up.

Whateley definitely was not a public school and my plan to distract my mom appeared to be working since the Combat Pistol class kind of gave me a relatively safe story to tell my ‘rents and keep them from finding out about the nearly world ending GOO invasion. I didn’t actually see it, but there is no way, no how I’m going to tell them about that little adventure! Not right now, because being whisked away to Italy for dinner with Uncle Gothmog and then, getting stranded by him while all the fun was happening at Whateley was not cool.

~o~O~o~

[1300hrs Monday, 09-April-2007 - Range 02 - Whateley Academy]

After being bored to tears in the Basic Firearms Safety course, I looked forward to firing a real pistol again, but for fun and not at people. Right after I finished lunch, I navigated myself to Range Two and checked in with Gunny Bardue. I’d heard a lot about him and didn’t want to piss him off.

So, I arrived a full ten minutes early and patiently waited for the rest of the students to arrive. He pretended to glare at me a few times and I pretended to be suitably impressed. It was part of the military game. Act how they expect you to act and they won’t pay extra attention to you. Well, that is how I hoped it worked and so far, it appeared to be true because he had to look at the sign-in clipboard to get my name.

“Brianna Peters?” He scowled at me.

“Yes, si-Sergeant?” I almost screwed the, umm, messed up and called him “sir”. Oh yeah, that wouldn’t have gone over well.

A ghost of a smile touched his lips as he nodded with approval over my correction. “What’s your code name girl?”

I straightened up in my seat. “Whisper, Sergeant.”

His eyes snapped up to my face as he appeared to recognize my name. “Whisper, huh?” He nodded as he gave me a closer inspection. “You’re the one the Grunts are all moaning and groaning about. Well, you don’t look like much.” He shook his head and chuckled. “But, that could be said for just about every student here.”

I didn’t have anything to say about his statement because it was true. The Grunts still called me an ‘FNG’ and it was starting to get annoying. Additionally, it was true about what he said about the other students. There were students who looked like monsters, but were the nicest folks you could know, there were the ones who looked like runway models who were downright nasty and there were others who didn’t fit either stereotype. At Whateley, not only was it was hard to judge a book by its cover; it could be downright risky.

“Okay, Whisper, follow me. Since yer early, I’m going to go ahead and have you check out a weapon.” Gunny Bardue motioned for me to follow him.

The weapons locker was a few meters down the hall from the classroom. He knocked on the top half of a split armored door.

A muffled, “Coming!” came from the other side a few seconds before it sounded like some bolts were undone and the top part of the door swung open. “Sergeant Bardue, how may I help you?”

“Corporal Kline, this young lady needs to check out a firearm for today’s class. Take care of her while I go ‘counsel’ the stragglers.” Gunny Bardue grinned as he joyfully looked forward to counseling the other students.

“Yes, Sergeant. Not a problem.” Cpl Kline nodded as Gunny Bardue performed an about face and returned to the Range proper. With Gunny Bardue gone, Kline turned his attention to me. “Name?”

“Whisper.”

“Any preferences?” Kline asked, bored and not expecting a reply.

“Beretta 92FS, please.” Again, I got the curious expression as a response. “What? Is something wrong with that one?”

“No, not really. I just didn’t expect a greenhorn to actually have a preference.” Kline shrugged. “But, we don’t have one of those, how about the 93R instead?” He asked, apparently testing me.

>Manufacturer: Beretta

>Model: 93r

>Caliber: 9x19mm

>Capacity: 20

>Fire Modes: Semi-automatic, 3-Round Burst

>Modifications: Compensator

>Maximum Effective Range: 50 m

>Available Accessories: Detachable, folding shoulder stock

Well, it was the same caliber and it could hold 5 more rounds in its magazine. “Hmmm, burst fire sounds interesting. Is that with the 20 round mag?” I did some studying on the clip versus magazine thing. I did not want to sound like a total newbie and call it a clip, oh no.

I earned a second appraisal from him. “Yes, would you like the stock?”

“No thanks, I don’t plan on using the burst mode, but it could be fun some other time.”

Kline smiled at me as he turned to retrieve the Beretta. I guess I passed the test. He set a padded pistol case on the small counter built into the door. After he opened the case and I verified it contained everything it should, two empty magazines with the pistol. I signed for the weapon, closed the case and he handed me a box containing fifty rounds of 9mm for my weapon. I very carefully returned to the small classroom attached to the range. I knew the ammo probably wouldn’t explode if I dropped it, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Seated behind the tables were the same four students I had with me in the Firearms Safety class.

Gunny Bardue stood front and center. He nodded at me as I took an open seat in the rear. Once I sat, he pointed to the large, very new-looking sign bolted to the wall next to the door leading to the range. Based on his slightly pained expression, I guessed the sign had been recently changed.

“For those who may have used the ranges in the past, we have a few new range rules.” Gunny Bardue sighed with contempt. “Apparently, we’ve had a few individuals who lacked what we view as simple, common sense.” His posture straightened as his eyes bored into each and every student in the room. “Now, is everyone able to read and understand this sign?!” He barked in a tone of voice that would make even a drill sergeant pay attention.

1. ALWAYS keep muzzle pointed DOWN RANGE!

2. ALWAYS keep finger off of trigger until ready to shoot.

3. ALWAYS keep your firearm unloaded until ready to use.

4. NO CROSS RANGE SHOOTING!

5. DO NOT shoot the walls, ceiling or floors!

6. Unload all firearms before leaving range.

There were a few mumbles of assent, but at the risk of breaking my ‘no attention is good attention’ rule, there was no way I was going to earn his attention by going along with the herd this time. “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant Bardue!” I made sure my voice was loud and clear.

Gunny Bardue grinned and of course, I earned a few ‘brown noser’ expressions from the other students. “Apparently, we only have one student in the room who will be paying attention! Now, my hearing is a little weak and I didn’t hear the rest of you bottom dwelling, mud-sucking filter feeders clearly. So, I’ll ask one more time, is everyone able to read and understand this sign?!?!”

This time, all but one student enthusiastically yelled. “Yes, Gunnery Sergeant Bardue!”

The one student who was slumped down in his desk and didn’t reach the proper enthusiasm levels earned Gunny Bardue’s undivided attention. The student was huge and looked like he was used to intimidating everyone else, but not Gunny. He jumped in the student’s face, his nose almost touching the student’s nose. “DO YOU HAVE A PROBLEM FOLLOWING SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS MR. KELLOGG?!?! IF YOU THINK I’M GOING TO LET YOU PULL SOME DUMBASS MISTAKE IN MY RANGE, YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!?!”

Joey, aka Tanker, aka ‘The Student” straightened up with panicked expression. “Yes, sir! Sorry, Sir!”

Gunny Bardue sighed and shook his head with disgust. “SIR?!? DOES GUNNERY SERGEANT BARDUE SOUND LIKE AN OFFICER’S RANK? NO! I DIDN’T SPEND 23 YEARS IN THE MARINES TO BE INSULTED BY A SNOT NOSED PUNK. I WORK FOR A LIVING! IT’S GUNNERY SERGEANT OR SERGEANT BARDUE.” He glared at the rest of the students for a second before relaxing and getting rid of his drill sergeant face. He smiled pleasantly at us all. “Now, that I have got yer undivided attention. Breaking rule number one is grounds for being booted and possibly banned from the range. All of our instructors are authorized to take whatever means necessary to prevent the unsafe use of a firearm. If that takes breaking your arm and slamming you onto the floor, then that is what will happen. Are there any questions?”

“No, Gunnery Sergeant Bardue!” Everyone in the class sang like perfect little military recruits.

He smiled and nodded his head. “Excellent, now rule number two and three are pretty self explanatory. Rule four simply means, shoot at your own damn targets and ONLY your own targets. No ‘helping’ your neighbor, got it?”

“Yes, Gunnery Sergeant Bardue!”

“Excellent, now the rest of you, see Corporal Kline in the arms room, check out a firearm and report to the range.” Gunny Bardue glanced to me. “Whisper, you’re with me.”

I felt a little nervous with having Gunny Bardue as my instructor, but I guessed it was my ‘reward’ for being early. Next time, I needed to time my entrance to be a little less noticeable. He led me to lane one and instructed me to remove my firearm from its case. He watched me like a hawk as I carefully removed it and set it on the small bench with its barrel pointed down range.

He handed me a box of ammunition. “Good, now load one magazine.”

After I loaded the magazine, he donned his hearing protection and I followed suit by sticking some unfashionable cotton balls in my ears and instructing my ears to ignore sounds above 85 dB. I noticed him looking a little skeptical about my choice in hearing protection. “I’m allergic to plastic and I told my ears to ignore the gunshot sounds.”

“Oookay...” Gunny Bardue shrugged his shoulders, but accepted my explanation. “Insert your magazine.”

>Weapon Detected...

>IFSFCS Activated

>Searching IFSFCS Weapons DB for match...

>Match found.

>

>Manufacturer: Beretta

>Model: 93R

>Caliber: 9x19mm

>Capacity: 20

>Fire Modes: Semi-automatic, 3-Round Burst

>Modifications: Compensator Fitted

>Maximum Effective Range: 50 m

>

>Weapon 1 Searching for IFSFCS Smart Link...

>Weapon 1 IFSFCS Smart Link Not Found

>Weapon 1 Creating Simulated IFSFCS Smart Link

>Weapon 1 IFSFCS Smart Link: Enabled

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 20 Rounds

>Weapon 1 Warning...Weapon 1 not zeroed.

Oh yeah, “Weapon not zeroed” was the same thing happened to me when I used Agent Hoffman’s weapon back in Virginia. It should zero itself after I’ve fired it a couple of times, I hope. In the mean time, I kept my weapon pointed safely down range and waited for Gunny Bardue to give me the go ahead.

“Ready?” He asked.

He sort of surprised me because I expected him to give me some more instructions. I carefully selected the Semi-Automatic mode, racked the slide to chamber a round and aimed it down range. “Ready.” I said, glancing over my shoulder at him before I returned my attention to the empty range.

>Alert!

>Target detected!

>Range 20 meters.

The nifty status and target warning popped up as a large 20 centimeter diameter aiming circle overlaid the human target silhouette. I aimed for the center of the target.

[CRACK!]

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 19 Rounds

I completely missed, but my IFSFCS system made an adjustment and my large circle shrank into a small 2-5 centimeter diameter aiming circle.

[CRACK!]

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 18 Rounds

This time, the target dropped as my round impacted almost dead center and my small aiming circle turned into a tiny little dot.

>Weapon 1 zeroed!

>Alert!

>Target detected!

>Range 10 meters.

[CRACK!]

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 17 Rounds

It dropped with a round right between where its eyes might have been if it was real, but 10 meters was pretty easy. A third target popped up, but this one was at 25 meters. I dropped it without any problems. The fourth target was the 50 meter target and while a little extreme, I managed to drop it without any problems. My round’s trajectory was a little off, but my system simply added the info into its database for next time.

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 15 Rounds

“Impressive…” Gunny Bardue grinned as he entered a command into my lane’s control pad.

For the second round of fun, the targets popped up much faster. I assumed they would drop on their own if I missed or took too long to hit one, but I hit them all on the first shot.

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 10 Rounds

“Okay, let’s see how you do in the threat identification mode.” Gunny Bardue grinned mischievously as he entered a command on the control pad.

This time, when the target popped up, it was with a man holding a weapon. I shot him, figuring he represented a ‘threat’. The second target was of a little girl in a frilly dress. I elected to not shoot her. I shot all three of the ‘bad guy’ targets and ignored the ‘friendly’ targets, scoring a perfect 5 out of 5. It was pretty easy and fun at the same time because while my simulator was very good, firing a real weapon was even better. My mom didn’t look pleased with my admission.

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 7 Rounds

Gunny Bardue hid it well, but I think he looked a little impressed with me. “Hmm, it looks like you’ve had some experience shooting. How many rounds do you have remaining?”

His question sounded like a test to me, but with my system keeping track of the data; it seemed like a no brainer to answer him without delay. “Seven, Sergeant Bardue. Should I reload?”

He nodded with approval. “No, but since it looks like you’ve got your head screwed on right, I think I’m going to make this a little more complicated this next round.” He entered another command into the control pad.

This time, the targets popped up, but the bad guy was holding the little girl in the dress hostage with only his face exposed. I couldn’t help it, the “sucks to be the hostage.” line ran through my head as I shot the bad guy right between the eyes.

[CRACK!]

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 6 Rounds

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to shoot the hostage target at all, but the bad guy portion of the target fell, leaving the hostage. I guessed I was allowed to shoot them. Including the one I shot, a total of nine targets popped up during the scenario and exactly seven of them were bad guys or combinations of good guys and bad guys mixed together. It was a good thing my pattern recognition system was so good. It made identifying the correct target trivial and I didn’t even need to dip into slow motion mode.

[CRACK!]

>Weapon 1 Ammunition Status: 0 Rounds

My weapon’s slide locked open and I pushed the button to eject the empty magazine. I carefully set my unloaded weapon down on the table with the barrel facing down range. “Should I reload now Sergeant Bardue?” I held up my empty magazine.

From start to finish, my shooting took 4.349 minutes and my fellow students were starting to file into the range. Gunny Bardue glanced over to them and grimaced with distaste. “No, I think I need to send you over to Range One.” He reached for his radio. “Everhart, I have a student needing some extra firearms assessments. Are you available?”

{“Yes.”}

Yes, his radio was encrypted and he was using one of those spiffy, Secret Service style earpieces, but he was standing right next to me and I had cracked campus security’s radio encryption the first time I had a security officer walk past me. I easily heard a woman’s voice reply and it surprised me that this Everhart person was a woman, but I guess should have been the last person to be surprised by something like that. I mean, I’m a girl now. Why should I be surprised by having a female firearms instructor?
 

I accessed the Whateley Network and using a little backdoor Paige showed me; I found an image of her official Whateley ID Card and her public stats.

>Everheart, Samantha

>Whateley Security Officer

>Rank: Lieutenant

>Height: 5'7"

>Weight: 120 lbs

There were links to more data, like military service record, U.S. Marshal record, Concealed Weapons Permit, etc, but I didn’t wanna take a chance digging into the more secure parts of the system. If I really wanted to find out more about her, I could try looking her up using my Mil.net access, but that had its own risks since Dr. Edmundson restricted my access to only allow read-only access to the servers in the Los Alamos lab for continued testing and monitoring. Thanks to Paige’s tutoring, I had ways around it, but I just didn’t think it was a good idea to try it right now.

None the less, based on her picture, I thought she was pretty, but ID pictures can be a little off. I’m sure she was even more attractive when in civilian clothes and not posing for a mug shot.

“Good, can you meet a student, call-sign, Whisper in Range One?”

{“Whisper? Yes, Gunny. On the way, Everhart out.”}

I heard a note of recognition in her voice. Did she somehow know me? I guess she probably knew the Grunts, but I really needed to work on keeping a lower profile if someone I’ve never run into knew my name. Especially, from someone who works for Whateley Security.

“Okay, Whisper. Meet Officer Everheart in Range One. Take your weapon and ammo with you.” Gunny lazily gestured toward my Beretta and weapon case.

“Yes, Gunny. Thanks?” I wasn’t sure if going to Range One was a good thing or not because it looked like I may have shown-off a little more than I should have.

Range One was connected to Range Two via the Arms Locker and range admin office. I carefully packed my assigned Beretta in its case, grabbed my remaining ammo and made my way to Range One.

I beat Officer Everheart by one point eight four minutes and I was feeling reasonably optimistic about things, and then, she walked through the door. I thought she was rather attractive, but I also got an immediate ‘she’s a badass and don’t mess with her’ vibe. I still thought she looked too young, but it’s hard to tell at Whateley.

“Hi, you must be Whisper.” Officer Everheart’s smile seemed friendly enough.

She had a healthy glow surrounding her, but I’d never seen anyone else with the glow or any glow - unless they actually glowed. Her glow was more like those aura things my magic teacher talked about and the closer she got to me, the more attracted to her I felt. She looked so beautiful I couldn’t stop myself from staring.

“Let’s go grab a firing lane and see what Bardue thinks I might be able to help you with.” She casually reached out and touched my shoulder to help point me in the right direction.

>Everheart Network detected…

Everything came to a screeching halt. I found myself floating in the middle of a pitch black space. Not a room, just space. I was wearing my Selena catsuit with my twin Beretta’s in their holsters, but also with my GEO Whisper’s daggers held in my hands in the ready position. I felt trapped and I didn’t like the feeling at all.

I got a lot pissed and a little scared. “What in the hell happened?!?!” My voice sounded hollow in this null space I seemed to be stuck in. It was kind of like it was when I first woke up inside my head in the lab, except worse because there was nothing to orientate myself to.

“Show me my external view screen!” I yelled, but nothing happened. No LED monitor popped up and no error messages, nada.

“Okay, Bree, breathe, or something…” I found my reminder to calm down somewhat humorous for some reason because did I need to breathe in space? “In space, no one can hear you scream.” I giggled at myself because I found the Alien reference funny.

“Focus…” I calmly exhaled and I thought I saw some tiny flashes of light as my heart rate began to drop.

“And, inhale…” The tiny flashes of light became millions of tiny stars and they were all around me. It really was like I was floating in space. “So, cool!” I felt excited.

I reached for a star.

>Access denied!

“Oh no she didn’t!” I pushed harder and the star turned into an access node for one of the tiny nanites in my body.

“This could take awhile…” I muttered as I regained full control of the single nanite.

I reached for a cluster of stars.

>Access-

I cut that nonsense off before it could even complete the warning code. I now had twenty two of my own nanite buddies under my control. “Yeah, this won’t work.”

I spun around in a circle like a little ballerina and focused on all of the stars. “Stars, get in ma’ belly!”

The lights came back on. I was once again in control of my own systems and I was now in a room that looked exactly like Sensei Roger’s dojo back home. Across the room, I spotted my attacker. It was Officer Everheart. How in the hell she got inside my virtual head I didn’t know and didn’t care. She wasn’t Sara and she wasn’t invited. Since she had just attacked and imprisoned me without breaking a sweat, she was obviously very strong. I needed an advantage and a pearl of wisdom from my homework Sun Tzu reading assignment from Sensei Rogers sprang to mind.

In any battle the element of surprise can provide an overwhelming advantage...

 

“Get out!” I attacked and boy was she surprised. It was only after I teleported right in front of her and tried to use my daggers that I wondered why I hadn’t tried to shoot her instead. I used the rest of the old dead Chinese dude’s advice and feinted with my daggers to her face to draw her arms up and out of position or just make her take a step back.

My perception of time slowed to a crawl as her arms started their slow rise to protect and guard her face. I jumped up and pumped my knees into her chest, kick boxer style. Time sped back up to normal for a fraction of a second as my knees slammed into her chest and rocked her body from side to side.

Time stop again. She moved in slow motion compared to me. I felt like I had all the time in the world to plan my attacks as her arms reflexively dropped to protect her upper body. With her arms down, I decided to ‘unequip’ my daggers in mid-attack.

I guess I could have actually used the daggers to maybe kill her, but I wasn’t thinking that way. I just wanted her gone and hurting too much to come back. With a thought, my daggers disappeared from hand hands and reappeared in their sheaths. I was glad I had the time distortion effect working for me because I thought my dagger trick was pretty cool.

Without my daggers, I followed through with a pair of left-right elbow strikes to her temples. Now, it was time to finish her and with that in mind, as soon as my feet touched the dojo floor, I planted myself while she took a couple steps back from my blows.

“I said, OUT!” I used all my strength and performed a textbook sidekick. Sensei Rogers would have been proud of me as Officer Everheart, or whoever she was, went flying backwards. It looked like one of those cheesy martial arts movies where the monks all jump up into the air and do all those impossible attacks because she flew twenty feet straight back and I felt pretty darn surprised by the effect of my kick.

She slammed into the dojo wall and she looked suitably shaken, not stirred. I was thinking about continuing my attack when the wall behind her opened up like a giant sink drain, sucking her into it. Damn it! She was escaping! Or, something...

I jumped in after her. Okay, so it probably wasn’t the best choice, but I was mad.

I found myself in another of those black, null space places, except this time the stars were already out and there were billions and billions of them. “Wow, pretty…” I had to have them.

I reached out to grab one and after a few seconds of concentrating, I was able to grab onto a single nanite star. I could tell it was communicating with its fellow nanite buddies, but I couldn’t understand how it was doing it. The way it ‘spoke’ looked like a completely different language to me, but I thought I might be able to understand it if I had some time. Unfortunately, it slipped away before I could get a good look at it.

“What in tha’ heck!?!”

I wanted to look at it longer, but the next thing I knew, I was standing on the deck of a massive U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier. How in the beep did I get there? I sure in hell didn’t make an aircraft carrier in my head. Was this Officer Everheart’s virtual creation?

If so, I had to admit, it was kind of cool, yet spooky at the same time because the deck was completely empty. No planes or sailors wearing colorful vests to be seen anywhere, completely deserted. I had a bad feeling about this scenario.

Adding to the general spooky feeling was the lack of a breeze or wind, but it felt like I was moving. There was a slight up and down motion and I could feel the ship’s power plant pulsing away below decks. I’m not sure how I knew, but I somehow knew there was something different about this carrier’s power plant. Instead of a nuclear power plant, this one was using fusion. When did the Navy get fusion power?

“Where am I!?” I yelled.

[beep]

Officer Everheart appeared in front of me and this time she was wearing a Navy officer’s uniform with Rear Admiral’s rank insignia and a chest full of awards and medals. She didn’t look happy to see me and I recognized one of the awards on her uniform. Like Admiral Jensen, she had the Special Warfare Insignia on her uniform and only SEALS could wear that award. Of course, only men could be Navy SEALS, but something told me she earned both the rank and the SEAL Budweiser. “What did you do?” She asked.

[beep]

I shrugged, but I didn’t know why she was upset. She started it. “I dunno? Why did you attack me?”

I kept my eyes on her as I shifted slightly to the side in case she decided to attack me this time. A glowing, pyramid shaped object appeared next to her. It flashed once, causing me to blink and in its place stood a giant white rabbit wearing a Sherlock Holmes outfit and smoking a pipe.

“Interesting, very interesting…” The rabbit took a pull from his pipe and nodded to Admiral Everheart.

[beep][beep]

The beeping was starting to get annoying. What in the heck was it?

>Medical Alert!

>Host: Whisper

>Symptoms matching Burnout detected.

Oh, that’s not good. I needed to get this over with fast. “If you’re not going to attack me, I think I need you to go now.”

“Go where?” Admiral Everheart glanced around. “This is my ship.”

I didn’t do what I think I might have, did I? I gasped as I realized I must be inside of her body. “How…”

Behind me a big steel plate rose up from the deck. I looked down and my feet were in some sort of block attached to a track. Steam started to hiss and rise from the track. “Oh crap.” I glanced over to Admiral Everheart and the strange rabbit.

Everheart looked simultaneously alarmed and mischievously pleased with herself. The trippy rabbit, I couldn’t tell, but I think he looked curious. Ahead of me, was the bow of the ship and a big giant swirling vortex. I glanced back down to my feet before returning my gaze to Admiral Everheart. “You know, you could just make a door or something…”

“Not as fast an exit.” She grinned and chopped her arm, signaling the carrier’s catapult system to launch me.

[Wham!]

“Ahhhhhh!” I shot across the deck and it probably would’ve been fun, if I was an airplane. At the end of the track, my feet were released and I flew into the vortex. Not my best exit, for sure.

I opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. I was lying on the floor and the lights in the ceiling were far too bright. What happened to my built in flare compensation? My head hurt and I felt like I was running a fever, but I felt fine just before…

“Oh, crap.” I looked over and spotted Officer Everheart working herself up and into a sitting position from beside me. The other personnel working in the range office was heading toward us.

How long was I out? Nothing. No annoying down to the faction of a second time display.

>System Start Sequence Initiated...

>Performing Memory Test…

>Physical Memory Total: 2,684,354,560 kb

>Physical Memory Available: 2,039,252,619 kb

>Initializing Boot Image…Do Not Turn Off Computer

>Initializing Kernel...complete

>Init Run Level 3

>Applying User Settings from /etc/config.ini

Well, that’s somewhat reassuring. Not only was I not feeling all loopy, but my memory available number was a little lower. It looked like I’d learned a few things since the last time I had this reboot happen.

>Medical Alert!

>Host: Whisper

>Symptoms matching Burnout detected.

Oh yeah, you sort of mentioned that already, but what does it mean?

>Core temp 104⁰F

>Diagnosis: Burnout, Sev 2

>Hospitalization not required.

>Initiating treatment...Please wait.

How long?

>ETC 55 seconds…

Oh, that’s not too bad a wait.

“Whisper, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Officer Everheart kneeled at my side, but didn’t touch me.

“Umm, just something called burnout, but it’s getting better. Estimated time of completion is, umm, 45 seconds now.”

“Holy shit!” One of the other security dudes yelled with alarm before grabbing his radio. “Medical, we have a student with Burnout, please advise.”

I didn’t feel like paying attention to the conversation and I figured it was probably better to not push myself right now. Besides, I felt my fever starting to drop and I watched my handy little display change from 104 to 103. A few seconds later, 102. The drop slowed a little, but within a minute or 54.2932 seconds for those who must know, my temp was back to normal.

>Sev 2 Burnout treatment...Complete.

I was good to go and starting to sit up just as a pair of EMTs rushed into the room pushing a gurney.

I started to stand. “I’m fine.”

They didn’t believe me and insisted on loading me onto the gurney and taking me to the infirmary for a full evaluation. Instead of a full sized ambulance, the school had a cool six-wheeled ATV thing with two seats in the front, a rack for gurney in the front and a small cargo bed in the back.

{“Heading to the infirmary with student, Whisper. Over.”} Officer Everheart transmitted to her bosses as she anxiously stood at the side of the ATV thing as the EMTs lifted me on board.

{“Affirmative. Control, Over.”}

I felt the passenger EMT attach a spiffy, high tech, blood pressure monitor to my wrist. I reflexively examined the device and found nothing alarming about it. My own systems were tons better and more accurate. I glanced over at the EMT. “I’m fine now, honest.”

With a slightly patronizing smile and nod of his head, he pretended to agree with me. “Sorry, miss, but we have to take you in for evaluation.”

It was a two minute ride and, as I expected, Mr. EMT didn’t find anything wrong with me. After they dumped me in an exam room in the Whateley Infirmary. For an exam room, I thought the place was pretty darn high tech. It almost looked like the room could be turned into a full blown operating room. They even had the machines that went, ‘bing!’. Making the place even nicer was the attractive female nurse who came in and took my blood pressure and temperature. She found me operating in normal ranges and looking a little frustrated, she left to get the doctor.

Everheart joined me at the side of my bed. “Sorry about that kid, I didn’t realize what was happening when I touched you.”

She still had an attractive glow surrounding her, and now that I knew what it was, I found her even more attractive. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t know what was going on there either. I was trapped in some black space and I guess I sort of panicked a little.”

“Where’s the Burnout patient!?” Our little conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a harried looking male doctor. His name tag read, Dr. Quintain. I’d heard of him, he taught the Introduction to Superpowers class and everyone warned me his class was very boring. The subject should have been fascinating, but the man tended to talk in a boring monotone that put everyone to sleep. It was almost like he had a super power. He was also the man responsible for coming up with the powers ranking levels as well as the leading researcher into the causes of Burnout.

After realizing I wasn’t in danger of exploding, the doctor quickly composed himself while looking a little disappointed at the same time. “Hello, I’m Dr. Quintain.” He glanced down at some sort of high tech computer screen he carried in his hands like it was a clipboard. “Hmm, I was told you thought you were suffering from Burnout?” He sounded a little skeptical, but his eyes brimmed with energy and he sounded excited to see me, confusing me because he wasn’t supposed to be this energetic.

The device in his hands was pretty cool. It was a portable touchscreen computer with my chart loaded onto it. I think the doctor was a little confused by the fact that my temperature was back to normal levels. “Oh, I was. Severity level two according to, umm, well…” There was no way I could tell him about my systems. I doubted he was cleared for that information.

I glanced over to Officer Everheart for a second because I’m pretty sure she knew. “I had a fever?” I lamely finished.

“Hmm…” Dr. Quintain tapped the screen of his device. “Regen level two could have had something to do with a rapid recovery, but that doesn’t seem right.” He muttered more to himself than to me.

I glanced back to Everheart and she gave me a reassuring smile. Yep, she knew.

“I wonder if…” He tapped on the MMID portion of my record. “Classified?!”

He turned his attention back to me and held up the device with my MMID displayed on it. “Young lady, can you tell me why all of this is classified?”

“Umm, sorry sir, but that’s classified.” It was a little bit of a struggle to not smirk at him as his face clouded with frustration. After all, he was a doctor and he was only trying to help me.

“The damn military and their secrets.” He sighed. “Okay, can tell me how you knew it was severity level two burnout and why you were able to recover faster than someone with regen level two should have been able to?”

I kind of hated to disappoint him. “Sorry sir, but that’s classified too.” I decided to try and help him a little. “But, Dr. Edmundson at the DARPA research lab in Los Alamos might be able to authorize you for more information?”

My admission reminded me I was going to have to upload my medical logs to him ASAP. This little incident was probably something he would want to know about. If Dr. Edmundson did feel like helping Dr. Quintain, maybe the logs would be useful. I gave him Dr. Edmundson’s number and after a cursory exam, he cleared me to return to class.

I still had fifteen minutes before my next class started and I felt pretty sure it would be a waste of time to return to the range. That reminded me about something kind of important. I turned to Officer Everheart. “My weapon!”

Officer Everheart nodded with a pleased smile. “I’m impressed, but it’s already been taken care of.”

“Oh, phew! I didn’t want to lose it or get Corporal Kline mad at me.” I nervously glanced away. I found her nanite glow to be very distracting for me, but I was sure we had a few things that needed to be discussed. “So, what now Officer Everheart?”

She held up her hand as a signal for me to wait. {“Everheart here. Whisper checked out okay. Taking a smoke break.”}

I heard her voice over the radio, but I didn’t see her speak. Impressive.

{“Roger.”}

Everheart turned back to me. “I’m guessing you heard that.”

I nodded once.

“Well, I’m on break. Just call me Sam, okay?”

I nodded with agreement. “Okay, I’m Bree.”

I still found myself captivated by her glow and embarrassed by it at the same time because I wanted to try touching her again.

“Okay, Bree.” Sam smiled and motioned for me to follow her. “You’ve got a few minutes before your next class. Let’s head to my apartment. I think we have a few things we need to discuss.”

~o~O~o~

“Brianna Nicole Peters! What were you thinking?!?” My mom was not happy.

I got the full name treatment again, but I couldn’t believe my mom was upset about me going to a strange woman’s apartment. “What? She had a nice apartment.”

My mom groaned with frustration. “Not that, young lady. Why didn’t you call? My poor baby could’ve died.”

Oh, it was the infirmary thing; not even a visit to a real hospital. “It was just a little burnout, nothing serious.”

“Nothing serious!?!?” My mom turned back to my dad. “Oh my god, Dave. Did you hear her?”

Since my dad was driving and trying not to get us in an accident, he was a little distracted. “Yes, dear, but she’s fine now, right?”

Yep, my mom was on a roll, but at least she wasn’t freaking out about my using firearms or my out of body experience. Just the little burnout part of that experience. I glanced over to my sister and she just grinned and shrugged as if to say, “I don’t get it.”

Yep, parents are weird.

My mom was silent for a few minutes and I thought everything was good. “What did you two talk about?”

“What?” Judging by my mom’s expression, I could tell she wasn’t fooled by my little attempt to play dumb. “Oh, you mean what did Sam and I talk about!” I chuckled as I feverously worked out a way to explain our ‘little’ talk. “Well, like I said, she has a real nice apartment. It’s very feng shui and natural looking. I liked it.”

“Bree…” My mom growled impatiently.

“Umm, it’s kinda technical.” I could tell my mom would not be so easily dissuaded and worse, my dad’s ears perked up by my admission. “Okay, Sam, or Officer Everheart, or Rear Admiral Everheart, retired, kind of had the same thing happen to her that happened to me, except her nanites were this big artificially intelligent Hive thing. There was some sort of accident at the lab she worked at as a janitor.” My parents looked confused. “Don’t ask, beats me. So, she was infected and went from being a 50’ish man to his dead daughter.”

I shuddered at the thought because if I thought I had it rough, Sam had it way worse. “Anyway, during testing, she met this alien the government has hidden in some secret lab, that was the white bunny, I think. The two talked, exchanged some ideas, like how to make a fusion power plant. That was last year and we should have them by now, but I’m sure the big oil companies are stopping that. You know, gas and oil profits over the environment.”

This time Dad growled impatiently. “Bree…”

“Oh, yeah, so, we talked about nanites and she showed me a few tricks. She had a few suggestions and she said I should join the Navy when I get out. She’s friends with Admiral Jensen and he asked her to help keep an eye on me and maybe help me out if she could.” I shrugged my shoulders like everything was no big deal. “So, there ya go. Nothing much.”

“Bree.” Dad and Mom sighed in stereo with Dad taking over. “Methinks your idea of ‘nothing much’ and everyone else’s idea of ‘nothing much’ are a tad different.” He chuckled and turned to my mom. “See, honey, everything’s fine.”

Mom was not happy, but she let it go.

We spent the rest of the ride mostly talking about the plans for the summer and the trip back to Virginia for the H1! trial in a few weeks. Aunt Julie and Uncle Jim already told my mom we could stay with them. Yeah, it was kind of weird that we still thought of them as family, but cool at the same time because their house was very nice.

I could be his favorite niece Chloe and she had her driver’s license. Maybe Uncle Jim will let me drive his BMW this time?

~o~O~o~