epilogue

Emily woke to the sound of someone shutting a door. She looked up and saw a dark-skinned man dressed in Air Force's working uniform. He looked at her and winched. Then he smiled.

“Hey Never, sorry didn’t think you would still be asleep. I brought you some tea.” He told her, holding up a large cardboard cup. “Thanks again for taking my shift last night. Anna is doing fine after the surgery. She says that she wants to see the tubes in her ears. She wants to make sure they are purple.” He said laughing.

“No worries.” Emily said standing up from the couch where she had been taking a nap on. She grabbed the blanket she had been using and folded it neatly then put in on top of the pillow then grabbed them both and put them in the closet. As she was doing so the Air Force man turned on the lights.

“Anything happened last night?” He asked her.

“Nope.” Emily told him as she grabbed her cup of tea from the kitchen table. She took a sip of the tea and sighed. It was Chai tea. Not her favorite, but it did have enough exotic taste to make drinking it worth it. She sighed as she wished that the caffeine could affect her though. She wasn’t physically tired. Her powers took care of that. She looked up from her cup to see the Air Force man put his lunch away in the refrigerator. He carefully wrote his name and the date on it from the sharpie that was hanging from a string that was attached to a magnet. Emily knew that people around here were really anal retentive about things like that. Someone would have tossed his meal well before lunch even though they knew that some brought it in that day.

Emily took the cover off her tea and tossed it into the trash. When she was done she saw that the man in the Air Force uniform was holding the door open. “Thanks.” She mumbled as she left the room and entered the hallway. She took another sip of her tea as she walked down the hallway to the second door to the left. She opened it this time and motioned for the man to go in front of her. He smiled and did as she asked.

Beyond the door was a normal looking conference room with a very large table taking up most of the room. On the far side of the room, the wall was filled with names and numbers. Three of the names were crossed out. Two of the names had stars next to them. The first name had a 78% next to her name and the other one had a 61%.

Emily dodged around the others in the room and took her seat. The man who gave her the tea sat across her and put a briefcase on the table. He took out two notepads and two pens. He passed her a set before he closed it and put it beside him. Emily nodded her thanks and put her tea down.

There were about thirty people in the room and they were all dressed in generic military uniforms with no markings except their ranks which was shown in their respective services. For example, sitting beside her was a man who had the golden anchor of Navy chief, and on the other side of her sat a woman who was wearing the red chevrons of a Marine Gunnery Sergeant. Emily had her green and gold chevrons on her left shoulder to mark her as an Army Sergeant.

“Attention on deck.” A navy chief called out from the door as an Air Force Major walked in followed by Marine Master Sergeant.

“Sit.” The woman told them as she sat down at the front of the table. “Who was on duty last night? Chocks was that you?”

“No Ma’am. Never took my shift.” The man who gave Emily her tea replied.

“Okay. Never, anything to report.” The Major asked, turning her gaze to Emily.

“No, Ma’am. It was a quiet night.” Never replied. The Major nodded and tapped something on her tablet.

“Who's up? Jace?” The Major asked as she looked at the Navy chief that was sitting beside Emily.

“I want to downgrade Stevens to below fifty percent. I think has given up and is now fatigued.” The Navy chief replied.

“All in favor?” The Major asked. Almost everyone in the room raised their hand. “Okay, let’s put him at 49%. He still has a higher anxiety index than the others. I still want the agitators to focus on him and see what they can do. Moving on.”

Emily listened as the Major went through all the other names. Everyone got downgraded by at least five percent. This class was getting pretty close to the end of their time here. Soon there won’t be any more chances left and the class would come to a close.

“Anyone want to add anything?” The Major asked as the meeting was winding down.

“I would like someone on Cage. She has shown a pretty high spike during the obstacle course over the past few days. She is showing signs of breaking on both the wall and the pond. I already have the agitators focusing on her during the run and I think she might pop.” The Marine Master Sergeant who had sat beside the Major said.

“Who wants to follow her.” The Major asked. Emily raised her hand and the Major nodded. “Thanks, Never. Anything else?” When no one said anything else the Major nodded. “Ok people, let’s see if we can make some more Super Soldiers.”

Everyone in the room stood up at attention when the Major stood up then they relaxed when she left the room. “Okay, Never is on babysitting duty. Chocks, you’re on grenade duty at the pond. Maintenance says the third air cannon is working again, so you can run them faster. If Cage pops let Never handle it. Cash, you’re on barracks inspection again. The students are getting fatigued, so do something to shake them up. Dice, you’re on physical fitness again.” The Marine Master Sergeant said giving the rest of the room their duties for the day.

When the Master Sergeant finished everyone broke up and went to work. Emily was one for four Main type supers at the school, so even though she didn’t have the rank to be one of the heads of the training company she did have the needed superpower to do so. She got up with the rest of the room and followed the other Mains out of the room.

Jace, the Navy Chief led the way. He was the oldest of the four Mains followed by Dice, the Marine Staff Sergeant who was the same rank as Chocks who was the third Main in their group. Emily was the youngest and lowest-ranked Main in the group. They all left the Command complex together and walked over to the grinder. Emily could see the ranks of students rushing to get into formation before the four of them arrived.

Emily had been at Super school now for almost a year. When she returned from Korea she had to avoid the public as a video of her killing the leader of North Korea had leaked onto the internet. Well, she was pretty sure her friend Si-Woo had made sure it was leaked. She was also pretty sure he did it so she wouldn’t disappear into some Chinese prison when the country invaded North Korea. You could not see her face in the video because of careful editing and that the cameraman had only shown her face when her hair was hanging in front of her face saved her somewhat, but there was still too much information in the video that could compromise her identity.

She could never go back to pretty much any country in Asia that was even somewhat hostile to America now. She couldn’t even go back to Korea anymore. The Chinese and the Americans had agreed to leave the country alone and move their troops out. The United Korea now had to stand on its own. Considering that the country now had the highest number of supers in their military after the North and South armies merged, going to war with them would be costly.

She had not been assigned to super school at first. She had been sent to Fort Rida Hospital because she had reported what the Taewang had told her about how she was mistaken on how her powers worked. She did not tell them about what he had said about the phoenix and her supposed rebirth. She had not been sure he had told her the truth and now that staff at the hospital had verified that her powers were what they thought it was she was even more sure he had been lying.

She still had dreams though. Once and a while she dreamed of the woman in the jungle. After two months being stuck at the hospital, she got orders to report to super school so here she was an instructor working with her third class. She was pretty sure this was where she would stay for the next two years until her enlistment ran out. She was pretty sure she would not reenlist after her time was done.

She took her normal position to the far left as the Marine Master Sergeant who took center stage and started the whole thing off by yelling at the students. Before Emily could be an instructor at super school she had to go to a five-week class on how to be an instructor. What she had learned in the five weeks stunned her. She knew super school was designed to mess with the student's mind she just hadn’t realized the scope of just how much they did it.

Everything was designed to increase anxiety from being told they were constantly failing and the feeling that they could die at any moment. But they had to balance that with students getting so fatigued they retreated into their minds and stopped caring. They had to have a feeling that they wanted to live, and that it was possible to survive. They had to fight back against the perceived threat. If they had the ability to awaken then that’s when they would become a super.

There was a lot of psychology of how to push the students to the edge, but not so far as to push them over. Everything at super school was carefully thought out and planned down to the last encounter. From the fake grenades and air cannons to putting oil on the wall in the obstacle course to make it more slippery. Even the monitors which were called agitators by the staff were specifically trained on how and when to shoot their darts as well as at who. It was like being in a play where the students were the unknowing actors.

Emily acted like she was bored as she examined the class looking for signs of anxiety. She spotted a few in the crowd, but two stood out to her. One was her target, the Navy recruit that they had nicknamed Cage. She was a short blonde hair woman. She had been on the high side of the military's weight requirements but had lost much of it during her time in super school.

She was showing all the classic signs of awakening. She was constantly nervous and had a hard time sitting still. She still struggled to overcome the impossible run time requirements, but her uniform was the most put together in her platoon. The biggest factor was the fact that she still acted as she cared. This far into the class that was the biggest factor. You had to still care. The staff's job was to push her over the edge without destroying her mind. Emily thought the Master Sergeant was right. Cage was ready to pop.

She left to go to her assigned position while Dice started the physical fitness part of the class. The exercises were designed to make the students tired and when they were tired they made mistakes. Making mistakes caused anxiety which helped in the process of awakening a super. It was all in the instruction manual Emily had to memorize.

She gave Chocks a ride in her golf cart. She had to have a special golf cart because of her weight. She wasn’t fat. She looked skinny, but her body’s mass was much heavier than normal because of her superpowers. It was the downside to being a super with the Progressive healing power. It means that when she got hurt, her body took steps to prevent being hurt ever again.

She dropped Chocks off at the pond and she turned her golf cart around as he tested the air cannons in the pond to make sure that the fake explosions looked real. She parked not that far away near the obstacle course. Since they were predicting Cage to pop in either the pond or the obstacle course she had to be ready to intervene at either place. Supers were always violent when they awakened and the monitors with their darts were often a target. It was her job to distract the awakened super while they distanced themselves.

Emily put her feet up on the dashboard of the golf cart and waited. She watched the first platoon run through the pond as Chocks toss fake grenades into the pond. She smiled at the students as the air cannons went off. She remembered how terrified she was when she thought a grenade was about to go off right behind her when she was a student here. She watched the last few of the platoon run through the pond then start on the three-mile run that was next.

It was almost an hour later when her target showed up with her platoon. Emily sat up and watched as the Navy Woman line up to run through the pond. The Monitors were using any excuse to shoot their darts at Cage and she was responding with obviously increased anxiety.

Emily brought her feet down as the student who was before Cage went. A monitor shot Cage right before Chocks threw his dummy grenade into the water. It delayed her enough to make her panic as she ran through the pond. Chocks fired off a cannon early right behind the woman and the woman screamed in fear. Emily watched tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as Cage made it to the other side and was immediately shot by a monitor.

“Come on. Come on, you can do it. Pop, you can do it. Pop.” Emily muttered as the woman recovered and stood up crying. Emily sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Maybe next time.” She muttered to herself.

Even still she started her golf cart and followed Cage’s platoon as they started their three-mile run. She kept to the back roads and watched the platoon run. The monitors chased them in their golf carts shooting their darts at the platoon making them run slower so they would fail their run times. Once they reached the finish line the entire class was made to stand at attention while the monitors came up behind them and shot them for failing their run. Once that was over, they made their way over to the obstacle course.

Emily stopped on a hill overlooking the entire course. She leaned on the steering wheel and watched the platoon run through the course. The wall was the biggest threat to the platoon. Unknown to them the wall was sprayed with oil to make the wall slippier. It was the biggest anxiety-producing event after the pond. Even the machine gun course where the students crawled under what they thought was live fire failed to compare to the simple fact of failing to climb over a wall. Statistically, it was where most supers awakened after the pond.

Emily watched as Cage got closer to the wall as she ran through the course. Behind her, the monitors chased her shooting darts every thirty seconds or so. Then she was at the wall grabbing the rope. She made it up about halfway before her foot slipped and she fell to the ground. The monitor immediately shot her. She fell to the ground again then she jumped up recovering way too fast to be normal. She screamed at the wall and yanked the rope. It came right out of the wall flying past her and the two monitors that were next to her. The monitors immediately, put away their dart guns and raised their hands as they had been trained and started backing away.

Emily started her cart and raced down the hill and came up behind the new awakened super and stopped her cart. “Congratulations Steph. Recruit Stephanie Douglas, you did it. You awakened. You're a super.” Emily said softly walking towards the woman from the side so that the navy recruit they called Cage could see her coming.

“You really pulled that right out of the wall.” Emily told the woman in front of her with pride. She made sure the recruit could see her smiling as she talked. She looked away from the recruit and looked at where the woman pulled the rope out of the wall leaving a hole where it was connected before. “Damn, you're strong.” She told the recruit and turned back to smile at her.

“I .. ah.. I didn’t mean it.” The woman said looking both scared and horrified at what she had done.

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s get you to medical to get you checked out. It’s ok. You’re not in trouble.” Emily told the new super-soldier. Behind her, she could see the monitors calling on the radio tell the hospital that they were in-bound with a new awakened super. Emily gently took the woman’s arm and guided her to the golf cart. She got into the driver's seat and drove the new super soldier to medical.

She returned to pick up Chocks a half-hour later from the pond and drove him back to the command complex. “You think Stevens will pop?” Chocks asked from the passenger seat of the golf cart.

“He only has two more days until the gas chamber. I doubt it.” Emily said as she pulled up to the parking lot.

“You popped at the gas chamber.” Chocks reminded her.

“Yeah, I’m one of the odd ones that did. The odds of Stevens popping there is pretty low. Statistically, he has a three percent chance of popping there.” She reminded him.

“Three percent is still higher and no chance.” Chocks replied with a smile.

“Every time someone pops the odds of someone else popping goes down. You know that. This close to the end, the odds of Stevens popping is really low.” Emily replied tiredly.

“And yet you popped.” Chocks said smugly then he lost his smile. “What's up, you’re not usually this depressing. Something wrong?”

“James and I are taking a break.” She said after a few seconds.

“I told you not to date another super. We’re all jackholes.” Chocks said, shaking his head.

“You’re not a jackhole.” Emily told him.

“Tell that to my wife. Look, why don’t you come over tonight. We are having a barbecue. You can come over and spoil Anna. You can also lie to her about what color her tubes in her ears are.” Chocks said, giving her a look.

“They're not purple?” Emily asked, looking at Chocks surprised.

“Nope, they’re blue but don’t tell her that.” Chocks said smiling at her.

Emily laughed then nodded. “If it’s ok with your wife then I’ll come over.” Emily finally told him.

That afternoon when Emily got off from work she went to the hospital to see the newly awakened super. “Sergeant Emmerson to see Recruit Douglas.” Emily told the nurse behind the desk in the ward that they keep newly awakened Brute types supers.

“I’m sorry Ms. Douglas is not able to see anyone today. She is on strength hazard restriction.” The Nurse behind the desk said with a professional smile.

“Never!” A Nurse said coming around the corner. “You come to visit the new super?” The Nurse asked as she held her arms out and gave Emily a hug. Emily hugged the Filipino nurse back warmly.

“Mahalia, it’s good to see you again.” Emily said as she broke the hug and stood back.

“She is cleared to see all the new awakened.” The Filipino nurse told the other nurse. “She is under authorized visitors.”

Emily smiled as Mahalia knocked on the door to the recruit's room then she walked right in. Emily stayed outside as the Nurse asked the newly awakened super if she wanted to have visitors.

“Hello.” Emily said as she walked into the room passing the nurse who was on her way out.

“Sergeant Emmerson.” The recruit said from her bed trying to come to attention while sitting but frozen after a second in fear.

Emily smiled at the recruit who seemed frozen in her bed. She knew from visiting others in the same situation that it was a common thing newly awakened did when they were shown just how hard it was to control their strength. She walked over to the edge of the bed and sat down on the chair. She looked at the bedside table and smiled at the different shakes that were on it.

“How are you doing, Stephanie? She asked the woman in the hospital bed.

“Very good Sergeant.” Stephaine replied, still trying not to move.

“I see they still give you those awful shakes. I like the vanilla one. It was the least chalky of the three flavors.” She told the Recruit with a fond smile. “Have you seen the guys in the lab coats yet?”

“Yes, Sergeant. They say I’m a Class 3 Brute with a B rated immunity.” The woman said with pride.

“That is awesome. That means that you’ll be heading to the Exos companies.” Emily said. “I always wanted to drive one of those things.”

“It’s my dream as well, Sergeant.” The Recruit replied smiling.

“I’m glad then.” Emily said leaning back in her chair. “So don’t worry about the strength thing. You’ll get it under control soon. At first, it’s a pain, you always have to remember not to break things, but after a while, it becomes second nature and you don’t even have to think about it anymore.”

“That’s what they tell me, Sergeant. It’s just so scary. I never thought about how supers have to learn to control their strength. It’s funny I always thought, you know, that supers just were strong and that's it. No one ever told me about all the problems a super has. The ones on TV just make it seem like it's just so easy.” She told Emily looking off into the distance.

“You’ll find that being a super is just like your old life except that people will suck up to you more and expect more from you. Being a super won’t solve all the problems that you had before you awakened unless it's opening a jar of pickles. You just have to remember not to destroy the pickle jar when you open it.” Emily said, snickering.

Stephaine laughed. “I always had a problem opening a pickle jar.” She confessed to Emily.

“Well, you're a super now. No pickle jar will ever make you ask for help ever again. Congratulations.” Emily said dryly. Stephaine laughed again. Emily stayed for half an hour cheering the newly awakened super up. She gave the woman a few pieces of advice that she wished someone would have given her. She made sure to include the Impossible Orders warning and how easily it was for a super to get into trouble with people not understanding the limitations of their superpowers.

As Emily was getting up to leave Stephaine stopped her. “Is what they say true, Sergeant? That you’re the one that the movie is based on? And that you were the one who killed the King’s Son?”

“You see any officer's bar on my shoulder, recruit?” Emily said deflecting. “We are not allowed to talk about our deployments, but if I had been to Korea I wished I was with a super-soldier like that.”

Stephanie looked down then frowned and looked at Emily again. “Respectfully Sergeant, that’s not an answer.”

That made Emily laugh. “You know what we called you behind you back. We called you Cage. You were so quiet and sweet on the outside, but we all could see the warrior inside. It was like it was caged. Get that power under control recruit, and maybe I’ll see you one day on the battlefield. It’ll be easy to find me. I’ll be the one hiding behind your Exo suit.”

That made Stephaine laugh. Emly waved as she left. She noted that Stephaine looked much more relaxed than when she first saw her. Emily waved to Mahiala as she left and the Filipino Nurse blew her a kiss. Emily laughed and pretended to catch it.

A few weeks later Emily stood beside Chocks as the Major gave the students the ‘you shouldn’t feel bad about not becoming a super’ speech to the graduating class. Emily had been right and Stevens hadn’t popped. They watched the Major wound down her speech then they followed her as she personally handed each former student their Super School patch. None of the students who awakened during the school were there. They were either off to their first duty station or still training on how to use their powers properly. This rewards ceremony was only for those who didn’t become supers.

Emily followed the crowd to the reception area and grabbed a small piece of cake then found a table in the far end away from her former students. The other instructors soon found seats at her table and sat down. The talk started off fine but then it veered off into politics.

“Hey Never, you met the new President. What’s he like?” Decker, an army staff sergeant asked her.

“He committed treason by outing me to the Chineses.” Emily said, taking a bite of cake.

“Oh, come on they had to know who you were already. He didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know.” A Marine sergeant responded.

“By outing her, he confirmed what they thought they knew.” A navy petty officer replied. “That’s still treason.”

Emily smiled as the other supers started arguing. “You’re evil, you know that.” The Marine Master Sergeant told her from behind her.

She tilted her head upwards to look behind her. “Teach them to talk about politics in front of me.” She told the Master Sergeant with a smile.

“Walk with me.” He said before he turned away and started walking away. Emily frowned and got up from the table. The supers were so deeply into their argument they didn’t notice her as she left.

She quickly caught up with the Master Sergeant. “What’s up, boss.” She asked him.

“New orders are coming down the pipe for you. Seems like the 7th Special Forces group lost their Main two weeks ago. You’ve been tapped to replace him.” The Master Sergeant told her.

Emily was quiet as she prossed the information that the Master Sergeant just dropped into her lap. She sighed and nodded, “Okay, when do I leave?” She asked him.

“They want you there yesterday. If I had to guess, you’ll get two weeks before you need to report in. OD 721 is rotating back to the states and OD 722 is deploying soon. Whenever they deploy you’ll go with them.” The Master Sergeant told her.

“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be ready.” She told him.

“Do us proud, Sergeant.” The Master Sergeant said to her.

“Will do, boss.” Emily said with a smile.

Emily stayed sitting as the plane stopped moving. She watched as her seatmate got up and opened the overhead compartment and pulled out his bag. He looked at her which she assumed he was asking if she would like him to get her bag. She smiled at the chivious man and patted her backpack that was between her feet. He nodded and pushed his way into the aisle with all the other passengers. Soon he was lost in the crowd as everyone fought to get out of the plane. He had been cute, but Emily didn’t have the energy to get involved with anyone just yet.

Emily waited until the last few people left before she stood up and helped an elderly woman get her bag down from the overhead compartment. The lady thanked her and motioned for her to go ahead before her. Emily smiled and gave the woman a smile before she started walking towards the front of the plane. She gave the stewardess a nod as she thanked Emily for flying with her company and to please come again.

Emily walked out of the gate and looked around. She knew from experience that the airport was tiny and only had one concourse. It had been roughly seven years since she had been in this airport back when she was still in ranger school, but it didn’t look like anything had changed. Even the carpet was still the same. She kept walking past the gate’s waiting area and turned left. She passed a few restaurants. She was tempted to stop and get something to eat since it had been a long flight, but she wanted to get to the luggage carousel as soon as possible. She could get food once she started the process of getting her secured luggage out of security.

Once she found the luggage carousel she ignored the signs for her flight's correct carousel and went right to the baggage claims office. There was only one woman working there and she smiled as Emily walked in.

“May I help you?” She asked Emily.

“I’m here to pick up my secured luggage.” Emily said, opening her backpack and taking out her orders. Then she pulled out her phone and opened the case to the wallet part. She found her military ID and gave that to the woman as well.

“Thank you. It’ll just be a moment.” The woman said as she started typing on the computer. Roughly a minute later she smiled. “Ok if you could look at the camera, I’ll take your picture and we can get your bag released.” She told Emly as she tapped the camera that was facing Emily.

“Okay, It’ll be about ten minutes until we can get you your bag. If you want you can pick up the rest of your luggage and come back when you’re done.” The woman said with a helpful smile. Emily thanked the woman and put her orders back into her backpack and slid her phone in her back pocket of her jeans.

She found most of the crowd from her flight already gone by the time she got to the carousel that was assigned to her flight. She found the first green duffel bags as soon as she got to the carousel. She yanked it off the conveyor belt and waited for her other bag to come around then pulled that one off as well.

She clicked her backpack on a carabiner on one of her duffel bags to let it hang behind her. Then she slung the duffel back on her back and picked up the second duffle bag and went back to wait in the baggage claims office.

A large muscular man dressed in the jumper suit of a baggage claim monkey came in carrying her case. Emily immediately knew that he was a low-level Brute not just because he was carrying her three-hundred-pound case in one hand, but by the way he carried himself. He walked slowly and made sure not to bump into anything.

He smiled at her when she accepted the case. “Are you trying out for the teams?” He asked her.

From the way he said teams she knew he didn’t mean the Special Forces teams. There was a reality show that followed three local superhero teams. The First team was based out of Pensacola and the TV show made them out to be huge southern country rednecks. Their base was located at Pensacola Beach near the border of Alabama and Florida. They did some really dumb contest stuff like tossing a native to the area fish to see who threw it the furthest and drifting in innertubes down a backwoods river.

The second team was based out of Panama City. They were shown to be the ‘Young’ team that had a lot of dating drama. The last team was based out of Destin Florida and they were the Mature team that was about rich Superhero family drama. The show was in its tenth season if Emily remembered right. The show kept a few regulars on the show but rotated in a bunch of new superheroes every year. They also trade a few supers to one of the other teams. One of the most popular tropes was that they would take a ‘veteran’ superhero from the Destin team and put them in one of the other teams in a leadership position.

“Military.” Emily replied. On top of the superhero team, the area also boasted three major military bases. Not that they filmed the Military super soldiers, that would be against the law, but all three military bases were very important bases and had more than a few super soldiers based out of them.

“Air Force?” He asked politely. He had a two-third chance of getting it right because two of the bases were Air Force bases. The last base was a Navy base.

“Army.” She told him as she signed the paper so she could accept her case.

“Special Forces or Rangers?” He asked. It was a good guess as they were the only two Army units in the area attached to the bases in this part of Florida. “I’m a retired Air Force man myself.”

“Neither, I’m in maintenance and supply division for the Army units in the area.” She lied to the man. “I’m not good enough to make into any of the good units.” She told him with a wiry smile.

“Sure.” He said, calling her out. “I was in a Pararescue unit for twenty years.”

She made a point of looking at his baggage handler uniform then looking him in the eye. He smirked and unzipped his overalls and showed her a silver badge. “Airport Security. I wear this thing to get things like your weapon out of the secured compartments.”

“Oh.” Emily said embarrassed. “Sorry.”

His smile became more genuine. “Don’t worry. I shouldn’t have pried. I used to get in all sorts of trouble when I was in, because I got too curious. Anyway, enjoy your stay in sunny Florida.” He told her with a smile.

“Thank you?” Emily replied confused. The man waved and turned and went back through the door that led to the back of the office.

“Don’t worry about Jim. He didn’t mean anything by it. He’s an odd duck, but a really sweet guy.” The lady behind the counter told Emily. “You get a lot of his sort around here. Retired military and retired Super Soldiers. Some are like Jim and still think they’re in the military.”

“Oh, Okay.” Emily said, picking up her case. “Have a good day.” She told the woman as she opened the door and left. She stopped just outside the door and pulled out her phone to call for a ride on one of the ride shares apps. When she was done she picked up her baggage and walked outside.

She blinked as she was hit by the heat and the humidity. It was like walking into a sauna. She had forgotten how humid it was here in Florida. It was bad when she was in Ranger school when she was trying not to drown in the watercourses, but time had let her forget the bad parts of her time she spent here. She looked around and found a bench and sat down to wait on her ride. A few minutes later it started to rain.

The guy who gave her a ride was a super nice guy who gave her a candy bar when she confessed she forgot to eat lunch. She gave him five stars and tipped him the max amount when she reported in. She was escorted to her barracks room by a Corporal who was on duty. As soon as she unpacked she ordered a pizza for dinner and went down to the lobby to watch an old movie about a low-level super who was trapped in a building during Christmas when a bunch of super terrorists took over the floor where his ex-wife worked. It ended with the evil mastermind being thrown off the building. In the morning she made her way to the special forces command center and met with her new command master sergeant.

She found the Master Sergeant in his office. He rose and shook her hand as soon as he saw her. “Never, good to see you. We have a problem. We have tracked a mastermind super that intelligence thinks is the main guy behind the scenes in the terrorist organization OCS worldwide. He’s there number two guy and he is causing problems in South America. We already lost one Main to him. We will not lose another. Our plan is to head down there and join up with some allies. The French have volunteered a super-soldier unit from their foreign legion to help track our target down. We leave in a month.”