Skyborn The Divine

19: Armor

The squeal of machinery pierced the air like the cries of a colossal dying animal. Alice strained at the Megaton, her muscles trembling with the effort of lifting the titanic piston above her head. She could hear the grinding of her teeth and the rushing of the blood in her ears, even through the music that poured out of her earbuds. Beyond that she could hear the machine emit hissing and clunking sounds as the mysterious inner workings of the world's heaviest apparatus pressed down on her with enough weight to crush an armored vehicle like an aluminum can.

She'd been training hard in the months following that first traumatic mission to North Korea. Since then, Athena had not only pushed her to her limits and beyond in the Ready Room, but she'd also towed Alice along for two more rescues.

One was a race against a tidal wave that raced towards the coast of the Philippines and threatened four villages and a fishing vessel. RaTS aided with the search for survivors while Alice towed the half-sunk fishing boat back to shore. The other rescue had been a collapsing bridge St. Louis. There, Alice and Ethan had worked together to bolster the collapsing structure of the bridge while the Black Swan air lifted cars off to safety. From each, Alice had taken a small souvenir. The dresser beside her bed now held a wave-polished stone from the Philippines and a small piece of shattered steel from the bridge beside her chunk of concrete from North Korea. Every time Alice woke in the morning and saw her miniature gallery of mementos, she found herself wondering where the next piece might come from and whether she should buy herself a display case to make the collection seem more decorous.

But pieces of keepsake debris weren't the only things Alice had gained from her forays into the wide world. Alice was slowly gaining favor with her teammates, who counted on her for more and more with each passing mission. Joshua and Levi would smile and trade jokes and teasing with her during their training, and Priscilla's coldness towards her had thawed to...well, if not friendship, then something resembling mild respect. Even Athena had more than just criticism for her, some of her comments in serious danger of being mistaken for compliments.

"That's a good pace," Athena coached as Alice continued her shoulder-press workout on the Megaton. "Keep it there. And your form is starting to improve." They'd been Athena's only real words since Alice's hour-long workout session had begun.

Alice smiled and licked the salty sweat off her top lip. She was beginning to relish these exercises, to find satisfaction in the dull ache of her muscles and the progress after each consecutive session. She was beginning in the past few months less like a lost little girl and more like a woman who could do things, important things that mattered.

Athena stood close by, her arms crossed over her chest as she watched Alice's workout in silence. Around her, four other medical specialists in white laboratory coats watched data readouts on slate computers. As Alice hissed a breath from between her teeth and raised Megaton's piston another two inches, graphs and numerical readouts on the slates danced and flashed, and the men in white coats began to whisper excitedly to one another.

Athena continued to watch in silence, her dark eyes never moving from Alice or the machine in her hands.

Alice hissed again and made an effort to lift the piston another inch. Sweat poured from her face, and her arms, thighs, and feet burned with muscle fatigue. She pressed harder, willing herself to move the piston, summoning more of the inexplicable strength from within herself.

That was when the alarm sounded. She gently set down the Megaton piston on its floor plate and followed Athena, who ushered her towards the elevator that would take her to the briefing room.

She joined Priscilla in the hallway. She was headed in the same direction Alice was.

"Any idea what this is about?" Alice asked, still catching her breath after her workout.