She Will Persist

11

Axel

Altan Luk. Erdent, Mongolia. 23. Level 8. Everyone calls him Lucky since he's pulled off some  absolutely legendary stunts before. Can wield basically every weapon in existence —spears, chain whips, axes, ninja stars, ak47s. He holds the all time record for quickest time on the obstacle course by 15 seconds, and he's been to all seven continents too. The definition of badass.

Lautaro Pérez. Ausablia, Honduras. 22. Level 7. Kick ass driver. Like, major kick ass. He's also a killer engineer and a mechanic —he can make anything out of anything. Always fiddling with something in his hands to counteract his ADHD.

Callum Oakleigh. Dublin, Ireland. 25. Level 9. 6'1. Black. Head of the medical wing, trained surgeon and emergency medic. Unarguably the nicest guy in the whole agency. He's pretty muscular for being one of the non-combatant agents, but I've never seen him be intimidating in his life, which is good considering the amount of injuries he has to attend to that spur from testosterone clouding our judgements. Cal for short.

Lautaro is engineering. Cal is the medic. Lucky is our weapons guy. Blitz is chemicals. James is tech. I'm undercover. Adira is infiltration. Owen is mission leader.

I barely had time to brief Adira on the agents she didn't know as she, James and I left the Street and went upstairs to the briefing room we were supposed to go to.

"You okay?" I asked her quietly. Our footsteps were muffled on the thin carpet of the second floor.

She nodded.

James and I walked on either side of her and exchanged a look over her head. Clearly she wasn't okay. Nervousness and fear wrecked across her face plain as day, recognizable even for people who didn't know her.

We reached briefing room 3.

Adira

"Are you sure you're okay?"

I whirled around to Axel. "Yes."

He raised his hands. "Sorry, sorry. Just checking."

"I'm fine," I said through gritted teeth. I was just nervous. What was wrong with that? My first mission, and a lot was riding on it. I wanted to impress Flagg, or at least prove to him that I was a worthy asset and he didn't waste his time and resources making me an agent. And if I messed up that would reflect bad on Axel. I also wanted to help people, if that was what the mission involved. Hopefully it would ease my conscience and I could sleep better for once.

"Sorry," Axel murmured, intricate eyes falling to the floor.

My heart dropped. "No no it's nice of you to care I just mean—"

"Apology accepted," James butted in. "But focusing on the now, what are we gonna do?"

"What do you mean?" Axel asked.

James balked. "Weren't you listening? Owens' in there." His dark amber eyes went wide.

"And?"

"And... he's... we just..." The redhead fluttered his hands about, "Flagg hasn't sent us on missions together since he found out about... everything. That was almost four years ago."

"Pretty sure the cameras picked up on every word of your fight with him earlier," Axel noted, "I don't think he's too worried about you two starting anything up again."

James wrinkled his nose in disgust. "I'd never," said dully.

"Well there's a problem right there," I said. "You two fighting isn't gonna make for a successful team mission."