THE EPOCH CHRONICLES | ✔

eleven

"OKAY, TELL me this, then, Lale — how much is the Mona Lisa worth?"

Lale grunted as Bradley's blow knocked the punching bag against his shoulder, before he rearranged his footing, bracing himself for another particularly powerful punch.

"I'll tell you," Bradley continued. Beyond the red punching bag, which smelled uncomfortably so of sweat and blood, he could hear the former airman shuffling his feet. "A hundred million dollars."

Lale relaxed against the bag as he heard Bradley take a gulp of water, using his brief moment of respite to roll his neck and try to rid his body of the aches that echoed up and down his spine. Training had grown more vigorous since Robert and his son had made an appearance — like they had something further to prove.

"Your point?" He questioned, stilling the punching bag's sways and reaching for a towel, which Bradley handed to him. Lale wiped his face clear of sweat, muffling the former airman's words slightly.

"My point is that we're just gonna leave it here? All the artifacts? Things that could make us filthy rich?

"For what — some swamp? And dinosaurs? And mosquitoes?" He could practically hear the shudder in his friend's voice as he smiled into the towel, before he tossed it back onto the rack. "Oh dank; imagine how many mosquitoes there'll be!"

"I think it's a little too late to worry your royal butt about mosquitoes, Bradley." Lale took a sip of his lukewarm bottled water, before taking his place in front of the punching bag. He clenched his fists experimentally as Bradley anchored his shoulder against the bag.

"I'm just sayin', Lale, you're a marine! You're used to that sort of —" he gasped against Lale's punch, which satisfied the darker haired of the two.

"You talk too much, Brad."

"I know. Maybe a little warning next time?" Bradley positioned himself behind the punching bag once again. "You're used to that gritty stuff, I mean. But me, I'm a pilot. I'm used to sky and freedom and sunlight, not bitey insects."

Lale slammed his fist into the red material again, the pain and shock that traveled up his arm feeling good. "Gotta get used to it, then."

He sympathized with Bradley, he really did — but Lale had already recognized that mosquitoes would not be their biggest problem. And one misstep could lead to death. And his friend had to realize that too.

But, with Bradley, no one really knew. His lean and scraggly figure packed a stronger mentality than most reckoned he had, something Lale had realized after hearing about the airman's own brush with death — a crash on the Gulf of Mexico had forced him to resort to measures not even Bradley himself would talk about. Among drug cartels and a world even more wrecked than America itself, Lale doubted he could be able to imagine what all the pilot had had to do to get back home. That escapade, Lale had summed up, had earned him a spot alongside the fellow ERAA members. And he had hung on by the skin of his teeth each and every time.

"Easy for you to say," Lale heard Bradley mutter, before he threw another punch.

━━━━

After physical training was lunch, which would be followed by Technical Adverse Avoidance Training, or TAAT. Three months had been long enough to learn the armed forces' time table off by heart.

Almost too long.

Only fifteen more days, Lale reassured himself, though his heart dropped slightly even with the lower number. Fifteen more days of tension and training and polishing of skills — then more tension and more training and the re-polishing of skills. That was all the marines and company did. They would be the brawn of the First Wave, a title that made Lale grow increasingly bored with his tedious lifestyle.