"Good morning, friend," Christine announced when Alice opened the door for her. Alice had to haul herself out of bed to answer it. The only reason Christine didn't just let herself into Alice's apartment was because her hands were too full to manage it. She waltzed in with a cardboard box full of pots, pans, cooking utensils, and food. "I hope you told your bureaucratic slave masters that you'll be absolutely unavailable this weekend."

  Alice held up the Motherboxx and waved it like she did for her mom, though she was still too drunk with sleep to respond quite so cheerfully. It was, after all, still morning. "I'm still on call," she slurred.

  "A Motherboxx. They really do have you on a leash. At least I now know what you'd exchange for your soul," she smirked, and she placed the box on Alice's kitchen counter. "Today, you are mine. Now, go shower. I refuse to be seen in public with you until you look cute. Then we cook huevos rancheros."

  The thought of eggs, potatoes, peppers, and cheese roused Alice from her walking coma, and she stumbled off to the shower without protest.

  She'd come home the night before. The emotional shock of being back home after two months away had been overwhelming, and her mom's hug had tipped her over the edge. She'd begun to cry and talk at the same time, not being able to stop either for a long time. She'd told her mother everything, and the two of them kept talking long into the night. Alice had no idea what time she'd finally gone to bed, but by the time she'd finally awoke to hear Christine at the door, her mom was already gone, another twelve-hour shift in the NICU.

  It was strange to be back, to be in her own bed and her own apartment and her own shower. It was like she'd woken up from a dream, a strange dream in which she'd tried to be a superhero, but no matter how hard she tried, she could never be one. What if it all had been a dream? Now in the familiar trappings of her own home, all that she'd experienced, the training and the cold and Athena and Clawson and Ethan, it all seemed so surreal.

  "Friend," Christine said when she poked her head in through the bathroom door, "There's someone at your door. He says he knows you, and for your sake I hope it's true."

  Alice dressed herself quickly, and with still-dripping hair went to see who'd come calling. She'd seen that look on Christine's face before when she'd arranged for Alice to meet a guy. She was worried for a moment it would be Thomas requesting another date of rock climbing.

  Just inform my gentleman callers that I'm far too preoccupied to be courted at present, she thought to herself as she left her bedroom and opened her front door.

  "Ethan?" she choked.

  She was dressed as stylishly as always when he wasn't in a body glove or exercise clothes. He smiled when he saw her, that same winning grin of his with shining teeth, but he also seemed nervous. He was arching his neck, trying to see around the corner that led towards the stairs and the elevator. It was as though he expected someone to appear at any moment. In his hands were two plastic shopping bags bulging with some groceries.

  "Ethan, what are you doing here?" She winced as she said it, because she knew she'd sounded too disappointed to see him. In fact, she wasn't. There seemed to be a light that turned on inside her every time he was near, but seeing him brought the memories of the last two months flooding back in a rush, something she hadn't been ready for.

  "I, ah, I thought I could use a day off from work, and I decided I'd come see if I could hang out with you."

  At first, she thought about telling him no. After all, if she hadn't listened to him the day before, if she'd listened instead to Levi and Athena during her rescue examination, she might not have failed, and the all the frustration and anger and tears might never have happened. Part of her wanted to be angry with him.

  But then she looked at his smile again. A big, pearly, toothy smile. And she felt something then for him. Something different than what she normally felt when she saw him smile. Before then, she felt like his smile was the sort that could end any argument, win any entreaty. The kind of smile that made most girls feel butterflies in the pit of their stomachs and instantly want to touch his lips. But not anymore. Now, she felt pity. She knew he must be in as much trouble as her for what had happened. She'd seen the way he was treated at ORIGIN and felt sorry for him whenever she saw him get chewed out by Clawson or Athena. But if he was in trouble, why was he here?

  "Come on in," she said, waving him in with her hand.

  There seemed to be a tangible wave of relief that washed over him, and he hastily came into the apartment and made his way to the kitchen. Christine was there unpacking her cooking utensils and groceries from her cardboard box.

  "Christine, this is Ethan," Alice explained. "We work together."

  "Oh? You two are friends?" she asked, looking at Alice, probing. "Good friends?"

  Ethan opened his mouth, but looked at Alice, unable to answer the question himself. It appeared to Alice he didn't know for sure exactly what they were, and was afraid to presume, even after what had happened between them the day before.

  "Yeah," Alice answered quickly. "We haven't known each other long, but we're friends."

  A wave of relief seemed to wash over him, like a prisoner expecting a harsh sentence from the judge, only to receive leniency instead.

  Christine gave Ethan a warm smile. Alice knew that smile. It was most common when Christine found someone she found attractive. Who wouldn't? Ethan was, Alice had to admit, very handsome.

  It came as no surprise, therefore, when Christine proposed the idea to let Ethan tag along with them for their planned day out. Normally, Alice would not have opposed at all. She quite liked the idea of bringing Ethan along, but she knew what Christine's intentions were. She was enjoying this, the thrill of setting them up as a couple. Improving the social life of Alice Fillmore was what Christine considered her great act of service to the world. Alice, for her part, could have done with a little less charity.

  "I don't know, Christine," Alice countered, trying to be as subtle as she could. "Ethan's supposed to be at work today, and he might get in big trouble if he's caught skipping out on the office."

  "Oh, playing hookie, are we?" Christine teased.

  Ethan shrugged his broad shoulders. "It feels like it's been months since I've had a day off. Besides, they need me around there. I'm kind of hard to replace, so I think I'll get a slap on the wrist at most."

  "That settles it!" cheered Christine. "Ethan is taking a 'mental health' day from work, and he'll be spending it with us!"

  Christine excused herself to Alice's kitchen, where the smell of eggs and peppers in a skillet radiated out in plumes of steam. As she cooked, Alice lowered her voice to a whisper.

  "Did they really give you time off to come see me?" she asked, already thinking she knew the answer.

  Ethan shrugged. "I may have taken initiative in choosing my own schedule for the next day or so." He winked.

  Alice tilted her head and stared at him, dumbstruck. "You escaped?"

  "See, the word 'escaped' implies that the place I left was a prison, but it's just where I work."

  Alice craned her neck to see if Christine was still in the kitchen. She was, and the sounds of sizzling pork carried on the air, offering cover for their hushed conversation.

  "You know what I mean. Are you allowed to be out here? Especially after everything that happened?"

  The smile faded from Ethan's lips. It didn't leave entirely, but it lost all its warmth.

  "Clawson came to see me after your test. I was scheduled to have some leave time in a few weeks. He canceled it."

  Alice's heart sank. Ethan hardly ever left The Farm, and she knew the loss of that time would have been devastating to him, who seemed to want nothing more than the freedom to socialize with normal people and live his life aboveground.

  "So why are you here?" she asked.

  "To keep you from quitting," he answered, suddenly serious. "You can't just leave us now. I know you failed that test, and sure, I might be partially to blame for it, but you can't let disappointment stop you from doing what's right. If you quit now, you'll be letting yourself down, and a lot of other people besides. You think Athena is unfair? Life is unfair. You need to get over it and come back."

  "It's not just a question of trying again, Ethan. I'm not sure...that place...is right for me. I'm not sure that life is what's right for me."

  Ethan shook his head. His smile was gone now, and she could see the muscles of his jaw working, as though he were grinding his teeth with frustration.

  "Well, I never took you for a coward," he said flatly.

  Alice stared at him, dumbstruck. She thought if anyone might understand what she'd endured for those nine weeks, it would be Ethan. But it seemed she was wrong. Perhaps his harsh treatment had taught him to be harsh. Perhaps a hundred rescues had made him calloused to the pain of others. Or perhaps he just hadn't spent enough time around people in all his years of training. Whatever it was, she knew she could never explain to him why she needed to come home, if only for a little while.

  "Look, Ethan, maybe you should go," she said, looking him in his hazel eyes. "I came home to rest and to gather my thoughts. I'll make a decision about coming back on my own."

  She turned away from him and started towards the kitchen. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw something she didn't expect. She thought he might be angry with her, or frustrated or disappointed. Instead, his face was buried in his hands, as though he might begin to cry.

  "I'm sorry," he said through his fingers. "I shouldn't have called you that. I'm sorry for getting you in trouble. I was so sure that engineer was wrong. But I was wrong. I was just trying to help. I know this sets you back from going into the field." He looked up, and she could see his eyes were wet. "It's my fault you failed. My fault. Not yours. I know passing that test meant a lot to you. Everything to you."

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  He was right. She knew Athena doubted whether she could ever be trusted with actual missions. She'd been training hard for months. She'd learned first aid and other lifesaving skills, everything from CPR to treating someone with a spinal injury. She'd learned about firefighting, building demolition, and radiation exposure. And Athena assured her there was much, much more to learn. But now, it seemed, Athena had made it clear that she was more interested in getting rid of Alice than training her. Hadn't she made that more or less clear on her first day?

  We chose you for this course because you're unique. Not because you're qualified.

  Alice sighed. She sat on the couch and invited him to sit with her. He collapsed into it and kneaded the bridge of his nose with his fingers, apparently still too ashamed to meet her eye.

  "We both made mistakes yesterday," she said. "But I think mine hurt you more than yours hurt me. I mean, Athena got upset with me, but I think she's almost always upset at me."

  He nodded and barked a mirthless laugh. "Yeah, I know what that feels like."

  She knew he did. She had noticed that Athena and Clawson tended to be particularly hard on him. Even besides the frequent criticisms and punishments, Ethan was the only person she knew of at ORIGIN who was almost never allowed to leave. She wanted to know why, but she didn't know how to bring it up. What if he'd been in some sort of serious trouble before she came here? Or what if he'd done something terrible in the field, maybe something like what she'd just done to that poor training dummy? She didn't want to stir up bad memories or ask him to share such personal information with someone he'd only known for about a month. But she hated seeing him so sad like that.

  It was then that Christine returned, plates nearly overflowing with food balanced in her hands. For the first time in months, Alice ate a meal in peace. The food seemed to cheer Ethan as well, who seemed as happy to talk to Christine as she was to talk to him. She grilled Ethan with questions about himself, where he was from, what he did at work, and what kinds of things he was into. Ethan, Alice was surprised to hear, was a master of misdirection. He fed her clever half-truths and incredibly dull descriptions of their workplace that she accepted without a second thought. By the time Alice had scraped every last speck off her plate, Christine was under the impression that Ethan was a sort of fire marshal for federal property.

  "That's cool," appreciated Christine.

  "It's alright," Ethan shrugged. "What about you, where do you work?"

  "La Morena," Christine answered as she began to stack their plates. "I cook and cater events. My parents own it. But enough talk about work. What do you do for fun?"

  Ethan grinned. "I love superheroes. Comic books. Movies. Video games. Novels. Anything that tells a superhero story." He stood from his seat and took their dishes to the sink.

  Christine smiled and winked at Alice. "I guess boys have hard time growing out of that kind of thing, huh? My brother's into that sort of stuff, too. Superman. The Hulk. Power Rangers."

  "Yeah, there's that stuff," answered Ethan from the kitchen. "And there's also The Iliad. And The Odyssey. And Sherlock Holmes. Those are all stories of people with superpowers, too."

  "Yeah," agreed Christine. "Why such a huge interest in superheroes?"

  Alice found herself uncomfortable at all this talk about superheroes. She couldn't help but wonder if Ethan might accidentally say too much. If Christine somehow figured it out, what would happen? Would government people show up at her house or at La Morena, put a bag over her head and shove her into the back of a van? Would Clawson send his own people after her?

  "I guess it's kind of like soul searching," Ethan kept explaining. "All heroes have quests. I think I'm trying to find mine."

  Alice started sensing a need for a change in subject at that moment, so she started racking her brain for something to talk about.

  "Oh, so you're a hero, huh?" quipped Christine. "What's your power?"

  Alice cringed.

  Ethan smiled his brightest, most prize-winning smile. "I'm cute."

  Christine barked a laugh and began to help him in the kitchen.

  Alice sighed, trying to relax. She was happy Christine had taken the whole thing as a joke, but she wondered how many more brushes with the truth she would have that day.

  But suddenly, it was Ethan who looked uncomfortable. He was looking out the kitchen window, one that looked down at the street far below. Alice joined him, and she saw what it was that had him so tense.

  "What are you guys looking at?" Christine asked, standing on her toes to try and see over their shoulders and out the window.

  A black SUV was parked in front of the building. Standing beside its open door was Clawson in his dark overcoat. Even from up this high, Alice could see the mirror bright shine of his shoes.

  "Your dad looks pretty mad," Alice said, hoping Ethan would catch on. He did.

  "Yeah. My dad. Um, the office probably called him when I didn't show."

  Ethan reached for Alice's hand. It was so unexpected, Alice nearly jerked away from the contact. But Alice immediately noticed the warmth of his touch, the smooth, unblemished skin of his fingers, and the reassuring squeeze of his grip. She realized then that Ethan was probably the only person in the world she could honestly give a hard squeeze like that without it resulting in injury. It made her smile.

  "Thanks," he said, "both of you. I think I really needed this."

  Alice's mouth hung open, and she scraped her brain for words to say.

  "Good luck. You'd better hurry. Your old man looks like he's about to come up here looking for you," Christine warned. And then she tilted her head, curious. "How does he know where you live, friend?"

  Christine was right. Clawson was looking straight up at them from far below, clearly knowing which windows belonged to Alice's apartment. His face seemed to be equal parts incredulity, rage, and desperate self-control, as though he'd come almost positive Ethan wouldn't be stupid enough to be there.

  "I had fun," she said finally, and she was rewarded with another genuine smile. "Let's do it again some time."

  Ethan barked a laugh. "Yeah, let's do that. See you at work."

  He let go of her hand and left.

  Christine and Alice watched in silence as Ethan appeared a moment later on the street below. He and Clawson exchanged words they couldn't hear, Clawson looking like the veins in his neck might explode. Ethan then climbed into the vehicle, as did Clawson. Then they were gone, speeding back to The Farm where, Alice had no doubt, Athena waited with a list of well-calculated, brutally difficult training exercises for Ethan.

  As the black SUV bore Ethan and Clawson away, Alice found herself thinking again about how she herself had gotten in trouble with Athena for listening to Ethan instead of her engineer. It was a mistake that had cost her Athena's confidence but had led to a remarkable morning in which she'd finally gotten to know the only other human being in the world who knew what it was like to be special in such a very specific way. She'd learned that Ethan was out of touch, perhaps, with normal, everyday people, and that his responsibilities weighed on him in ways she had not realized. It was information she would not have traded for anything.

  She already knew she wanted to go back and try the test again, meaning she had to find it in herself to apologize to Athena, a superhuman feat in itself. But she also realized she had another reason for going back.

  I can't leave Ethan there alone.

  **********

  The apology, as it turned out, was not so hard as she thought it would be. Alice had Athena's hard, practical personality to thank for that. Here was a woman who seemed the living incarnate of pragmatism, the guardian of all that was sensible and simple. Alice guessed that if she wanted to persuade her to give Alice another chance to prove she was ready for the field, she would have to do it in a way Athena would understand and appreciate. That meant no drama on Alice's part.

  "I know there's no excuse for my failure the other day," Alice told her as they stood on the hard-packed dirt floor of the Ready Room. A full week had passed since Alice had last seen her, and she hoped it was enough time to soften the edge of their conflict. "I should have listened to Levi. I ignored him. I understand why that would be a major problem if there had been real lives at stake."

  Athena nodded, appreciatively it seemed, and Alice tried to withstand the urge to explain why she listened to Ethan and what emotional pressure she'd been under at the time. True, the unbelievable stress of her field test changed things, and her relationship with Ethan tended to make her give him the benefit of the doubt, but she knew these things would not have meant a thing to Athena. She was convinced by results, not emotional explanations.

  Alice took a deep breath, looked Athena in her brown, steely eyes, and tried to continue without drawing things into an unnecessary, emotional tangent.

  "I can't argue with your decision to keep me out of the field," she continued. "Not based on my performance last week. But I think you should give me another chance to pass that test. As soon as I can."

  Athena raised her eyebrows in interest. That, at least, was better than the scorn Alice thought she might find on her face, or even worse: indifference.

  "And why do you think that?" she asked. "Why should I let you take the test again so soon?" Athena's hands went to her hips as she said this, and the pose made her look like some sort of gladiator in an arena.

  This woman even reasons with the posture of a prize fighter.

  "Because," Alice answered, hoping beyond hope that her answer would be the right one, "I would pass it. I know what my mistake was, and I won't make it again. Besides, if there's a chance I could help Ethan in the field, there'd be no point in keeping me here just to make sure I learn a lesson. I know you want your team out there working, saving lives. I can help them do that. So, give me another chance. That's why you been training me, right? To get me ready for the field? Well, I'm ready now."

  For a moment that seemed much longer than it was, Alice watched Athena as she deliberated Alice's proposal in her head. Alice believed that if her mind actually had been made of gears, she would have been able to see them turning behind her eyes.

  Finally, she spoke, and with short, blunt, even tones. The speech pattern of someone who knows they don't owe you a thing in the world.

  "Your assuming, Miss Fillmore, that your failure to listen to your engineer was the only reason I failed you," she corrected. "But you'd be right if you thought it was the biggest reason. You're right. I want you in the field. I'm not out here running you through all this training because it's a hobby of mine. Believe it or not, I hate yelling at people. I didn't enjoy failing you. But I want to be sure your performance on this test, if you pass, if I let you take it again, is how you'd react on a real mission."

  "It's your call," Alice said, tempting fate. "Either give me the test again or don't and make me wait. Whatever you think is best. But I'm telling you I'm ready for it now. I know I am. And it will be how I'd react in the field. Let me prove it to you."

  There was another eternity of silence and Athena's cold, calculating eyes before she finally barked a laugh. The sound was so unexpected that Alice jumped a little when she heard it.

  "You need to teach Ethan how to talk to me that way," she said with a knowing grin on her face. "A boy that big shouldn't be that afraid of me."

  Then, turning to a crew of men operating heavy equipment behind her, "How soon can you have the playhouse ready?" she barked.

  "Seventeen hundred hours," shouted one of them.

  Athena turned to her with eyes no longer cold but blazing with challenge. "You have until five o'clock today to get ready," she warned. She turned to leave, but she paused. "I'm surprised you came back at all."

  Alice looked up, not expecting Athena to have more to say. "What?"

  "I'm surprised you came back," she repeated. "Do you know why we make our trainees live here for months while we test them? We put them through a lot if they want to join the teams. A lot of cold, hard training. If we allow them to go home, they're more likely to quit. They get back to their families, to their own beds, and a lot of them don't want to come back. They're too afraid to come back."

  Alice nodded, understanding a little of how some of those men must have felt. "I was afraid," she admitted. "I still am."

  Athena nodded and smiled. "You're afraid, but you're not a coward."

  Alice smiled and went to her room to get ready.

  Though she had heard from Athena herself that the intricate setting would be ready by late that afternoon, Alice still could not believe it when she finally emerged from the elevator to find the Ready Room exactly as it had been when she'd first taken the test. The huge pile of demolished building materials had been transformed back into the neat little home being swallowed by a monstrous hole in the ground.

  How did they do that so fast?

  ORIGIN was full of mysteries, and not all of them were about metahumans.

  Her second chance at the house in the sinkhole went as smoothly as she could have hoped. She had a different engineer that time, a German named Heinrich, and the survivors were placed in different rooms than before. She followed Heinrich's careful instructions as she encountered obstacle after obstacle, a collapsed window, a locked door, a fallen beam, until she'd finally removed the last unharmed dummy from a house on the verge of imploding and falling into the simulated sinkhole.

  Athena watched in silence as Alice carried out her orders, and she walked quietly between the "survivors" as they lay arranged on the grassy lawn in front of the house where Alice had placed them after their rescue. She inspected them, like a drill sergeant inspecting weapons.

  "A marked improvement, Miss Fillmore," she said as she investigated the artificial face of one of the dummies. Alice had no doubt she was looking closely to see if she could find another of the long, spear-like shards of glass that had ended the "life" of Alice's only rescue in the previous test. "Keep this up and I might be able to find a place for you in the field."

  I certainly hope so.