"So what is it like?" Alice asked.

  She and Ethan sat in Ethan's living room. Both were focused on the large flat-panel TV with a 3-dimensional display in front of them. They were playing a video game, a shooter. Alice and Ethan were both playing the roles of soldiers, the screen showing the world as seen down the sights of a combat rifle. Alice sat cross legged on the floor in her street clothes, a pair of red jeans and a Sherpa-lined hoodie. Her Echo sneakers were off and resting next to her backpack filled with her workout clothes. Ethan lounged in what they jokingly referred to as "the throne", a microfiber overstuffed armchair.

  "What is what like?" he responded.

  She took her eyes off the screen to look at him. "Combat. You know, the missions where you fight and..." she paused.

  "And kill people?"

  She nodded. She wasn't paying any attention now, and her character on screen had just been shot dead. Ethan paused the game and scratched his head.

  Alice had just finished her daily training with Athena, and she'd come here to Ethan's personal rooms to pass the time with him. They'd become closer over the past couple of weeks, ever since they'd sat together in the dark on the way back from North Korea. She'd begun to not only feel drawn to him, but to enjoy his company. She'd taken to staying late at ORIGIN to pass some time with him. Clawson still seemed reluctant to let Ethan ever venture out into the world, even though he seemed content to let Alice come and go as she pleased, so the number of places the two of them could hang out was limited.

  But her reason for seeing him on this particular day was much more urgent than any other.

  "Well," he sighed, "I guess Athena told you you're going to start going on combat missions, right?"

  It was true. Athena had informed Alice of this new stage of her training only minutes before she'd come to see him. She realized he must have known because Clawson and Athena probably discussed this with the rest of the team.

  "As soon as I get some training, yeah," she answered. She put down the bulky controller in her hands and spun around to face Ethan. He seemed to be looking at her with a pained expression on his face. Was it pity?

  "I don't really know what to tell you." He shrugged. "On a lot of those missions, people shoot at you, and you fight back. You, ya know..."

  "Kill them?" she finished, biting her lip.

  He raised his hands as though to say he didn't know, and then let them fall in his lap. "Yeah," he answered. "That's combat. Life or death. Killing a terrorist or a soldier could save lives that might have been lost if that person were to live. That's why they send us on those missions. We're not assassins, you know? We don't just go kill people who are dangerous. We only show up when things have already gotten...violent."

  She hugged her knees. "Does it hurt?"

  He barked a laugh. "What, getting shot? I think it depends on what they're shooting you with, but I think most small arms fire just kinda stings a little. Nothing to be afraid of."

  She shook her head, as though disturbed by an unexpected answer. "No, not us. Does it hurt them? You know, when you kill them?"

  Alice regretted saying it as soon as it had been said. She knew it made her sound like a child, but she couldn't think of any other way to voice the growing knot in her stomach.

  Ethan looked at her, his eyebrows knit as though he were trying to solve a difficult riddle. Then his face split into a beautiful grin, and he took his game controller in his hands again and unpaused the game.

  "I don't think I'll ever understand you," he said, his eyes drifting once more to the screen. "Maybe you should ask Priscilla or Joshua, or Levi, even. They've all been in the military for years."

  Alice didn't touch her controller again. Instead, she reached for her shoes and bag.

  "I should go," she said.

  Ethan was still playing when she left a moment later.

  She was walking with her mother through a grocery store. Maryanne pushed the cart through the produce section, carefully selecting potatoes and carrots and onions and celery with deft, practiced fingers. She seemed to have a knack for picking out the most perfect veggies from their bins. Each one was large, full, and almost completely without blemish.

  "So you're a soldier now," she said with the same kind of polite, interested tone she might have used if her daughter had become a baker or a teacher or any number of normal, safe, non-violent occupations. "Are you excited?"

  Alice tailed along behind her mother and watched her switch her attention to the meat section.

  "Not really," she answered.

  "So you're scared," her mother inferred. She scanned the whole chickens and picked a smaller one. "And not of being hurt. You're never scared of getting hurt. So, I'd have to guess you're afraid of hurting others."

  Alice nodded. "Yeah. I think so." She turned her head and searched the faces of the shoppers around them to see if anyone had been listening. Everyone seemed to be ignoring them, absorbed in their own purchases.

  I guess you could talk about anything in a public place without being noticed if you say it casually enough.

  "Did you already talk to your friend Ethan about this?" she asked, steering the cart down another aisle. Alice nodded. "Thought so. Did he say anything that helped?" Alice shook her head. Maryanne sighed.

  "Well, I mean, it made sense," Alice explained. "He's been in combat before. He's done it all. And it's not like we'll be military weapons. Most of the stuff we would do is hostage rescue, medical evacuations of troops, and border defense. You know, good things. Stuff that should be done."

  Maryanne stopped in front of a shelf of fruit pie fillings. She scanned the labels and plucked out a can of peaches.

  "Did he say something about taking a life to save others?" she asked.

  Alice stared at her mother. "Yeah," she answered, "he said something almost exactly like it. Why, is he wrong?"

  Maryanne turned and looked surprised at her daughter. "Oh, no! Not wrong." Then she seemed to search the air above her for words. "And yes. He's half right."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, what Ethan said was absolutely right. I've heard it before."

  "From whom?" Alice asked as they made their way to the checkout lines.

  "My great-grandfather. He was a pilot in World War II. He told me something similar when I was a little girl and asked him if he'd ever killed anyone. He told me that it was better that some men should die than an entire nation."

  Together, they began putting the contents of the cart on the conveyor belt.

  "But you said that was only half right," Alice said in a voice low enough so their cashier, a friendly, older man, couldn't overhear.

  Maryanne nodded. "My great-grandfather also told me that life is precious and that it should be spared when possible. You see, Alice, life is not full of bad people who need to die and good people who must live. Most people are in between."

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  Alice nodded, a smile on her face. It always surprised her when her mom did nothing but say a few words, and yet the whole world would seem changed.

  How does she do that?

  "What is all this for?" she asked, gesturing to all the food being scanned and sacked and returned to the cart.

  "There's a young couple in our congregation who just had a baby. I'm taking them dinner for a few nights to give them a little break. Want to help?"

  Alice winced. Her mom never could say no to an opportunity to volunteer, but if this young couple was going to have any chance at eating a good meal, she decided she'd better help her mom with the cooking.

  Soon they were back in Maryanne's home peeling carrots and chopping onions. It took a couple of hours to finish a chicken pot pie, a recipe Christine sent her, but Alice judged from the smell that it was time well spent. When they dropped off the containers of chicken pot pie and peach cobbler at the apartment of the grateful couple, it was already getting dark and cool. Alice had left her hoodie in her mother's house, and so she shivered in the autumn evening breeze in her jeans and tee shirt. Soon they were driving back to her mom's house to get Alice's things.

  Alice had her hand on the front doorknob when she felt her mother's hand on her shoulder.

  "Here, I want you to have this," she said. She had a brown, leather jacket in her hands with a fleece collar. "It's my great-grandfather's bomber jacket."

  Alice gazed at it with admiration. "This is really cool, Mom."

  Maryanne nodded in agreement. "I used to wear it when I was your age, but I was never tall enough to make it look good. It's better on you."

  Alice slipped it onto her shoulders and admired herself in a mirror by the door. "I love it."

  "My great-grandfather once had to jump out of his plane behind enemy lines in Europe. He survived the drop, but he was soon found by a lone German soldier. My great-grandfather had a pistol, and he had the chance to kill the soldier before he killed him."

  "But he didn't," Alice guessed.

  "But he didn't," Maryanne answered. "Neither one of them wanted to die that night, so they parted ways, and your great-grandfather was rescued soon after. You are here because your great-grandfather realized that there's more than two choices: to let your enemy live at the expense of innocent lives or to kill him to save them. Sometimes, you can have your cake and eat it too."

  Alice nodded, smiled, and hugged her mother. "Thanks," she said. "I needed to hear that."

  "I know." As they broke off the hug, Maryanne stared into her daughter's eyes. "Ethan is a good boy. He really is. And he has done nothing wrong by taking lives in the defense of the weak. But he does it without seeking for a better way. That's what you've been trying to find tonight."

  "A better way?" She repeated.

  Her mom nodded sagely. "It makes you different from him. It makes you different from all of them." Then she looked Alice in the eye, as though to tell her the gravest, most important of secrets. "Do not change. You have learned all you can from them of what it means to be a hero. Now they must learn from you."

  The next morning found Alice and Ethan assembled in the Ready Room dressed in shorts and tee shirts for exercise. The sun had not yet risen completely above the horizon outside, but inside the Ready Room, the solar generator had the artificial landscape illuminated like noon day.

  Alice stretched her arms and ran her fingers through unkempt hair. As she finished a wide-mouthed yawn, she opened her eyes to spot Ethan quickly looking away.

  Are you checking me out?

  Alice took a moment to steal a glance at Ethan as well. His gray shirt and black shorts did nothing to hide his lean, broad build. His face, hair, and skin were nothing less than stunning. He had a classic, masculine beauty about him that Alice knew almost any girl her age would fawn over. He had a sense of humor and of adventure, and he was certainly no stranger to charm.

  But she'd known all this about him since she'd met him months ago. She'd trained with him, exercised with him, hung out with him, eaten with him, and suffered alongside him in missions. To boot, he was the only other metahuman in the world besides herself. The only person on the planet who was her physical match. The only person she'd met that had that irresistible, nearly invisible glow.

  But is that enough?

  Her mother's words from the night before still rang in her ears. There were big differences between herself and Ethan. She remembered his comments after her first mission to North Korea, and his answers to her questions the day before. He was funny, smart, and attractive, but he'd never been able to actually comfort her.

  Does that matter?

  "Good morning, you two," said Athena as she marched onto the artificial landscape. The Ready Room had been arrayed like a suburban neighborhood, complete with several blocks of what Alice was sure were hollow houses and a playground. She could see that the street she currently stood on ended in a cul-de-sac.

  Athena, herself was dressed in sweats and a hoodie, something Alice wasn't used to. It appeared as though Athena had plans on exercising with them. She was closely followed by some of the RaTS Alice had talked to or worked with before, members of the Bravo Team. They, too, were dressed for a workout.

  As the group assembled on the faux suburban street, Alice raised her hand.

  "Wait, I don't see any weapons or anything. Are we just working on...I don't know...fighting with our hands? Don't soldiers start with guns and stuff like that?"

  Ethan smirked as Athena answered. "Great question. If I were training security operators, then yes, I would start them with firearms and supplement with hand-to-hand combat training. But you're metahuman. A single punch from someone with your strength and speed is many times more effective and devastating than small-arms fire. I will likely never need to issue you a weapon of any kind. You will learn about weapons, however. In time you will be able to identify a variety of firearms, explosives, artillery, and military vehicles, as well as their functions and roles in combat. That knowledge will help you better engage the enemy and achieve your mission objectives. But before we get to all that, I need to teach you the most basic facts about combat: how to survive, how to establish position, and how to control your range. Do you have any questions before we start?"

  Ethan raised his hand and spoke before Athena acknowledged him. "Is it true that there's a place on the human body where if you punch it just right it you can make the guy crap himself?"

  Athena glared at Ethan, unwilling to dignify his question with an answer.

  "We'll start with striking."

  As Alice paired off with an operator who would coach her on her form, she quickly turned to Ethan with her nose scrunched in disgust. "Wait," she asked, "is there really? A place on the human body where, you know..."

  She was rewarded by Ethan's hushed snickering as Athena rolled her eyes.

  "Let's try to be adults for the next few hours, please," Athena warned them.

  Alice began to reflect on how knew phases in her life were signaled by new kinds of pain that were, as of yet, completely unfamiliar to her. While she was no stranger to the aches and pains brought by long, hard work on Megaton, Athena seemed to feel that the combat training signaled a need for a more intensified, brutal workout regime. Alice had begun the habit of going straight to bed as soon as she left work, dropping onto her mattress as though she'd been suddenly assassinated. This did little to help her sleep more, however, as she frequently tossed and turned in bed as sharp muscular pain stabbed at her arms and legs and made breathing a Sisyphean task.

  "Christine, can you go shopping with me today?" Alice groaned from her bedroom.

  Christine was in her kitchen putting the final touches on a shrimp ceviche. "Why? What are you looking for?" she asked as she spooned a heap of the citrus, shrimp, and tomatoes onto a crispy tostada.

  Alice stomped out of her bedroom in shorts holding a pair of jeans in her hand. "I need..." she shuddered to finish the sentence. "I need pants."

  "Why? Your legs are getting too big?" Christine commented without looking up from her work. She placed both plates of ceviche on Alice's table with obvious pride.

  Alice narrowed her eyes. "Yes, how...is it that noticeable?" She slumped into a chair in front of one of the plates. She picked up a tostada and took a crunchy bite. Immediately her expression softened. "Wow," she sighed.

  "Yeah, I noticed. You think I wouldn't notice my best friend getting all buff and athletic all of a sudden? I mean, you looked like a sports kind of girl before, but you've been filling out." When Alice looked at her with hurt eyes, she added, "you know, in a good way."

  "How is it good that my pants don't fit around my thighs anymore?" Alice whined.

  "They're only big 'cause they're muscular. And it's not just your thighs. You're getting that way all over. Your arms, your calves..."

  Christine suddenly pointed her wooden spoon at Alice with an expression that could only be mild menace. "And since we're on this topic, I've been meaning to ask you something. You never talk about going to the gym."

  Alice stopped eating mid-chew, her eyes going wide.

  Is this how my cover gets blown? My secret life as a metahuman is exposed to the world because my best friend noticed my thighs are getting fat?

  "Is it because of Ethan?" Christine finally asked.

  Alice swallowed prematurely and almost coughed up her shrimp. "Is what because of Ethan?"

  "All the working out. I mean, I assume it's because of Ethan. Look at him. He looks like he was carved out of marble by Michelangelo. I wouldn't want to date a guy that fit unless I was hitting the gym myself at least a little. So, are you doing it with him? Or are you just doing it so he'll notice you?"

  Alice sighed, relieved this was more about Christine prying into her love life than finding out about her work. "Honestly, I'm not trying to get him to notice me. He invited me to start going to the gym with him, so I have been."

  Christine said nothing but stared at Alice with an accusing grin.

  "I'm not dating Ethan!" she shouted, exasperated.

  "Sure, I believe you," Christine said, finally sitting down to her own plate. "You know, if you want, I could go to the gym with you."

  The two of them ate in silence for a moment. Alice smiled as she chewed, imagining how bizarre it would be to go to the gym with Christine and pretend to strain at weights that normal people lifted.

  "You really don't think my thighs look fat?" Alice asked.

  Christine laughed. "Who said fat thighs look bad? Trust me. My cousin Lorna wears this skirt when she goes clubbing, and it has butt pads built in. You know, to make her look bigger. And she gets guys all the time. Your fat thighs will not scare Ethan away."

  "They're not fat," Alice murmured, taking another bite.