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.

  "I may have overheard the word 'terrorism' on the way here. Whatever it is, I have a feeling it's nasty. Clawson has that look on his face."

  Alice looked at Ethan's grinning face. "What look?" she asked.

  "You know, the look," Priscilla explained. She mimed a look of grim seriousness, one that was an unmistakable copy of an expression she'd seen dozens of times. "The look."

  The scene in the briefing room seemed to confirm Priscilla's vague premonitions of things being "nasty". Clawson stood in front of the dark, round table in a semi-lit gloom. It was the table she'd seen when she first arrived in that place six months ago. The golden corona, the symbol of Divinity, looked nearly black in the low light.

  As ORIGIN staff members filed in and took places around the table and the walls, Alice could see Clawson place his fingertips on the polished surface of the table with immense calm. Deliberate calm. The kind of calm worn like a protective blanket. Athena, who leaned in the corner behind him with her hands neatly folded, was no better.

  "See what I mean?" Priscilla said. "That's the look. Whatever he's about to ask us to do, it's going to be good."

  Alice shot Priscilla a look. There was something about the way he said "good" that was troubling.

  Ethan was the last to arrive, and he took up a seat beside Alice. Priscilla seemed to subtly turn away from him as he sat, Alice noticed, as though she would rather pretend he wasn't there. Her behavior towards him was typical of the rest of the team. No matter how warm the others became towards her, she noticed they never quite let Ethan be one of the group.

  "Good morning," Clawson began. "Moments ago, we were contacted by the Department of Homeland Security. They gave us a very serious mission to complete, one which requires the special talents of our metahuman operators."

  A hidden projector in the ceiling came to life and cast a holographic screen behind Clawson with the still image of a passenger jet sitting on a busy airport runway. The craft was sleek, bright white, and reminded Alice of a sort of flying whale.

  "At 0938, this Boeing 797 Olympian left Oakland International Airport in California on a direct flight towards New York City. Within minutes of takeoff, Homeland Security became aware that several armed men took control of the aircraft. These men issued a single demand: that all other aircraft stay away from theirs. They made it very clear that if they detect any aircraft on radar they would kill everyone on board. At this point, we are unsure of these men's motives or intentions. It is possible that we are dealing with suicidal terrorists."

  Several of the security leadership raised their hands.

  "What is our objective here?" asked one of them.

  Clawson gestured with his hand the hologram, and the image behind him changed to a simple map of the United States. A line in blue seemed to indicate the flight path of the jet.

  "Our objective is to intercept the Olympian here," he said as a yellow dot appeared along the path. "Our operators will board the aircraft and eliminate the threat on board. We will then land the aircraft at the nearest possible airstrip."

  Another operator raised his hand.

  "If the terrorists are checking radar for any approaching aircraft, how do we intend to get close enough to board?"

  "Excellent question," Clawson answered, his gaze fixing on Alice. "Stealth aircraft could get us close enough without appearing on radar, but the daylight would give it away. This is why our metahuman operators will be the only ones to board the aircraft. Miss Fillmore's flight capabilities will put us withing range of our target, and her radar profile will be too small for them to notice."

  Alice felt a hand on her shoulder give a squeeze. Ethan was behind her, gently shaking her with excitement and encouragement. It was then that she realized her heart was hammering so hard in her chest it might burst its way out.

  Clawson led Alice down a corridor to a locked, guarded door. "This way," he instructed after placing his hand on a scanning pad on the wall.

  "What are we here for?" she asked. She'd never been in this part of ORIGIN. It seemed to her that this place was an ever-expanding labyrinth, every day sprouting new rooms and functions like a strange, mythological creature.

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  The door hissed open and Alice found herself in a room that made her head spin.

  "This room has a long, uninteresting name that no one seemed to be interested in using," Clawson explained as he escorted Alice into a vast, open room lined with countless aisles of shelves. "We just took to calling it the armory."

  Alice's mouth hung open as she observed aisle after aisle of racks holding guns, rockets, and tactical equipment of every kind. Many of them she recognized. Since her training with Athena, she'd memorized dozens of different types of weapons. She could see assault rifles, submachine guns, pistols, and shotguns, all of them neatly resting on cradles and hooks. She could see teams of RaTS sorting through and selecting equipment for their current mission. But even with her education in weaponry, she still found herself raising an eyebrow as she passed by devices that were quite obviously meant to be a weapon of some kind, though their bizarre appearances made them seem more like something out of a science fiction film. She could not even guess at their functions.

  "If you see anything you like," Jolly said as he approached them from behind a worktable as long as a buffet line, "you only need to ask."

  Clawson waved a hand to the ranks of worktables behind the one from which Jolly had just come, many of them much larger and crowded with machinery and parts. "When Jolly is not directly advising me, he's here. This is where he and his team of technicians and researchers try to develop and apply the most advanced technology in the world."

  Jolly grinned, obviously proud of the cavernous, technological stadium around him. "Come," he said, "let me show you around."

  Alice watched as dozens of people dressed in hazmat suits, lab coats, and welding aprons looked up from their projects to give an obeisant nod to Jolly as he passed. Apparently, he was as dominating a figure in this realm as Athena was in the Ready Room.

  Alice passed more worktables stacked with experimental weaponry, medical supplies, climbing gear, pieces of vehicles, and even the robotic drone craft the engineers used to survey rescue efforts. She eventually started seeing tables of clothing. There were bulky, armored vests, body gloves, belts, boots, gloves, and helmets.

  "Our progress in metahuman outfitting has seen a major jump recently," Jolly beamed. "With the data we've collected from your training, we think we can supply you with equipment that will augment your strengths while covering some of your vulnerabilities."

  He led them to another worktable displaying an assortment of clothing. She immediately noticed that the apparel on this particular table were all designed to fit a woman.

  This is just another day of shopping for me!

  She examined each of over twenty individual pieces. She began with the left-most end of the table, hefting a bulky, black vest. She could tell immediately it was too heavy to be worn by a normal person.

  "This is one of our earliest attempts at tailoring combat clothing for metahumans," Jolly explained, cocking his head and frowning almost in apology. "It's simple body armor, though since both known metahumans have skin tougher than any ceramic plate armor, we lined this with something a little more..." Jolly searched the air above his head with a smile, "...robust."

  Alice narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean 'robust'?" she asked with a smirk.

  Clawson leaned forward and said in a low voice, "he means tank armor."

  She nodded her head appreciatively and set down the vest. The table shook as she set it down. She guessed it weighed more than two hundred pounds.

  Heavy. Chunky. Stiff. Is it wrong that I worry it'll make me look fat? Besides, it's tank armor. I don't need to worry about being hurt that badly. Do I?

  The next item was still heavy, but lighter by far than the armored vest. This appeared to be a sort of full-body flight suit. It was a thick, insulated body glove with thin membranes of parachute material stretched between the arms and the ribs. It came with what appeared to be a motorcycle helmet, though Alice could immediately see that its interior was filled with communications devices. The body glove had a sort of collar at the neck that Alice could not guess the purpose of.

  "Ah. That's our high-altitude suit. It's fully insulated, and the collar on the neck seals with the helmet. You could continue to breath in the stratosphere. You could even survive in the total vacuum of space for a short time. With the wings, you could glide for miles and miles without needing to actually fly."

  Unnecessary. Also, I would look like a flying squirrel. Like a crime-fighting flying squirrel.

  She ran her fingers over piece after piece the way she might dresses on a rack at the mall. Each item seemed to be designed with her specific difficulties in mind. There were helmets, goggles, and face masks built to protect her sensitive eyes and to supply her with breathable air. Body gloves often came insulated from heat and cold and more often than not sported pouches, packs, and harnesses for equipment or weapons. There were also various forms of body armor. Many of them, like the first vest she inspected, were like bullet-proof vests built for those who would not be inconvenienced by several hundred pounds of protection. Some mimicked armor from bygone eras. One even resembled a full medieval suit of armor.

  Who am I? Joan of Arc?

  "Find anything you like yet?" called a voice from behind.

  She turned her head to see Ethan coming, striding confidently in boots, military pants, and a black t-shirt with "I have the body of a god" written in bold yellow print above a stylized picture of a fat Chinese Buddha.

  Clawson frowned as he saw Ethan coming. "You will be wearing something more professional on the mission, I hope," he grumbled as Ethan stood beside Alice at the table.

  Ethan waved a dismissing hand. "Of course," he chuckled. "You don't think I'd really go out in the public like this, do you?"

  He turned back to Alice. "So, what do you think of our metahuman Macy's?" he grinned.

  Alice nodded and looked back over the items she'd already looked at. "What does it say about me that right now I'm most disappointed in the color selection?"

  Ethan thrust out a hip and held his hand in a feminine gesture. "I'd say you're a very discerning client," he lisped.

  Alice laughed, but then caught sight of Clawson's grim face. It was then she remembered there was a terrorist holding a passenger jet hostage and it was up to her to rescue them. There wasn't much time for jokes. Her laugh died quickly, and she cleared her throat.

  "You've been on more missions than me, and I've never been in combat before. What would you suggest?"

  Ethan scratched the scruffy hair on his chin. "Good question," he admitted. "I don't get my augmentation from clothing..."

  "Ethan," growled Clawson. To Alice, it sounded like a warning. A warning of what?

  "Right," Ethan said quickly. "I mean, I don't usually wear anything all that special on missions. Just communications stuff to talk to engineers and RaTS and stuff."

  Alice looked at Ethan's face in silence. He seemed uncomfortable all of a sudden. She wondered what he'd done to merit a warning from Clawson like that.

  He looked up and down the table, frowning a little. It was as though he was searching for something that he expected to see but wasn't there.

  "Jolly," he said, wagging his fingers at the items on the table, "didn't you put together that outfit I designed for Alice?"

  Jolly's eyes went wide for a moment, and then he cleared his throat, the universal sign of one bearing disappointing news. "Your design concept was very...stylish."

  "Yeah, it was stylish," Ethan boasted, the smile on his face a mile wide. "It'll make our girl here look like the glorious offspring of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Lady Gaga."

  Jolly seemed to ponder that for a moment. "That was actually a very apt description, but I'm afraid we didn't go through with production. Despite its...artistic merit, we had concerns. For example, the uniform seemed to leave a large amount of skin uncovered. Particularly the shoulders, the midriff, and the thighs. Alice does, after all, have a sensitivity to temperature. Leaving so much uncovered seemed impractical."

  Alice blushed and said nothing.

  "Maybe," countered Ethan, "but her physique would inspire fear in her enemies and confidence in her fans. Half these battles are mind games, you know," he explained, tapping his skull with a finger.

  A moment of uncomfortable silence passed.

  "The stiletto boots were also too high, and the cape seemed unnecessary," Jolly added quietly.

  "This one seems interesting!" Alice blurted out, holding up the next item.

  In fact, the body glove she was currently holding was somewhat more stylish than some of the others. Instead of being olive green or tactical black like the others, much of the body glove seemed to be made of brown leather. The fleece-lined collar reminded her immediately of the World War II bomber jacket that had once belonged to her great-great-grandfather.

  Ethan seemed unimpressed, but Alice held the garment up higher, examining it more closely.

  "What makes this one so special?" she asked.

  Jolly walked around the table until he was next to her.

  "This body glove is insulated with automatic climate control," he said, pointing with his pencil. "The armor is highly segmented, giving you almost total freedom of movement. The armor itself is based off the blast-away armor on M-1 Abrams main battle tanks. It can absorb an incredible amount of damage, though it destroys itself to do so. It can stand against small arms fire all day. But if you took a Hellfire missile to the chest, it would become useless. You'd be fine, but you could only do it once before you needed to replace the plating."

  Alice's face was blank. "I have been worrying about those Hellfires," she drolled.

  "Oh, and I almost forgot to show you," Jolly blurted. He dove his hand into the collar of the body glove and touched something Alice didn't see. The suit gave a sort of low, electric hum, and the brown, leather-like material turned black, and then it shimmered with what looked like electric ripples across a black pond. "We call this feature 'Skycamo', optical stealth technology developed for aircraft."

  The once brown body glove transformed into a bright, blue field streaked with white. Now, it was as blue as the sky, as though she were holding a window to the heavens in her hands. Only the fur of the collar and gray trim remained unchanged, as though the body glove were stitched together with pieces of the sky.

  "Oh, wow," she gasped.

  "The leather-like material is a flexible LCD display. This tech is pretty old, though it's never been used this way before. The idea was to make you difficult to see to people below. Not invisible, mind you, but less like a dark human shape against the sky. The panels will change to reflect the appearance of the sky at that moment, no matter the time of day or the weather."

  "It would have been better with a cape," Ethan grumbled.

  "Oh, this is definitely me," approved Alice.