When Do We Get Started?

Surprisingly, Seth only got a little lost. Granted, he'd had to ask for directions four times, but at least he'd gotten to the general area of Gloria's room. Or he thought he had. In any case, he did much better than he had originally anticipated. The young soldier had managed to locate the sitting room for Gloria's squad.

He knew it was for Gloria's squad because three of her squad mates were there, lounging around the room on simple but comfortable looking furniture wearing the same standard issue clothing Seth was wearing.

It was odd, but only the team leader was wearing boots. Dimitri and Maria, the only other two in the room, were both barefoot. Well, it was their sitting room. They could do whatever they wanted here and Seth had no room to judge them for it.

Maria looked up at him and her face lit up with a brilliant smile. “At last you are here! Nicholai said you should have been here at least half an hour ago. Did you get lost?”

“Sort of,” Seth was a little embarrassed. He didn't exactly understand why, but he felt a strange urge to have these soldier's respect. Well, at least Maria's.

“Gloria's room is the last one on the right before this hallway connects with the main one again.” Dimitri smiled at him. In that moment he looked so much like Maria that Seth had a hard time believing they were anything but related.

“Thanks.” The young soldier set out along the barren hall that had hatch-like doors sunken into the walls. There were twenty-one rooms, counting the sitting room. Twenty rooms that were probably used for sleeping. Why did seven Freelancers need so much space? Would they kill each other if they were crammed together? Were the squads supposed to be bigger than they were now? Before Seth could think of any more questions he came to the last door in the hall.

It was closed, like all of the others. There was a keypad at about waist hight set into the wall beside the door that had a small text screen displaying the words 'Do not disturb' in all capital letters. That made Seth hesitate. What would Gloria do if he knocked right now? There was only one way to find out.

The young soldier rapped his knuckles on the metal of the door and flinched when he heard how loud the barren hallway made it sound. He waited, expecting the door to be kicked open at any moment.

Nothing happened.

He knocked again.

Still no response.

Seth was preparing to knock a third time when someone tapped him on the shoulder. The young soldier jumped and whirled about. Maria had crept up behind him.

“Um, Seth? Those doors are a few feet thick and made of solid metal. There is no way she could hear you knocking. That is what keypad is there for.” She moved over to the small computer on the wall and pushed a large green button.

The two soldiers stood out in the hall for a few moments before they finally heard Gloria's voice on the other line.

“Can you wait just a second? I just got out of the shower.”

Seth blinked, then coughed. He was kind of glad he hadn't just barged in.

It was hard to imagine what Gloria might look like out of her armor. All of her team mates were shorter when they weren't suited up. It would be weird to see the vicious Freelancer standing any less than six feet tall.

The door swooshed open a few moments after Gloria's voice had sounded over the intercom-thing. When he saw her, Seth blinked again. She was... short...

It was hard to grasp. Gloria stood a few inches shorter than Seth. He had to look down a bit to meet her in the eye. That armor had to add at least five inches to a persons normal height.

Not only was the vicious Freelancer woman shorter, but she was smaller. Her shoulders weren't quite as broad as he remembered them. Without her armor, Gloria seemed diminished. She was still muscular, and Seth had no doubt that she could whip him if they ever fought, but seeing her like this didn't quite fit into the image he had of her in his head. Maybe it was just how young she looked.

Her height wasn't the only difference. Her long red hair had been cut in a short, slightly uneven manner. It was still damp from the shower and was sticking up in all directions. Gloria was wearing the same standard issue clothes as everyone else he had seen and, like Maria and Dimitri, was barefoot. Maybe that was why she seemed so much shorter than Seth.

He was startled out of his thoughts when she spoke. “Well, are you going to come in, or just stand there and stare for the rest of the day? Seriously, we have a lot of things to do and only a little time to do them. Get inside.” The tone of her voice reminded him of a drill sergeant's. It was impatient and left no room for disobedience. As he had for the last few months, Seth did exactly as his superiors ordered. At least that was still going to be the same.

Maria giggled and left after saying, “You'll make a Freelancer out of him yet, Gloria.”

Gloria replied with, “Well, seeing as thats become my new job, I suppose I will.” After finishing her parting comment, she walked into her room leaving Seth to trail along behind. The young soldier felt more than a little awkward. He'd never actually been into a girl's room before, let alone a girl as psychotic as Gloria. He had absolutely no idea what to expect as he stepped through the door.

When he got into the room, he was shocked. Well, if he'd based any of his expectations off of how Gloria acted, he'd have to be shocked. The room was Spartan to the point of being almost empty. There was a set of drawers that pulled out of the wall, a door set into the wall on the other side of the room, a bed, a small bedside table, a light fixture, and a few nearly empty shelves on the walls. Aside from whatever clothes might have been in the drawers and her gear that had been tossed carelessly onto her bed, there was almost nothing else in the room. The fact that the room was unnecessarily large didn't help the emptiness.

Gloria moved briskly over to her bed and started gathering up the heavy-looking pieces of her armor. With her helmet, a shoulder plate, and one of her shin-guards in hand, she strode over to the wall and stopped next to the drawers. She pushed a tile in the wall and the tiles lifted and then slid over one another leaving an opening into a slightly small closet. There was a Gloria-sized manikin like thing. Seth wasn't quite sure what it was. It wasn't a manikin, but it didn't look like any kind of humanoid robot he'd seen before, either.

The manikin like thing turned out to be an armor storage and maintenance unit. As Gloria put he armor on it piece by piece, the machine sent out all kinds of tiny tendrils to explore the surface of the pitted metal. Wherever the tendrils encountered a flaw, they mediately began repairs. The repairs went so quickly that the first few pieces of armor that had been placed on the manikin repair device, were finished by the time Gloria was done “dressing” the robot.

As soon as her armor was seen to, she went back to her bed and set about taking the last few pieces of gear off of it. The only things left were her belt, her guns, and a knife holder that strapped onto one of her legs. Gloria placed those things, with the exception of her battle rifle, neatly on one of the shelves beside an old fashioned picture display system. The picture “frame” only displayed the same three pictures over and over. They ran on an endless loop.

When everything was organized, Gloria sat down on her bed and laid her menacing battle rifle across her knees. She then looked at Seth and said, “Come over here. I have stuff we need to talk about.”

Seth walked over and, hesitantly, perched on the edge of her bed. The young, nervous soldier wasn't quite sure if Gloria had wanted him to sit on her bed or not. She still had her gun. It could be a fatal mistake to anger her when she had that rifle on her lap. When the violent Freelancer woman didn't object to him being on her bed, he relaxed a little. But only a little.

“So, Nicholai, as team leader, is in charge of your gear. I, as your senior medic, am in charge of your training. I'm not going to lie to you. Some of our work can get pretty ugly. That mission we took out on your base? That was a cake walk compared to some of the things our team has had to do. You'll have to be mentally and physically prepared to take on anything that might be thrown at you. Judging from the shape you're in now, I'd say that means more work for me.” She gave him a small smile that took some of the sting out of her words. A smile could only do so much, though. Gloria thought of him as weak. That hurt more than it should have.

“Any questions?” Gloria asked. Seth noticed that she raised her eyebrows in a slightly comical manner. She was picking at him to try and make him feel at ease. It wasn't working out all that well, but he still appreciated the effort she was putting into it.

“Yeah. Why is everyone barefoot?” That one detail had been bothering him for a while. The floor of the station was plain metal. It had to be freezing to walk around barefoot all the time on cold metal. Still, he'd seen three out of four Freelancers in his new squad going around with no shoes.

Gloria laughed when he asked his question. “I meant for you to ask training and gear related questions, but I guess that counts.” She continued to smile as she went on to answer the young soldiers question. “We spend most of our time in our armor. There are almost no opportunities to get out of it while we're out on missions. After a while, your feet sort of forget what its like to feel anything but the spandex we wear in the armor and the inside of a plated boot. It gets to you after a while.”

“Oh.” That hadn't been the answer he'd expected. It made the Freelancers he'd seen seem more human. Seth figured he'd be running around barefoot, cold floor or not, soon enough. “One more question.”

“Okay, what?” Gloria was being really patient with him. It was kind of like he was back in school with one of his nicer teachers. The nice man had always tried to get him to ask more questions. Asking questions was the best way Seth learned. He was good at asking questions.

“How old are you?” He knew the question probably seemed random to her, but it was something Seth really wanted to know.

“Wow, you come up with some pretty random s**t, you know that?” The vicious Freelancer shook her head before answering him. “I'm nineteen. If you don't have any more questions, I'd like to go to the mess hall and get some food.”

“No, thats all.” Seth was lying, but he was really hungry. He could always drill Gloria for more questions later.

“Good, lets get going.” She stood and grabbed a set of colossal boots that had been hiding in the shadow of her bed. The Freelancer pulled on some socks, then slid the boots on. They were black leather with straps that slid through metal loops to secure them to the wearer's feet and legs. Seth remembered seeing Nicholai wearing the same boots earlier. He had a pair of them on himself. They were, more than likely, standard issue.

After his senior medic had finished strapping up her boots, she set off with purpose plain in her strides. Food was definitely important.

Seth had to jog to keep up with the hungry Freelancer as she led him through the myriad of halls and rooms that was her home. Gloria didn't even hesitate when she was faced with a choice between halls. She'd apparently been living here quite a while. Was she from one of those families that Nicholai had mentioned? The young solider made a mental note to ask her a bit about her past later.

After about ten minutes of jog-walking, the pair finally reached their destination. The noise was almost deafening. It seemed that the room was almost completely full. Of FREELANCERS. All of a sudden, Seth wasn't quite so hungry any more. He hung back shyly while Gloria walked through like she did it every day. Well, she did do it every time she was at the base.

If Gloria did it, he had to, too. The young soldier took a deep, steadying breath, then walked into the chaos that was hundreds of Freelancers all packed into one room.