“Yes, I think that will be all. Dismissed.” Theia waves us off without a look in our direction. Taylor explodes out of the office, storming through her fellow soldiers with me barely on her heel.
Outside is light and refreshing, cooling off the stagnant heat from the office. Sunlight shines down upon us, but Taylor is in her own plane of existence. The fiery look in her eyes could tear open black holes in the fabric of space-time, sucking the universe into nothingness. I am suddenly compelled to alleviate the situation, if perhaps only to save the planet from oblivion. Tentatively, I take a step toward her.
“Well. Good news is I didn’t die today?”
Taylor ignores me, losing her focus and letting her eyes trail off into the distance. “I did not know about the Lightbringers. How did I miss that?”
“It’s not like we hung a sign on the door saying ‘Ask Us About Our Death Robots.’ My mother was adamant they be disposed of and Papa agreed, but secretly kept at least a dozen in storage. I’ve never even seen one.” Taylor worries her lower lip as I speak. “I can’t believe he did this.”
“I can,” she says. “Your father is deplorable, but he loves you. There is no limit to what someone will do for love.”
I raise my eyebrow. “Wow, that’s mighty sentimental for a cold-blooded assassin.”
“I prefer the term ‘lackey cutthroat.’” She’s so deadpan I almost miss the sarcasm entirely. “I suppose we should get started, Miss Piccolo.”
“Did you make a joke?” I ask, following her toward the tree line edging the cabins.
“Nothing gets by you.”
“Do you have a pen? I should write this down.”
A few hundredyards deep into the woods a bright clearing opens, littered with rope swings and tires. The sun peeks through the canopy of trees, bestowing cones of bright yellow on the course. She guides me toward a deteriorating post with a numeral one painted in red on the side.
“This is a beginner’s course, one of many we use to train new recruits,” she says, hands planted on her hips. “I will go through it once so you understand each part.”
Beginning with the tire hopscotch, she breezes through the obstacles with violent agility. She leaps over a pit using a rope swing, scales a climbing wall, dives under wires posted in the ground, then ounces back and forth on large pegs in the ground. She makes it look as effortless as walking. Insufferably, she’s not out of breath after running through the course in about thirty seconds.
“The idea is to be fast and quiet.”
“I’ve heard that before.” Taylor quirks her eyebrow at me with what seems like the least amount of enthusiasm she can manage for my joke. I sigh. “Tough crowd.”
The first obstacle, old tires, I hop in and out of with minimal difficulty. Next is the rope swing, which proves trickier. It requires core strength to push the rope and gain momentum, which my years of lazing about have surprisingly not produced. After a lot of swearing, eventually I vault over a glossy mud pit and land solidly on both feet.
When I turn in triumph, Taylor is unimpressed. “Keep going.”
More challenging still is the rock-climbing wall, but my height helps in getting to the top and over without excessive strain. Smearing mud and leaves on my uniform, I commando-crawl beneath the wires posted in the ground. Taylor stands behind me as I ready myself for the final obstacle. Two rows of oversized golf tees are stuck into the ground about thigh high. A wooden pole stands next to the first peg. so I use it to balance and position my left boot on the first peg. She made this look easy, but it’s daunting up close.
“Keep your eyes on your feet. Make sure you try to land as squarely as possible on the surface with as much of your foot as you can. Use the energy of landing to spring forward again.”
I leap to the second tee and land successfully. Using her advice, I spring to the next one but misjudge it and crash to the ground, my chin narrowly missing the top of a peg. Her mocking chuckle fills me with anger. I stand back up, brush off my front, and spin around to face her. “Is this funny to you?”
“Not every day the princess of the Northeast eats dirt in front of you,” she replies. I stomp back to the beginning of the stupid pegs. “No, no. You have to start over from the beginning each time you fail a section until you can run this three times without stopping.” Brimming with fury, I do not move an inch. Taylorrelents. “This is the most basic training I can give you. Take this seriously. If you are not physically ready, you will die. You do not trust me, fine, but you need to learn to trust yourself.”
“Oh, good, unsolicited life advice and a workout. What a banner day.”
“Back to the start, please.”
Fifteen times I run through the course, and fifteen times I fail at the pegs. Eventually I skip them all together, favoring my ability to run the rest of the course as fast as I can. On what must be my nine-millionth run, Taylor diverts me to the pegs. I fall off in short order. Sweating and frustrated, I let out a loud growl of irritation.
Either out of pity or impatience, Taylor hops up on the poles in front of me and holds out her hand. “You can do this. Do it again, but this time use me for balance.”
With a light grip on her hand, I hop from one pole to the other. She pivots back with each hop, somehow navigating the obstacle backward without looking at her feet. She watches my face as I concentrate on keeping my center steady. I wobble only once—her hand squeezes mine and rights me—and with assistance, I finally make it to the end.
She helps me down from the final pole and releases my hand to give me a pat on the arm. “Well done. You earned yourself a lunch.”
“I’d say I earned myself both our lunches.” Taylor rolls her eyes and walks away. “It’s not like you did anything. I’m the one sweating and dirty and—” But she’s gone, in the trees, and I’m speaking to no one but the old tires. “Hey, wait! It is so rude to walk away while someone is speaking.”
“Catch up, Miss Piccolo.”