"COULD'VE DONE with an earlier warning," Amelia grimaced as Dr Royson gently swabbed her collar bone with burning antiseptic, and the overpowering stench of the liquid made her nose wrinkle.

Luca apologetically shrugged, but his eyes were concerned. As was his way. Tina scoffed and lightly punched his arm — didn't stop him from yelping out, though.

"Hey," Royson interjected, her grey eyes sliding from the other girl to the guy. "I don't want any other casualties today." Refocusing on Amelia, she gave her a playful smile. "You'll live. Just keep that heal-pad on for the next few hours, and maybe steer clear of the engineering room and any flying spanners from now on." She gave Luca an incredulous look.

Smiling, Amelia herded her friends out of the Clinic, into the more regulated air of the dorm section. Close at hand to any sickly persons taking part in the ERAA mission, the Clinic was as smaller than most cubicles, and ready to treat injuries and headaches. The most severe harm she'd seen anyone receive was a Marine; shot in the arm.

Was that what they did for fun? She'd wondered at the time, as they airlifted him to a hospital outside of the desert. One of the few times Amelia had had the chance to finally breathe in fresh (however dry) air, a difference from the ventilated oxygen they all breathed below ground.

"I'm pretty sure she hates me," Luca sighed, crossing his arms — almost sulking. Amelia and Tina shared an eye-roll.

"Is it because she bats on the other side that you don't like her?" Tina asked, teasingly enough, but her eyebrows were raised in a challenge. "Jealous that she's hitting on Amelia?"

Amelia, who had been listening with a grin on her face, started at being mentioned in the conversation. "She wasn't hitting on me!" Her ears heated as Tina turned back to her, unimpressed.

"Okay, maybe she was a little," she conceded, looking away as Tina's gaze continued to burn into her. Anyway, what did it matter? There was no time for relationships, so close to D-day. Even though Zoey Royson was going into the K-zone, she reckoned they'd be too busy trying to survive to make out. These thoughts made her shoes seem very interesting.

Turning away from her (to Amelia's relief) Tina grinned like a shark at Luca, while he cleaned his glasses. "I'm not jealous," he muttered, a trace of what — sulk? — in his voice.

"You totally are."

"Anyway," Luca met Amelia's gaze, which remained apologetic. "I am sorry, Mel."

She shrugged his apologies off, though it hurt to do so. One advantage of training there was the advanced healing tech, like the heal-pads; soothing wide plasters that released antibodies into the affected area while applying cool gel to the skin to encourage its healing. No one could get any of that in the pharmacies of the real world. "No problem. But why were you throwing spanners around? It's not a common occurrence or practice."

Luca gave an awkward grin, though his eyes had lit up. "I know, I know — but I was busy testing the hand-eye co-ordination of the E-E-G ..." his mouth shut with an audible click, just as Tina asked:

"What's the E-E-G?"

"I can't talk about it," he replied in a mutter, and Amelia recognized that he was closing up, no longer willing to share any more words. "Highly confidential. Sorry, guys." Beginning to fluster, he gave them a nod, before retreating back down the Glass Path to the engineering room, like a startled rabbit back down his burrow.

"Huh." Amelia propped her hands on her hips, studying his refracted figure on the glass. "Technicians."

"Technicians," Tina agreed. "Now c'mon. Wanna get a bite to eat?"

Before Amelia could nod — she was starving, despite it only being eleven AM — she felt her scholar backpack vibrate. A message displayed on the glass wall separating them from the Clinic.

All armed and additional forces to meet in the debriefing room.

"Nevermind," Tina sighed. "Wonder what they'll want to talk to us about now."

Amelia shared her friend's exasperation, but understood the importance of each debriefing. The first one had been concerning the health and program of the scholars and marines, held a day after her arrival; multiple others had followed, detailing things like safety in the event of a dinosaur attack, or how TSP would affect menstruation. (The men had chuckled; for the women, it was no laughing matter. Anyway, the girls had the last laugh, as testosterone injections would need to be packed for the men in the event of lack of it upon arrival in the K-zone.)

"Let's just see how it goes. You never know, maybe they're gonna announce that we don't need to go to JEE anymore," Amelia playfully shoved Tina, who pushed back and made her wince as her heal-pad was jostled. Okay. Bad idea.

"Yeah, yeah." They took the stairs past the last of the dorms, which went downstairs into the huge target room. Weaponry lined the walls, the glistening of the volt-guns giving no indication that they were not, in fact, lethal. Amelia still got a chill looking at them.

Across a small passage from the training room, they entered the debriefing one; already packed full of marines and Learners. Amelia stood alongside Audrie — the girl who had been with her from the start, and worked in the science sector, and Tina's shoulder met her own. The cool, technologically advanced gray suits that they all wore didn't help much in tempering the heat, and Amelia felt her heal-pad shift as droplets of sweat ran down her neck.

"This better be good," Tina muttered in Amelia's ear, just as a few officials bearing medals across their uniforms entered through another door in the front of the room — RESTRICTED ACCESS blazing across it — and stood at attention in front of them. Amelia frowned; usually it was it only three or four military personnel who oversaw the debriefings, but never more than five, like now.

"Ladies and gents, thank you for joining us today," one of the older soldiers started, As if we had a choice, Amelia sighed internally, shifting from foot to foot. "Today we will be welcoming another member to our program and base — Mr Ichabod Quillan, and his father and a founder of ours, Robert Quillan."

There was an immediate stir and murmurs rippled through the crowd. People began to pay more attention, and Amelia recognized the names, the shock she felt reflected on others' faces. Two new men entered the room, and she stood on her tiptoes to catch a glimpse of them, spotting the family resemblance immediately. Both men had dark skin and dark hair — Ichabod's, she presumed, less formal in dreadlocks while his father sported a closely cropped skull, dotted silver.

Amelia's attention caught on a marine a few people down from her, who had his arms firmly crossed, and his gaze dark and hooded. Before she could dwell on what could've spoilt his mood, one of the Quillans began to speak.

"Hello, ERAA representatives," Robert's voice was soothing, quiet, yet firm. And familiar. "It is a great honor to be with you all today, as we look to the future — in the past, of course." There was little humor in his seemingly unintended pun, and the tension in the room struck her like lightning. Some marines sported similar looks to the one she had first seen, piquing her curiosity further.

"I've come to this fine base to see how how all have been getting on in training, and to acquaint myself with the technology. I'm sure I have spoken to some of you already, to qualm your nerves at least three months ago."

That got a few nervous chuckles. Amelia finally remembered where she had heard his voice before — he was one Gerald had referred her to when she had been seeking answers so many months ago. Months? Feels like a lifetime ... Before she could think about Daryl, she refocused on Robert's words.

"— despite the fact that I, myself, am a little too old to venture with you to the K-zone, as you call it," he bore a sad smile, and Amelia felt a pang of pity for him. They had already been told that time-traveling was unsafe for those over fifty, for reasons due to metabolism and stuff she didn't care to know, because it was only Daryl she needed with her, and no one else; but that news had been enough to rip some people apart, "my son has no such problem."

He clasped Ichabod's shoulder, clad in a suit like his own, though he didn't quite look in his element so formally dressed, and the younger man gave the crowd a charismatic grin, shrugging his father off as he stepped forward.

"It'd be my greatest pleasure to join you all in your venture to the past," Ichabod dipped his head solemnly, but his words sounded wrong — soft, yet the vowels spliced up like a banana about to be put in a blending machine. He sounded foreign.

He sounded British.

Amelia stood bolt upright as she realized this — so he was from I.O.K., the first of them to grace their 'ever-so-heavenly' presence. Gossip, however unreliable, had circulated that the Brits had been watching 'behind the scenes', though none of their own marines nor scientists had ever stepped forward to join in in training.

No love lost between the two countries since the rejection of their scientific unification, Amelia knew that Ichabod would have a rough time at the institute; however, he looked prepared.

Still, she didn't quite know what to make of him. And until she did, Amelia knew she would need to be wary.

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