IN THE PRESENT

My head is swimming with facts, some of them pertinent, some of them critical, and some of them probably useless. As I stare at Dorne’s family photo for the thousandth time, I try to burn all of their faces into my memory. Varda Dorne, 3rd born, last of her family name.

The picture was taken while she was still in Academy. She has her arms around her youngest brother, with her parents on either side, each with and a hand on her shoulders. Flanking them are her older brothers, both in Might uniforms. Surprisingly, they are all smiling, which is not customary. I get the feeling that they were a genuinely happy family, which makes it all the more a shame that they are all gone.

I am tracing my fingers over Varda Dorne’s face when Killian interrupts my musings.

“I think you’ve got it down well enough, plus Dorne has no living family members so no one will know if it’s not perfect.” He stands and stretches, “Back to the mats, then.”

I groan and put my head down on the table, “We were just there a few hours ago.”

“And?” He doesn’t wait and I know I have no choice but to follow. It’s no surprise to me that the next hour goes similarly to how most of them have gone; with him handing my ass to me.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to drop your guard?” Killian snaps as I lean against a post, my ribs crying out from the jab he just landed.

“Perhaps if you didn’t work me every day to the point of exhaustion, I might be able to absorb a bit more, hmm?” I snipe back. Honestly, he's a complete horse’s ass.

“It’s not my fault if you’re an incompetent student.”

I laugh coldly. “You’ve got to be kidding me Officer Reydon,” I call him by his title but it’s devoid of any respect. “How about you? You’re far from a competent teacher!”

“You little-” A chirping beep interrupts whatever insult Killian was about to hurl my way. He growls as he reaches into his pants pocket and extracts a handheld halo-pad.

He reads something and then stuffs it back into his pocket. He doesn't look at me as he informs me, “Looks like it’s time for your transformation.”

I push off the post as he starts to walk toward me. “Now? I thought it was a couple more days.”

“Now or then, what’s the difference? Let’s go.” He reaches for me and I step back.

“Can you just give me like 5 minutes to process? For fuck’s sake!”

“You can’t be weak like this. Not in here and certainly not out there.” He grabs hold of my wrist and starts to pull me towards the door.

I think I surprise us both when I snarl like an animal. “Let. Go.”

He drops my wrist, scowling. “Fine. Go yourself. But don’t take long. A lot of people are probably waiting on you.”

He briskly walks out after saying his piece and I yell after him, “Go fuck yourself, Killian!” To which he holds up his middle finger as he leaves.

I stand in the training circle for another minute even though I know that stalling won’t change anything. Killian is right that the end result is the same and no amount of time will make me feel better.

I slap my cheeks, trying to make myself get a grip, and head to what feels like my doom.

When I get there I am shuffled into a changing room and told to strip down to just my pants. I don’t get why they make me go somewhere else if I’m just going to walk out in front of all of them right after.

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The operation room is bright and clean. In the center is the table - the one for me.

“When you wake up, you‘ll be a whole new you,” the technician is smiling at me as he says this, but I can’t manage to smile back. I won’t be a whole new me, I won’t be me at all.

I lay back on the table my hands crossed over my stomach. The air is cool, making my bare skin pebble.

I take a deep breath and ignore the fact that everyone in the room is now well aquated with the top half of me. I remind myself again that Might soldiers have almost no sense of modesty and I need to get over these Fate and Insight sensibilities of personal space and comforts.

I close my eyes as another technician comes up beside me with a syringe.

“You’ll feel some pressure and then you’ll be under, okay?”

I nod and start to count backward from 10 in my head. I don’t make it past 7 before everything goes black.

When I come to again, I am in another room laying on a cot. I sit up and look down at my hands. From what I can see, I look pretty much the same, but that’s why I was chosen in the first place. The only parts of me that have been significantly altered are my face and hair.

I take my time getting up and eventually shuffle over to stand in front of a mirror. I’m still only wearing my pants with bandages wrapped around my chest. I run my fingers through my changed hair first. Having wavy, auburn hair is a definiate departure from my pin-straight dark-brown hair, but changing your hair is a simple cosmetic augmentation. I can live just fine with different hair - it’s my face that’s the part I’m most struck by.

It’s impossible to see where the mask ends and my skin begins. I gingerly touch the base of my neck, but I can’t feel the connection points there either. This face is stuck on me, even if I scratched and clawed it would not come off.

My chest begins to tighten and I’ll feels like the walls are closing in. As I stare into my own eyes, one of the only things that remains of me, I wonder if this is going to slowly drive me insane.

In the mirror, I see movement behind me right as KIllian asks “Why do you even bother?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be giving me a pep talk or something?” I snap, still staring at the face looking back at me that isn’t my own. I’m afraid to even touch it.

“You’re willing to throw away your entire life for the rebellion. They don’t give a single shit about you, you know?” It hasn’t been more than a day since we were hurling insults, but I’m used to how hot and cold he blows already.

“Yeah, I know.” I say with a laugh. “I’m under non illusions Officer Reydon. But I have my reasons.” Our eyes meet through our reflections and I find him looking at me with an expression that almost seems like… curiostiy? No, I can’t put my finger on it.

I shake my head and explain, “The day that I joined, after I met with Ander, he took me to see Atlio. I hadn’t seen him for a few weeks by then. Did you know him?”

“Who, your brother? No. My role requires very limited contact with members. You are an exception for obvious reasons. For the most part my only point of contact is Ander.”

“Do you see each other often?”

“Sons of the Might and Fate are often together during social engagement. I’m sure you can imagine.” He says it like it means nothing but his expression is guarded. Again, I wonder just what is going on between the two of them. I consider asking Ander if Killian is the man he told me about those years ago, but I don’t think it will do any good to know one way or the other.

“Well, anyway,” I say slowly, deciding what I should share and what I shold keep to myself. “Atlio was waiting for me and it was a pretty emotional meeting. Lots of hugging and such. Erm,” I sigh, not sure how to explain it. “Basically we talked about our parents, their involvement with everything, and Atlio told me about how our older brothers were aware of what happened to our parents and had publically sided with the Fate and sworn allegiance. That they had no allification with the rebellion and were traitors to our parents' memories. That’s a direct quote. I could tell that he hated them but, I wasn’t so willing to break those familial bonds.”

“And now?” he interrupts.

“Now is irrelevant. They wouldn’t recognize me even if they saw me and they probably think I died that day in the stadium. The point is that I realized how stuck on this path Atlio was and he was my priotry, so I knew I would have to do what I could to keep him safe. That is what’s kept me going all this time.”

“You don’t know if he’s still alive.”

“Yes, well, I’ll just have to keep looking until I find him, alive or not.”

He grunts and then grabs a shirt off the back of the chair beside him and throws it at me. I twist around and catch it. As I shrug it on he says, “You’ve been asked to go out and get an idea of the area before you start your mission next week.”

“Why? All I need to do is get caught. That shouldn’t be hard to do.”

He shrugs and turns away, “Don’t ask me. Just do it.”

I sigh and follow him out. “Fine, I’ll go now then. Better than sitting in there,” I grumble to myself as I head to the lift to the surface level.

e level.