Arena sat in the airport waiting for whoever was supposed to pick her up. She fidgeted with her hair, which she had cut into a short style before training, at Nate’s suggestion, which she found to be sound advice. She still thought she might grow it back out again. Most of the bleached stripes had been cut off, and she kinda missed the blonde pieces. She didn’t miss having helmet hair every night though, and with her thick hair and the Farm’s infamous five-minute showers, sometimes washing it didn’t completely help.


    Shifting one of her bags over, she felt relieved to be wearing normal clothes again. Arena decided she was never going to be a big fan of army fatigues. She did have a couple outfits with her, and wore slacks and a nice top on the off chance she’d get bumped up to first class, but it was coach all the way. It was only a two-hour plane ride, though and tolerable. She just wished she could get home and see everyone faster. She adjusted the green top, which hung loosely on her now. The pants kept sliding down, so she had to roll the tops to keep them from falling off on the flight. She had a few safety pins, but she figured she’d be less obtrusive on the flight if she avoided using them, though she did now have a regular CIA badge she could use if she needed to do so. She sighed. Like I needed to lose more weight, she thought. At least there will be time to eat again. She did however have some pretty nice shoulder muscles, for once, and felt like she was finally started to look more like a CIA agent instead of a skinny tween girl.


    Arena had gone to the CIA building at Langley once during the latter part of her training. Sophia had taken her out to lunch, but Yates had just shaken her hand and handed her a packet with her official badge and orders with a few concise words on the progress of her training. Sophia seemed genuinely happy to see her, and told her that her and Yates had begun seeing each other. She tried to press similar information out of Arena, but Arena managed to use all her covert training to teasingly ignore her hints. They had fun anyway, and Arena finally got to see the Smithsonian. She was impressed by the giant airplanes and the pieces of rocket ships, but wasn’t as impressed as she thought she would have been if she had visited before joining the CIA.


    She dialed Anita. “Sterling had a meeting with some bigwig in town. He was actually quite put out by it. Lorna went to pick you up about a half-hour ago. I’ll call her now.” There was a pause. “She said she got stuck in traffic on the bridge. I guess she’ll just be a few minutes then.”


    Arena thanked Anita and hung up. She was glad to be done with the Farm. Paramilitary training was hard, and she didn’t really care much for jumping out of planes, but she enjoyed her covert ops training immensely. She decided to log into the game on her handheld and play a little bit. She hadn’t been able to play much while at training, but she had managed to get her character up into the 40s at least, with the help of Sterling and the other Misfits. Anita sent her a greeting, and some mail which she assumed was some sort of equipment. Nobody else was online. She had just started bashing a giant spider, when Lorna rushed up to her in the airport. She earned amused looks for her bright-yellow sweater with black skull leggings.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    “Sorry! Sorry!” Lorna picked up one of Arena’s bags. “There were three accidents on the way! Stupid New York drivers! Nearly as bad as D. C.” They walked out to the no-parking zone, where Lorna had parked a black armored car with a government tag. “Comes in handy at airports,” she grinned. They got in the car, and Lorna wheedled her into stories about her training.


    Everything seemed the same, and it felt really good to be home. She took her bags back to her room and came back out into the common room where Lorna was waiting for her. Nate and Anita appeared. She hugged all of them, and they started harassing her for a detailed report of her time at the Farm. She was telling them about the time she mistakenly believed her teammate was planted to betray the team, and Sterling appeared in the hallway. Her heart fluttered a little bit. They had been emailing nearly every day since she left. She went over and hugged him.


    “I’m glad you’re back,” he said softly, gripping her waist. He didn’t seem very happy, though, and cleared his throat and let her go, but kept his hand on the small of her back.


    “Is everything alright,” asked Lorna. The others looked worried as well. Lorna came toward them, but Sterling beckoned her away and let go of Arena completely.


    “I wish I could say it was, but it’s not,” he said gruffly. “I just met with Assistant Deputy Director Fieldhaven. I’m afraid we’ve encountered a problem.” He sat down on one of the sofas. “We’ve received intel there’s a heavy movement of agents in Europe, as well as some financial discrepancies. Something is up, but we don’t know what it is. They’ve been doing some background research, but are afraid it will be noticed. Someone seems to be directing it from the main office. We’ve been assigned to dig deeper and see if we can undercover what they are doing and who is behind it.”


    “How are we going to find out without anyone noticing?” asked Nate. He looked more thoughtful than puzzled.


    “Between Anita and I, and the fact that we aren’t in D. C., we should be able to make more headway than them, but it’s still going to be hard, there’s no doubt.” Sterling openly stared at Arena, fidgeting with his watch. Anita nodded, but was silent as usual. Arena looked around the room at the faces of her unit. She felt a rush of pride to be part of such a group, and was glad her training was over. This was her home now and this was where she really wanted to be. She knew this was where she could make the most difference in the world--not as a college student, or at a weather station, or announcing the weather on TV, or even surfing, but protecting the world from the dangers it contained.


    “We can do it!” said Lorna enthusiastically, as she always was. “We can do anything! We’re the Misfits!”