’d been sitting at the rectangular table in a small meeting room for less than ten minutes before Bianca brought me a blank manila envelope. I peeled up the metal prong with my nearly non-existent fingernails, opened the top flap, and let the contents slide to the table. A name tag, a small octagon-shaped pin with my name and some numbers on it, a notebook of policy and procedures, a partial map of the facility, a signed check with Signing bonus typed in the memo and what appeared to be a key card were inside.

I was going to the bank straight after work to deposit that check. It was just over what I owed for the olive-green Toyota FJ I’d traded Beatrice for.

“Welcome to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. I’ll explain it all when the others get here,” she said, seeming annoyed.

I couldn’t figure her out. She wasn’t in uniform—meaning she was a civilian—but she had to be the only one in the Complex. I wondered what qualifications she had to have such a trusted position with the man in command, General Tallis. He was a five-starred hard-ass war machine. Even my father respected him.

The door opened, and Martinez walked through with his typical swagger, a smile already on his tan face. I stood, and he immediately one-arm hugged me. “Naomi! You too? I didn’t figure you taking a contract security job. Who else?”

“Harbinger, Kitsch, and Sloan.”

Martinez’s smile instantly vanished. “Trex brought in Kitsch?”

“He trusts him.”

“Yeah but … how is he? Have you heard?”

I glanced back at Bianca, who didn’t seem to care about our conversation, and then simply shook my head. “The same.”

Bianca stepped forward with another envelope in her hand. “Dr. Othello Martinez, welcome to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.”

“Thanks,” he said with a wide grin.

She handed Martinez his package, and he promptly dumped it onto the table just like I had, pushing each item around with his finger. None of it kept his attention long. He was high strung, sometimes juvenile, but he knew his shit and he kept his head in a fire fight. He’d saved Trex’s life more than once. He was the only one of us who stayed in the Corps longer than a year after Trex left. He’d been in South America, fighting drug lords and killing sex traffickers. Martinez was always looking for a higher calling, and when he finally retired, Trex’s offer came at just the right time.

Martinez sat his black medical bag on the table next to his mess, only looking up when Harbinger walked through the door. “Holy shit!”