Stepping It Up a Notch

Shawn POV:

We spent the next two weeks in a routine. Turns out, they were more influenced and open to the training once they found out they were going to be super humans at the end of it. From training them, I learned quite a lot myself, and I was glad I made the decision to awaken their bioelectric activity. 

Now that they knew of the changes in their bodies, they pushed themselves further, always testing their limits. Within the third day, they grew accustomed to the six hours of running, so I needed to place weights on them. They also learned higher sequence numbers, up to the hundreds, which is something only few humans can apparently accomplish. 

Despite all that, there were clear differences between me and them. For example, just because they were made aware of the changes, didn't mean that they could sense it or influence it. No one out of the group had yet understood what bioelectric activity was, or could feel it, no matter how much I would lecture or describe its feeling to them. Nevertheless, I was sure they would get it eventually, and even if they didn't, they were still getting to the point I wanted them at. 

Since it was the first day of the third week, and our time was going to be all the more limited, I decided to step things up a notch. Instead of making things theoretical, I decided to make things more practical. And unfortunately for them, S3bastian had made his return from his own mission and was dead set on being the 'bad cop'. So, imagine their surprise when they get up early for their usual run, only to find both me and S3bastian there with guns in our hands. 

"Good morning, everyone. As of today, we only have just thirteen days until we get deployed on our first mission. That being the case, I've decided to take things up a notch. So, I introduce my companion here, S3bastian." Neither of us miss the look of hate flash across Leslie's face, but we ignore it as I continue. 

"Starting today, we will no longer be running around the headquarters like chickens with their heads cut off. Now, our objective is to simulate an active battlefield and what we'll be doing. So, your job is to carry another teammate a certain distance as fast as you can, while avoiding getting shot. Do not worry, as these are nothing but BB guns. But, be warned, they still hurt. I'll let you guys figure out who will go first. Number 4, a word."

We leave the other pale faced members while Leslie and I walk a distance away. "Yes sir?" She asks.

"Listen, I know of the circumstances that you've been through. I know how you feel, and I can respect that. It would be too much of me to ask a person who's been in that situation to let that hatred go. However, I want you to think about this. S3bastian outranks you. Meaning you are expected to follow his orders. I'll tell you this from experience, he revels in a person's hatred towards him and his kind. If he sees an opportunity to provoke you, he most definitely will. And no, I'm not going to stop him." I explain to her.

"Permission to speak freely, sir." She requests and I nod.

"How can you work with those lifeless machines. We are at war with them and as you've been teaching us, they have no problem massacring thousands of us and move on to kill more." She responds as she struggles to hold her emotions in.

"Have you ever wondered how this all started? Asked yourself what's going to happen when this is all over?" I ask her and she shakes her head no. "What do you think is going to happen to all the omnics once this is over? You think all of them will be hunted down in an effort to ensure this doesn't happen again?" 

"Yeah, I guess." She responds.

"As I said, if you stick with me, you're going to see some shit. You might not understand it now, but I'm going to tell you this, be prepared to operate on omnics in the future." I simply say without explaining it further intentionally.

"Operate? On an omnic? We're not mechanics, sir." She says. 

I laugh at the joke, "Don't let S3bastian here you say that, or you might end up as one. All I'm saying is that maybe you'll never release that anger and hatred you have over omnics. Possibly you'll never forgive them. Which is understandable, I mean you lost a lot to them. But think about this, S3bastian is working with us, and won't hesitate to kill his own kind in an effort to protect you from them. Worldwide, there are omnics who help humanity despite the circumstances. Would you repay them, but exterminating them too?" I ask her, and she remains silent as she thinks about it.

"Don't worry about answering that. For now, just focus on the task at hand." I tell her, and she nods, while we return to the others. 

Making it back, Sonya decided to go first, carrying Virginia, while Steve paired with Spencer and Felix with Dwayne. Marco eagerly awaited to carry his crush Leslie, and I told instructed S3bastian to target him the most. 

Needless to say, it went around about how I'd expect it to go. It was hard to imagine someone capable of carrying a person while successfully dodging bullets. I even switched up the partners, made the females get used to carrying men and vice versa. After three hours, they were begging to go back to simply running. 

Knowing they could handle this, I made them continue on for the remaining three hours, but lowered the amount that they would get shot. After the training, despite the enhanced healing, welts covered their bodies as they went to go eat. I kept their second training the same, as they just needed brain stimulation to increase their thinking capacity. However, they received practical lessons in their medical knowledge for the final part of training. 

From my experience with working in London, it's basically chaos for a medic during a battle. No matter how much you think you're mentally prepared for the upcoming rush of patients, you still get caught off guard by the sheer number of injured. I wasn't going to do that to them immediately, as I needed to see where they were in terms before attempting that.

As expected, Sonya was the best at providing care, diagnosing and providing treatment before moving on like she was a pro. Meanwhile, Virginia struggled with her one person. Hearing her was actual pretty amusing. 

Walking up to the person, she introduced herself, but she was nervous so it went something like this.

"Hello, my name is number two... I mean that's what he calls us until we earn our name back. My actual name is Virginia Stone, and I'll be your care provider today, so I will start by taking your vitals." The entire time she was ranting, the guy looked up at her in pain. To make sure the guy didn't die on her, I made sure to diagnose him quickly. He only had a sprained ankle, so he was going to have to suffer more through this than the pain. 

Seconds after taking his blood pressure manually, she looks up at him suddenly, slightly scaring him with her quick motion. 

"Your blood pressure is 198 over 92. Are you good bro?" She asked then holds her hand up to her mouth in shock. "Oh my. I'm sorry, bedside manners. I'm going to get my teacher; I'll be right back." She rushes over to me, and as I heard everything, I refuse to help her. I knew that she was nervous and miscounted. Plus, she forgot while he's in pain that his blood pressure was going to elevate anyway and didn't take that into account.

"Just take it again." I tell her. This obviously wasn't what she was looking for and gives me an exasperated look before going back to her patient.

"He told me to take it again, so that's what I'm going to do." Her face freezes as she stares at the blood pressure cuff without blinking, not realizing that she looks crazed. After a couple of seconds, in one breath she says, "212 over 121. Yeah, I'm going to be right back." And she runs off right back to me. 

"Why's it so high?" She asks me, apparently thinking that she took it right the second time. 

"Well, you can figure that out by checking his info. Is he on any medication?" I ask her. She grabs his clipboard, flipping through the pages and I doubt she actually read any of the information on there. 

Proving me wrong she looks up at me and says, "It says here that he's supposed to be on, Metoprolol. I'll check if he actually took it." Before I can respond, she runs off back to her patient. 

"You were supposed to be on Metoprolol and I can tell you didn't take it. Why would you do that bro?" She asks him. He goes to explain himself, but she cuts him off, "Oh, you're about to be really popular in a moment." 

Seeing her in action, and knowing this probably could go on for hours, against my better judgment, I intervened. Treating the patient, I pulled Virginia to the side and gave her a book on most common injuries and the proper methods of treating them. 

"Don't leave here till you have that memorized." I instruct her. She doesn't bother protesting as I leave the room, closing the door behind me. With her enhanced bioelectricity, memorizing that book wasn't even an issue. She needs to catch up to her peers and she needed to do it fast. Although her records indicated there was a lack in knowledge medical wise, it didn't stress that it was this bad. At this rate, if we deployed, I would have to leave her behind. In these next couple of days, I was going to closely monitor her progress and make a decision based on that. So, her future depended entirely on her.