Victor Reilly stood before his chest of drawers, staring down into the top compartment. To his left an open travel bag sat on his bed.
He didn't have time for the eternal dilemma of black underwear versus blue underwear. So he closed his eyes, thrust a hand into the drawer, and grabbed the first thing he reached. Opening his eyes, he found himself with blue.
Satisfied without being pleased, he threw them in the bag, and zipped it shut. He threw it over his shoulder and stepped out of the door, into the hallway.
Icarus Sidewinder was walking past as Victor exited the room.
"Hey, Vic. You mind if I call you Vic?" Icarus said.
Victor stared at Icarus for a moment, then shrugged. The two kept walking.
"What do you make of this thing in Spain? These people going missing?" Icarus asked.
Victor shrugged again. "Don't know. I guess we'll find out."
"That's what they're paying us for..."
Victor laughed.
"What?" Icarus asked.
"Being paid to save people's lives..." Victor said. "It's new."
"You really killed people for the government?" Icarus asked as they walked.
"Yeah. That's what they made me for..."
"Made you?"
"You know. The strength, the enhanced senses, all that. I wasn't born this way."
"You ever wish you were normal?"
Victor shrugged for the third time in the course of their conversation. "If wishes were chocolate bars I'd be fat."
Icarus paused for a moment, taking this in. "What?" He finally asked.
"I dunno. It sounded wittier in my head," Victor replied.
The two came to a stop outside the doors of an elevator. Icarus pressed the button as he spoke. "Did you volunteer for the powers?"
"Didn't 'volunteer' so much as 'was ordered'."
"Wow," Icarus said. "That sucks."
Victor was nonplussed. "That's how it works in the military."
"You ever hate them for it?"
Victor locked eyes with Icarus. "Hate them? Why?"
"Turning you into a freak."
Victor was silent for a moment. Icarus began to wonder whether those people who always told him to think before he spoke may have been onto something.
"What's to be gained from hating them? Or anyone?"
"A lot of people wouldn't have taken too kindly to being ordered to be a guinea pig," Icarus said.
"They gave me an order. I followed it. Why hate them?"
There was a pause between the two before Victor continued. "For that matter, why hate anyone?"
"Lots of reasons!" Icarus answered, grinning.
"Things happen. People do things. To dwell on it, to hate them for it... doesn't change what happened. And it doesn't change the people. It's just dwelling in the past, letting what's gone before affect what you do next. Pointless."
Icarus nodded as Victor spoke.
"You're oddly zen sometimes, you know that, Victor?"
"Yes, grasshopper," Victor said as the ding of the elevator sounded and the doors slid open.
