I rolled my eyes and worked on my face to spite her, but I eventually made sure I worked on my butt, then down my legs to my feet. I used a full-length mirror on the back of the door to make sure I'd hit everything. It seemed a little overkill to me to simply test the gate, but it never hurt to be prepared. Just as I finished and began to wonder what to do next, Sharon barged in, arms full of clothing.

"Here," she said, shoving the armload to me. "I brought a couple of sizes of each to find what fits. What kind of weapon do you want?"

"A handgun. I'll take knives if that's not a possibility."

She nodded. "We can do a handgun. Any preference? It'll be concealed."

I didn't need to think about it. "Got a Sig Sauer P365 in your locker? If so, I'll take a small-of-the-back holster to go with it."

"Yeah, got plenty. I'll even load up an extra magazine for you. You a right-hand draw?"

~

I started running with Alex when the horn went off, switching sides to the left to be closer to the targets.

"No, man, you gotta stay on my right!" he said to me, voice low.

I was confused. "What?" He didn't get the chance to answer because the first target on the course popped up, and we both reached to draw from our back holsters, me with my right hand and he with his left. Our elbows knocked, wasting precious time.

"Damnit!" I fired at the target a split second behind him. "Why didn't you tell me you were a lefty?" I dropped my aim and stepped behind him to get to the right again.

"You started on my right! It didn't occur to me until you switched. You gotta stay on that side."

"Obviously," I grumbled. "Now, shut up and shoot the bad guys, not the civilians."

"Roger that," he acknowledged. He smiled at me, completely at home on the course. Me? Training courses made me a nervous wreck. I handled myself well in real situations, but running against a clock always fucked with my head. I doubled down on my concentration and focused on not shooting the mom target right between the eyes.

~

I swallowed against the suddenness of the memory and reached for the sink to steady myself. I was dizzy.

"Hey, you okay?" Sharon asked, grabbing my arm.

I shut my eyes, but it made the lightheadedness worse, so I popped them open again. I blew out a breath. "I will be. I'm still working the memory drug out of my system."

"Did you remember something important?"

"Nothing relative to our mission."

She paused for a heartbeat before she spoke again, her voice much quieter and softer. "I'm sorry about your partner. We all are."

I could only nod and try to work out the lump in my throat. I cleared it, feeling vulnerable for more reasons than just the fact I was naked. I set the clothes on the sink and plucked a pair of underwear from the top. Checking the size was medium, I put them on and immediately felt better. Funny how a simple cotton layer could act as an emotional barrier.

When I didn't answer, she had the sense to change the subject. "Figure out which t-shirt and sweater will fit, but take them back off. We still need to do your hair."

She left to go and grab my weapon while I dressed. She'd brought me tactical pants and a loose-fitting flannel shirt to wear over a t-shirt I could tuck in. She'd also provided socks, but it seemed my own shoes would have to work. I'd just finished tying them when she returned, holstered gun and belt in hand. True to her word, she'd also found and filled two additional magazines. When I finished dressing, I'd slip the weapon between my waistband and t-shirt and hide it with the flannel.

The next twenty minutes were, in a word, hell. I'd never had my hair dyed before, and I could say confidently I never would again, at least not voluntarily. I knew it was necessary to change my hair color to blend better with the Vegans when we went through the gate, so I endured, but, damn, between her massaging that goop into my hair and her constant talking? Torture, pure and simple.

I had no idea how she applied the dye without getting it in my eyes or mouth, but somehow she did. As I rinsed out the final stage of mess in my hair with the handheld showerhead, I couldn't help but wonder what the overall goal was about the gates. The Team had been fighting a losing battle against alien technology; we needed to somehow remove ourselves from the storehouse circuit, or more and more Vegans would come for our memories. How we were supposed to do that, I wasn't sure.

I checked myself in the mirror. My skin was noticeably more coppery brown since the tan had developed more. My hair was no longer sandy blond but brown with orange highlights. After I popped in the brown contact lenses she handed me last minute, hiding my blue eyes, I felt assured I'd blend as long as no one looked too closely.

But, as I finished dressing and gearing up, putting the key back on my wrist, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. I had a nagging suspicion that something would go wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it was just my nerves. Maybe I was just being paranoid. But as we opened the door to the lab, I knew that this was real, and I had to be on my guard.

"Do you think he can get it done?" I heard the Director's voice say as we went down the stairs.

"I don't know," Dr. Müller replied. "He's your agent. With Sharon with him, though? He stands a better chance."

"A better chance at what?" I interjected as they came into view.

The Director turned to address me. "Until now, our mission has been to be on the defensive. The higher-ups have finally realized that is not enough. We have been given a new mission: Shut down the gates."

My eyebrows shot up. "All of them? Like, across the galaxy? Or just those connected to Earth?"

"Either will do. According to our most recent intelligence, taking out the main system's hub will take out all away traveling gates."

"Away traveling?" My forehead wrinkled. "What do you mean?"

"Each gate and key combo keeps track of whether the travel is the person going away from home or returning home. If we alter the correct circuit, we can shut off the permissions for away traveling gates. Then, we can set a timer on shutting down the home traveling gates, too, allowing travelers time to get home."

I looked from the Director to the doctor. "So, the mission has changed from testing the remote to sabotaging the gate system. That's a hefty switch. You're expecting Sharon and me to do that?"

"I'm game," Sharon said. "Anything that will get us off the Vegan's radar as a memory storehouse."

"Well, I'm not sure this will get us off the menu, so to speak," the Director said, "but it would go a long way toward us having time to devise ways to fight back."

A thought occurred to me. "How will we be able to test any of our methods if there aren't any Vegans here?"

"We are in preparations for making deals. We will allow a Vegan or two to stay in exchange for them being test subjects."

My eyes narrowed. "You mean we're going to offer them a lifetime supply of memories in exchange for their help."

"We have nothing else that they want. You know that this is all about the memory traffic," the Director insisted.

And he was right. I did know. It didn't make it any easier to accept.

~

"Maybe we're going about this all wrong," Alex said, popping open another cold beer and taking a deep swig.

"What do you mean?" I drank, too, the cool bitterness a nice touch after spending the day helping Alex build a deck on his place in the hot early summer sun.

"Well, think about it. Aren't memories the property of the person who has them?"

"Sure. I guess. I mean, I've never really thought about it."

He drank again, and I listened to the bees drone on in the nearby flowerbed. "So, if that's true, shouldn't that person have the right to sell them if they wanted?"

I paused. He had a point. "Are you saying we should trade openly with the Vegans?"

"Why not? Capitalism at its best. I mean, the Team's been working on being able to back-up memories, you know. What if we could back them up, sell them, then have them restored?"

I didn't know what to say. It seemed like such a logical idea but felt so... wrong. "I don't know. Something about it bothers me. It seems like... I don't know... a form of prostitution or something. Besides, what about the people the memories are of? Don't they have a say?"

He tipped up his bottle and finished it off. "First, prostitution is legal in lots of places in the world. Frankly, I'm all for the legalization of it if it helps sex workers have a better life and keeps kids off the street. Second, if a person doesn't want to be remembered in a certain way, maybe they shouldn't behave in a certain way, you know?"

I guzzled what was left of my beer. "You're saying that you'd sell your memories?"

He went quiet and began picking at his bottle's label. "If the price was right? Yeah. If my little sister got cancer or something, and I needed the money? Damned straight I'd sell some memories."

I turned to look at him. "This is all hypothetical, though, right? Lisa's okay?"

He practically flung himself from the chair to make his way to the cooler, throwing away his bottle in the process. He let the cooler's lid slam shut as he popped the top and drank.

I had a sinking feeling in my gut. "Alex? What's up with Lisa?"

He returned and plopped down in his chair again. "She's got breast cancer. Runs in our family. But she's also just found out she's about eight weeks pregnant. She's wanted to be a mother since, well, since forever."

I scowled. "Isn't that good news?"

"Cancer treatment, except for surgery, is likely to harm the baby. Her only real option is surgery. But, for her, surgery is risky, too, because of her blood disorder. She'd have to be on blood thinners, which aren't good for the baby either."

"So, it's a choice between getting treatment for the cancer and having a baby?"

He sipped. "Yeah."

"Damn." I drank. "What's she going to do?"

"I don't know." He sighed. "I only know that it will be expensive."

"The kind of expensive you'd sell memories for?"

"Yeah."

~

My stomach tightened. Did Alex double-cross us? The thought made me positively ill. My shoulders felt tight, and I rolled my head and neck to work out some of the tension. I blew out a breath. "Okay, tell me what we need to do."