[i]Pop[/i]. Direct head shot, between the eyes. There was no real reason to have the silencer on other than dealing with the fact that she didn't like them. It was a pet peeve sort of thing. [i]Pop[/i]. Chest, between the breasts, beside the heart, below the collar bones. No reason for the earmuffs hanging around her neck either; picking them up on the way in was a habit by now. [i]Pop[/i]. Knee cap. Not a kill shot, not meant to be. Made it a hell of a lot harder to run though. [i]Pop[/i]. Crotch. Not a kill shot, not meant to be. Just meant to hurt like making sweet love to Satan. [i]Pop[/i]. The gun felt heavy in her hands, firm. Not many people liked the sound of guns, but it calmed her. Weird childhood lullaby, for sure. [i]Pop[/i]. The silencer bugged her, though, and she had no idea why. The psych told her it had some hidden meaning, but as far as she could care it was nothing more than a tick. [i]Click[/i]. She was out.

She rested the gun before her and tilted her head, admiring her work. It was a good stress reliever, especially considering. She hadn't been able to sleep lately. No nightmares, just not sleep either. The serum was the main suspect. She was a still tired, and she hadn't been able to punch anything, but despite the shooting range not be a technical workout, the guns were still her favorite. Hand to hand combat was good when there was an art to it. Krav maga, for example, was like a dance: it had fluid movement, you moved with meaning; fencing as well. Otherwise she found hand to hand generally just turned into throwing punches. A pretentious way to look at combat? Maybe, but she preferred guns nonetheless. 

Alisha picked the pistol up, and after picking up her station, she left her headphones at the door and returned to her quarters. She still had a good hour before she needed to be in the training room, but she'd need another two to clear her head. Her mind was scattered; out of focus, like when you go into the mountains with the radio on, when you go through a pass and the station turns to a fuzzy mix of two stations. She pulled her shirt over her head and slipped out of her jeans. Two shots at the basket in the corner, both pieces of clothing ending up hanging off the edge of the plastic hamper. She left her gun on her desk and opened up her laptop. Immediately it began to beep loudly. Louder than it should've been able to. Scrunching her nose, she glared at the computer as she tried to close out of the little present someone had left for her. One of her old teammates must have been in her room earlier. On the screen read in big words was "Have Fun On Your First Day Lil Red!". The team who was with her in Alaska on an undercover op liked to insist it was thanks to them that she was chosen for the, what was it, 'Sentinels of Liberty'? Very american.

Once she finally got the message to disappear she closed the laptop and glanced back at her clock. 47 minutes. She grabbed a book from a pile of stuff on the end of her bed and collapsed into one of the only other pieces of furniture in the room, an old chair that looked like it would either be in an older victorian house or a junkyard. It was one of those chairs that had a rough material but it engulfed you when you sat down. The Alchemist. In 9th grade she'd had to read it for AP Lit, and one of the tech guys gave her his copy. None of the other kids liked it, but By the time the class finished the book, Alisha had read it twice. As the old chair pulled her into it's worn out seat, she flipped open the paper back book. The pages were bent, and the back was taped on, but she liked the smell of old books.
---
The serum had many side effects, and changed many things. Alisha's heart could withstand more, she could run faster, jump further, and when she was walking, even the swing in her arms felt more powerful. But it wasn't the physical she had trouble controlling, it was the mental. Of course, she had still punched a hole in one or two things, but she had the patience to get used to the physical aspects. But when she got the serum, her senses got sharper, more ideas could spin around in her head. Alisha had never had necessarily bad eyesight, but it felt like 5 more things were going on in every room than before. And she couldn't dream. The sleep was hard to get, and it came in bouts of two hours, between which she would clean or go on a night run, but she couldn't dream, or if she did, she never remembered any of it when she woke up. Maybe it was just adjusting, but sleeping felt different without dreaming. That's why she figured it was more than just not remembering. It was if she was more alert, not only awake, but asleep, to the point of not sleeping deeply enough maybe... she didn't know. The psych said it was something, well, psychological, but none of his words helped. She hated it, the only thing about the serum she did. She'd no idea if the others were having the same effects but Alisha was a dreamer, it was part of who she was, apart from S.H.I.E.L.D agent. It had been several days, and she still couldn't get used to not dreaming.
---
A knock on the door tugged Alisha back to the world of the living. Sitting up straight, the book slipped off her lap and fell to the floor, laying open. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she pulled it back into a pony tail, then realizing she didn't have a hair band, let it go. She stepped up to get the door as the knock sounded again, then the glowing numbers on her digital clock caught the corner of her eye and a momentary panic attack ensued as she spun around, only to find she'd been asleep for about 20 minutes. 23 minutes left. Spinning on her heel once more, allowing her heartbeat to slow, she opened the door. The woman who awaited on the other side looked about 40, with dark greying hair and practiced smiling eyes. The woman smiled as Alisha opened the door, and it occurred to her that she wasn't wearing any clothes. She quickly grabbed her robe from her desk chair and slipped it on, as her mother laughed. 

Alisha greeted her mother with a smile and hugged her. The woman came in and set down an apple and a muffin on the desk beside the laptop.

"I knew you wouldn't get out to breakfast before. I just thought I would stop by."

Alisha's father had left, but that was as close to a movie as her relationship with her parents got. Her and her mother got along rather well, and she still kept in touch with her father. They hadn't when Alisha was a kid, but as soon as she was out of the house, it was as if the relationship had repaired itself.

"You know me too well," she replied with a smile.

There was a striking similarity between the two. Of course, mother and daughter, but although Alisha had her father's jawline and hard head, everything else about her was Katheryn Sinclaire, from her nose to her kind heart and insane ability to hold her liquor.

"Do you want to sit?"
 
"No, I can't stay, I only wanted to say good luck. Don't break a leg out there." Alisha laughed. "Alright, Sweetheart, I'll see you in a few days."

Alisha embraced her mother, then watched leave. Her eyes fluttered back to the clock. 17 minutes. 

She took the apple from the desk, shined it against her robe, then bit into it. It felt good to have even bit of food in her stomach. Holding the apple between her teeth, she shuffled through the pile of clean clothes she'd not yet put away, and eventually found her leggings and a tshirt. It seemed proper to dress for a workout if they were meeting in the gum, but she grabbed the old softball jacket she had stolen from a non S.H.I.E.L.D friend with the words 'PINTO 17' on the back in case an adventure ensued. Nothing really prepared her for greeting The Captain though. Alisha wasn't superhero excessive, but come on, it was Captian America. The 'Hello' withput a stumble and so she returned to silence, finishing her apple