Cassidy Wilson's sharp green eyes sensed movement in the pitch darkness of the locker room. With the speed and precision of someone who had repeated the same action thousands of times before, she drew her gun from its holster. Leveling the weapon to her shoulder, she waited, relaxing her muscles but heightening her senses, looking for only the smallest sign of a threat to pull the trigger.

A cool draft licked at the back of Cassidy's neck, making her shiver, but she ignored it. There were more important things on her mind. That slight breeze could be all it took for her target to -

There.

The movement was slightly to the left of the first one, and Cassidy shifted her focus, rebalancing her weight and repositioning her shoulders in the split second she had if she wanted a guaranteed shot. There was not a hint of hesitation in her as she pulled the trigger. Killing was easy, because everyone's days were numbered anyways.

Pop! The balloon Cassidy had shot ruptured, falling to the ground in pieces of rubber. Unhooking a pen light from her belt loop, Cassidy walked over to it, kneeling carefully and surveying the remains of her target. Nudging it with her boot, she separated the jumble of material until she could see the number spray-painted in white on the rubber. In the weak glow of her light, Cassidy barely made out the numeral '30' before the overhead fluorescent lights flickered on. Mission accomplished.

"Trainee Wilson has secured the last target, Target Thirty. Thank you Trainee Wilson, all trainees please report to the auditorium to be debriefed." an emotionless voice rang in Cassidy's ear from her communication unit. Mock missions wouldn't be carried out in the exact form of field missions until Year Three of the Verde program. For now, trainees would be completely aware of what they were going in to accomplish, know exactly how many targets they had, encounter no unpredictable deviations, and would receive an announcement through their comms when they had accomplished their objective.

The only thing that Second Years were not allowed to skimp on seemed to be debriefing. They would be reminded of exactly what they had done and what it had entailed. But what debriefing really meant to Cassidy and her fellow trainees was how many things could have gone wrong. It reminded them of how many times they could have died, and how inexperienced and unready they were for the real world. No one would be taken seriously until they had survived the grueling physical training of Year Two - the only reason for Mocks was to keep them in touch with the Field Skills they had learned in Year One. Only in one month, when Year Three would officially begin for Cassidy, would her mind be ready to face the intricacies of a real mission. And then Year Four, the year that would make or break her. The year when she would be expected to put it all together, when she would be tossed into the field with no information and her superiors would watch, to see if she would survive. She had to survive.

The group of thirty trainees met silently in the first three rows of the auditorium, as was the protocol that had been drilled into their head. Fifteen girls and fifteen boys, all on the verge of their sixteenth birthdays, all equipped with vision so sharp the could perceive movement in the pitch dark, and reflexes so trained they could aim and fire in less than a second. They never missed, and yet they were only half-way through their training.

"Trainees," Agent Moiree's voice preceded her as she stepped onto the stage from the right wing. Descending the stairs from the stage gracefully, Cassidy's primary trainer stood in front of her trainees, leaning against the stage. Alison Moiree strictly believed that a healthy sense of camaraderie was imperative in a functional team, and she successfully dispersed the air of formality filling the auditorium.

"Good morning Agent M!" the enthusiastic chorus left no doubt that Cassidy and her friends had lost none of their raucousness in their soon-to-be-two-years of training.

"Kiddos," Alison took a breath and smiled, "good job today. All of you."

Cassidy's posture relaxed, and she searched the rows for her friends for the first time since entering the room. Catching Elle Jackman's wide grin, Cassidy smiled back and let her eyes roam for Daniel Tate. All she caught of him was the back of his head, intent on Alison and his training as always.

Alison cleared her throat, affectively winning Cassidy's attention back. "Todays Mock marked the end of your Year Two syllabus. From now until one month from today, you will be examined and tested, pushed to the extent of your abilities. I fully expect everyone of you to pass your finals in three weeks, and hope to see you in Year Three starting in January."

A cheer went up, and Cassidy's voice joined thirty others in celebrating the final stretch of their second year in training. She would pass! She would pass and she would be a Year Three!

Alison raised her hand, signaling for quiet, but she was still smiling. "Rather than debriefing you, as I should be," Cassidy heard Chase Garcia chuckle in front of her - Alison wasn't big on rules, only protocol. And she had taught the the difference well. "I want to remind you exactly what you all are here for."

Alison hopped onto the edge of the stage, tucking one leg under her and letting the other one swing as she took down her blond hair from its ponytail. This was Alison Moiree. She took her hair down and swung her feet when she should have had her hands at her sides and her legs shoulder-width apart, and she had cozy little heart-to-hearts with her trainees rather than debriefing them on their balloon-popping missions. But she taught them how to survive and no one would fire her for the world.

"Over fourteen years ago," she began, "a virus manifested itself for the first time in the United States of America, the largest world power. We now know that this virus, dubbed the 'Pulse', after the pulsing experienced throughout the body of a victim in their final moments, was purposefully released by a malevolent group loosely linked to - and, it is highly likely, hired by - the European Union. To what purpose, it is unclear. The current hypothesis is that the US was the sole target of this virus. Twelve years ago, the virus had already claimed four thousand lives," Alison's eyes locked on Cassidy's, reminding her of the two claimed lives that had first driven her to be a Verde. "The US never suspected foul play - all the information we have is recent, and we have only found it because we searched hard enough.

"As the most influential country in the world, all the US wanted was to contain the outbreak in their midst. The Pulse was the problem - we were the solution. The mainland already had its methods of building synthetic land - the government just hired workers to utilize them on a larger scale, building our home, Quarantine, the largest quarantine facility in the history of human civilization, original population of 2,597. The Pulse was successfully eradicated from the rest of the world, but we now know what the rest of the world never did. We know that people are tenacious. We know that, before they died, the people of Quarantine, this little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, made families. All of you," Alison's green eyes gazed into the thirty other sets staring back at her, "have nothing left. Your parents have died, but you are immune. On your nineteenth chromosome is the gene that gives you your green eyes. That is the same gene that is immune to the Pulse, and it is the reason you are here."

On Cassidy's wrist, her watch buzzed, synchronized with the special trainee-watches on the wrist of thirty other people in the auditorium. It was the signal that the built-in PDA gave, announcing the end of the allotted time for debriefing.

Alison silenced her watch as Cassidy and her fellow trainees did the same. "You have volunteered yourselves, vowing to be the police force of this island, keeping at bay the crime that manifests itself when no one has anything to lose." Alison slipped of the stage and landed softly on the balls of her feet. "I hope you all remember, through the remaining two years of your training, that your purpose is to make the last days of the lives of Quarantine citizens worth it - you will do anything. You will sacrifice your lives! You will assure peaceful deaths to the infected. They are all you have left."

Alison left, leaving behind an uncharacteristically somber mood in the auditorium.

Cassidy blinked.

A pair of skinny arms wrapped around her from behind. "Hey Cassi," Elle, Cassidy's blond best friend crowed in her ear. Elle had known Cassidy for years. The two girls had lived on the same street as children - they had played together in the grass when they were two, cried together at Elle's parents' funeral when they were six, and applied for the Verde program together when they were fourteen. Now, here they were. Exactly where they had always wanted to be.

"Come one guys, everyone's already left, " Daniel Tate called from the first row, his voice echoing in the empty hall. Dan had been a stranger to everyone on the first day of training, but Cassidy had liked his eager smile and the strange quirks of his studious personality.

"Alison's not usually so serious like that! What's up with her?" Elle asked. If their were two things Dan knew about, they were the Pulse, and bubbly blonde, Alison. Elle thought his fascination with her was the most adorable thing she had ever seen.

"Her parents died before Quarantine came around, like Cassi's and mine," normally, Dan would blush when it came to his knowledge of everything Alison Moiree, but this time he was serious. "She takes this stuff pretty seriously - she was old enough to understand what her parent went through. Back in the US, the Infected would be put up in hospitals - but there were so many of them, they would be more like jail cells, with the victims thrown in to rot and die together. Alison is only twenty-three now - her parents were probably among the last to die before the first shipments to Quarantine."

"So, if Alison was in the first batch of Infected to be shipped, that means she was taken to an island hundreds of miles away, completely alone, just days after her parents died?" Elle's voice was soft. She no doubt was thinking of her own journey to Quarantine, in the dark cargo holes of a steel-hulled ship. At least she had had her parents.

At that point, Alison, Dan, and Cassidy had had no one.