Lara was the last one to enter the room, as she had been in the back during the welcome. She walked in, her back habitually straight and tossed her bag down in the first available bed, which just so happened to be in the very back of the room. It seemed as if most of her fellow recruits had wanted beds nearer the door.<br/><br/>Lara turned away from them a moment and stretched a stubborn muscle in her back. Thankfully, she had not been so far behind that she missed the introductions, and now that she new their names and professions, she studied them curiously. She had been right. There was nothing particularly special about any of them, except their humanity. Lara felt an unexpected warmth towards these people, even the eccentric Russian and Lance, who seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes on Tabitha’s face. They were all here to fight the same tyrants, and that had to count for something.<br/><br/>Suddenly, the lights of the building shut off, and a soft siren screamed in the distance. Lara gulped for air as the creature from her reckoning appeared in front of her eyes. “You are pain,” it said in her mind, greenish-yellow eyes glistening, but this time, the young woman felt no pain. It was just a memory.<br/>“I am Lara,” she whispered under her breath, so none of the others could hear.<br/>Then, the lights came back on with a whir of electronics, and Lara decided that it was time to introduce herself, if only to distract the others from the light failure.<br/><br/>“Hey,” she said with a slight smile, “ I’m Lara. I used to fix old machines in a textile factory; nothing impressive, not like what we’ll be doing now.” After a moment, she looked down at her bare wrist and asked “Does anyone know what time it is, or how close we are to dinner?”<br/><br/>Her stomach chose that moment to rumble obnoxiously, and Lara was pretty sure the last good sized meal she had had was a couple days ago. She grimaced slightly, thinking that one benefit of being Home was going to be regular meals, and an actual bed to sleep in.