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possible places.
    Kinsey Ayers, A
Brief History of the Mind
     
    Tamisa’s
determined walk left angry echoes on the hallway of the administrative
building. She had resolved to control herself this time. This time she wasn’t
going to let her temper dictate her actions. It wasn’t easy - her heart pounded
with rage. Tamisa’s problem was that she was absolutely gorgeous. Her tall,
curvy body, dark brown eyes and wild, curly hair exuded a raw sexuality that
had been a constant thorn in her side, ever since she had enrolled in the
Enforcement Unit Academy. She hated her beauty and tried her best to hide it.
That was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.
    “You look
lovely, sweetheart,” said Martin Anderson, who had just bumped into her. If
those words had  been spoken by anyone other than Marty, that person would
probably have gotten punched. Anger was boiling inside her, but she knew that
she could not afford another slip, for fear of getting a dishonorable discharge.
Also, she knew that Marty wasn’t making fun of her. The man was all heart. He
would have never been disrespectful to any of his cadets.
    Martin was
Thomas Anderson’s brother. He had two things in common with his sibling. The
first was that, although large and physically imposing, his otherwise
benevolent appearance gave him the aura of a loveable grandfather. The second
was the fact that he was an extremely dangerous soldier who had, in his
lifetime, killed more men than most people meet.
    Martin noticed
that Tamisa didn’t say anything. “You’re not going to go talk to him like this,
are you sweetheart?”
    “I’m fine,
Marty,” she lied. “I just need to get back in the loop, that’s all.”
    The old man gave
her a smile one would normally offer a five-year-old trying on her mother’s
shoes. “You know, if Tommy sees you like this, he’ll send you right back home
for another six months.”
    “Like what?” she
asked, with a lump in her throat.
    “Come on, you’re
angry as hell,” Marty said, laughing. “Hiding your feelings was never your
forte.” Tamisa let out a frustrated growl. Marty just continued laughing,
irritating her even more.
    “Look,” he said,
“I don’t even know what you’re angry about. You look much better now anyway.”
    “Damn it, Marty,
I lost six months!”
    “You haven’t
lost them, you trained… with me . That’s hardly lost time. You know, most
people don’t even make it to this point.”
    Marty was Thomas
Anderson’s first lieutenant and was also in charge of training the cadets in
the final stages before active duty. And he was right, most cadets never made
it this far, especially women. She let out a deep breath. “I know. Thanks
Marty.”
    “Don’t thank
me,” he said in a reprimanding tone. “You shouldn’t be thanking me at all,
because I shouldn’t have to tell you this, not at this point. You have come
further as a female cadet than anyone in the past two decades. Now you’re doing
exactly the things that get others kicked out in the first place. You’re too
easy to provoke. If Tommy decides that can’t be fixed -”
    “He’ll send me
home?” she asked, her voice trembling at the thought that the last decade of
her life might have been for nothing.
    “No, not at this
stage,“ Marty said. “But he will probably assign you to a desk job for
good and you’ll never see any action as long as you live. Then those six
months won’t seem like such a long time.“
    Marty was right
and Tamisa knew it. She had been taken off active duty right as she was about
to embark on her first mission, as punishment for shaving her head. She had
always struggled to do everything right. She had been the most determined, hard
working cadet in her group. She was obsessed with becoming the first female
Enforcer in over twenty-four years, proving that she can be just as efficient
as her male counterparts.
    The system was
so biased against women that it deterred most of them from