Dan walked back to the room where he’d woken up and sat cross-legged on the bed. He had been sitting and waiting for what felt like half an hour. In all that time, Dan contemplated just getting up and leaving. Since the team from Alpha hadn’t arrived yet, what would stop him? Why would he obey the instructions of a man he’d never met before?
The answer came down to one thing: curiosity.
Michael Cynosa, this complete stranger who was part of an organization Dan had never heard of, had saved his life. Not only that, he had enhanced Dan with some special serum that has improved his body in every aspect. If Michael was the real deal, then so was this Alpha Corporation.
Dan was curious to see what this organization was all about. Any company that employed people with superhuman abilities was already interesting as far as Dan was concerned. Part of him also wanted to get the hell out of America. He had lived long enough in this shithole of a country. If there really was something better out there for Dan, as Michael had promised, then he would be a fool to turn down the opportunity.
Ultimately, Dan stayed put. He was about to lie down and take a nap when the door to his room creaked open. He almost jumped from his bed, but relaxed once he saw the familiar long coat-wearing agents walk in.
An executive in a neatly pressed suit walked in as well as a female worker with a transparent sheet of glass in her hand. She lifted the glass panel and immediately began swiping through menus on the glass.
“So this is him?” one agent said. The other two agents circled around, presumably forming a perimeter in case the building came under attack.
A chill ran up and down Dan’s back as he realized one unsettling fact. If the Alpha Corp had superhuman agents, what sort of enemies did they have?
“I believe so,” the executive said. “Michael is always precise.”
Dan had time to scrutinize one of the agents. Unlike Michael, this agent wore all black instead of white. The long coat had stylized A symbols on each shoulder and one on the agent’s upper torso. The sleek and contoured body armor underneath the coat was just like Michael’s except black. He wondered if the colors were an aesthetic choice or based on rank. This particular agent barely looked older than Dan.
Dan’s scrutiny wasn’t lost on the agent.
“Don’t worry, kid. You’ll get your own suit of armor soon enough.” The agent turned towards the executive and said, “Are we going to speed this up? I would prefer not to stick around any longer than we have to. We took a big risk entering America’s airspace.”
“Not to worry, agent,” the executive said. He looked to be in his late forties, early fifties. He didn’t have the same scars or harsh wrinkles on his face like Michael, though his hair was graying on the sides.
Dan got off the bed and stood up straight. He was slightly taller than the executive by a few centimeters.
“Are you Dan?” the executive asked.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Dan said. “Michael Cynosa told me to wait for you guys.”
The executive smiled and said, “That’s good. We’ll have to speed up this process. Usually, we would put you into a big orientation with the other recruits. But due to your… circumstances, we’ll have to put you through the registration process right away.” He looked at the woman, presumably his secretary. “Skye, get the questions ready.”
“Yes sir,” the woman said. She walked up to Dan and gave him a brief up and down scan with her eyes. Dan couldn’t make out anything from her blank facial expression.
“What’s your full name?” she asked.
“That’s… complicated. America is a fucked up country,” Dan said.
“Son, you’ll have to be more specific than that,” the executive said.
“Well, Dan is the only proper name I was given. My mom used to tell me about how America had gotten rid of surnames for its citizens.”
Such a fact wiped away the blank expression on the secretary’s face. She gave him a worried look and then a frown.
“So things have gotten that bad here, eh?” the executive said. “Well, Dan, lucky for you this makes the process easier for us. Every agent gets a unique code name. For that to happen, they must completely abandon their former surname and adopt a new name to go along with their given name.”
Dan’s mom had always lectured him about the stripping of individuality in America and how horrible and dehumanizing it was. This executive’s blase attitude about that little fact about America was unsettling, to say the least. What kind of horrors did this executive witness in his career to treat such a cold fact with such insignificance?
“Just to confirm, your date of birth is March 18, 2283?” she asked.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Holy shit,” an agent said. “Well, happy birthday, kid. It’s not every day you become an agent on such a joyous occasion.”
“Thanks, man,” Dan said. “My birthdays are never that special. Every day just feels the same to me.”
“Don’t worry, kid,” the agent said. “Once you become one of us, every day will bring its own special challenge.”
The secretary scrolled down several paragraphs of information on her glass tablet. “Well, I think that’s all I need from you.”
“Huh?” Dan said.
“I needed some clarification on your name. I have the rest of your personal info on here.”
“But how?”
“We ordered our agents to hack the surveillance systems in this area and gather intel about you from this country’s database on its citizens. Then we have an algorithm that compiles all the relevant details into a fact sheet.”
She continued scrolling through the supposed data on Dan. Whoever these Alpha guys were, they knew their stuff.
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“It appears you aren’t as green as our other recent recruits,” the secretary said. She looked towards her executive and smiled. “Dan has his own combat record.”
The executive leaned over and read through the information on the glass tablet. He gave an approving nod.
“Yes, I see. Looks like you have experience dealing with the local crime in your area. The surveillance footage has records of your rebelliousness against these gangs since you were only eight years old.”
“I did what I had to do to survive,” Dan said in a firm tone. “You learn that pretty quickly when you and your mom have bullies chasing after you with knives.”
The same agent Dan had scrutinized chuckled. “The kid’s a fighter. I like that. He’s already ahead of all these pampered rich kids we’ve been taking in.”
“Indeed,” the executive said. “That explains why he’s already level three in rank just after taking the serum. Dan, you are a perfect fit with us.”
The executive had the winning smile Dan would see from this country’s government officials. Even in the dim lighting, he could tell how white the man’s teeth were.
“Tell me, what is it you guys do exactly?” Dan asked, making direct eye contact with the executive. “You have agents armed to the teeth with rifles I’ve never seen before and armor that can take a beating. And you guys got serums that give superhuman powers too? Who the hell are you guys? What are you guys?”
The executive and the secretary exchanged glances. Then the executive looked at Dan. “Well, kid. This will be a long one and you’re better off looking at the wiki entries about our situation in the East. But I’ll give the short version of who we are.”
Dan leaned against the bed frame and crossed his arms. He was genuinely interested in hearing what had been going on outside of America.
“We’re the Alpha Corporation. Founded about a hundred and fifty years ago. We’re one of the three big corporate shards that control the East,” the executive said.
“The East? The East where exactly?” Dan asked.
“The entire East. All of the land that used to be Europe, Africa and Asia is under a constant battle for control between us and the other prominent two shards.”
Curiously, all of the world maps and textbooks Dan had read in school still showed the other half of the world. And yet, this executive claimed that all the countries and continents in the East were no longer what they used to be called.
“So what? The maps and textbooks I’ve read are wrong?”
“Well, the lands are still intact. But I think someone needs to redraw the borders because the governments of those former nations no longer exist.”
The executive let that sentence hang. Dan couldn’t say anything after hearing that. How was he supposed to react to the fact that everything he’d learned about the nations and continents outside the U.S. had all been a lie?
“We the Alpha Corporation are one of the three shards. We’ve taken over the government’s duties in the land we own.”
“So you guys are the new government now?” Dan asked.
“In a select few territories, yes,” the executive said with a smile. “Before you ask, entities such as us are referred to as shards because we own our specific ‘shard’ of the land where these countries used to exist.”
Dan’s jaw dropped. “So where’s China, Russia and every other country in the East? They’re just gone, just like that?”
“They have been absorbed into a shard. All of them have,” the agent deadpanned. “Welcome to the future, kid.”
“How much land does the Alpha Corporation own?” Dan asked.
The executive stroked his chin as he tried coming up with an answer. “Well, I think you’ll understand better if I send the numbers to your HUD.”
Dan received a notification in his peripheral vision. A spinning blue icon popped open and then a small block of text materialized in the air in front of him.
Total land mass owned by the Alpha Corporation in the Eastern section of Earth: 23.66%.
Dan stared blankly at the message before it faded away. From what Dan gathered from this conversation, the Alpha Corporation was not only a megacorporation that employed superhuman agents, but also served as the government in the land they owned.
“I know, kid, it’s a lot,” the agent said. “My boss is only giving you the condensed version about the situation in the East. You’ll have to fill in the gaps and find the answers to the questions you have on your own.”
Dan tried to think of any other question he could ask about the Alpha Corp. The only thing that came to mind next was how they had so quickly managed to gather so much data about him, even though this shard didn’t know of his existence until he’d met Michael Cynosa.
“How easy was it to obtain info about me? Are the security systems here that garbage?”
The executive simply smiled. “Yes. America seems to have gotten complacent. But we’re not here to start anything with the U.S. Our priority is to get you registered and recruited into the Alpha Corporation. Our algorithms for gathering info about specific individuals are quite sophisticated. That’s all I can tell you.”
Not a lengthy answer, but Dan would take what he could get.
“Now, if that’s all the questions you have, we need to ask you a few more of our own,” the executive said.
Dan hopped on the bed and made himself comfortable. “Ask away.”
“Very well then,” the executive said. He looked to his secretary. “Go ahead, Skye.”
The secretary nodded and walked towards Dan, standing beside his bed.
“Do you have any immediate family?”
“No. It’s just me. The last family I had was my mom. She died a few months ago,” Dan said somberly.
“You don’t have to answer if you feel uncomfortable, but how did she die?”
The memories of that horrific day all came flooding back into Dan’s mind. He didn’t need to spare all the gruesome details.
“She bought time for me to run away from a group of gangsters chasing after us. She had some valuable jewelry that was worth big bucks, and those assholes wanted it for themselves. When I found her, she was already dead and robbed.”
The agent shut his eyes. The secretary’s face remained mostly blank except for a brief flash of pity. “And your dad?”
“Never met him,” Dan said. “My mom told me he died before I could even form words.”
“What were you up to before your recruitment?” she asked.
“Uh, outside of school and fighting and running from gangs?” Dan shrugged. “Not a whole lot. I’m just another asshole trying to survive this dump of a country.”
“Well, kid, look on the bright side,” the agent said. “This country’s a shithole, you don’t have family or friends here, and you’re a natural ass-kicker and pain in the ass to these local gangs. I think you’ll fit in just fine with us.”
“I agree, though I would have used more elegant terms,” the executive said. “So, Dan, everyone here thinks you’re a good candidate to become an Alpha agent. But what about you? What do you think?”
Dan wasn’t stupid. He knew this was an offer he couldn’t refuse. Not only because he wanted to get out of the States, but he had a feeling he couldn’t refuse even if he wanted to. He was in a room with a powerful executive who called the shots along with his small team of agents probably just as dangerous as Michael Cynosa. If it came down to it, Dan knew his odds were zero if he tried to resist or be difficult with these guys.
Plus, Michael had saved his life and given him this opportunity to venture into a new world of being an Alpha agent. Dan may have been a street kid, but gratitude wasn’t lost on him. The least he could do for the man who’d saved him was to take up this offer.
“You want my honest thoughts?” Dan said. He gave the executive his widest grin. “I think I have my ticket out of this dump. Anything is better than here. If I get to wear badass armor and shoot badass guns like these guys over here, I’m in.”
“That’s the spirit,” the agent said.
The executive gave an approving nod. “I’m glad to hear that. Do you have any important belongings with you?”
“No. I got nothing to my name. These shorts I’m wearing aren’t even mine,” Dan said. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
“Excellent,” the executive said. He extended out his hand. “My name is Chad Eisenworth. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dan Orion.”