Dan threw on a basic suit of armor before he followed Chad Eisenworth through more drab and unremarkable hallways, with Dan needing to quicken his pace as the executive seemed to be in a hurry. The duo finally arrived at a locked door. The executive typed another passcode into the keypad and the door slid aside.
“Forgive me for the hastiness but since you were brought in for training on such short notice, I had to fill in since we didn’t have any other candidates scheduled and our regular training staff are off-site. I have other matters I need to urgently attend to. After I get you into the combat simulator, someone else will be overseeing your training.”
“It’s alright. As long as I get to practice the shit I saw during the flash training, I’ll be happy,” Dan said. The two stepped through the door.
“That’s good to hear,” Chad said. “You will need that enthusiasm to get through the next phase.”
Dan saw what appeared to be a large empty room trapped inside a glass cage. The outer areas of the room appeared to be waiting spots or maybe for other agents to spectate.
“Looks like hockey ring here,” Dan said. “Except more sterile and lifeless.”
“Once you step inside the simulator, I think you’ll be satisfied with the facility,” Chad smiled and tapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
A section of the glass wall raised itself off the ground, waiting for Dan. He looked at the executive and gave him one last nod before entering the simulator. As he stepped inside, the glass door immediately rushed to seal itself behind him. All the glass walls around him tinted until the room was pitch black.
The ceiling above him brightened until it settled on a generic sky pattern with a casual afternoon blue with sporadic clouds. Whatever artificial lighting the simulator contained finally illuminated the floor below him, showing a generic grey texture.
Out from the sides, white skeletal humanoid beings emerged and walked in a stiff and rigid fashion towards the center of the arena and stood to face Dan. He counted six of these things all lined up with a few meters separating them apart.
Combat drones are now in use.
Dan stepped closer to scrutinize one of these drones. The design of these combat robots was as barebones as it could get. No synthetic skin or even any combat armor. Aside from the white paint job, the combat drones resembled the human skeleton, especially the head which was shaped as a artificial human skull. Instead of protecting organs, the strange skeletal pattern contained technology Dan could only vaguely make out as excess wiring and chips trapped within a translucent membrane.
A small rectangular block rose up from the ground a few meters to Dan’s right. Walking up to the block, he saw a small compartment within the block that contained a pistol held up by small metal hooks along with two additional magazines.
“Wow, that’s some engineering,” he muttered.
Please take the handgun and prepare for target practice.
Dan grabbed the pistol off the metal hooks along with both the available magazines. Remembering the flash training, Dan inserted the mag into the bottom of the hand grip and pulled back the top slide. He shoved the other mag into one of the pouches in his belt.
Stun rounds are now in use. Good luck!
The HUD didn’t bother explaining to Dan the difference between stun rounds and regular bullets, though he assumed since this was just a training simulation, live rounds weren’t necessary. He also assumed that the Alpha Corp wasn’t willing to waste money having its combat drones get shredded after every training session.
His HUD was updated by highlighting one of the combat drones in a red outline. Then a follow-up message popped up in front of him.
Please begin by shooting this drone. You need to land at least five shots before the next stage.
“Sounds easy enough,” he said.
Dan held the handgun with both hands and steadied his aim at the drone. He viewed the drone’s torso through the sights of the firearm then squeezed the trigger. Whether this was just a basic pistol or his enhanced strength, he felt little to no recoil from the shot. The stun round impacted the torso of the drone but didn’t penetrate. Dan pulled the trigger another few times and landed all of his shots, hitting the five-shot minimum.
The red outline around the drone disappeared. His HUD threw more text in front of his vision.
Now your aim will be tested on moving targets. You must hit all six of the moving drones at least once. If you fail to do so with all of your obtained ammo, you will be forced to try again. Another failure will end the simulation.
The mechanical whirring of the drones caught Dan’s attention and he saw the drones come back to live. Every single one of them began moving in various directions while performing a variety of moves. One drone performed flips and sommersaults and another simply jogged around in circles.
“Alright then,” Dan whispered.
He raised his pistol and prioritized the two drones closest to him. He hit one drone while it performed a cartwheel and he hit another in the shoulder piece while it jumped into the air. A counter at the corner of his eye popped up. Both drones promptly stopped in their tracks from being hit.
2/6
Dan tried walking a few steps ahead to get closer to the drones who were further away. By then a yellow line illuminated the floor and flashed repeatedly in front of his feet.
You are not allowed to step any closer. Failure to obey will end the training.
“So that’s how it’s going to be,” Dan said.
He wasn’t surprised at this. He figured it would have been cheap and easy to simply move closer to the enemy.
Dan focused his attention on his next two targets, one drone at his two o’clock position performing the flips and another to his far left running in circles.
Dan raised his pistol and pulled the trigger at the drone mid-sommersault. The shot grazed the leg of the drone and it continued its acrobatic moves without skipping a beat. Dan narrowed his eyes at the happy-go-lucky drone and inhaled. He held his breath as he tried to anticipate the drone’s next move rather than trying to follow and react to it.
Dan finally spotted an opportunity and pulled the trigger. The shot found its way into the skull face of the drone during an attempted back flip. The drone unceremoniously flopped onto the ground and didn’t get back up.
3/6
Dan moved on and dashed to his left, moving towards the drone running around in circles. After dealing with the annoyance of the third drone, Dan’s pettiness got the better of him and he aimed low, firing a shot at the drone’s leg. The stun round impacted the drone where someone’s kneecap would be and the robot collapsed and skidded along the ground.
4/6
The final two drones would be the toughest to hit. Dan glanced at one of them and watched a drone seemingly act like a drunken fool. The drone awkwardly danced on the ground with moves Dan couldn’t remotely recognize while also ducking and weaving.
The other drone simply stood in place with its legs bent in a crouching position, silently facing Dan.
Dan raised his pistol and pulled the trigger, only for the weapon to click empty. He grabbed the other magazine from his belt and reloaded his weapon, taking the empty mag out and inserting a fresh one.
As soon as Dan raised his pistol at the dancing drone, the drone seemingly detected Dan’s intent to kill and its movements became even more erratic. His first two rounds missed entirely as his shots grazed past the unpredictable jerkiness of the drone’s movements. Dan pulled the trigger and prepared to fire a third round, but as the round left the barrel of the pistol, the drone lept and spun in the air, narrowly avoiding the round.
“Give me a fucking break,” Dan muttered.
When the drone landed, its foot landed on a piece of one of the other drones that had shut down from being hit earlier. The drone briefly lost its balance and Dan took the opportunity to put down the dancing bot for good. He fired a single shot that smashed into the drone’s chest, causing its arms to flail as it fell to the ground.
5/6
The final drone stayed in the same crouching position as it creepily stared at him. Dan knew it was just a robot with basic programming. He knew a robot couldn’t intentionally be creepy, but the lifeless skull head and socketless eyes staring at him made him shutter.
Then the drone made its move.
Before Dan could kill the sixth and final drone, the robot lept into the air so high he flew over Dan’s head and landed behind him.
Now testing agent’s reflex stat.
“What the hell does that mean?” Dan asked out loud.
A single gunshot from behind shocked the hell out of Dan. It had to be that sixth drone that had jumped behind him. But something strange happened. Dan lost control over his body as if something else was moving it for him.
Dan involuntarily sidestepped and dodged a stun round that slashed the space beside him. For a split second, he watched the single stun round travel in the air in slow motion before time resumed back to normal. The round impacted harmlessly at the other side of the arena.
He spun on his heel and fired a barrage of rounds at the combat drone, filling it with stun rounds as retribution for almost nailing him in the back.
6/6
Dan’s breathing was heavy with long and drawn-out breaths. Just from that dodge alone, much of his energy was drained and he struggled to stand up straight.
His HUD popped open more info.
An Alpha-approved stun round travels 90 meters per second.
Congratulations! You have successfully evaded an attack from a combat drone from behind at a distance of 11 meters.
Dan still had no idea how he managed to dodge such a fast-moving projectile while having his back to his enemy. His HUD elaborated further.
An agent fresh out of augmentation has enhanced reflexes compared to a non-enhanced human. The higher the reflex stat, the greater the chance of an agent dodging a fatal attack.
Please exit the simulation to allow the next stage to be set.
Dan slowly walked away and followed the waypoint on his HUD, leading him through the opened glass in the wall and out to the waiting room of the training simulation. He leaned his back against the nearest wall trying to catch his breath and rest as much as he could for whatever came next.
Now witnessing his reflex stat in action, Dan had some time to think about the implications of such a power. If he was ever caught by surprise by an enemy, he had a chance to dodge an attack that could have killed him. He pulled up his stats again and checked his own reflex stat.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Reflex: Average +
Such a rating allowed him to dodge a stun round from behind. He wondered what other situations he could possibly walk away from just from having superior snap reflexes compared to a regular person. He reminded himself that something like this wasn’t a guaranteed get-out-of-jail-free card. He remembered the HUD message and flash training section that emphasized the “chance” of dodging a deadly attack.
After a few minutes of waiting, his HUD updated him.
New training objective: Steal a small crystal from an enemy compound.
Failure to remain undetected will result in a fail.
Dan’s HUD sent him more details and he received a map with a basic layout of the structure he was to sneak into as well as the area surrounding the structure. He had no idea how many enemies would be guarding the place.
A waypoint appeared on a crate next to the opened glass panel on the cage wall. He followed the floating icon and the crate contained a new handgun with a silencer on it along with two additional magazines. Two cylindrical grenades were laid beside the handgun.
Your weapons:
PX300 silenced pistol
Flashbang grenade (2x)
Once Dan gathered his new equipment, he stepped through the gap in the giant glass wall and his eyes widened at the new training arena.
Dan saw a skyline depicting a sunset in the distance with brilliant gold rays shining down on the arena mixed with a dull and faded blue in the sky. The structure he had to sneak into appeared in the center of a field about fifty meters in front of him. He looked to his sides and saw nothing but a rural landscape in the middle of the land that stretched as far he as he could see. This was the only house for many kilometers.
He crouched down and moved near a small grouping of hedges. Dan immediately spotted two combat drones outside armed with rifles walking a patrol pattern around the house. After observing for a few minutes, he memorized the predictable pattern the guards walked. Seeing a gap in their patrol and spotting the entrance, Dan was on his feet and ran as quietly as he could toward the house.
Dan finally reached the front steps of the house and quickly pressed his back against the nearest wall as he heard the mechanical whirring of the combat drone’s joints. One drone walked in front of the house while staring off into the distance away from Dan. He slowly reached his hand for the front door and turned the door knob. Dan hit his first snag as the handle wouldn’t turn.
Locked. That’s not surprising, Dan thought.
He watched the combat drone walk away from view and knew that he had to find a window to enter. Dan stepped off the front porch and walked to the side. He found a window without a frame or glass and simply reached and pulled himself up and into the house.
Recalling the brief layout of the house sent directly to his HUD, Dan knew the crystal was on the second floor in one of the rooms. He took one step and winced at the creaking of the floorboards beneath his feet. He knew that engaging a combat drone, or several of them in such tight and confined spaces wasn’t ideal. This mission had to be done quickly.
Dan walked through what appeared to be a living room and out into the hallway that led to a staircase. His ears picked up the familiar mechanical whirring and he spotted a drone at the end of the hall. Dan raised his pistol and fired at the drone, scoring a headshot. The drone flopped backwards and hit the ground.
Dan lunged up the stairs putting as much speed into his legs as possible. A floating dot in his peripheral vision pointed him towards the room that had the crystal. As he reached the second floor, he slowed himself down and steadied his pace, passing by several rooms toward the final one.
The last room had no door and it was an open path toward the crystal. He leaned against the wall and peeked around to see inside the room. Dan spotted the crystal trapped inside a jewel case on a table against the wall while two combat drones paced back and forth guarding the artefact.
Dan reached down to his belt and grabbed one of the flashbangs and threw it into the room. A sudden pop and flash of light exploded in the room and Dan rushed in with his pistol ready. He fired rounds into the disorientated drones and both keeled over. Seeing the room was clear, he approached the crystal and placed his hand on the glass jewel case. He found a small gap within the case and slid his thumb into it, popping the top glass off.
Dan reached into the case and grabbed the crystal, then hastily shoved the small object into one of the pouches on his belt.
Warning: The combat drones have suspected an enemy presence. You must leave the area immediately.
Dan spotted the window in the room and checked outside to look for any more drones outside. Looking down, he spotted three drones below him looking at each other. Dan reached for his last flashbang and tossed the grenade down beneath him as he lept out the window. The flash hit right before his feet hit the ground and Dan put all his effort into his legs and sprinted.
His HUD placed a waypoint ahead of him and Dan raced to reach the end of this training exercise.
Dan reached the waypoint and his HUD updated him with a message.
Training objective completed!
You will move on to the final stage of the combat simulation.
Please exit the simulation to allow the next stage to be set.
Dan saw a bizarre break in the serene landscape in the form of the exit from the combat simulator, like a bizarre portal between different worlds.
He stepped through and walked past a combat drone carrying various weapons and items and placing them into the same crate he previously received his gear.
“Your boys must take quite a beating having to be our punching bags,” Dan said to the drone.
The drone didn’t stop to listen or respond to Dan and simply threw a rifle into the crate and walked away.
***
The next two months were a rinse and repeat of heading into the simulator and fighting across various artificial landscapes against more combat drones. Dan was subjected to various scenarios, including bomb diffusal, infiltration and mock assassinations.
Dan stood alone with his arms crossed in the waiting area wondering what the last stage could be. If he was going up against more combat drones, he was confident he could handle himself just fine, as long as he received adequate gear. But maybe that was it. The training might throw him a curve ball and have him fight and win against a set number of combat drones without weapons. He would have to rely on what he learned from the hand-to-hand combat section during the flash training.
Already recalling the moves he saw in the flash training, Dan knew most of the takedown moves and the blocks and counters against opponents wielding knives or pistols, at least in theory. He just hoped that he could execute them with the finesse needed to pass and complete the training.
Please retrieve your weapons for the last stage of the training.
Dan followed the icon floating above the crate and looked inside. What he saw confused him. Dan grabbed a rifle with the body of an AK with dual bayonets along with a non-silenced pistol that felt heavier than the PX300. He also found one single grenade to use.
Your weapons:
ZK-77 assault rifle
Pistol
Impact grenade
Note: Live rounds in use.
Dan’s original theory of doing an unarmed stage was thrown out the window. Somehow his HUD still hadn’t given him any details on what sort of final stage he had to pass that required this sort of firepower. He also wasn’t using stun rounds anymore.
The section within the tinted glass wall opened and Dan walked through once more to meet his next challenge. The current arena had shifted from the rural landscape to a desolate and brutalist architecture that depicted steel and concrete barriers surrounding a flat and open area in the middle.
Dan spotted a sudden spot of light in his peripheral vision and he watched the silhouette of something enter the arena. His HUD gave him his next update.
Final training objective: Fight and survive against another agent. The agent will judge you based on combat performance and will determine whether you pass or fail.
“Oh shit,” Dan muttered.
The agent stepped into the lit arena and Dan held his breath as he saw the white coat and armor of the agent. He recalled Michael Cynosa wearing a similar uniform and wondered if that was the caliber of agent he had to fight in this last stage. His HUD popped up some stats on his opponent.
Agent: Bobby Obsidian
Age: 47 M
Shard: Alpha Corporation
Rank: Tier 3 | Level 73
Strength: 90
Agility: 89
Endurance: 92
Intelligence: 94
Reflex: Metahuman ++
Healing Factor: High
Whoever this Bobby guy was, Dan knew this was not an opponent he was anywhere near ready to take on in a proper fight. Bobby stood tall at the other side of the simulated arena with his arms crossed. Like Michael, he had a white mask that covered the lower half of his face. His hair was a bright blond shade that appeared spiked and gelled.
Dan was a lowly level three while this agent was level seventy-three.
How the fuck am I going to fight that? Dan thought.
As if his HUD sensed his fear and hopelessness, an updated message popped up in front of him.
The goal of this exercise is to test all of what you have learned against a real opponent. In the real world, an agent does not have the luxury of choosing his opponents.
Win condition: You must deal any amount of damage to the agent.
Countdown: 10
The stage gave Dan a brief countdown and some time to get himself set up. Dan analyzed the concrete blocks surrounding the open arena while also eyeing the agent as he slowly walked toward the flat and open center. He spotted an elevated platform to his eleven o’clock position and knew that getting there would give him the high ground.
The arena just outside the grouping of concrete blocks was shrouded in darkness and Dan hoped that this allowed him some cover so that the agent wouldn’t anticipate what he had planned. Dan reached the structure which was simply just a series of concrete blocks stacked on top of each other to form a makeshift lookout tower for this particular exercise.
Countdown: 0
Good luck!
Dan laid flat on his stomach and remained as quiet and still as possible on top of the concrete slab. He had no idea how much better the agent’s senses were compared to his own. For all Dan knew, Bobby’s hearing could be so good that he could hear Dan’s breathing.
Dan made a mental note of the gear he had on him. He had a ZK-77 assault rifle in his hand with a pistol and one single impact grenade.
The seconds that passed by felt like minutes, even hours. Dan knew that he could not afford to screw up and fail. Only one idea made sense and had a shot of working. Dan slowly reached down with his free hand and grabbed the impact grenade from his belt.
Dan already knew the chances of hitting the agent with this grenade were slim to none. But if he couldn’t deal damage directly to his superior opponent with this grenade, then he could alternatively use it to force the agent into a less favorable position.
By directing his enemy, Dan could line up a good shot on Bobby while he focused on dodging the grenade. He thought about where to throw the grenade and decided that tossing it directly in front of Bobby and forcing him to backpedal would be the best and most predictable option.
Dan’s finger still rested stretched on the trigger guard of his rifle while his other hand had the impact grenade ready to be thrown. He remembered the flash training and knew that he simply had to press his thumb on a button to prime the grenade.
Keeping his movements minute and methodical, Dan crawled closer to the edge of the concrete slab he laid on and pressed the button on the grenade. He tossed it right in front of the agent, knowing that his opponent could not miss it.
As Dan predicted, Bobby immediately reacted to the grenade and backed off. Dan grinned, knowing this was what he was counting on. He rose to his knees and aimed his ZK-77 at the agent. He squeezed the trigger and didn’t hold back, firing a full auto stream of bullets at Bobby.
Dan watched as one round pinged off the shoulder of the agent. The rest of his rounds flew wide and missed due to Dan’s lack of control of the rifle’s recoil. His rifle clicked empty and the agent had disappeared right in front of his eyes. Dan’s ears picked up the crumbling of concrete behind him before something grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Hmm, I see why Michael vouched for you,” Bobby whispered behind him.
The agent didn’t give time for Dan to turn around as he grabbed the ZK-77 and yanked the rifle out of his grasp. The force was so sudden that Dan almost felt his arm pop out of its socket.
“Sorry about that,” Bobby said with a cool tone. “I sometimes forget to watch my strength when watching over the little ones.”
“Little ones?” Dan responded. He looked back and saw the experienced agent tower over him. Even standing up, the agent was still a full head taller.
“I’m three decades your senior kid,” the agent casually mentioned. “When you reach my age, you’ll be giving the same speech to another upstart.”
Dan recalled the stats he saw from the agent and remembered that Bobby was in his late forties.
“Oh right,” Dan said. “So did I pass?”
“Some feedback first,” Bobby said. “You don’t go full auto like that with an assault rifle unless you’re in your opponent’s face. You’re just wasting ammo, and in your case, probably missing the majority of your shots. New agents always underestimate recoil. Other than that, your positioning was solid. You made a smart choice scanning my stats and trying to take the high ground. I’ve done a few of these in the past and I had young wannabe tough guys try to take me on directly. They assumed just because they saw some nice chokeholds in flash training that they can do it on a hardened agent.”
It was only now that Dan realized that Bobby’s speed allowed him to move from the center of the arena to standing up here with him in such a short period of time.
“I try not to take on groups of assholes at a time,” Dan said. “Back where I came from, it’s easy for gangs to take what they want from you since they got numbers on their side. That’s why I only fight if I have something up my sleeve. I don’t do this honorable duel bullshit.”
“Good to hear,” Bobby said.
“By the way, how the hell did you get up here so quick? I was peppering you with lead and was like you just vanished.”
“When you get to my level, you’ll move so fast it will appear that you’re teleporting,” the agent said. He tapped Dan on the shoulder. “Solid work kid. You pass. The road gets harder from here. For you, you’re going to be put through hell.”
“Yeah, I got that impression. You guys have machines that force knowledge into your brain and candidates risk seizures and migraines.”
Bobby looked at him with hardened eyes. “That’s not all. Michael and I go way back and he shared that he’s putting you under Jane Sunheiser’s command.”
Sunheiser, Dan thought. He remembered that name. He remembered seeing a video of a fast-moving brunette agent who blitzed three enemies before they could react.
“See you at the top kid. Just be sure to stay alive,” Bobby said.
The agent backflipped off the concrete slab and landed in the dark area outside the grouping of concrete blocks, disappearing into the shadows.