Chapter 9 – The Expedition (1)
“Head towards base camp!” barked the staff officer from the buses, directing the students from the swirling gate towards the central building that looked very much out of place in the otherwise untouched wilderness. A convoy of trucks filled with cargo rolled past the students towards the gate, their engines leaving behind a trail of black smoke.
Not many of the students immediately followed the directions, as a large portion were still gawking at the new world they had stepped in, with some bending down to feel the unnaturally long grass that came up to their knees, and others scanning the horizon nervously. It looked eerily prehistoric. The ground where the base camp stood had been razed and paved with concrete, but around it was overgrowth. Ferns and other strangely colored plants leaned past the concrete as if to reclaim the land, including several that bore spiky fruit.
It did not take a genius to figure out what everyone was thinking—where was this place?
More importantly, where were the monsters?
"Keep moving!"
William shuffled along the grass trail which had been greatly flattened by convoy trucks. After walking for a while, he found himself directly behind Evelyn and Isabella. Everyone had changed into standard issue military gear, and the two of them were no exception. With so many students wearing the same gray uniform, it was difficult to tell who was who. He hardly noticed them until he felt the back of Evelyn's head bump into his torso when she slowed down.
"Hey, watch it," Evelyn said, before turning around and seeing who it was. "Oh."
"Sorry, wasn't paying attention."
There was a bit of a pause as they kept walking, now as a group, until Isabella Isadore broke the silence.
"We're finally here on the other side. What do you think?" she asked.
Finn looked like he was about to say too much. William shot him a look, which shut him up immediately.
"It's kind of quiet," William said.
"I know right? We haven't really seen anything this whole walk. Do you think the military scared off all the wildlife?"
"Could be."
"Why do you think that is?"
"They might've just shot everything that moved in the area," William said. "That's how the military usually deals with things. I can't blame them, since it's safer that way."
"Well that's not very nice, is it," Isabella replied, peering into the distance to confirm what he said.
"No, it's not very nice."
There was another, longer pause in the conversation, until they reached base camp. Several tables had been set up and arranged in alphabetical order with their indvidual packs of supplies on the tables. Finn and Evelyn headed to the M table, Isabella to a table several to the left of them, and William headed to the second table from the left.
As he looked through the packs for his own, he felt a sharp pain in his side as someone elbowed him.
"Sorry," said a grinning Luke. "Didn't see you there." His eyes were different now, burning with excitement. Of all the students here, he had the least worries about safety as a level seven, and could simply enjoy the hunt.
William grabbed his pack and left the table, heading for Finn and Evelyn, eager to get away from Luke. He tried not to dwell too much on the threat that Luke gave him earlier today. There were more important things to worry about right now.
They then picked up Isabella and proceeded to sit on the concrete nearby to open their packs, as the other students were now doing.
Finn rummaged inside his pack and took out a pair of glasses similar to the ones he wore normally. He put them on cautiously. "Sweet, they got my prescription right!"
Inside the pack was a map, a locator stick, a flare, several packs of nutrient bricks labeled Rations, dried jerky, a water flask, and a set of printed instructions.
Out of curiousity, he opened one of the nutrient bricks, revealing that they were made of some type of cornmeal with various unknown chunks of meat and vegetables. Overall it did not look very appetizing, but William had had worse. He wasn't complaining.
Isabella looked annoyed at the sight of the nutrient bricks in William's hands. "Are we supposed to eat that our whole time here?"
"Probably not," he replied, pointing at a supply truck that was now unloading its cargo into the base. It was loaded with produce, with soldiers hauling large crates of potatoes and rice into the outpost. The other trucks in the convoy consisted of an oil tanker that was now being nozzle fed into the base camp's generator, a truck equipped with a shortwave antenna, radar and other reconnaissance equipment—and also armed with a machine gun at the front, as one could never be too careful beyond the gate—and a loader truck carrying munitions. The Pain-Gammon corporate logo of two concentric circles could be seen in small print at the bottom of the munitions truck.
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To the right of the Pain-Gammon truck, there was another one. It was oddly shaped, like a long cylinder with steel bars intersecting in a criss cross shape all throughout, and only after careful observation did William arrive at the understanding that this truck was intended to be a cage. But for what? And why was it shaped in such a strange way?
He frowned. The students' training appeared to be an afterthought compared to the actual mission that was being conducted on in this orange gate world. William quietly nudged Finn and indicated at the cage with his head. Finn's eyes widened in recognition.
Evelyn took out the printed instructions from her pack and began scrutinizing it.
William took his out as well and began to read. The set was actually three separate pages. Skimming them, he decided to read the first one which was related to their task expectations.
Attn: All students
Re: Tasks
Expedition is to last seven nights, eight days. Each day, students are to be assigned duties according to necessity as determined by command. These duties include but are not limited to: reconnaissance, patrol, trail tracking, extraction, gathering, botanical sampling, elimination, and general labor. Students may take missions stubs from the morning bulletin board and fulfill these requests.
Successful mission completion will result in points awarded based on the difficulty or necessity of the task undertaken. A leaderboard of all students' points will be maintained at base camp.
Sgn: Frost
William glanced up—Finn had his nose buried in the paper, while Evelyn studied it carefully. Isabella had flipped onto her back and was now reading the instructions with her paper blocking the sun.
It was daytime here in the world, while it was evening back at home, meaning that time of day was different here. He wondered if the length of day differed as well, or, looking at it from the other way around, if the length of night differed. After yesterday's events, he didn't like the dark, and he especially didn't like the night.
Perhaps he was experiencing some mild trauma. After all, he nearly died. A touch of trauma would not be unusual in his situation, but he digressed.
He moved on to the next paper. It was a bit strange to be reading printed material in the digital era, but as the original crisis taught them, technology had a habit of failing during the most unfortunate of times. A piece of paper was just that, a piece of paper, and within that simplicity lay immunity from certain types of failings.
Attn: All students
Re: Rules
The following rules are to be strictly followed to ensure the safety of students as well as military personnel. Failure to comply may jeoardize base security. The penalty for rules breaking will be appropriately severe and at our descretion.
1. Curfew for students is at 11 P.M. All students must return to the building by this time. There will be a grace period of thirty minutes lasting until 11:30 P.M. during which a minor penalty will be issued to late arriving parties, after which doors will be locked.
2. Leaving the outpost at night, defined by the period of time between 11:30 P.M. to 5 A.M., is strictly forbidden for students under any circumstances. Any student found in disobedience of this rule will be subject to court martial.
3. All students must remain within the area indicated on the daily map, for their own safety.
4. All students must carry their locator at all times when out on the field, for their own safety. Radar locations of all locators are pinged to the outpost command center and radar equipped observation post vehicles.
Sgn: Frost
Go figure. Whoever drafted up these instructions didn't seem to be particularly fond of the night either. Court martial was quite the severe punishment, too. He flipped to the last page of the instructions while his thoughts lingering on the implications of what he had just read.
Attn: All students
Re: Locator
Attached are instructions for the locator. Remove the cap and press the button once to call for first aid, and three times consecutively to call for emergency rescue while on the field. Local time is displayed on the side of your locator. Be mindful of the time and make plans to return to base camp before 11 P.M.
Sgn: Office of Logistics
Evelyn finished reading all three pages and neatly folded the instructions back into her pouch. "We're going to be graded on points based on task completion," she said. "During guild recruitment that'll be the first thing they look at besides our file from the initiation. It's like final exams—we'll have to do well to stand out in order to get into a good guild."
As William had not shared his suspicions with her, naturally she cared the most about her career progression.
"You're a really high level blade aura user though," said Finn. "Won’t the big seven take you regardless?”
”They might, but my mom told me that high level recruits that perform poorly on their evaluations can still get screwed over with bad contracts,” said Evelyn. She appeared flustered. "I just hope they let us take regular jobs when this nonsense is all over. Biotech just sent me an internship offer yesterday, and I had to reject it!"
William would be lying if he pretended that he wasn't jealous. Biotech specialized in otherworld research and synthesizing new materials and was as of this moment one of the most prestigious and desirable firms for aspiring university students to work at after graduation. Having a Biotech internship was an envious position that people would kill to get.
Evelyn pulled at her hair in frustration. “It’s been so peaceful lately, I don’t get what the big deal is! All I wanted was to have a normal internship and have my coffee in the morning and chat with friends. This is so stupid!” Suddenly, Evelyn seemed to be close to tears. "I've been interviewing for months now and Biotech finally extended an offer, and now I have to come to this stupid place instead!"
Isabella's hand slid reassuringly onto Evelyn's lap. "It's alright Evelyn. This will blow over soon just like last time the world council made a big fuss. Those old guys are always overreacting. Their emergency decrees never really amount to anything."
Finn gulped and looked at William, who communicated clearly with his eyes—don't say anything yet, and especially not out here in the open. The cage, the whispering between the high ranked military officials, it all pointed to something being off. William resolved to eavedrop if the opportunity arose, but he had to be patient. To rush the process was to risk exposure of his intent to those in charge.
"Attention!" the staff officer barked. "You will have three minutes to form teams of five, after which you will be assigned a guide to bring you on a mission! Those who still don't have a team by the end of the three minute period will be put on cleaning duty for the day!"
William's eyes immediately met those of Finn, Evelyn, and Isabella.
"Let's be a team?" he asked, hoping that they would take the offer, although he was mentally preparing for otherwise. Evelyn and Isabella were level five and level three with strong abilities, meanwhile he and Finn were level one and two with weaker abilities to boot. The good thing was that the three minute deadline for forming a team meant everyone had to just grab whoever they knew or whoever was nearby.
Surprisingly, it was Isabella who responded. "Sure, just try not to get in our way." She continued. "I guess I'll be showing you how to really use a fire ability, William."
"That makes four," Evelyn continued, her tone showing that she agreed to the team proposition. "But we need to find one more, fast."