"So like when you say humanity as we know it, what exactly do you mean?"

"I don't understand the question."

"You said we have the chance to prevent the end of humanity as we know it?"

"Yes."

"Right so um what does that mean?"

"I don't follow."

"Um--"

"It's Alan, right?"

"Uh, yeah. How'd you--"

"Alan's up next. Go for it, Sub-Zero."

"Um, okay. So, uh, my name is Alan. And three things about me are that, um, I'm Canadian; I played quarterback for my high school football team; and, uh, the third thing has to be a lie you said?"

Monica slapped her hand against her forehead. "I swear to God the more geniuses I meet the more I start to think you're all functionally incompetent. Yes, Alan, it's called two truths and one lie."

"Oh, okay, so, um, my lie is that--'

"Just forget it," Monica snapped. "You're Alan the Canadian footballer who killed his high school sweetheart."

Viral perked up. By his count he hadn't slept in more than 24 hours, and he was already losing sight of the days of the week. It'd been forty minutes since Agent Treyna had given the go-ahead for Highway Patrolman to karate chop Slim Jane in the carotid and drag her from the classroom. Monica hadn't even acknowledged the incident before moving on to a round of icebreakers with the group assembled at the table.

There had been 12 of them, but Monica split the group in two for reasons she wasn't yet revealing. The other group had been led by one of the neckless neanderthals through a pair of double doors at the south end of the laboratory. Including Viral there were seven left with Monica.

"Next?"

Viral looked around. From the sets of eyes trained on him he figured it was his turn to break the ice. "Um, my name is Viral--"

"Like a virus?" a young woman to his left said.

"Um, yeah. And three things about me are: I like milk chocolate, I like dark chocolate, and I like AppleJacks."

No one at the table spoke. Viral pinned his right wrist with his left in his lap trying not to scratch at the patch of psoriasis behind his ear.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Oh, you're definitely an AppleJacker," the young woman to his left said.

Farooq, the smooth-headed Iranian who'd gone second, pushed his thick frames up the flat bridge of his nose and said, "And by your pores I can definitely tell you like your chocolates."

"Okay, guys, can we pick up the pace here?" Monica asked.

"I'll say the dark chocolate was the lie." Her name was Gyn/Jin -- pronounced like the spirit, she'd said, but Viral didn't have the heart to press her on the homonym. She leaned forward on her elbows at the table, indifferent to the view her white -- bodice -- proffered of her bosom. Bangles and cuffs festooned her wrists. Her green eyes blazed in contrast to her curly, chestnut hair.

"Um, barely, but yeah," Viral admitted. He allowed himself a hardy scratch behind the ear.

"All right! Now you dum dums are getting it," Monica said. She stood at the front of the classroom, between the black, wood lacquered tables at which Viral and the others sat and an old-school chalk board. She had one foot propped up on a chair and a hand digging in a bag of Fritos. "And for the sake of transparency, Viral's in custody for his affiliation with a wanted cyber terrorist. Who's left?"

The boy to Viral's left began to speak. After the four others prior to Viral had broken their ice, respectively, Monica had offered a summary of their derelictions. Aleph, the soft-spoken Chinese girl who'd gone first, told Viral and the group that:

1. Her mother had left her family when she was young;

2. that her father loved her;

3. and that she was terrified of metal spoons.

The lie, she said, was number 2. "He tolerates me," she'd said about her father. According to Monica, Aleph was a craven identity thief who loved, not just tolerated, online phishing schemes that targeted the elderly.

Next to Aleph, to her left, was Farooq. Farooq had told them that he was Egyptian; that he was last a junior at the American University; and that he knew Christina Aguilara's "Genie In A Bottle" in American Sign Language. The "lie" had been that though he had been born in Egypt to a Lebanese mother and Egyptian father, he actually identified more with Shia Iran than Sunni Egypt. Being Egyptian had been his lie. Monica had followed up by announcing to everyone that Farooq was a master at stealing and leaking celebrity, as she called it, "fap-bait."

After Farooq, Gyn had introduced herself. According to Monica, Gyn's crimes had been lo-fi compared to Farooq's and Aleph's -- simple fraud through an HerbaLife-type pyramid scheme. But Gyn's truths-and-lie revealed an impressive history of bio-chemical research.

Alan, the murderous pigskin tosser, had followed Gyn. After, Viral spoke. The man next to Viral was finishing his spiel. His name was Plank -- "Pronounced like the constant," he'd said -- and his lie was that he hadn't in fact been born in Oakland but Sacramento. He wore a red, pipe-trimmed tanktop over tatted arms and torso. He had a lip ring, black gauges in his ears, and a snap-back reversed on his head, which allowed for the whiff of a blond tendril to poke out through it's maw.

The seventh at their table was Ada Smoosh from Long Island. She, too, wore a white, short sleeved blouse like Gyn, but Ada had fewer accoutrement around her wrists. Ada said she preferred to go by Smooshy; that she lost her virginity on her 21st birthday; and once ate a Menthol cigarette on a dare. The lie? She was 13 when she popped her cherry. The rest of the group groaned and gasped at the revelation. Ada -- ahem, Smooshy -- didn't respond well to judgment, Viral learned. She called Gyn a harlot, Farooq a camel-sucker, and Alan "Asian OJ." Allen did not take kindly to that, emphasizing that O.J. had been a running back while Alan played under center in a prostyle offense that had him scouted by the Alouettes -- before the whole murder trial for killing his high school girlfriend thing.

"Enough!" Monica shouted. She waved her arms above her head like she was landing SMB's Big Ol' Jet Airliner. During the back and forth between Smooshy, Alan, and Farooq -- Gyn was way too cool to respond to accusations of harlotry, hopefully, Viral prayed, because they were true -- a woman in a dark grey skirt suit had entered the lab through its entrance from the hallway.  Her demeanor said business; the bulge at her waistline said SIG Sauer.