ENTER

C2 - Training session one

“Follow me,” Zadia says, walking towards the automatic doors stepping into an elevator.  James follows her.  When the elevator doors open again, they enter chaos.

“As soon as you enter, your VR and remote will connect to the nearest Avatar.”

“Avatar?”

“Yes, there, there and there, are three hiding out of sight, ready to fight.

“Ok, cool,” James says about to step in.

“Wait a minute,” Zadia stops him from stepping out.

“You need to stay out of sight, and you can only be a mile away from your Avatar or else it will disconnect and connect to another. If you get your Avatar killed, you will automatically connect to another.”

“Ok, seems simple enough,” James says, getting ready to step into what he believes is a prank.

“One more thing; even though a human from earth has not yet died, you can get hurt or even die.”

James steps back, “I did not sign up to get hurt or killed.”

“Not a problem,” Zadia says as the elevator doors close again and the next moment opens back into the room with the transparent box.

“You can leave your VR band and Controller in the box,” Zadia says, not concerned at all that James will leave as she goes through this process daily.

James shakes his head, looking around one more time for cameras, still convinced that it is a prank.

James looks at the VR in his hand for a moment and then puts it into the box followed by the controller.

A bright light blinds him and when he is able to see again, he is descending into the white room that is lit with colorful neon lights.

“Close your eyes and put your arms to the side,” the voice comes again, and James obeys.

After James is sterilized the wall opens and he walked through it.  Outside the building, James notices another guy stepping out.

The guy looks over at him and then away, walking away.

“Hey, wait up,” James says running after him.

“Let me guess, your first day?” the guy turns to James.

“Yes, how did you know?” James wonder.

“After a ten-hour shift on the battlefield of another galaxy let alone another planet you would not be in the mood to talk,” the guy says.

“Emce,” they guy looking about the same age as James, brown eyes, brown hair, not too bad looking but a bit on the chubby side.

James notices a young kid stepping out of the wall, “that is just a kid?!”

“Yeah, the kids come after school for five hours,” Emce says.

“Do their parents know that their kids’ lives are in danger?” James asks the reality set in.

“How should I know? What do you think is going to happen if we don’t help? They will eventually catch up with earth, after all, Uzar found us so what stops other aliens from finding earth?”

“You have a point, well good luck,” James starts to walk.

“What are you talking about? You are not going to help?” Emce asks.

“I blew it, I walked out,” James says, regretting his decision.

“So, just show up tomorrow.  You still have your card, right?” Emce asks.

“Yes,” James feels his pocket.

“Then you passed your first test.  Everyone walks out the first day, if you don’t, they wipe your memory and that is that” Emce says, walking with James.

“Why let me walk out, why test us if they need us?  I was ready to jump in but Zadia stopped me,” James says, wondering about it.

“I don’t know who Zadia is, this is only my first week. You were your clothing? The way you are right now?” Emce asks?

“Yes, why?” James looks down at his clothing.

“Think about it, you think you can go onto a battlefield dressed like that? You were looking at a holograph,” Emce says.

“Makes sense,” James says as they reach a T-junction.

“I am going this way, see you tomorrow; I start at eight sharps,” Emce says, walking off, looking exhausted.

James looks after him for a while and then at the kid walking past him, ‘if a kid can do it then surely, I have nothing to worry about?’

When James arrived at home he went straight to his room and instead of playing games he did research on the planet Uzar but could not find anything. He types in GN-z11 in his search engine.

“The furthest galaxy that earth thinks is a galaxy,” James reads out loud. ‘How long has this been going on,’ James wonders.

After reading all the information he could find online about the galaxy he sat backward in his gaming chair folding his hands about his head, wondering how to phrase his words in the search engine. ‘Perhaps there will be a game out on it?’ James wonders as he sits forward to type but before he could a text appears across the screen.

TRAINING SESSION ONE:  ENTER, TO TRAIN

Excitedly James grabbed his controller and press ENTER.

After an hour of playing the screen went blanked and the text appeared; TRAINING SESSION TWO: ENTER, TO TRAIN

James needs the bathroom, but he is unable to stop playing and press ENTER.

After the second session, the screen went blank again and James waited for the text to appear, but nothing happens.

James runs to the bathroom and when he gets back the screen is still blank.

‘Guess that is that then,’ James thinks.  To buzz to go to sleep he decides to play a game, so he presses his space bar to make his home screen appear, but nothing happens.

“What the F**k?”  he says hitting the space bar again. 

PLEASE REST AS WE NEED YOU AT YOUR BEST, the text runs across the screen.

James stands up and realizes he has not eaten for a while.  He goes to the kitchen to look for food.