After a painfully long train ride, I was here. Except, I don't exactly know where 'here' is. As I got off the train, the sun beating down harshly, I looked around. There wasn't a sign of life anywhere. I turned back to the train in confusion but it was already taking off. I only had my one suitcase on me; I must have left the other one on the train. Great. There wasn't even a station in sight. I put down my suitcase and sat on it, taking a note out of my pocket. My employer gave it to me, stating where to meet them. Again, not a soul in sight.
After a few hours of waiting and sweating, a car had shown up. It was an old pick up truck. 'This must be the person' I thought to myself as I straightened my tie back into place. A woman jumped out and rushed over to me. "Hi. You're the Spy we hired, correct? Great, uh, just hop in the back. It's kinda crowded." I peered over her shoulder to the truck. Indeed there had been more men in there with her. Up front had two. The back had 3 more. "Are these-" I started. "Your coworkers? Yes, in fact, they are. Not all of them. Some of them showed up earlier. They're already at the *ahem* place that you will be staying." A hotel? Oh thank goodness. With all this desert I had thought that maybe we'd get some shitty shack that I'd share with some weird men from different provinces of the world. As I approached, I noticed the front was crammed with a sleeping person and a balding man. The one who was sleeping was dark haired, wearing a hat to cover most of his hair and some aviators. The bald one had a slight tan with lighter skin around the eyes, possibly from wearing glasses or goggles . He was reading a map, his brows lowered in frustration.
I made my way towards the back. The back had far more interesting creatures. Two were talking with each other. One of them was a dark skinned man who had an eyepatch covering his left eye. He held a bottle and swung it around when talking like you would with your hands. The other ones eyes were covered with a helmet. His voice was loud and gave me a headache, so I sat towards the way back. The woman hopped back into the truck and drove off again.
I was tired and tried my best to sleep along the way but it was difficult when I had to listen to a man yell (for what might as well been in my face) for hours on end. The one person I didn't asses however had noticed how tired I really was. "Excuse me, Mein guter Herr." I looked up at the man. His dark hair clung to his forehead as he was sweating, his smile was sinister, and his face was covered in scars and bruises. He looked creepy and I knew immediately not to trust him. "Do you have trouble sleeping?" His head cocked to the side as his smile softened a bit. I nodded. "My name is- well lets not share that with each other just yet, hm? Call me uhm..Medic. I may have something for you." He swung out his suitcase that was resting below him as his seat. He opened it and dug a bit, pulling out a pill bottle. "What's your weight? Wait don't tell me...About 150 yes?" I was skinny, I will admit. He was almost spot on. I nodded again. "Quiet, herr Spy?" And appearently he knew my class. Great. Could this guy get any more..strange? "I see you look nervous. This will also calm nerves. Please take about 2." He take a few small pills out and put them in my hand. "I think they have some wasser up front." He crawled towards the other men and knocked on the back window. The man in the middle, with the map, opened it and asked "What d'ya want now?" Medic asked him for some water and then came back to hand it to me. I took it, not wanting to be rude and laid back. "Now, please describe the effects you're feeling. In detail please."
It was getting weird now. This man is supposed to be my coworker, my doctor, I presume, and he was acting like a lunatic trying to sell me drugs. He just tricked me into taking some and now he wants me to tell him what's happening to my body? "Hallucinations? Anything? Really, I want results, please." He wasn't wrong about the sleep thing. It took about 3 minutes but soon I was entirely drowsy. "Fine. Good night." He muttered a few 'good for nothing' insults under his breath and that's all I remember before sleeping like an infant child.
"When I awoke, I was the only man in the vehicle. I was laying on the bottom of the bed of the truck. I slowly got up and looked around. We had arrived and no one bothered to wake me up. How nice of everyone. I swiftly climbed out and approached the two buildings. One was labeled "RED" with some small writing beneath it. The other was labeled "BLU" and just like Red, had writing beneath it. The buildings looked identical. It was peculiar, really. As I got closer, I was greeted by the woman from the truck. "Oh great! I was just searching for you. You hadn't gotten through the scanner, let alone guided to your room. Follow me and we'll get you set up!" She grabbed my shoulder and pushed me towards a small house like building that was close to Blu's structure.
"Look, Spy, Let's just call you that, yeah? I mean your whole team is gonna..you know what that's a little off topic. Anyways, This whole process is hard to explain and wrap your head around, but even so I'm gonna explain what's going on as quick as I can. You, the real you, Were hired by Redmond Mann to work for his company, Reliable Excavation Demolition. You will use your class skills to fight against clones of your team: The Blu's. They are offense. You are defense. Got it?" It took me long to process but I nodded. Did she say clones? "Please, Continue." I looked at her. She cleared her throat. "Anyways, When seize fire ends and all of you begin you're first day, You will find your weapons under the cubby with a knife symbol above it. You only get 10 minutes to prepare so learn how to do things with what you have quick. Don't worry if you die, you come back." She paused there. This sounded insane but I went with it. "You have 3 days to introduce yourself to your team. You will not and can not leave us. You signed your contract. We will find you, be assured of that, Mr. Janvier." So she did know my name. Why didn't she choose to use it? I suppose she would rather use my work name, if we were coworkers that is. "Also, We've taken your requests into notice, Spy. You have a private smoking room as you wanted. You're supposed to bunk with the rest of the 'Support' group but if you see it fit, we can move furniture and order some things to decorate the room to your personal desires. You can sleep in there, if you would please, Sir. Don't feel uncomfortable asking. I'm sure our friend, the Sniper, would love to keep to himself and sleep in his camper we've ordered for him."
"She turned around and waved her hand towards the building we were walking towards. "We're here. When you get inside please remove all clothing and step into the box. It's like going through airport security, we assure you. It's completely safe." I nodded and made my way inside. "When I entered, It was dark. There were a few worn out light fixtures but that was it. I stood around for a second, expecting someone to jump out and say "Surprise! We were just joking!" but no one did. I didn't know I was supposed to kill men when I signed up. I didn't really mind however because I had thought she said we all come back to life. "Can you undress? It doesn't work if you're not..you know." A voice said over an intercom. I assumed is was the miss that I was talking to a minute ago. "You can keep your boxers on though. Please? Some of the others didn't quite get the memo." I let out a small laugh and began to dress down to my underwear. I went up to the box and stepped inside, closing the door behind me. "You might feel a slight chill." It was true. It seemed the temperature dropped 30 degrees. After a few minutes, I was told I was free to step out and get clothed again.
The woman didn't allow me to see my clone. She said it might send me into a panicked state, like it did previously to a man a couple hours back. "You're lucky. All of your team had to walk with me together. You get a sort of personal more private tour." She smiled at me. I returned it. "Anywho, I'm Miss Pauling. I work for the administrator. She's the announcer you'll hear during battle." She led me down a couple of hallways and upstairs. She finally stopped at a door towards the end of the long hall. "This is your smoking room. Here's the key. You can allow whoever you want in here. Or if you'd prefer no one, you can keep them out. It locks from the inside, too. No one has the right to enter your room without permission." There was a long silence. "Boy, you don't talk much, huh?" We both heard a small beeping noise. "Oh, gotta go! Good luck! Please introduce yourself to your team. Bond with each other! They're all here somewhere. Also, you have a medical appointment at around 4 tomorrow afternoon. Don't be late, The Medic is gonna be a busy man!" She patted the back of my suit and sped off towards the end of the hallway. Before she turned around the corner she called back to me: "Oh! I forgot! No relationships in the work place!" Then she winked and ran off.