BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
Caleb Brutford slammed his hand down on the control panel, cutting off the earsplitting alarm. He groaned, seeing that the incoming message was from the boss.
A file flashed green on the screen. He double-clicked the icon, and a new sound file automatically opened. The boss's cold, clear voice filled the small apartment.
"Good morning, Agent Brutford. As you know, you are in command of the southeast division of the United States. You have been recently stationed in Miami for a reason, which I am about to tell you now.
I have discovered a new lead for a potential test subject. Female, age 13. No forceful cooperation with this one. Trust me, she'll come of her own free will, and I want you to be an excellent host. The specs should be coming at any moment."
Sure enough, the printer had started spewing out several papers filled with statistical data and photographs. Brutford grabbed these with his large hands, straightening the stack on his desk.
"Don't mess this up, Brutford. We don't want this session to end up like last time."
The sound file collapsed and erased itself, leaving Brutford staring at the new subject's information. That was the usual boss, leaving without even a goodbye. Typical day, if you worked for the SBURB Project.
He read the papers carefully. As the boss had mentioned, the candidate was female, age 13, eye color: brown, hair color: brown, no health anomalies or personality traits severe enough to throw a wrench in the master plan. There were a few photos from the surveillance feed. One depicted the girl in a tank top and sweatpants, jumping with a white remote in her hand, obviously playing some sort of video game. The photograph seemed like it had been taken through the girl's living room window.
This session couldn't end up like the last. The four candidates of 2009 had been perfect. That is, until the game swallowed them up off the face off the planet. Brutford, like most of the other agents, thought this was just a game glitch. The boss, however, had a different idea. He thought the kids had managed to break the game somehow, forcing themselves out of the Project's grasp.
Brutford scowled. He had been in charge of getting a hold of the blond boy that never took off his stupid sunglasses. Little titch. Since the '09 incident, subjects had been harder and harder to find. The boss kept coming up with new restrictions for potential candidates, starting with the name rule. First name must be four letters long, last must be six. No middle preferred. He said this signified something, the names, but Brutford barely payed attention when the boss droned on about things like this. He could faintly remember the boss's speech on the subject…
"A four-letter name signifies that the child's parents want their life to be 'normal', but we all know that 'normal' does not exist. It's a common name, nothing more. The short last name signifies no foreigners or descendants of immigrants. The game is only available in English, as far as we know, and we don't want our translators to be overburdened by the task. The six letters could also possibly help with eliminating royalty and those of higher status from the selection pool. Remember, my agents, these changes are only in place to make your jobs easier…."
Well, it made it kind of easier for Brutford. Apparently the Project had seized a kid up north, and it pushed the agents to find another player for the boy as soon as possible. The one-player sessions had ended horribly, usually with the player spontaneously combusting. It wasn't a bug in the game, it had been programmed in the coding for a reason.
See, the SBURB Project had only one goal: find out the point of the game, win it, and use the information gained from playing to save the world.
In 2008, scientists in the U.S. were shocked to discover an incredibly large meteor heading towards Earth. A meteor of that size, they hypothesized, would rip apart the planet. Strangely, the meteor had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and going at a definite speed that would allow it to hit the Earth in approximately one hundred years.
Then, archeologists dug up an amazing find on a distant island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was a disk, a single computer disk, buried in stone ruins. It was kept a secret from the general public, as it was obvious that something great was occurring, something big that could define human civilization and change the course of history.
So of course, the United States kept it for themselves. They tested on the disk, found it to be fully functional, and made copies. It was only when they found it to be a game was the SBURB Project officially formed.
The first session was a disaster. It was unknown to the researchers that there was a time limit in the game, and they blew up after fifteen minutes. Several sessions and human lives later, the Project found that there was a requirement. The game was multiplayer, and all single-player sessions failed miserably.
The Project couldn't afford to continue losing their brightest minds to spontaneous combustion, so they started looking for test subjects. They tried volunteers, prison convicts, and even bribing adults. These all failed. That was until one scientist, known only as 'Doctor Scratch', proposed that they try using children.
After the session of '09, it was clear that his method was successful. He was appointed head researcher of the SBURB Project, and continued his search for suitable testing subjects. That's why he hired agents like Caleb Brutford, to seek out more teenagers to enter into game sessions.
And that's exactly what Agent Brutford was about to do today.
There was something in the subject's file Brutford had forgetten to look over.
It was how damn tall she was. Easily 5'9", carrying an extra bit of weight, with thick glasses over dark, staring eyes. Her unkept hair fell down to her elbows, and it gave off an aura that this girl did not care on how she looked.
Good. At least she wasn't a prissy beauty queen.
Time for the introduction. "Are you Lexi Fleury?"
This earned him a glare. "Yeah. And it's Fleury. F-l-e, u-r-y. No need to be all French." She crossed her arms.
Brutford made a mental note to suggest a possible attitude problem to the boss.
He handed the fake high school acceptance letter to the test subject. "Open it when you get home, and not a moment before."
The girl took the letter cautiously. Brutford didn't wait to see her reaction, he turned on his heels and left, just as he had been instructed to do so. He heard her calling to him, but ignored her.
He turned into the stairwell and out of the building. Now to wait for Lexi Fleury to accept.
