2065
It felt longer than thirty minutes but the robot surgeons had confirmed to him that it had been right at 30 minutes.
He opened his eyes for the first time after the procedure. Colors seemed to pop just a bit more. Everything was so clear, so vivid and detailed. With his own natural eyes he could see small markings on the ceiling and even his own hands that he would have never noticied previously. Sitting up, he noticed the feeling of something small on the back of his neck.
With the anesthesia wearing off quickly he felt himself coming back to earth. He rubbed his finger over the small chip.
"Feels weird doesn't it?" Savannah walked into the room, doors sliding open.
"That is certainly one word for it." Benedikt said, observing everything with his new eyes, literally.
"I figured you probably would like to keep all your real limbs, so we'll be giving you armor that boosts the strength of those limbs as if you had those cybernetic arms and legs."
"Lets get started." He said, genueinly excited.
"This is our simulation training." Savannah led him to this new room he had never seen before. She pointed to the massive screen on the wall. "Everything that they see, we see on that wall there." There were four seats all circled around one column looking center. Walsh and Baker there, firing their weapons in the sim.
"Get seated. Walsh will show you the ropes." She said.
"Where are we?" Benedikt asked after getting his headgear on. He felt the gear interact with the chip in his head. Opening his eyes, it felt just like the real world. He saw his hands in front of him, observing them as if he had forgotten everything.
"You don't actually have to move outside the sim, just think it and your DNI will perform it within the sim without your actual body even moving a muscle." Walsh boosted down from what Benedikt thought was nowhere.
"Woah. How'd you do that? Can I do that?" Benedikt looked around trying to see the strange thing on his back.
"We're in Singapore, an abandoned aquarium. And yes you can do that." He responded.
"We'll teach you." Benedikt watched Baker as he ran off the walls and into the conversation.
It suprisingly didn't take that long to learn how to slide and dodge using his boost. What was most challenging was learning to wall run while having a weapon in hand.
"Stick to the wall, don't lean too much or you'll fall." Baker said from a distance, watching Benedikt run across the wall. "Be sure your feet don't trip you up either."
He almost made it this time. Unfortunatly his feet got caught up and he stumbled into the pool of filthy water below him. Water that had at one point and time inhabited animal life.
"Its alright you'll get better at it." Walsh pulled him out of the water and onto his feet.
"If we're in a simulation, is this place even real?" He asked the two soldiers.
"Yes... and no." Baker hesitated. "There is an abandoned aquarium in Singapore. This right here is a place in Singapore. However it may not still look like this." She pointed to the spot where their feet lay. "Savannah sent a crew to take pictures of the area. Our computers smoothed everything out and with it, they were able to recreate the entire area in this simulation. So what we're seeing is what the place looked like at the time the pictures and scanning had been done. If we were to travel there right now then maybe the place would look slightly different because of the weather or maybe that tire over there would be over there." She pointed here and there.
"Incredible." Benedikt smiled. "I never thought I would ever live to see the day of flying cars. Back then it was impossible to even dream up anything like this."
"Indeed it is." She replied.
"Watch this." Walsh led them to the back of the area "Don't get too close to the outer barriers." He warned.
"Why not?"
"Because if you do they just reset you back to where you originally spawned. The computer doesn't have that data so it can't recreate that outer area. Now we probably could easily get that now with newer advancements than what we had when these maps were made but its not neccessary. Now look." He placed a hand on Benedikt's shoulder and pointed fat off in the distance. "See that ferris wheel? And that large structure?" Both looked run down, even from far away. "Not far from it is another map we have, an abandoned evac zone."
"Yeah."
"Watch this." Baker said.
Suddenly his vision went black, everything was black accept his own hands. His surroundings dissipated, even Walsh and Baker.
"We're here." Walsh said, his surroundings coming into focus.
"See, there it is. The ferris wheel and structure." Baker pointed across the water to where they just were. Now they were seeing the ferris wheel and structure from a different angle, a different map.
"This is amazing." Benedikt was in awe. They walked, finding themselves atop of buildings.
"Evac. Another abandoned complex." Walsh looked around the ruins.
"What happened to Singapore?" Bendikt asked, curious as to what futuritic catastrophy could have taken place.
"An outbreak. A very deadly one. Deadly enough that troops were sent to burn infected corpses."
"Why don't we continue on with training, Petrov you have a lot to re-learn and not a whole lot of time. Luckily your DNI will help make that process much quicker." Baker tossed him a weapon seemingly out of thin air. "I'll teach you how to do that later, go ahead and take the saftey off." She could see his confused reaction to the summoning of the weapon.
"Good. Now thrust." Walsh said. They had been at it for nearly four hours now.
"Slide!" Five hours
"There. Now in the top right hand of your vision your DNI will give you options of which ability to use. Pick one." Six and a half.
"Nice firefly storm." Seven. It went on and on.
"Lets call it." Baker landed back on the ground, the others followed. "You've done excellent today. You think your ready for a real mission?"
"I've been ready." Benedikt attatched his weapon to his back.
They all went offline from the simulations. It had felt so real that the real world was nearly indistinguishable.
"Come on, they've been curious to know about you." Walsh and Baker led him down the hall, into the breifing room.
"Perfect timing." Savannah greeted them, other operators tunred their heads to see the new face in the room. "We'll have time for introductions later, right now we have a mission to go over." She pressed a button on a small remote, a large blue screen in the middle of the room. It captured everyone's attention.
"Alexi Reznov. Beleived to be the current Perseus of the organization. Thanks to this team's hard work we have managed to finally track him down. But the mission doesn't stop there. I want him captured, alive I might add. In just a few hours he will be hosting a meeting with his allies from around the world. What better place to hide than amongst a crowd. Manhatten."
Benedikt let out a quiet sigh. Why was he always finding himself there?
1969
England
"Got it?" Park asked Beck. The two of them stood outside a café. Portnova had decided to stay behind back at the safehouse to keep Adler in check. It was a miracle they had managed to end up here amongst civilization.
"Right, yes. Confront that man there, ask him to help us." Beck poorly summarized.
"Simply put... yes." She replied. They were both dressed in winter wear from hats to gloves. "Your up." She patted his shoulder, rushing inside to get a table so she could watch them.
"Excuse me?" Beck tapped the dark brown haired man on the shoulder as they stood in line for a table.
"Morning sir, can I help you?" The english man said cheerfully.
"Friend its me!" Beck smiled.
"Do I know you?" The man narrowed his brow.
"Of course you do mate, we have the same class together." Becl dropped his German accent. He assured Park he could do it, she didn't beleiev him until now. "Forgive me but I have a hard time remembering names, whats your again?" He asked.
"Thomas." The man stuck his gloved hand out.
"Barry." Beck lied, taking the mans hand.