("If the monsters in you get too real
I would take on the night for you
If it cuts so deep it just won't heal
I would take it and die for you."
"When you think the writing's on the wall
When the only way out is to fall
When it's you and me against it all.")
- The Girl and the Dreamcatcher, "Gladiator"
September - October, 2016
6th year, age 18
"You cannot be worried about her mental health," Josh stated as soon as Lucas entered their room, crossing his arms. Everything about the statement felt wrong, though; against his nature. He had seen how much she had been struggling lately. He knew why she had blown up at Lucas. The more time he had spent with her after that conversation, the more he began to notice her guard up.
Josh cared about Riley - every part of Riley. Her physical health, her mental health, everything. But that was different; he and his sister had been put on the same team despite a potentially compromising familial relationship, with that in mind when the administrators confirmed them.
Lucas was not in that same plan, and it would be a problem. They had been assigned a job to do, and they had to do it.
Lucas just sighed, putting down his bag and rubbing a hand over his face. "Just don't."
"You'll compromise this team," Josh continued despite Lucas's objection. "Don't throw all this work away. Don't ruin it for the rest of us too."
"Don't you think I know that?" Lucas glared at him. "I'm not starting anything with your sister. But you can't blame me for noticing how her personality has changed. I'm worried; I can't help it. But I won't do anything to compromise our team."
"I'll take care of it," Josh promised, more himself than Lucas. "I can deal with her mental health better than you can, and without the potential emotional problems that you might develop with her. I'm her brother, and I'm the team leader. This is my job."
"I can't just stop worrying about her," Lucas argued, narrowing his eyes.
"Well you'd better learn how to," Josh ordered, "because nothing-"
"Matters more than the job," Lucas finished the second rule.
Josh stared at him for a moment. "And you know the rest of the rules."
Distance yourself from the fight.
Actions are only motions.
There is no meaning and no reason to let feelings cloud your thoughts.
Keep your heart beating steady.
Stay focused.
"Yeah," Lucas agreed, staring him in the eye. "I do."
Josh met the team at the operations training grounds at 10am, after his first class had been canceled and he had instead been sent to talk to his mom. It had mostly been her explaining how his graduation would work, what would happen the year after, and an overview of information about their future as a team. All things that he needed to know if he was going to direct this team.
"Josh," Lucas greeted him, and Josh nodded to him.
Lucas had been gone when Josh left that morning, and Josh had no idea where he had been so early, but he didn't really want to know.
He glanced at Riley and Maya, who were talking quietly a few feet away. Riley glanced up and nodded at him, not smiling, but that wasn't abnormal. She looked clear eyed and focused, though her expression was unreadable to what he wanted to know.
He had thought he had helped his sister in those first years, where he taught her how to hide her emotions and thoughts from her classmates, just like he had learned. He thought it had been a good thing that she was blending in with her peers. The same as their mom. But now, it seemed, Riley might have gone too far, and Josh was rethinking his entire conduct surrounding her.
He had never thought his little sister would need to hide her emotions and thoughts from him.
"Good morning," Eric smiled, meeting them in the hall to the indoor area of the training grounds. He motioned his head. "Follow me."
The four teens trailed after their teacher as he led them through the halls towards a wing that only fifth and sixth year students usually went - Mock Missions. As they made their way into the entrance to the wing, which seemed similar to a foyer, Eric stopped and swiveled around to face them.
"Welcome to Mocks," he grinned. "This is our first day, so we're just going to go over the basics - no real mock today. There's a lot of training that goes into even being able to step foot into a mock mission course, but we're going to fasttrack. First things first." Eric stepped over to the wall directly across from the door, which held twelve touch pads mounted, each with a screen labeling them by number and currently either lit up red or green. "There are twelve mock mission course grounds, which in my opinion, really just looks like a convention center with a minor obstacle course scattered around. The grounds aren't meant to be the point; the system is much more technologically advanced." He looked over the screens and chose number four, which was lit up green. He tapped and held the screen, then entered in a six digit code and pressed enter. The screen changed to red. "You need a training instructor to be in a mock ground at all times, so you'll never be able to enter one without one of our codes. Grounds are available when their screen is green; if they're red, you won't even be able to try to get in." He motioned to them. "This way."
Eric led them all through a hallway and punched in a different code on a door's screen, entering the room with Josh, Lucas, Riley, and Maya following.
The ground was huge; very similar to a convention center. The minor obstacles appeared miniscule to Josh, although there were tons of them around the large room, from halls to run through and structures to scale, to what appeared to mimic vents or some other crawlway, in addition to doors and gates with locks.
"This is just the layout," Eric assured them. He went to the wall and plucked a small device about the size of a ping pong ball, but flat like a coin. He handed one to each of them to look over, and held up one of his own. "This is where the real program is."
The device was about the weight of a dollar coin or something. Josh turned it over in his hand and was surprised to see that there appeared to be hundreds of tiny hooks or something on the back of it. "This is going to attach to our bodies, isn't it?" He questioned, looking up.
"Yep," Eric confirmed, "but it doesn't hurt at all." He turned around to show them his own back, and he pressed the device to the base of his skull, where it stuck into his skin. "I'm not Science & Technology, so I can't explain how it works," he chuckled. "But if you've ever heard of VR, that's the basic gist."
"Virtual reality?" Lucas clarified.
Eric nodded. "This device - we call it a stimulator - makes contact with your nerves and your brain stem, which can make you see and feel things that aren't actually there. This is how we can turn this," he gestured out to the wide open space, "into any landscape and mission we need to. The landscape matches up to the real obstacles in the mock, so all of those things will be real, they'll just look a little different."
"You said feel," Riley repeated. "Feel what?"
"Pain," Eric stated bluntly. He chuckled at the alarmed expressions on everyone's faces. "If you get hurt in the field - shot, stabbed, broken - you're going to feel it. In mocks, we want you to prepare for that situation, and test your own limits to see what you can handle - especially in a situation where you aren't actually going to sustain any physical damage. You're going to see other people in your mocks - you're going to fight people that aren't actually real, with weapons that the program gives you that aren't real. But when they hit you, you'll feel it. It won't be bad enough to really hurt you, but it will be enough to feel real. And if they stab you, or shoot you, you'll feel a muted version of that too."
"How long does the pain last?" Josh asked.
"For the rest of the mission," Eric said. "Just like if you were hurt in the field. However, as soon as you take off your stimulator, you feel nothing. No lasting effects; you're the same as you were before you put it on. But if you sustain too much injury, the mock terminates your role in the mission. You die." He glanced around at each of them. "In the event that you die, your stimulator will fade out. You'll slowly see the real room again, and your teammates will see you fade and leave the mock. Once you're dead, you can't contact them and they can't contact you until they leave the mock too."
"Will we be able to see the rest of the mock like them?" Maya asked.
Eric nodded. "I control the mock. I design and program it, initiate it, terminate it, and I can see everything you see up on that screen." He nodded to the wall behind them.
"If you ever need to leave the mock by choice at any time, simply remove your stimulator and you'll be out," Eric explained. "If you can't reach it or access it, yell out 'tradite'. It's the program's immediate trigger to remove you from the mock. It means-"
"Yield," Riley smiled. "In Latin. Clever."
"So, instead of going through a real mock today," Eric said, "we're going to get your bodies connected to the system and go through some stuff. When you put those on," he motioned to the stimulators, "I'll start a mock program and your vision will completely change. It can be disorienting, which is why we're just trying it out today. I'm going to take you through three or four different programs and we'll walk through the room so you can see how each obstacle is actually accessible in the fake environment. Each of you will cut yourself on the forearm so that you'll know what to expect in the event of injury. I'm going to show you the people you may meet in the mocks so you don't get surprised at what they are like in a real mock. And we're going to leave the mock by yelling the termination code." He raised his eyebrows. "Everyone ready?"
The four teens looked at each other, and all nodded, reaching behind themselves to attach the stimulator to their neck, and enter the virtual reality together.
Josh didn't sleep much the night after their first real mock, so around 5:30am he gave up and got dressed to go to the gym and work his stress out. He needed to hit something, and think through his own problems while doing it.
But when he entered the gym, the lights were on and a tiny blonde was running on the indoor track around the perimeter of the large room. Josh frowned.
"I didn't know you still did mornings," he called out to her, and she stopped running, slowing to a walk as she wiped sweat from her eyes.
"I don't," she admitted, making her way over to the weight benches where she had dropped her bag and her water bottle. "I just couldn't sleep." She took a long sip of water and nodded at him. "I didn't know you worked out in the mornings still."
"I don't," Josh confessed in agreement. "There's just a lot on my mind and I needed the punching bag."
Maya nodded, and both fell silent, Maya turning away, but Josh stayed still, studying her. It had been a long time since that first day they had met in this gym; they had both grown so much.
Well, mentally, at least. Maya was still short.
Last year, while they were partners for assignments, he had realized that she had an advantage over him - she knew his mind. She could predict his moves. So, solely to even the field, he did his best to accomplish the same thing.
The biggest thing she had learned about her was that she replaced complicated emotions with two choices - either anger, or a game. Making fun of people, pushing their buttons, being annoying and smirking. It was easy to see through once he realized it, and all he had to do was look for visible psychological cues to see what she was actually feeling and hiding.
"Why couldn't you sleep?" Josh asked, and Maya turned towards him again, wary.
"Why couldn't you?" She countered back, and Josh took the answer to gauge her current state.
Her eyes were narrowed, shoulders tight, her chin a little higher than usual - although that might just be because she was talking to him, and he was taller. Her voice was a little lower than usual, but her tone went up at the end, as if pushing him to admit something instead of opening up herself. He glanced down at her hands - her fingers were clenching and unclenching. Those were all symptoms of fear or anger, which meant that Maya was probably-
"You're worried," Josh guessed, and Maya hesitated for a moment, confirming his theory.
She put her hands on her hips and leaned forwards. "Trying to read me, are you?" She observed back, and Josh snorted.
"Trying to avoid answering my question, are you?" He mimicked her tone. She was now slipping into her second replacement-emotion - games.
"You really need some practice," Maya suggested, smirking a little. "You think I'm worried because - what? My fingers? My tone? My facial expression?" She stalked up to him and clipped him across the chest without enough force to actually hurt him, and he took the hit without comment. "You want to know what I'm feeling?"
Josh held back a smirk; she probably wasn't even realizing she was giving away her whole thought process, which meant he was ahead for once. He was predicting her.
"I'm annoyed," Maya declared, staring up at him with all the intensity of someone who felt much more than 'annoyed'.
Her body was so close to his that he could feel the heat coming off of her; closer than they had ever been of their own volition - instead of being forced to work together for assignments, she was choosing to get into his personal space. She was asserting dominance and showing aggression. She was protecting herself by putting herself in a very vulnerable position.
It impressed Josh, honestly. She was so confident in her ability to get to Josh that she was willingly placing herself into a situation where she could be hurt. Even if Maya was currently first in her class, Josh was older and physically stronger; it was just anatomy. They both knew that Josh had an advantage if he wanted it.
But where had that advantage gotten him three years ago, when he had almost lost control with her? It had gotten him the opposite of what he needed - her distrust. Now, he was trying to worm his way through her brain so he could be team leader - so he could be better. He needed to control his thoughts about whatever she was trying to push on him, and not let her get to him. He couldn't afford to let himself get frustrated and angry with her - feelings could not cloud thoughts, especially when they might dictate actions. He had grown since that morning where she beat him in spar all that time ago.
He stepped back, out of Maya's circle, and she smirked, her hands dropping back to her waist. It made Josh's heart beat faster and he gritted his teeth, knowing Maya now thought he was afraid of her - or at least, afraid to be that close to her.
When it was in fact, the opposite; Josh was letting her believe she didn't have reason to be afraid of him. It was all a means towards the ends, the ends where she trusted him and he could manipulate his own image, see into everyone's minds, and direct a team perfectly. He was working a much larger plan than just this conversation and what Maya believed he had given up.
Maya may have won the first battle, but Josh was playing the long game.
A/N: Oh my god, I got so excited about this chapter that I just wrote for 2 hours straight (at the expense of sleep that I will certainly regret tomorrow at work) and I'm IN LOVE with how I ended it. Literally it's probably the best sentence I've written so far.
I'm so excited I was able to get Joshaya really started! This is so much better than I had thought it would be and I'm literally so excited to get to the really interesting scenes in the next few chapters where they finally realize they've fallen in love. There's a ton of scenes I've written where Josh really wants Maya but is trying so hard to control himself, and it makes him frustrated because he just wants her and ughh! And when! he gives into his desires! I'm so excited haha.
At this point Josh is trying to get into her head 'solely for advantageous purposes' and 'for the good of the team leader' (which we all know is bs but he doesn't want to admit it :) ). I know where I want them to end up, so I just need to write it! If I can't do it soon because life gets in my way I think I will probably be just as upset as you other Joshaya shippers out there.
I know half of the chapter was a little tedious and wordy, explaining the mock system and how it all works, but it is important in the next few chapters and sometimes you just gotta explain it all.
I also love how Josh is really trying to understand his own emotions in addition to everyone else's on the team.
I really hope you guys liked this chapter (and I literally posted 2 chapters on this story in less than 24 hours, wow) so please leave me some feedback!
Hopefully I can get enough sleep to function at work. But it was worth it!
Kisses,
C