Chapter Three:
The Selection Process
A short bus pulled into the station just outside of Angel Grove's EAGLE base. Dr. Watanabe sat up and jostled Kenny awake. "We're here."
Kenny sat up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He quickly collected his stuff and followed Watanabe off the bus. Fruity air filled his lungs as he recognized the scenic oceanside vistas of Angel Grove. He hadn't known they'd be coming here. He looked up at the brownstone building before him, wondering if Benton was somewhere inside it.
All around him, about half a dozen similar short buses were parked, with soldiers from all over the world and every EAGLE division Kenny could think of stepping off. All of them looked about as nervous as Kenny felt as they locked eyes with each other in turn.
A door opened nearby and a woman with long dark hair stepped out. "Candidates of Project PR," she said. "I'm Lieutenant Katie Young. If you'll follow me, I'll show you where to go."
Kenny recognized Project PR as the code name Dr. Watanabe had given him for the Ranger Project. Apparently, those soldiers around him recognized it too. As a group, they followed Lieutenant Young through the door as she led them through a complex maze of corridors and winded her way to the far end of the base. Finally she stopped in front of a stretch of what looked like just an ordinary wall. She pulled out a badge just like the one Dr. Watanabe had shown Kenny and tapped it to the wall. The wall flashed and cracked open, revealing a secret elevator hidden behind it.
"Whoa," several members of the group said.
"Inside," Lieutenant Young ordered, stepping through as the crowd piled in behind her. Kenny squeezed in between Dr. Watanabe and a candidate wearing a headscarf from EAGLE's pilot division as the door closed and the elevator started moving down.
The elevator ride was possibly one of the longest Kenny had been on in his entire life. It just kept moving down and down, far below ground level, probably below sea level, until finally it came to a stop and the door opened onto one of the nicest and most high tech facilities Kenny had ever seen. Soldiers and scientists bustled about from console to desk to console, all working hard as bright lighting fixtures made it seem as though they were on the top floor of a skyscraper rather than deep underground.
Lieutenant Young stepped out of the elevator. "Follow me," she said. She didn't lead the group on nearly as much of a winding route this time, instead, leading them straight to a large central command center filled with consoles and tech in every direction. Once inside, Dr. Watanabe stepped away from Kenny to greet a colleague. Kenny didn't mind. He, like the seven candidates around him, had his attention on the four Power Ranger suits lining the walls, contained in stasis tubes.
Kenny stepped up to them, his mouth hanging open as he took in all their intricate little details. He looked around, wondering where the fifth suit was, when his eyes fell on it lying on a table in the middle of the room, several technicians working around it. The suit looked just like its companions, except this one was a rich emerald green, like the thick grass in the fields that surrounded Turtle Cove. Kenny took a careful step toward it, something in his chest pulling him toward it like it wanted him to wear it.
"Good morning," a voice said, shaking Kenny's attention from the suit. He looked up to see an older man in a general's uniform step up in front of the group. The man took off his hat and mopped his bald spot for a second before addressing them. "Welcome to the ranger project. I am General Kenpachi, the head of the project. You are all here as candidates to take on the mantle of the Green Ranger as the fifth member of our team."
He gestured to the green suit lying beside Kenny, and everyone turned to look at it. Kenny took a step away from it self-consciously.
"You all come highly recommended," General Kenpachi continued, "by members of my team who I trust implicitly. Sadly, only one of you can become the ranger, and the rest of you will end up being reassigned within the project or elsewhere. These next two weeks will help us decide who that person will be. I expect great things from all of you."
He stepped to one side. "My assistant, Lieutenant Young, will get things started."
Lieutenant Young nodded to him and stepped up to face the new recruits. "Thank you, general," she said. "Alright, everyone, we'll be starting with your physical examinations. If you'll follow me, we have a team of doctors ready to examine you and make sure you are physically prepared for the challenges of ranger work."
She led them from the room into a nearby gym. Kenny followed his fellow candidates and took his place in line as a team of doctors started taking his pulse and testing his reflexes. As they worked, he watched the activity around the room. As far as he could tell, he seemed about average among his competition, at least visibly. He wasn't the most physically fit among them, but he wasn't the least either.
General Kenpachi wandered the room, watching them and talking with the aides around him, including Lieutenant Young and Dr. Watanabe. In another section of the room, four individuals stood together, watching the proceedings and conversing in hushed tones. Their leader was a taller man with olive skin and short-cropped hair. By his side stood a tall, thin man with long, blonde hair and a cowboy hat, a shorter, beefy man wearing a newsboy just like Benton's, and a woman with long brown hair and a serious face.
Kenny watched the four as they started making their way around the candidates, talking to them and asking them questions. The woman and the beefy man stopped in front of Kenny. "And what's your name?" the woman asked without a hint of warmth or friendliness.
Something about her mannerisms reminded Kenny of his old instructor back at the academy, which he hoped meant she was a lot nicer than she let on. He flashed her a friendly smirk. "Kenny Austin from Turtle Cove," he said brightly. "I look forward to working with you."
For just a moment, the woman seemed to recognize something in his smile. Her face grew even harder and she looked away. "Welcome to the Ranger Project," she said simply.
She moved on past him without another word to examine the next candidate. The beefy man beside her rubbed the back of his neck. "She's always a little standoffish like that," he said. "Don't take it personal, kid."
Several hours later, a bell rang, releasing them all to go to lunch. Kenny followed the crowd into the cafeteria, picking out a fruit salad and looking around for a place to sit. He spotted an open chair next to a pair of other candidates he'd noticed during the physicals.
"May I sit here," he asked, approaching them.
"Of course," the frizzy-haired girl said, gesturing for him to sit down beside her. She and her round-faced companion were apparently poring over a set of trading cards featuring the rangers. Kenny had a pack just like them in his footlocker.
"I noticed you two in the exam room but you didn't arrive with the rest of us on the buses this morning," Kenny said, picking at his fruit.
"That's because we were already here," the round-faced boy said.
"We've been part of the Ranger Project for over a year now," the frizzy-haired girl explained. "When the green suit was finished, we thought we'd try out for the position."
The round-faced boy looked around skeptically at the other candidates in the room. "Though, seeing our competition now, I don't think I stand much of a chance. Harriet might though."
The frizzy-haired girl rolled her eyes. "Please, Doug," she said. "You definitely have a better shot than me."
Doug shrugged. "It's just as well," he said. "Yellow's more my color anyway." They sat in silence for a second. "I'm Doug Cummins, by the way," he said, turning to Kenny.
"Harriet Nixon," the frizzy-haired girl said.
"Kenny Austin," Kenny said. "You said you were already part of the Ranger Project. As in, you actually know the rangers?"
Both of their faces lit up with excitement. "Yep," Harriet said. "We sure do."
Doug flipped through his cards. "They're awesome. Though . . . we're not technically allowed to reveal their identities yet to you guys. But who knows? Maybe you'll get the spot and you'll get to meet them yourself."
"What's this? Are you two spilling project secrets already?"
Kenny looked up to see the beefy man and the man with the cowboy hat approaching them with trays of food of their own.
"Of course not," Harriet said, grinning. "We're just getting to know our competition." She patted Kenny on the shoulder. "This is Kenny Austin. Kenny, these are Dayton Owens and Sean Cassidy. They're part of the crew too."
Dayton and Sean pulled up seats of their own, Dayton sitting right across from Kenny. His tray was laden with the biggest mound of rice and curry Kenny had ever seen.
"So, new guy, huh?" Dayton said, digging into his mountain with a pair of chopsticks. "The one Watanabe brought in?"
Kenny nodded, staring at Dayton as he made astonishingly fast progress through his meal. "That's me," he said. "What do you guys do with the project?"
Dayton paused in his eating, and he and Sean glanced at each other for a second. "I'm ground support," Sean said quickly. "I help the rangers in the field."
"And I'm maintenance," Dayton said. "Engineering and stuff."
Kenny tilted his head. He remembered how they had been grouped up with those other two and a sneaking suspicion started to form in his mind. For the moment, he kept it to himself.
"Sean, Dayton," a voice whispered.
The brunette woman stood behind Dayton and Doug. Dayton and Sean looked back at her. "We probably shouldn't be fraternizing with the candidates," she said. "We don't want them to think we're playing favorites."
"Ah, come on, Peggy," Dayton said. "One of them's going to be working with us soon enough. Isn't it better that we get to know them beforehand?"
Kenny looked up at her. "You could sit with us too," he said, giving her the warmest smile he could. The agent locked eyes with him for just a moment before turning away.
"Just make sure you fraternize with all the candidates then," she told Dayton. "Not just one or two."
"Yes, ma'am," Dayton said, giving her a phony salute. The agent walked away and sat down beside Lieutenant Young and the tall, olive-skinned man.
"What's up with her?" Kenny asked, watching her eat for a few seconds.
His companions all looked at each other and looked down. "That's just kind of how she is," Doug said. "She's been through a lot in the last few months."
They all fiddled with their food absently. Even Dayton didn't look quite as hungry anymore. "She's not so bad when you get to know her," Harriet said. "She's just very . . . driven to accomplish our team's goal: to take down the Black Cross."
Kenny watched the woman they'd called Peggy as she took a bite of a chicken strip, finishing his fruit salad in silence.
Once lunch was over, Kenny and the other candidates were put through a series of physical trials, giving Kenny one of the most intense workouts of his life. When he hit his cot that night, it was barely more than a minute before he fell asleep. The next morning, his physical training continued, their instructors saying something about making sure their bodies could handle the requirements of the suits. Kenny didn't perform as well as he could have, not compared to some of the group's leaders at any rate.
After lunch, he was given a reflex test to check his reaction times, followed by a mental test, not unlike exams back in high school. He did pretty well at that, but still not the best. As the days passed, he developed a friendship with Doug and Harriet, spending most of his time hanging around with them, even bringing out his own deck of ranger cards. They went through more and more tests, some physical, some mental. One day, he was given a psych evaluation to make sure he was mentally stable enough for the needs of the job. About five days in, the first two candidates were eliminated, not showing up for morning training the next day.
One day, they were led outside of the base and into the city of Angel Grove itself. Lieutenant Young tasked them with a ten mile jog around the city and warned them that their return times would heavily affect their standings.
The jog took them down Main Street, across the beach, and up through a local park, Kenny running about in the middle of the group. As they crossed the park, they passed a young woman carrying a massive stack of papers and files. Just as they were passing her, she tripped, and her papers were sent flying everywhere.
Most of the candidates were too focused on their jog to notice, but Kenny slowed down, letting the others pass him. Doug and Harriet slowed down beside him. Kenny watched the girl, struggling to gather up her papers, then his fellow candidates, running on ahead. He bit his lip and made his decision.
"Are you alright," he said, helping the young woman to her feet and checking the bruise on her left knee. Doug and Harriet joined them, chasing down the papers being blown around by the wind and gathering them up for her.
"Yeah, I'm fine," the woman said, fixing her glasses. "Just clumsy."
Kenny helped Doug and Harriet finish gathering up the woman's papers and returned them to her. "Thank you so much," she said. She looked around her massive stack and noticed their EAGLE badges. "Oh. And thank you for your service."
Kenny nodded to her. Doug patted him on the shoulder. "We should catch up with our group," he whispered.
"Right," Kenny said. He looked up the trail to see that their companions had long since left them behind. He gave the woman one last glance over to make sure she was okay. "We've got to go," he said. "See you."
"Bye," the woman said, waving.
Tammy Hayes watched Kenny, Doug, and Harriet as they hurried off down the trail. She readjusted the stack in her arms to a more manageable position and took down a couple of notes. Then she turned and headed back the way she came toward the nearby Juice Bar. She stepped inside to find Joshua Cage and General Kenpachi waiting for her, Joshua enjoying a smoothie.
"Geez, Tammy," he said, glancing at her scraped knee. "You didn't have to actually injure yourself."
"I know," Tammy said, rubbing at the bruise and trying to pull the edge of her skirt down to cover it. "That was just me actually being clumsy."
General Kenpachi set down the blender he'd been wiping out. "So, how did it go?"
"Not as well as I'd hoped," Tammy said, handing over the notes she'd made. "Only one stopped to help."
"Austin, you say," Kenpachi said, looking over her report. "That's Watanabe's, right?"
"Yep." Tammy dug through her files and pulled out the one she had on Kenny, handing it over to the general. "Doug and Harriet stopped too."
"As they were supposed to," Joshua said, finishing up his smoothie.
General Kenpachi flipped through the file. "He's doing well overall. He's not the best in anything, but a solid contender across the board." He set the file down on the counter. "He might be a strong choice."
Joshua tossed his empty cup away and leaned over to examine the file himself. "What do you think? In our top three so far?"
"I believe so," the general said. "We'll give it three more days. Maybe our other decoys will have more luck."
Tammy grinned.