AS: This is a short chapter, I'm sorry, but I just wanted to get something up! Enjoy
Alex tried not to gape.
"OK," Kai's stunned voice floated from his left, "Was it just me, or did you think that a recruitment session would be slightly…different, to this?"
"Hm,"
Kai took a step down the polished metal stairs. Down in the belly of the warehouse the music drummed heavily and the flashing lights danced off the chrome surfaces. Large plasma screens were hooked up in groups of four to the wall, with console controls dangling from them wrapped inside stiff plastic tubing. The floor seemed to be writhing as blue lights made snack patterns across the floor from underneath. Alex followed Kai down to the bottom, where a red rope was hooked across the stairs.
The pair paused. Were they supposed to unhook it?
"Name please,"
Alex blinked. He looked over at Kai but he was having the same problem trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.
"Name please," the voice repeated in the same dead-panned tone. Alex frowned, and reached out to touch the rope. It wasn't exactly solid, but incredibly hot. Like sticking his hand in hot treacle. He withdrew his hand. He noticed in the centre of the rope a small silver panel was flickering.
"Name please,"
"Alex Fisher,"
The rope paused, "Name please,"
"Kai Hanover," Kai mumbled, watching the 'rope' suspiciously. The panel went blank. It flickered again: "Please come in,"
It separated down the middle, drawing into itself. The boys moved forward and into the packed warehouse. Kai looked over his shoulder. The 'rope' had stretched out again.
"You know what that reminds me of?" he mused, as they went to investigate the huge screens.
"What?"
"A Lightsaber. Except…you know, it didn't slice your fingers off when you touched it. A Lightsaber would be kind of effective though. If someone tried to walk in without giving their name it would slice them from front to back right in the middle. Ha-ha,"
Alex didn't even want to know why Kai found that funny. He stopped in front of one of the screens and watched a set of twins battling each other on a boxing game on the top right hand screen. Just in front of them two friends were just starting up a car-racing game. He couldn't see the name of the console anywhere, and it wasn't like any controller he had seen before. The twin with the slightly longer hair let go of his controller suddenly pumped his fist in the air, "Woo!"
His brother hit the controlled with his fist and stalked away. The screen went black and flashed the winner's name.
"GEORDIE2-WINNER,"
The boy grinned and turned to the small crowd watching, "Come on, whose gonna take me on!"
A rush for contesters surged forward, hands grappling for the control. Alex watched the name on the screen. It slid into a red side panel, and slotted itself inside a long list of names. #27 it announced to its right. Even as it faded to black, Alex could still see names being slotted into the list, and GEORDIE2 sliding down about five places.
"Come on, we'd better have a go on one of these things," Alex prompted. Although considering the amount of people, it was hard even getting close to a console. When they finally to one, it was pretty similar to the one they had just seen. They grabbed the controls before anyone else could do. Others behind them grumbled and moved off.
NEW CONTESTANT - PLEASE ENTER GAME NAME
How did it know he was a new contestant? He quickly thought of a name and tapped it in.
"Chelsea7?"
"Well, what's yours going to be?"
Kai thought for a moment, "I don't know,"
"How about this?"
Alex reached across and entered in the name before Kai could realise what he was doing.
"Backpain! You called me Backpain!"
"Come on, pay attention,"
"You are going to pay for that Alex,"
Twenty minutes later they were drawing five all. They had attracted quite a fair audience.
"They're chanting my name," Alex chided as he knocked Kai's character backwards with a socker-punch.
"Yeah well if I wasn't called 'Backpain' they'd probably chant mine," Kai replied calmly, booting Alex's character in the face. The avatar on screen swayed and hit the floor. Kai let go of the controller rather violently.
CHELSEA7 - WINNER
They left the game for the others and moved on.
"So what do you figure this thing is about? Getting kids to play video games. How is that going to help Navy 66?"
They grabbed a drink from the bar and sat on the bar stools watching the rest of the warehouse go crazy over the games. The room was hot and sweaty and Alex pressed the cool can against his forehead.
"It's starting to get really competitive," Alex commented, as two twelve years old scuffled underneath the tangle of controllers.
"And no-one seems to care," Kai added, watching the men in suits wandering around not even blink at the squabbling boys.
"You think they want us to fight?"
"It's not really fair. I mean, some of these kids are twelve, and some are seventeen,"
"Hm,"
After a few moments trying to stave off the exhausting heat, Alex's already sensitive head felt like it was being suddenly cracked open as a voice boomed over a megaphone.
"Can I have your attention please!"
The games shut themselves down, the screens drawing blank. Only the large one at the head of the room kept on moving. Alex watched it closely. It was quite unnerving how it moved seemingly on its own at such a quick rate, swapping the list of names and positions, slotting ones in and switching ones from grey to red, always moving, always changing and reorganising. It made Alex shiver. The man who had appeared at the top of the stairs with a small contraption in his hand cleared his throat and bellowed down the small black box.
"Thank you for participating in this recruitment session. We are all very pleased with you giving us your time and dedication,"
He made a gesture towards a line of skinny, suited men different from the ones who had been circling the crowd. And at the very end, was Ignacio. He was wearing a black pork pie hat, and his black tie was knotted low. His first button was undone and the bottom of his black jacket drawn back where his wrists were stuck into his pockets. On his right wrist was a dark tank watch. He pulled it close to his face and checked the time, before blowing out air from his cheeks heavily. He looked very bored. His eyes surveying the crowd until they fell upon Alex. A flicker of recognition moved across his eyes and he raised a hand. Alex nodded in return.
"We'll be giving you another half an hour to have a few more goes on the games, before we instruct you on what's going to happen next,"
Exactly half an hour later, after Kai had just managed to beat Alex at a table tennis game, the screens all simultaneously switched themselves. Even the main one was quiet. Alex had nothing against games, he played them often enough, but he couldn't understand how Navy 66 were using them to differentiate from one kid to the next. Were they really looking to build an army of excellent computer gamers to do their bidding?
"Quiet!" a voice different from the earlier man's boomed out from the megaphone. Every kid in the warehouse winced. "Right! We've tabulated your results and we've got a couple of winners we wanna see up close!" the new man behind the megaphone was tall and broad, shadowing Ignacio who stood nervously to his side, watching the man with a mixture of apprehension and awe. Probably because he towered about a foot above even Ignacio's tall, lanky frame. The other suited men were gone.
"I'm going to read out these names, and every kid I read out, I want to come up here!"
Kai was still scowling forty minutes later.
"Sorry," Alex smirked.
"You didn't have to call me 'BACKPAIN,"
"I didn't know they were going to call your name out,"
"But they did! Did you notice how quiet everyone went when he announced someone called 'Backpain' had got through?" Kai sighed and his ran his hand through his hair, "Well look, lets just figure out what's going on here,"
"Ok. They picked us, for some reason, out of a group of about one hundred kids. And now we're in the back of the warehouse-"
"Being lectured by a man with a moustache," Kai grumbled. He shifted on the high leather back chair. The others kids were perched around the 'VIP area', looking a little uncomfortable as this strange, moustached man talked to them about computer games.
"You were all excellent in particular fields of those games, and you have all got through to the next round!"
"Of what?"
A boy a year or so older than Alex and Kai asked. The man tapped his nose, "You will soon see. I would like you all here at exactly midday tomorrow. Until then, enjoy your freebies!"
The others in the room handed out white plastic bags filled with video and computer games. That seemed to satisfy them all. They were ushered out onto the street, and eventually filtered off until only Alex and Kai were left.
"Was that it?"
"I suppose,"
"Fun," Kai sighed. Alex flipped out the mobile Marco had given them and called him.
"We're done,"
The silence in the alleyway was amazing considering the throbbing music they had left behind in the warehouse. Alex listened half-heartedly to Marco gabbling about parking spaces in London, before he was interrupted by Kai's shout, "Duck!"
It was too late. Something smashed into the back of Alex's skull with the force of a mallet and the world went dark. Something fell next to him, onto his fingers. He groaned and suddenly he couldn't feel anything anymore.
AS: again i apologise for the long wait and short chapter! Please review though!