“But four roommates, one room.” Lukas frowned.

“We have to hope we’ll get our chance to get a two-person space soon,” Raine said.

As they spoke, in came two of their roommates, both covered in sweat.

“You guys cycled here?” Lukas asked.

“Yeah,” one of them, a lean black man, said. “Do you know if the showers are any good?”

“Boy do I need a shower,” the other person said, a short man in a Johns Hopkins shirt. “And some food.”

“Yeah, the showers are fine,” Lukas said. “Go to the bathrooms inside the rooms. The one connected to the living room doesn’t have a shower.”

“There’s food in the fridge, by the way,” Raine said.

“Yes!” the Johns Hopkins guy said.

The two newcomers entered the bathrooms immediately.

About ten minutes after that, three more people entered, also covered in sweat.

“Damn,” a stocky man in a bomber jacket said after hearing the bathrooms were occupied. “Are there at least some towels outside?”

With five people looking around, they were bound to find the towels, which they did in a minute.

Then they got around to introducing themselves.

“My name’s Arnett,” the stocky man said. He looked in the fridge and poured himself a glass of water.

“I’m Reo,” a lanky Japanese man said after washing his face at the kitchen sink.

“I’m Max,” a Latino with glasses said. He looked young—maybe 17 or 18. “I’m pretty hungry. Is there any food in the fridge?”

“There’s a sandwich for each person,” Raine said. Max did a fist pump and grabbed one sandwich. “Let me know how it tastes. I’m pretty curious.”

“It’s amazing,” Max said after a bite. He devoured it all in a few seconds and drank three glasses of juice.

“Where’s the last guy?” Arnett asked. “Two in the bathrooms, five in the living room. There are only seven of us here.”

“Here’s hoping there isn’t an eighth guy,” Max said. “That would be nice.”

“Yeah, but there probably is,” Arnett said. “Anyway, there’s so much damn room out here. I’d rather sleep out here than in a room.”

“We should decide that once everyone’s here,” Reo said. “The living room is a decent spot. There should be someone else who wants to sleep here.”

“Yeah, like me,” Max said.

The two guys in the showers came out. To decide who went in next, Max, Reo, and Arnett rolled a digital die with an app on Max's phone. To Max's great frustration, the die landed on one of his numbers. The other two went into the bathrooms.

“We sure have a crowd now,” the black man out of the shower said. He and the short man introduced themselves. Their names were Grant and Vick.

Just as they started talking, a voice came from the ceiling through a loudspeaker.

“Ahem. Test. This is working, right? Wait, am I supposed to be talking right now?”

Raine hadn’t seen the loudspeaker at first, but the moment he did, he felt uncomfortable. And I thought weekend emails were intrusive.

“Well shit, there’s a speaker in here,” Vick said. “Bye bye, work-life balance.”

“What work-life balance?” Max said. “We’re on a private island. It’s going to be all work, no life while we’re here.”

“Okay, okay,” the person on the speakers said quietly. Then she said at a normal volume, “Attention all new employees, gather at the lobby within the next ten minutes. Latecomers will be required to perform thirty pushups and run a mile. This message will be repeated in two minutes. That’s all.”

Raine cleared his throat. Everyone’s eyes turned to him.

“Welcome to the army,” Raine said to them, his chest puffed out. “It’s time to buzz your hair.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Max said. Everyone saluted Raine.

“We should go down now before others fill up the elevators,” Grant said.

“Someone should let the two in the bathrooms know,” Vick said, eating a sandwich.

“Or subject them to thirty pushups and a mile-long run,” Max joked.

“Let’s not do that,” Grant said flatly. He went into one of the rooms and knocked on the bathroom door.

Max laughed awkwardly.

Once the two in the bathrooms were out, the group of seven left the apartment. Reo and Arnett were drying their hair with towels.

“Shit, what awful timing,” Arnett said, throwing his towel around his neck. “Someone could have at least given us a heads up earlier.”

Reo shrugged.

Six people from another unit came the elevator lobby. There was space for thirteen people in the elevator, but it wasn’t comfortable. Once they reached the ground floor, someone even knocked into Raine’s crutch.

Goddammit, he thought. This thing is taking forever to heal.

Steele, Song Hyun-woo, and others stood in the lobby. Raine and those with him were told to wait for the rest to come down.

Once the ten minutes were up, the new employees followed Steele out of the lobby and down the nicely-paved street to the neighboring building, which looked almost like a cathedral.

The interior was huge. Sunlight shone in through stained glass windows on the wall. They depicted four people in armor fighting a horde of green humanoid creatures.

About ten rows of seats stood in the hall, facing the platform at the back. There, instead of an altar and a cross, there was a giant projection screen and a lectern.

“Sit down,” Steele said, striding to the lectern. Song Hyun-woo, Ava, and a handful of other Hopkins employees sat at the chairs beside the platform.

Raine and his roommates got seats near the front.

“I hope this will be short. I’d like to take a shower already,” Max said quietly.

Raine nodded. He wanted a nap.

Steele spoke once everyone was seated. A pair of loudspeakers on either side of the platform made sure her voice reached everyone’s ears. “Welcome to Hopkins. I know you have questions, like everyone who steps foot on this island for the first time. You think this job is strange. You don’t even know exactly what you’ll be doing for us. That’s something we’ll tell you about it gradually over the next three weeks of training.

You’ve met your roommates. The seven of them will be your teammates for the next three weeks. I recommend you make an effort to get to know them. Once you return to your rooms, you will vote on who will be the team leader and the deputy leader. This is something you must do by eight AM tomorrow. Everyone in a team that fails to elect a leader and a deputy leader will be fired and sent back to America.”

Fired? What? Raine saw the surprise on the faces around him.

“Team leaders will communicate with management and organize a schedule for their teams. It’s a significant amount of responsibility that comes with no immediate benefits.

“Note that this island is within the jurisdiction of the United States. Just because it’s a private island doesn’t mean you can steal something or kill someone and get away scot-free. We have an entire team dedicated to investigating wrongdoing on the island. Criminals are caught and shipped off for prosecution in the States.

And about goods and services. There are businesses all over this area, run by current and former Hopkins employees. This includes corner stores, restaurants, barber shops, cafes, and others. These stores accept US dollars and occasionally foreign currencies, but that varies by store. On the next block, there’s a hospital. It’s one of two on the island.

And then transportation. There are no taxis, as you might have noticed. Most Hopkins employees get around the island by cycling, as the main road is mostly flat. Some drive, but cars are expensive here. Extremely expensive. And there’s the occasional person who rides a horse.”

The projector turned on and showed the image of four people with sunglasses riding horses. The building in the background was the Gilman Tower.

Laughter sprung up from the audience.

Steele looked confused for a second, but then she looked up at the screen behind her. “Ah. In any case, at the edge of the town, there’s a stable you can rent horses from. As for bikes, you can rent or buy one from a store nearby.”

She covered a few minor topics, like where the cafeteria was, before she proceeded to the more interesting topics.

“You will be expected to push your mind and your body to their limits in training. Eight hours a day, five days a week. You will learn to climb walls, ride a horse, shoot a gun, use a bow, fight barehanded, and throw a javelin, among other things. You will crawl in mud, swim in ice-cold water, and run until every muscle in your body is screaming for you to stop and your heart feels like it’s going to pump until it bursts. Half of you will cry before the end of the first week. Someone is probably going to break their leg. Not all of you are going to be on this island by the time training is over. If you’re scared, it’s time to back out before you get hurt.” She paused and stared at the new employees. “So, any quitters?”

No one said a thing.

“Great. Now return to your residences and pick a leader and a deputy. That’s all you have to do today.”

The doors opened. People trickled out. Most took their time leaving, immediately starting to speak with their teammates. The noise level of the hall shot up to that of a busy cafe.

“It must be pretty fun riding around the street on a horse,” Max said.

“Of all the things you got out of what she said, that’s the thing that stuck?” Arnett asked. Max shrugged.

“I have to say,” Lukas said, “I don’t get the solemn looks on the faces of some people around us. I’m pretty pumped to learn how to use a gun. I’ve never touched one before in my life.”

“Hold on. What about the leader thing?” Arnett said. “We barely know each other, and we’re supposed to vote on a leader for the next three weeks.”

“It’s just three weeks,” Max said.

“If our training is going to be anywhere near as painful as she suggests, those three weeks are going to feel a lot longer,” Raine said.

“Exactly,” Arnett replied.

“The leader just has to be a good communicator and a responsible person.”

“So not me,” Max said.

“At least you know,” Arnett said.

“Quit picking on the kid,” Grant said with a frown. “And let’s decide later. After getting some food.”

“Food!” Vick said, patting his stomach. “Damn, I’m hungry.”

“Didn’t you have a sandwich before we got here?” Max asked.

“Yeah, but you think that was filling?”

“It was for me.”

“Pfft, that’s because you’re still a kid.” Vick paused. “And because I didn’t have three glasses of juice like you. Dude, don’t take more than your share.”

“Okay, okay, my bad.”

“But how was the juice? It looked a little too healthy for me.”

“It was surprisingly good. Not too sweet, not to spinachy.”

“Damn, there’s spinach in there?”

Vick and Max continued talking about food as they all went back to the residences. Meanwhile, Arnett, Reo, and Lukas spoke about picking a leader, and Raine struck up a conversation with Grant about his recruitment. Unlike Livia, Grant had a wild story to tell.

“Two days before I got an offer from Hopkins, I was walking down a pretty shady street in Atlanta on my own at night. It was the kind of place you know you shouldn’t go without a friend or two, with just one look at it. But I was there because an old friend lived there and he owed me 50 bucks. I really needed it.

“Just as I was about to reach his house, some guy came up behind me as quietly as a ghost. He pointed a knife at my back and told me to give him everything I had. I was shocked and scared out of my mind. So I passed him my wallet and my phone. I was hoping that would be it. But the guy stayed there and laughed like creep. I thought I was going to die. Then some random guy just screamed, ‘Yo, motherfucker!’ and the mugger was distracted for a split second. I gave him a spinning back fist from hell. Then I grabbed my stuff and ran.”

“You were damn lucky,” Raine laughed.

Grant grinned. “Yeah, I was. I’ve been wondering ever since if the person who shouted was trying to help me, or if it was just random.”

Lukas came over from the conversation on picking a leader—a conversation he seemed to have minimal interest in—and spoke with them about his own wild experiences before getting an offer.

Probably unwilling to be outdone, Arnett joined the conversation as well and told an insane story about how he had unintentionally helped a friend rob a bank and how he managed to return the money.

“Oh come on, dude,” Vick said. “That’s total B.S.”

“I have to say,” Reo said, “it doesn’t sound plausible.”

“People. I’m serious!” Arnett said. He looked pretty earnest to Raine.

He’s a good liar, Raine thought.

“Yeah, anyway, we’re here,” Max said. He opened the door to their apartment, and they all poured inside. “Our clothes are there.”

Eight piles of clothing sat on the dining table. There were sticky notes on top of each pile to indicate whose it was. Steele had mentioned that their uniforms would be ready by the time they returned to their rooms.

They each got two uniforms.

The sticky note of the eighth pile had ‘Kayden’ written on it.

Huh. But where is the guy? Raine wondered as he grabbed his clothes and carried them into the first room, which he shared with Arnett, Reo, and Vick.

Arnett went around asking if anyone else wanted to sleep in the living room. No one but Max did. Raine wasn’t interested in ruining his back from sleeping on the couch. Max and Arnett decided who got to sleep there with a coin toss.

“Argh,” Arnett said.

Max threw his hands into the air. “Victory!”

While they were doing that, the others changed into their uniforms.

“We look ready to train,” Grant said, looking down at his clothes. “Just not in the job sense.”

“Yeah, without the jackets, we just look like we’re going to the gym,” Raine said.

“And with the jackets we look like we’re going to see a movie,” Vick said. He patted his stomach. “But goddamn, I’m getting really hungry. I’ll go first.”

Vick left, and soon, Raine did as well with Grant and Lukas. They went down the elevator and headed for the cafeteria. It took no more than five minutes to get there from their unit. The cafeteria was two buildings away.

Lukas pushed open the door, and the smell of roast chicken hit their noses.

The interior was nice, but the cafeteria wasn’t as large as Raine had imagined. It looked like there were about two hundred seats at most.

There was a sign near the entrance that said employees could take whatever food they wanted. But to keep people from taking plate after plate of food they couldn’t eat, there were no trays.

Lukas went straight to the roast chicken, while Grant took a quick look around before taking anything.

Raine grabbed a bowl of Arabic salad and a tuna sandwich and took a seat at Vick’s table.

Vick sat at a large table near the food-serving counter. Six plates of sandwiches, pancakes, and salads covered the table.

Vick took a giant bite of pancake. “This is terrible.”

“Wow, it’s that bad?”

“No, it tastes fine.” Vick frowned. “Good, actually. But dammit it’s wholewheat! It’s so healthy!”

Raine smiled wryly. He ate his own food. It tasted great, even though the tuna sandwich tasted more like a vegetable sandwich.

Their roommates took their seats at the table soon enough. By the time Max and Arnett arrived with their food, the rest were done eating.

“Okay guys,” Arnett said loudly enough to get everyone’s attention. “We have to decide who’s going to be the leader and who’s going to be the deputy leader.”

“Vote starts now,” Vick said. He lifted his full glass of water. “I suggest that this cup of water be our leader.”

“I support this suggestion,” Raine said with a straight face. “Wholeheartedly.”

“I do as well,” Lukas said.

“Me too,” Max said.

“Stop, stop,” Arnett said. “I’m being serious. Come on, people.”

“Let’s just rush it,” Max said. “Five second votes.”

“Sounds good,” Grant said.

Reo frowned. “Shouldn’t we give this a little more thought?”

“Eh, it shouldn’t be a big deal,” Raine said. Vick nodded. Arnett protested and Reo was reluctant, but it was five against two. Democracy at work.

Reo sighed but volunteered to be the one keeping track of the votes with his phone.

“No self-voting, agreed?” Raine asked. Everyone nodded. “Say the leader first, then the deputy leader. We’ll go clockwise around the table. I’ll start. Grant, Reo.”

“Max, Arnett,” Vick said. He grinned.

“Raine, Grant,” Lukas said.

“Reo, Lukas,” Arnett said after a few seconds.

“Grant, Raine,” Reo said, his fingers tapping his phone to record their votes.

“Uh, uh,” Max said. He looked unprepared. His gaze jumped from face to face on the table. And didn’t stop even as he said, “Ri—uh...Reo, Raine.”

“Raine, Reo,” Grant said.

“Well, that didn’t exactly go as planned,” Arnett said.

“Raine, Grant, and I each have two votes for leader,” Reo said. “Redo with votes limited to only us?”

Everyone agreed. Vick was the deciding vote, switching his vote to Raine. He asked Vick why he did that.

“You told me there was food in the fridge when I got into the apartment. And you reached the table first. Leadership right there,” Vick said jokingly.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

That was how he was handed the responsibility of being their team leader.