The tiny holographic planet that floated above my bedside table had progressed so much while I had neglected it, though most civilisations didn’t really need any external influence. Brenston had expanded since repelling the invading army, for me, it had been a few weeks but this world had progressed hundreds of years, the descendants of the young queen growing from a city nation, absorbing the nearest cities and towns and evolving into a near democratic state, a council of elected officials overseen by a current monarch, their borders secure and trade flourishing. Mia was as fascinated as I was when we lay in bed, watching the peoples of Brenston move about their day to day lives from an overhead view. The sun was only just peeking through the window, filling the room with a stimulating amber light.

Boom Boom Boom! The door shook from the knocks and Jacks' voice carried through and into the room. “Time to get up guys, there is a meeting downstairs,” He called before we heard his footsteps retreating down the hall.

I breathed deeply and sighed, trying to remember the now retreating feeling of relaxation, “What meeting?” I asked Mia, rolling over to look at her.

“Jack told us the other night, some meeting in the mess hall, Do you listen to anything your brother says?” she asked, rolling over the top of me and off the bed, stealing a quick kiss as her face passed over my own.

“He’s my brother. So no,” I said, rolling out of the bed after her. “What’s the meeting for?” I asked as I pulled on a pair of pants and an armoured shirt.

“No idea, Jack said he didn’t know either. Probably another exam.”

Mia wasn’t far off the mark. We entered the mess hall, following the line of Grey Scarred new recruits to heap food onto plates and zig-zag through the room to a table with Jack, Keg and Sam. It wasn’t long before everyone was seated, and the room fell into a quiet hum of conversation. It was interrupted by Dornish as he stepped up to the front of the room. There was a scraping of chair legs on stone as everyone in the room stood up in unison. “Sit,” he ordered.

“Today is a great day. The schools on Nerion will be partaking in the Campus war!” He boomed with hungry enthusiasm. If he had wanted an excited response or celebration. He was left underwhelmed when only a handful of people began banging their fists against the table, the sound muffled and unenthusiastic.

“What’s with you humans! You get to kill some stuff!” The response was a little more engaged though I suspected it was more because the room was full of dutiful soldiers than a room full of excited people. Like me, no one had any fucking clue what Dornish was talking about.

Thankfully Dornish could read the atmosphere of the room and sighed, “It’s a war on this continent, twelve academies will battle it out, for training, and for fun.” His smile was wide and full of glee.

“It will start small, skirmishes here, intelligence gathering there, and there are several things we required of you as recruits of the Grey Scarred Company. Your tutors will fill you in on the specifics.”

Dornish tapped his hand on his scanner and the wall behind him changed, the stone replaced by a massive map of a continent. This continent, A vast expanse of land all displayed in three dimensions. Over the mountains was a small symbol of a stone, right where we were. There were eleven other icons, over the grasslands, deserts, lake lands, coastal marshes and deep forests. The cities inhabited by robots were marked in a white. Unclaimed territories.

“Don’t forget that this will be judged, and you will be evaluated. It could affect your placements in the Company so take it seriously,” Dornish said, glancing back at the map before leaving the room and letting everyone explode into conversations. This time the excitement was authentic.

“Should be good fun, but you got any idea why they’re doing this?” I asked looking at the others.

“Same as any mock battles, training. Though I suspect that without us actually dying, we could make it a lot more realistic,” Keg said as he began eating.

“It will be, but Erick I need to ask you something,” Jack said, still ignoring his plate and looking across the table at me.

“Shoot,” I said, taking a mouthful of fried meat.

“What are you doing tomorrow? In the real world?” Jack asked, unblinking. His brown was creased and his eyes were cast in shadow from the overhead lights.

“What's tomorrow? Saturday… Nothing, Why? Jacks what’s up?”

Jack hesitated a moment, “I’ve been asked to bring you in. I don’t really have an option, sorry man,”

“Bring me in? In to where? Why” I asked, dropping my fork.

“Into the base. They are worried about you, your loyalties. About you leaking information,”

“My loyalties? Me, leak information? What about everyone else?” I said, Fuck being taking into the army base. I wasn’t a soldier, that wasn’t me.

“Look around man! Everyone else is beholden to something or someone. They’re all soldiers, all most all of them are Spec Ops of some kind. They have commanding officers just like us, and like us, they would have been made to keep their mouths shut. You know everything we know, on top of that,” Jack face cracked into a small smile, “You’re one of the strongest people earth has, as much as I hate to admit it. No government can sit there and just let you do what you want, at least not without talking to you first,” he said.

“Fuck that man, What If they don’t like what I have to say? What if I don’t like what they have to say?” I argued, my breakfast now forgotten.

“Nothing! I’ll be there. Don’t worry, they just want to talk.” Jack said, lowering his tone.

Mia reached a handout and placed it over mine. “You’ll be fine,” she said.

“I’ll pick you up in the morning, It will be fine,” Jack said.

I wasn’t so sure. Here, in the Dream, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye at facing down the general of an army, a prime minister or a president, but in the real world, I had a boring desk job. I pushed off from the table, leaving my plate still sitting full, “I have to go meat Diera, I’ll see you guys later.” I said, walking away from the table, out of the guildhall and across the lawn.

I spent the rest of the day between the lecture halls, listening to a bot drone on in a complete monotone about the legality of apprehending individuals in different systems, and the training hall. The lectures went on and on, there was so much to know that I began to get a completely different headache than the one I got from training my implant with Diera. While I trained, she explained what the campus wars were in more detail. Large scale battles between the campuses, utilising everything to coordinate attacks, gather information, capture high value assets and forging alliances. From what Diera said, Sam, Keg and I would be used for intelligence gathering and infiltration, Mia would help with troop deployment and air assaults as a pilot, and Jack would coordinate team attacks. Our individual training would combine as a team, for this mock war and future use by the Grey Scarred Company.

I fell asleep early that evening with my mind still racing, The Campus war, a test for all this training. A meeting with the military in the morning, being far out of my depths in the real world. I practically shook with a new sense of trepidation.

Jack wasted no time in the morning when I awoke from The Dream, I rolled out of bed, my muscles stiff from my last workout, and chugged back a protein shake waiting ready beside the bed. I was only halfway through my breakfast of eggs when there was a knock on the door.

“How do you know where I live?” I asked, stepping aside and letting Jack step through the door and past me.

“I didn’t,” Jack said, letting me understand the meaning behind his words. Someone in the government had done a bit of digging on me. “You’ve put on a little muscle, and lost a little fat,” Jack said, walking into my kitchen and dropping a slice of bread into the toaster. That was high praise coming from him, having been paid to workout since he had entered the special forces, he was in peak physical condition. I realised that I hadn’t seen Jack in the real world for almost a year, it was easy to forget when I saw him in The Dream constantly.

“Few Kilos, since this whole Dream business started. I suppose you don’t have time for a proper breakfast?” I asked, Dropping the rest of my eggs into the bin.

“No. Go get dressed we have to be there within the hour,” Jack grunted, looking out of the kitchen window at the view of Auckland Harbour.

“Don’t eat all my food,” I said, walking from the room to get dressed.

After Jack had eaten his slice of toast and the last of my protein cookies, I sat beside him in his old Subaru as it violently vibrated down the motorway.

“You’ll be meeting with a Major Thompson, He’s a decent enough bloke. Tough, so don’t be smart with him.”

“Me? Smart with someone? Like that’s ever happened,” I said in mock confusion.

“I’m serious man, just don’t fuck around. Tell him what he wants to hear.”

“And what exactly does he want to hear?” I asked.

“That you won’t sell information to anyone, that you’re not going to go against the interests of our government or earth in general.”

“I have no plans for anything,” I said, throwing my hands up in exasperation.

“Then tell them that,”

“I will, just seems pointless for me to be going all the way to the base just for that,” I said.

“I think Major Thompson has a little something else in mind, he wouldn’t tell me specifics, but we will see.”

We rode the rest of the way in silence while I flicked through my phone. Jack had been right with what he said at breakfast in The Dream. There hadn’t been news about the arrival of any aliens into the solar system, about what would happen at the end of Earths induction. I replied to a couple messaged from Cam and Rose, Rose wanting to know if everything was still okay with me, and Cam wanting to meet for another beer.

Jacks mood changed the closer we got to the army base, his back straightened, and his grip tightened against the steering wheel. When we turned off the main road and approached the gate Jack slowed the car to a stop. “I need your ID,” He said, pulling his own from a pouch around his neck.

I pulled my driver’s licence from my wallet and handed it to him as he wound down the window. Two men walked around the car once, and one of them stopped at Jacks window and peered past him. Right at me. “Hey, Jack. Is this Erick?" The man asked and I looked at Jack with a raised eyebrow. "I can see the family resemblance. He got the good looks while you got the height,” The man joked with a laugh.

“Yeah. Here’s his ID. Chuck us the forms and I’ll get him to sign.” Jack said, not returning his good humour and handing the man my licence and taking a clipboard from him in return. “Sign this,” he grunted, passing the clipboard and a pen over to me.

I glanced over the paper, a simple sign-in and form stating that I wouldn’t reveal anything seen or heard within the base to the general public. Which I scrawled my signature.

After Jack handed back the form and the gate slide open. The inside of the Base was nothing like I expected it to be. There were no tanks parked in rows, only a line of modern Toyota Land cruisers, and two helicopters parked on a large concrete pad. Uniformed soldiers walked casually along the side of the road. Jack pulled into a parking lot and led me past the single-story buildings from the nineteen seventies. They all looked like temporary structures that you would find on a building site, only they had been left here permanently. “You would think the Military would spend a little more on some decent workspace,” I said to Jack.

“This is New Zealand, not the United States, were not going to waste millions on making this shit fancy. Spend the money where it counts. This one,” A voice answered from behind us. I looked around to see Keg walking along the road. He looked the same as in The Dream, his stupid grin was the same. He walked up to us and slapped me on the shoulder then reached a hand out to shake mine, "Good to see you bro, welcome to our world," he said his smiling not going anywhere.

"It's so lovely," I said, looking at the beige walls.

"You get used to it, I hear you have somewhere to be, I'll see you after," he said, passing us by and walking off.

"This is us anyway," Jack said, stepping over a patch of grass and up to a doorway, pulling it open to let me through. Jack stepped past me again and I followed down a hallway until he stopped and knocked on a thin wooden door.

“Enter,” Came the response from a deep commanding voice.

Jack pushed the door open and pull me in after him. “Sir, I have my brother, Erick Sanders,” Jack said, popping a salute.

Seated at an oak desk, facing the doorway was Major Thompson. A middle-aged man, his crow’s feet, grey hair and thin cheeks spoke of a hard military life, and the tan beret resting on his head showed him as a member of the Special Air Service. “Relax Sanders, no need to stand on ceremony,” he said to Jack, who relax to stand at attention. “Erick, It’s nice to meet you mate, I’m Major Carrick Thompson, I’ve heard so much about you,” The major looked at me with hard brown eyes and reached across the table to shake my hand in his firm callused grip. He motioned to the chair opposite him and I pulled it out to sit.

“Nice to meet you too, what exactly have you heard?” I asked.

“Interesting things, let me show you something.” He said reaching into his desk and pulling out two files. One thin and the other thick, “Very interesting, This file,” Thompson tapped on the thin file, “Is everything we could find out about you from the real world, While this file,” he tapped on the thicker one, “Is everything we have learnt about you from The Dream. It's interesting that a young man, who has lived as normal a life as I have ever seen, who works as a simple data analyst for a power company, can have such a second life.”

There was no question in his tone, only the statement. I nodded slowly, “I’m just unlucky I guess.”

“Or very fortunate. You know the first thing I thought when I read Corporal Sanders report was why only one brother was here with us. Why did you not join the army like him? Someone like you would be an asset just the same,”

Fuck that, I thought. The last thing I ever wanted was to join the army like Jack. “I have never seen it as a viable career choice, thankfully.”

Thompson chuckled, “Can never force a man to go through what we have,” he said. “I’ll cut to the chase. You pose a significant security risk, so I will ask you three questions. Have you told anyone about the impending arrival of the alien ships, do you intend to tell anyone and who are you likely to tell?”

I blinked at him, at those hard eyes that stared me down. “I haven’t told anyone and I honestly I haven’t even thought about it. Everything that’s happened, I’m a little busy just coping with life to worry about the rest of it right now,” I said, honestly. “But you all realise that it's going to get out eventually, It won’t be from me, but there have to be thousands of people who know what we know, it can’t stay a secret for long,”

“We know, though the longer we can delay it the better. Have you thought about what would happen if the world knew? There will be panic, chaos. The more time we have to prepare, to release the information in an orderly and controlled fashion would be best. I only need to know that you understand.”

“I get it. I have nothing to gain by telling anyone anything. Do what you want, it makes no difference to me.”

“Glad to hear it” Thompson, visibly sighed and smiled.

“You had me brought here just for that?” I asked.

“Not exactly. I was hoping we could run some tests?” The Major smiled again.