CHAPTER 7

When my spotted vision came back into focus, I was standing, hand outstretched to the beacon rock. I was back in swampland.

The other members were all sitting off to one side around a campfire and something was cooking on a spit. It smelled so delicious I could immediately feel saliva pool in my mouth. Sarah was sitting with the group and she noticed that I was back.

Calling out she waved, “Hey, Colonel Armpit! You’re back!” I grimaced inwardly. She had called me using my nickname. I preferred to introduce myself without military attachments.

“Wow!” she exclaimed as I turned and walked towards them. Grinning, I nodded. It was hard to exude a commanding presence in just a loincloth, but with my new all-body makeover, I felt like I was on cloud nine. My body had a new lease on life. I was the all-new me.

“Petros Arkansas” I stated, walking up to the burley hairy fellow who had called himself Stone McGee, hand outstretched for a handshake. The man stood up smiling. His body was very hairy, almost carpet-like across his chest. His face covered in a full beard. He returned my grip. Strong and sure. I then turned to the others, repeating myself as each one shook hands and told me their names. Sarah was hovering along with me and we all sat down around the campfire.

“That roasting meat sure smells good. What is it?” I opened, not sure where to join in the conversation.

Charlie, a brusk Texan with a build like Sylvester Stallone said, “This here be one of them dang flat dawgs,” his Texan accent was just a little too much, but then having known a few Texans, it was probably just about right.

“We can eat the alligators?” I enquired.

“Sure can, and they tastes just like chicken!” The group chuckled at that, “Here try some.” Using two sticks fashioned for the purpose, he gave me a piece from the roasting carcass. My hunger was all-consuming and not being a squeamish eater I jumped in.

It tasted like crisp, succulent chicken. Not too raw and not too dry. Perfect. It left me salivating for more. By this time, he had gathered a few more choice pieces of the roasting meat and placed them on some dried bark used as a plate. I continued to consume, while the others picked up their respective plates and we all chowed down on what turned out to be a medium size alligator. Irony? Perhaps, but then I was finding a lot of things with this situation ironic.

When I finally looked up, licking my lips and fingers, John Stiles enquired in a typical New York accent, “Where are you from Colonel?” He was a slender wiry-looking man, taller than average with dark thoughtful eyes. Looking at him I could see him sizing me up as us military types are wont to do. In fact, all of them gave me that impression and I could feel a deep-seated camaraderie that only exists between men and women who have fought, prevailed and bonded in the Armed Forces.

“Please, just call me Petros, my military days are behind me,” I stated. It was a long-practiced lie because once you were a military man, your deeds followed you forever. Especially in your nightmares. It came to me then, that actually, I was no longer retired.

Hugo Eriksson, a blonde haired, blue-eyed hulk of a man, easily two meters tall said in his clipped Nordic accent, “You may hav been retired before the abduction, but now you are very much reenlisted.”

This brought out snickers from most of the group and a huge booming laugh from Hugo. He seemed to be a man who did things in wholes, not halves. “Are you Dutch?” he enquired. This brought out a laugh from Sarah, who then gave them the same clue I had given her.

“Where he comes from, they call hurricanes cyclones and there is lots of gold.”

“Eldorado?” Answered Raúl Sánchez, the only Hispanic of the group. He was a stocky shorter man, quite a lot shorter than myself. He had a solid soldier's bearing and a well-defined body, dark eyes and one of those grins that were infectious. This caused Hugo to choke and then unable to contain his mirth, bellowed out in great booming bouts of laughter. When someone puts that much effort into laughing, you can’t help but crack a smile, and from there it doesn’t take long to widen that grin until you are laughing too. I immediately felt in sync with these guys. Even Sarah’s laughter could be heard trilling amongst the bass of all us testosterone-bearing thugs. What followed was one of the best experiences I had had in a long while. It was a simple thing, chatting around a fire, small talk, but it allayed our fears. We were all victims. This simulation gave us a chance to forget about that and focus on being human. At last, I poked the big white elephant in the room.

“So what are we doing here?” I addressed the question to Stone McGee, whom it turns out was an ex-Special Air Service operator with the rank of Major. He seemed in charge of the group. He was also the ranking officer other than myself.

“Colonel, we are a special team gathered by the aliens. Our purpose here is to familiarize you with your new situation and bring you on board as a fully committed member. There were three other candidates, but of the five, only you two made it. From what I’ve heard from the lass over there,” he indicated Sarah with a thrust of his jaw and a tilt of his expression. His whiskers still dripping with the grease from the meal. I had to look away, the impulse to ask him to wipe his mouth strong on my mind.

As if reading my thoughts, he used his forearm to wipe his mouth and smiled. “I have to teach you about how to access your skills, how to improve them and what you need to do to get ahead. Make no mistake, Colonel. Our situation is tenuous. It requires us to be successful. You were not chosen at random. Each member of the ASS service is someone who won’t be missed, who…”

“The what service?” I interjected.

“Yeh, we call ourselves the ASS Service. For Abductee’s Special Service.” He cracked a grin through the carpet of hair on his face and continued with practiced ease, “We try to take ourselves seriously, but in training, we get to let our hair down, besides with all the riff-raff from different international services, what else could we be called?” He looked up with a mischievous twinkle as he waited for the cat calls from all the various members. They didn’t disappoint.

“Okay, okay, I take it back. Not everyone has the pedigree of the SAS. It is what it is. I had no part in naming it, but someone did and it has stuck, so there ye have it.” Turning back to me he continued, “You are now in a simulation we call Nico Sim. Short for Nicaragua Simulation. It’s not an exact replica of the place and has elements of Florida and most of Central America. Especially in terms of flora and fauna. But getting back to what I was saying, you won’t be missed back home, most likely you have no living relatives and you have an exemplarily military record. The aliens who have us are an ancient race, who, because of their advanced tech, have lost the physical attributes needed to adequately defend themselves or others. Instead, they train us to do that job for them. They seem to select experienced military personnel only, and inject them with nanobot tech to enhance their abilities to super soldier status. Although we have seen a few younger guys come through with various other talents like computer programming, engineering, and physics, but they don’t advance the same sorts of skills as we do, or in the same way. It all depends on how you use the skills as to how you will advance. It’s all very mumbo jumbo tech stuff, but cutting edge.” He nodded sagely at this very mundane description of our situation. I had some questions but before I could interject again Major Stone lifted his hand to stall me and continued.

“You are most likely between level 1 and 5, although judging by the length of time you were attached to the beacon and the condition your body is in after, I assume you hit level 5 and got to select your Class. As we are all above level 50, we have been through the drill more times than we care to remember. The pain from enhancements the first time though is really quite an experience. Now, before you ask questions, I want to finish what I have to say to you.”

“Each Class is specific for each individual. The Absinth, um, you know the aliens who have us are called the Absinth?” I nodded. He continued, “Well, in case you're wondering, it’s Hugo’s favorite alcoholic beverage. He kept asking for Absinth when they caught him, he was suffering from a hangover and wanted more hair of the dog. The aliens took him literally and thought he was calling them Absinth. Somehow the name stuck and they call themselves that now so we have something easy to remember. If you want their real name, you will have to ask your alien who controls you.”

“How many of us are there?” I blurted the question while he took a breath.

“Honestly, I have no idea, perhaps a few hundred, no more than a thousand on our ship, but since I reached level 50, I have been working with these ugly mugs exclusively. Sadly, we lost some people from our unit a few weeks ago, and all the mages have already been assigned to other teams. So we are here helping you newbies get acquainted hoping to snag us a mage or two to strengthen our unit.”

“But I thought we can’t die in these Sims? What happened to your men?” I asked.

“Well, now that’s a great question Colonel, and the truth is you can’t really die in these Sims, well you die here, but not in reality. However, you won’t always be performing in these Sims. When you reach level 40, you will go on real life missions, and at level 50, they will assign you a regular team. With the scarcity of mages, those mage classes will most likely get assigned even earlier in their progress.”

“I see,” I replied, not really seeing at all. “Then what exactly do they mean about mages? I mean on Earth, magic is just a myth.”

“Yeah, you will discover that to be false. The Sims you will have to overcome to get you to level 40 will make magic a critical part of your life. Are you a mage?”

My internal reluctance to share information struck to the fore, I wasn’t sure I wanted to say too much about the skill class I had chosen, especially as I didn’t understand exactly what I had gotten myself into. None of these guys seemed to be the type who played computer games, but then you never knew. As a Prodigy, though I should be able to perform magic, in fact, I had specifically chosen it so I could. That was before his big reveal that this was much more than a Simulation to entertain the aliens. Besides, humans couldn’t perform magic; it was as simple as that. At least not in the real world.

“Aye, I can see you are the cagey sort Colonel but don’t worry, we are all friends here. You will change your song in time. I am a Ranger Mage, not so skilled in magic as I would like, but I have enough to get by creating shields and such. A fair bit of Druid magic and Air magic. You probably don’t believe in it yet, but you will. The Absinth have found a way to unlock the potential in certain individuals, allowing them to manipulate matter. A kind of psychic awareness and ability. It allows the gifted to manifest thought and willpower into reality. We have learned to not only manipulate matter with our minds but to develop an affinity to the different arenas of magic. We cannot teach each other, but if you have innate abilities, they will manifest during your training and access to spell books. Dinna fash yirsel.”

Sarah, who had been sitting next to me clinging on to every word during the conversation, asked: “What was the last part?”

McGee laughed. “Sorry lass, sometimes I slip back into Scottish. It means ‘don’t you worry’.”

I turned to Sarah and asked, “What class did you choose?”

Shrugging her shoulders she said, “I didn’t get to choose a class, I was only bumped up to level 3. I spent 4 of my points on Luck. I am now on 12 Luck points, then I put one point on strength and one on intelligence. So hopefully with my next training Sim, I can get to level 5. Major McGee was telling me that people usually reach level 5 after four Sims and in exceptional circumstances three Sims. He said that I could probably reach it on my next Sim because we had met up and worked together to complete this one. He said that people seldom reach this point in Nico Sim on their first try, if ever. So I got rewarded a lot of points for it.”

I nodded. “Yeah, we saw one of those other guys trying to reach the island by swimming. He got eaten. Wasn’t pretty.”

John chimed in, “That will be a regular occurrence in all of your training. Each death leaves a scar though. You want to avoid them as much as possible. The human psyche gets twisted if you go through too many deaths. Creating a false sense of bravado and making you forget you will be part of a team. If you die too many times, there is a good chance the Absinth will discard you as unsuitable.”

“They do that?” I asked. “Man! These aliens sure have a lot of autonomy to fuck with us. Doesn’t it rankle you we are essentially their slaves?”

“Better stow that talk, Colonel,” Raúl spoke from across the fire. “The Absinth don’t appreciate their pets getting rebellious. We are here to follow orders and take out the trash for the good of all species. In time, you learn that. Hooyah!”

Sarah blurted out “Sempre Fi” as Marine personnel were wont to do, and they both grinned at each other.

“Raúl, are you a navy puke too? Let me guess, SEAL’s?” I asked knowingly.

“That’s right, Colonel, and in this place, I’m an Assassin. What they call a Dark Assassin and let me tell you it’s got some serious perks.” From his hand a misty dark substance streamed out all around him, enveloping him and suddenly just like that he was gone. I could see where he had been sitting just moments ago, but right before my eyes, the guy had just disappeared. It startled both Sarah and me and even more so when his voice whispered into my ear a moment later. “How do you like that?”

Well, without thinking my reflexes kicked in. I had years of self-defence training, and my now perfect body responded. From my sitting position, I straightened to stand, then my hips thrust up and back, my hands groped for where his voice had been and I threw him judo style right over my head directly onto the firepit full of simmering coals, the remnants of the meal we had cooked, went flying in every direction. He was slightly intangible, but I had grabbed a handful of his hair while I executed the move. As he crashed down onto the burning embers, he became tangible once more. Using his hair, I dragged him off the hot coals as he screamed in pain, his mouth letting forth a stream of Latino expletives that would make a sailor blush.

Everyone else around the fire stood up. It all happened so fast that no one did more than that.

“Christ!” blurted Stone. Rushing forward to check on Raúl, who was howling like a madman, trying to dislodge the burning embers from his posterior. The smell of burned flesh pervaded the clearing.

I was standing poised, ready to face anything, my adrenaline spiking through the roof. Sarah backed away from me. John, on the other side of the fire, retrieved his makeshift spear and cocked his arm for a throw. Hugo, on the other hand, reacted the least. He did have a surprised expression on his face, which then became thoughtful, and without warning turned to crinkled amusement. His hearty bellow of laughter soon followed. This broke the spell. John lowered his weapon and looking at Raúl, his lips twitched into a wry smile.

Still amped, still full of adrenaline, I shouted, “What the fuck, man! How did you do that? Why did you do that?” Stone, began helping Raúl dislodge the burning debris still searing his rump. He brought out the gourd with the healing potion and Raúl sucked on it like it was the last drink on earth.

Turning to me, he gasped. “Manno! You are fast! that was a good response, but did you have to throw me into the fire?”

Charlie, who had been out on watch came storming into the clearing. His expression expecting trouble. “What the hell happened!” he blurted.

Stone said soothingly “Don’t worry about it Charlie, our vigorous SEAL here tried to give the Colonel a scare and it ‘backfired’. Mightily!” He then roared with laughter perhaps finding more amusement in his pun than the actual event. Hugo was still gasping and spluttering with laughter, and with Stones play on words, went up for more. His face was pulsing red as he struggled to take in a breath. I thought the Norwegian was about to have a stroke.

Charlie looked down, puzzled at Raúl’s sizzled rear. The smokey remains of his loincloth still smoldering.

Raúl said, “Don’t ask, just know that the Colonel has got some moves.” He came over to me hand thrust out. “No hard feelings, man. I was just showing off.”

I clasped his hand, then changed to a forearm grip. “Hooyah!” I said, and we both grinned.

Once things had settled down again, we retook our places and Stone continued. “Well, you have seen how magic works here. We all have a fair number of tricks for our respective classes, but none of us is as powerful as a dedicated, talented mage. We really need those when we are sent up against the enemy. The enemy have all kinds of advantages, but they have little to no defense against powerful magic, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“So I’ve told you the why, but I haven’t told you the how yet, so let’s get to it.” Stone continued, “First I need to explain to you how to operate your character sheet and adjust your skills. Please keep in mind that innate Abilities differ from Skills.”

“Abilities have a numerical value assigned to you specifically, based on who you were before. From this point on, you will receive skill points, depending on how much you use a skill while doing the various Sims. These accrue and are influenced by your current Abilities, and similarly they contribute to your future capabilities.”

“You will have no guidance, hints, nor prompts other than perhaps sometimes a general objective. Sometimes you will work with others; sometimes you will work alone. Each Sim has a different flavor, a different focus. This one here, Nico Sim is all about survival. We also use Sims to practice before missions. This helps us to prepare for what we are likely to face.”

“The system bases rewards on surviving the challenge and reaching the objective within a certain timeframe. What you do along the way all contributes to your skills and to some degree abilities. Now you have reached level five, only your skills level up and accrue to your overall level, until level 25, where you can adjust your Core Abilities again, and then again at level 40. There are other points of advancement, but none of us has reached that level yet.”

“What Sims have you been to, or is this your first Sim like Sarah?”

“Well, I was in one other before this. It was a desert and got eaten by huge bark beetles, that was not a fun experience I can tell you.”

Stone chuckled. “Aye, those beetles definitely know how to tear a man apart. We call that Sahara Sim. That’s when magical abilities come to the fore. With magic you can levitate above the sand, or if you’ve the assassin’s skill-set, you can adjust your gait to move naturally so they don’t detect your presence. You can also be like Hugo over there, our mighty warrior. In his last outing in Sahara Sim, he found their queen and ripped her head off. At level 65, he has quite an advantage in terms of strength and power. He usually takes the brunt of enemy attacks and dishes it right back.”

“What about modern weapons?” I asked. “Rifles, mech-suits, tanks, and so on? Don’t we get to use any of that? It seems ridiculous that we are sitting here in loincloths using rudimentary caveman weapons. We are all accomplished soldiers and we are being retrograded.”

“Aye Laddie, don’t think like that. We have to make do with what we have so we don’t attract attention to Earth. If the aliens equip us with that type of technology, we run the risk of being noticed. We have to keep a low profile. Also, our weapons won’t function the same when not on Earth. While the bullet may fire, as it has its own oxidizer within the casing, the atmosphere it is fired into may be denser or less dense than what we are used to and accuracy will be compromised, then there are the casings and the bullet heads themselves, which will leave telltale signs of our presence. According to the Absinth, we have to remain anonymous. If we die or are captured, we must have no tech that the enemy can identify, no way to determine how advanced we are as a species. Our masters are the cagey sort, a bit like you, reluctant to share info and even more reluctant to let their underhanded schemes come to the light of day. Apparently, we are one of the few species that can use magic easily almost anywhere, and so that is what gives us the edge, and they force us to develop that edge in these Sims. Now, let’s get on with training you. What Class did you choose?”

“I chose the Prodigy Class,” I stated calmly. Not sure what the response would be.

“At last!” interrupted Hugo from across the fire pit, “That’s good news, Mr. Petros Sir, we have never had a Prodigy in our team. Although when I started on this journey there was a Prodigy in charge of the team that introduced me to my role. He was an arsehole though. I hope you won’t be like that.” His face had turned into a frown and I decided to deflect his thoughts.

“How long have you been part of this Hugo?”

“That is a good question,” he said in a thoughtful voice “Let me think… they took me in 1999, at that time I was 35 years old, a Rittmester, um, that’s a Captain rank. I am a former member of FSK or Forsvarets Spesialkommando. It’s a not so well known Special Forces unit for anti-terrorism in Norway. I was badly injured in an anti-terrorist operation, I lost a leg and was crippled and they retired me with distinction.”

“The uselessness I felt during all those months in hospital, the empty platitudes from everyone, and the pity in their eyes, it was very… how to say nedslående… um, disheartening. Now in this place, I have everything I lost grown back and a lot more. It is all I live for. I am a WARRIOR!.” He looked up at me, with determination in his expression. The cascade of information about his personal life was a revelation for me and judging by the surprised expressions of his teammates it was for them too. Choosing not to notice our reactions, a silence fell and Hugo became lost in his memories while staring into the fire, then he looked up as if dismissing the past from his pondering thoughts and the big man smiled.

“What year is it for you now?”

“It’s 2025, that means you are 60 years old. Although you definitely don’t look like it.”

“Ah,… Time here is difficult to measure. Sixty you say? Well, if this is a retirement plan, it’s definitely better than the alternative. What say you Petros Armpit? Are you a believer yet?”

“Just call me Colonel, Armpit or Petros, please. We are all friends here.” I said expansively. My hands and arms open in a gesture to incorporate those around the fire. Everyone turned to me, their eyes masked, guarded as they looked at me, waiting for my reply to Hugo’s deeper question. I realized this was the crux of the whole meeting. These 'Operatives’ probably all had some equally stunning revelations about their previous lives, but those lives didn’t matter anymore. They had embraced the cause of our slave masters. Stockholm syndrome? Perhaps, but even more compelling for them was the training, the order, the system. It made them feel useful. In Hugo’s case, he had been superfluous and redundant. A pity case, with no hope of ever regaining his former glory. With the abduction, it had all changed. He was an ideal candidate for such a system.

Inwardly I sighed. They wanted me to commit. They wanted to see if I would join the cause. I had no way to know what would happen if I disagreed with this process, except that perhaps that was why they were here. To judge my usefulness to the cause, and perhaps to execute me if I didn’t meet the requirements?

Keeping my calm demeanor, I nodded. “I believe in being useful, I have been rejuvenated and revitalized. For this alone, I am indebted. I will try my best to embrace this new way of life, Hugo, but I can’t commit fully without understanding more. For example, who are the enemies of the Absinth, are those enemies really Humankind’s enemies or are we just being forced into some war we should have no part of? So to answer your question, yes, I am a believer for now.”

Everyone visibly relaxed, and I felt like I had just passed a test. So, I was right in assuming they were here as a control of some kind.

Relieved to have spoken my mind without repercussions, I turned to Stone with a receptive expression.

He took the cue and continued. “You have to learn how to access your skill log, which differs from your Character log. Now for me, as a Ranger Class, I was given very few skills to develop initially, and they were all skills I had already gained in the Regiment. I was just able to improve on them until new skills and sub-skills developed. They also gave me the opportunity to learn other skills from experience.So if you try something new, it registers and scores them. When I reached level 25, I was able to select the Mage class as a sub-class because my core Abilities met the new criteria.”

“They will give you points to rank up skills after each level is complete. Know this though, that each Sim will grant overall level points or experience points, but may or may not cause you to level up. It all depends on the results. Only when you level up and you meet the beacon at the end of a Sim will your points be assigned to your skills.”

“Much like the process you went through when you bonded with the beacon.”

“Okay, so how do I do it? I see all these boxes pop up in my vision when I give damage to creatures. How can I get rid of those? They really distract me.” I replied.

“The boxes are the first way we interface with the AI controller. It’s a simple way to relate to you, showing you what you are probably familiar with. There is a much more efficient way, but you have to will it to happen. Once you do that, it forms a Combat log, which you can reference during downtime. It also stops showing up while you are in combat, besides a blinking light, which you can arrange to any position that is comfortable for you. Now back to your Character sheet. To access it, you must close your eyes and visualize your Avatar. When you do that, the Character interface will show up.”

I closed my eyes and did as Stone asked. Sure enough, in my vision was a familiar character sheet I recognized. Continuing, Stone instructed,

“Now look at the Character Attributes and make a mental command 'Skills’” As I did so, the attributes blurred and a new list of skills appeared in their place. The list was long and extensive. “Before you get into those,” said Stone, “Go back to attributes in the same way. Then visualize Magic.”

I did as he asked and my avatar disappeared, only to be replaced by a pentagon type shape, within the pentagon was a spinning Yin-Yang sign. The pentagon had five edges of color, and as I focused on them individually, they each highlighted and a description box appeared with a short description embedded.

Fire

Fire is the essence of combustion. Consumption magic will spring from this font.

Nature

Nature is the essence of growth. Druid magic will spring from this font.

Air

Air is the essence of gases and weather and their manipulation. Air magic will spring from this font.

Water

Water is the essence of life. Aqua magic will spring from this font.

Metal

Metal is the essence of resilience. Power Magic will spring from this font.

Combinations of the above five elements will create unique results and subsequent sub-skills of magic.

I saw that the word ‘Font’ was highlighted in each notification. I activated the highlight.

Font

A font is a pool of Mana unique to each individual and is the measure of magic you can perform. Each incantation has a cost that will be deducted from your Mana pool until it is empty, at which point you can no longer access magical abilities. This pool of resources is available once activated during the class selection process. It will be adjusted based on usage, ability, intelligence, and wisdom. You can see your Mana pool bar below your health bar in your HUD (Head’s up display).

I opened my eyes and asked Stone how to activate my HUD.

“Just will it in your view while your eyes are closed and it will always be available to see. It has several crucial notification options you can arrange as you like. Almost everything you can do is activated by thought alone. If you find you can’t do something, ask your alien, and he will instruct you. If it has never been done before, he will endeavor to make it available.”

“And there you have it, Colonel. Everything you need to know to succeed in your next level. We have already given Lieutenant Wilson instructions so all that’s left is to hear a little more about you, and we can all fade back out to our handlers.”

“Lieutenant Wilson?” I asked puzzled.

“He means me, Petros, I am Lieutenant Wilson,” said Sarah.