“Welcome to camp 2-a administration, I trust you’re a new intake?”

Sam stands in a slight daze, he snaps out of it after a moment, “Uh yes. I am Sam.”

“Sam…, ” the person mutters as Sam looks around the room, a single counter desk that leads out to a field, an old man sits on the other side of the counter, “Sam Tonak?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Ok I’ll print up your ID first, Ian will be around with your gear, welcome to the camp.”

“Thanks” Sam says while walking towards the window, he cannot see out of it though rendering his short walk pointless.

A few moments later the area where Sam was glows brightly drawing his attention, a person steps out of the portal. It’s another young man, his short brown hair and up-turned nose make him stand out.

“Hello” he says towards Sam.

Sam looks around and notices that he’s the only one in the building, “Hey, I’m a new arrival like you, the person at the counter is doing something.”

“Oh, well, I guess that means we’re in the same camp… I’m Harold.”

Sam steps forward, Harold holds out his hand and they both shake their hands, “I’m Sam.”

A person appears at the counter, a short middle-aged man with white hair, he’s hold a large pack of things. He doesn’t say anything as he places the things down before looking at the two of them.

He stares at them for a moment before disappearing, Harold and Sam both walk towards the counter as Sam looks at the pack of items that was placed down. It’s a large pack filled with clothing and bedding, some toiletries and other goods all neatly packed.

“Here you go, your ID is printed up Sam. Who are you?”

Harold steps forward to speak with the person, Sam picks up the ID.

‘Sam Tonak, Camp 2-A, Enlisted. #0001055242’

The portal shimmers behind them both, Sam doesn’t pay attention to it as he gathers the items on the counter. Two people gather this time causing the scene to become crowded, Sam quickly leaves the building and consults the guide.

“Umm It said I was in dorm 5, bunk 9b? I can see dorm 1 through 3…”

A voice comes from behind him as Sam walks along the pathway, “it’s near the techno lab. An auxiliary wing.”

Sam looks behind him, it’s Harold who has caught up to him, “Where are you bunked at?”

“Dorm 6, so basically next door.”

“Ah sucks you aren’t in the same one.”

“Yep, so where are you from?” Harold asks.

“I’m from…”

Sam briefly explains where he’s from and his life growing up there, Harold does the same and they discuss how a few things were different and find a few connections between each other. The walk is along a few pathways that are by open fields or empty buildings, all lowered into the ground slightly.

The whole place seems desolate and quiet, almost peaceful yet as they turn one more corner he can already hear the noise.

“So any idea what we have in store?” Sam asks Harold.

“I think it’s fitness trials first, then weapon selections. It was somewhere in the guide book, but that’s what everyone at home said.”

Sam nods, they come up to the split in the road, “I’ll see you later?”

“See you later” Harold nods and walks away. A brief moment of silence comes over the area as Sam watches him walk away.

Sam takes a deep breath and turns towards the dorm that will be his home for the next however long, a single story building that seems rather old and worn out on the outside, he walks towards the secure double doors that swing open as he approaches.

He isn’t sure what he was expected but what he sees before him doesn’t betray that expectation. A large open plan living area is before him with several rows of bunk beds. There’s people all over the place, on the beds and standing around.

Sam walks in unnoticed to the crowd. They all seem around his age yet far more immature than him as their figures are much smaller than his. He walks through the bunks and finds his own, #9B, a short search finds it towards the middle.

On the ninth row, B meaning bottom.

Sam looks at the bed and spots a problem, “Are you in the bunk above?”

Sam asks the person sitting on the bed, his bed.

“No, why?”

“That’s my bed.”

“Oh, I’ll move when I’m done,” the young man turns to talk to the person on the other bed.

Sam grits his teeth and ignores this, he pulls out footlocker by the end of the bed. It’s secure by this id card, so with a swipe he’s able to confirm that he’s in the right spot.

He places his good away and can see the person still on his bed, Sam walks up to him again.

“Can you move to the other side, at least? This is my bed and I need to get it prepared.”

“We have over an hour to prepare, you can wait. Just chill, there’s no need to cause such a hassle so quickly.”

Sam grits his teeth and takes a deep breath, “As this is the first day, I’ll give you some lenience but please do not push me. Take my words seriously.”

The young man laughs, his friends laugh, including several other people in the surroundings.

Sam walks away from the situation to calm down. He walks through a set of doors that leads into the bathroom that appears to be individual with a bathroom. He walks up to the sink and presses the button, causing water to fall out.

“What the hell is going on… where the hell am I…”

Sam washes his face a few times confused about what’s going on, he’s still wearing what he was at the ceremony yet… where is he?

He’s at a military dormitory, at boot camp filled with hundreds of people he doesn’t know. He’s had to rely on people he doesn’t know and go through situations without knowing a thing, and the worst part is that there’s no sign of it stopping?

Sam looks deeply into the mirror, he takes a slow deep breath as those thought escape his mind with one simple melody.

His mind settles and his internal energy feels calm, he feels at peace in the moment.

“Forward. Keep looking forward. So… first thing is to get changed.”

Sam looks in the mirror at his appearance, he looks mostly normal apart from some red in his hair. A large wound appears on the back of his neck that wont go away anytime soon.

He takes off his clothing, he ensures the phone is stored safely and is hidden from sight as he takes off his pants.

“Ah wait, what’s this?”

Sam pulls out a device from his pants pocket, he holds it up trying to remember where it’s from. A black device with a single button on the side.

“Ah it’s that thing from father… I never asked about it.”

Sam holds the timer device out before him, it’s displaying zeros. He never did find anything about thing this, it just seems like a standard stop watch just with some very accurate features.

He places it down along with the cellphone and searches his pockets and finds several more items, several wires and money. A battery pack and paperclip. Finally a flashlight.

Sam stand in awe at the pile of items before him, this was fit in his formal pants and jacket. The decorative suit doesn’t even have pockets… He pushes it out of mind and gets dressed in the gear provided by the camp.

A simple green buttoned uniform.

Sam sighs at his appearance, he looks like an entry worker going to his corporate job dressed by his parents.

He spent several minutes checking the guide to ensure this it the correct wear, the young man checks himself several times before collecting his gear and walking out the door, hiding what he needs to. Several people notice him instantly, they want to talk but they don’t get a chance as an announcement comes over the room.

“Drill Instructor coming, stand by your bunks for inspection.”

This repeats several times, all the people standing about rush about quickly standing by their beds, some of them are sitting on it waiting for the instructor appear.

Sam walks to his bed, it’s free of the person who was on it yet he left his mark as there are several large wet stains on the mattress. He pushes it out of mind and places his goods inside the locker and stands by the bunk.

The top bunk seems unoccupied so far, luckily.

Several minutes pass and nothing happens, the crowd of people begins to get talkative when suddenly,

*WHAM*

“ATTENTION! Instructor has arrived, all soldiers to stand by the beds for inspection.”

Sam looks towards the door that opened suddenly, a short middle-aged man has walked in beside him is a young woman wearing glasses, she is holding out a notepad and following him closely.

“Look here.”

Sam looks at the man, he is short yet he seems to relay a powerful command simply by his stature. Some people don’t seem to understand this and make some comments about the instructor as if he doesn’t notice.

The instructor’s face twitches before he speaks, “I am Instructor Kelle. I do not expect much, only the very best. I will not tolerate intolerance and especially… insolence. You are all new here and the brass has told me to keep my temper in check…”

Instructor Kelle makes his way slowly around the bunks, he starts at the beginning take a long look at each person as he speaks slowly.

“I can only promise that so far, I will not say what my limit is but people have been known to push against that limit intentionally. I can no longer punish the unit for the individual, that doesn’t mean I cannot punish you all individually because of an individual.”

He stops before Sam, the two of them make deep eye contact before the instructor nods his head.

“Good, see, this is someone that paid attention. You are meant to be in uniform, appropriate uniform for appropriate time. Now because I have said that I’d be lenient I will not punish you all for failing to meet this requirement.”

Several people can be heard breathing a sigh of relief in the background, Sam raises an eyebrow.

“Have you practised the exercises?” Instructor Kelle asks Sam.

“I have practised some of them… It was tough but before the ceremony I managed to complete over 2000.”

“Good, did you parents tell you to?”

“They had said something about it but no, I chose to do it myself.”

“Good, listen everyone. If you have not been able to complete over 2000 sets of the basic exercises, you will not be sleeping tonight.”

A few people groan in the distance, this seems to cause anger to flash in Instructor Kelle’s eyes.

“What is that, is that complaining? Groaning? Just for that, I will personally stay here and make sure you all complete it.”

The people in the dorm shut up upon hearing that final word, the short Instructor Kelle looks around the room before returning to Sam.

“What’s your name?”

“Sir, I am Sam, Sam Tonak,” Sam gives him a salute which must seem sloppy to the old soldier.

“It’s ok, we don’t need to do that here. Are your parents fighters?”

“Yes”

“Ok. Kelli!”

“Yes” the woman with glasses speaks up from the distance.

“Which grounds do we have?”

“We have grounds 9 for 4 hours, we’ll be notified for—

“Thank you Kelli!” the short man walks away from Sam and speaks loudly interrupting the woman.

“You heard her, I expect to see you all in your ‘sports wear’ and on grounds 9 in less than 5 minutes.”

The people of the dorm murmur for several minutes, the instructor clears his throat.

“I did not finish. Those that are not aware, Grounds 9 is located over 7 kilo metres away. You will not be able to get there in less than 5 minutes unless you are able to fly. Now my dossier didn’t include information on any of you being able to fly or travel faster than the speed of sound.”

“So…,” he continues, “What are you waiting for?”

As soon as the first person moves, everyone else moves too. The entire dorm is scrambling for the bathrooms or simply changing where they stand. Sam also fishes out the sport uniform that is a more casual uniform and changes where he stands.

It only takes a few moments for the first person to exit, Sam hurries up and is within the first 10 people to exit the building but there’s a new problem, he has no idea which way to do. Hi guide doesn’t include a map for some reason.

He follows the person before him hoping they know where they’re going, the group before him suddenly pauses.

“He said grounds nine?” one of the people before Sam says.

“Yea grounds nine. You know where that is right?”

“It’s over by the bio-med lab. That’s over by dorm 2. Right?”

“How can that be right, dorm 2 is right there…” the young man points towards a building not too far away.

“Grounds 9… I thought I saw something about Grounds I… is that it?”

“Grounds I, it makes sense it might be that but my map didn’t have that. It only listed grounds 55 and 56. They were far away from here.”

“Why would they give us that sort of map?”

…

The group discusses this problem as more people arrive behind them, a loud noise starts as people talk. Sam waits a moment but cannot bear it.

“Wait a second! I got an idea!”

“Shut up, listen to us!”

“who cares, listen to us!”

“shh”

…

People respond like that to when Sam speaks up, Sam clenches his fist and grabs a book from someone nearby. The guidebook shows a satellite map and wireframe overlay of the bootcamp region.

Sam judges 7km from where their dorm is located from the offset wing, there’s only 2 fields that meet that requirement. He grabs another guide book from another person and can see there’s an image from another time in the book.

Sam does the same motion, measuring the same distance and looking at the fields.

This time there’s only one field while the other place seems to be covered under water judging by the satellite photo.

Sam looks at the direction and yells out, “I know which way to go, follow me if you believe me.”

He dives through the crowd of people and starts running in a particular direction, no one follows him immediately but some stragglers do so they don’t lose sight of him. It doesn’t take long for all the newcomers to also shift direction towards Sam.

Before too long everyone is running in the direction of Sam who is going as a quick pace, he isn’t sure if the time limit was a serious thing but he pushes his body regardless running in the direction that leads up a slight hill.

Sam is panting as he crests the hill, the people behind him aren’t too far behind, he looks over the field and spots the instructor standing by himself in the middle of the field. Sam runs over in that direction, by the time he arrives the others aren’t too far behind.

Sam stops before the instructor trying to catch his breath, the instructor does not speak until all the others arrive where he slowly looks at his watch.

“Twelve minutes, twelve minutes means you guys will truly be dead by the time danger arrives. Good job Tonak.”

The instructor nods at Sam before looking at the crowd of people, they seem frustrated at Sam because they were berated yet he was praised.

Sam looks around at the crowd, before he noticed people were indifferent or mocking towards him but now they seem hostile, he shrugs and follows the steps of the instructor.

“We are here to find out how well you know your exercises, prepare your space somewhere on this field. It doesn’t matter where but I want to see a whole set, you aint leavin’ til I see a whole set.”

A couple individual groans can be heard but they’re very quiet, even Sam himself groans but in his mind.

The instructor slowly walks out to a little stage, “Begin!”

Sam begins his set of exercises, he uses the rudimentary set laid out in the books without any extra flourish. His body easily gets through them, giving him a chance to look around.

Many people are standing around without any idea what to do, some people are dancing about without a clue while some people seem to be copying Sam.

Only about 8 people out of the 70 are actually doing the exercises laid out in the manuals.

Slowly the people pick up the manuals and work out what to do, be it something they’ve learnt a long time ago or simple something they’ve forgotten. There are still plenty of people that have knowledge about it and are learning it on the spot.

The instructor walks about for sometime before he stops before Sam, “You. Tonak. Stop.”

He stops, several other people do in the background but the instructor quickly barks at them “don’t you dare stop, I want to see at least pre-lit 2 status before we leave!”.

Sam stops his moves and looks at the instructor, “Sir?”

“Go to the weapons pavilion, Kelli is already there. She’ll help you pick out something suitable.”

Sam is left speechless, he struggles for words other than, “Sir?”

“Don’t get emotional, just go. You have to be quick.”

Sam nods and stops what he’s doing, many other people look on with a hostility and anger, jealousy and other emotions. Sam ignores them and runs off.

‘The weapons pavilion is… this way I think…’