d by Captain Steward. In the afternoon, he would be reading reports that Jacks never finished, or be ‘loaned’ to other departments to use.

On a Friday morning, there was a change in the routine. Seth was called to a training facility or the morning exercise this time instead of the usual outdoor track field. “ Good morning Seth! We’ll be doing something new today! Here let me show you something.” With that said, Steward led Seth to a wall on the right side of the training room.” What do you see here?”

“...a wall?” Seth answer confused.

“Haha. That’s what most people would think. Here watch this.” The older man banged on hand on the wall and the wall opened up. He led the surprised Seth into the room that was filled with racks of guns. He saw rifles, hand guns, and even grenade launchers. What was Steward planning to do that they needed a room full of weapons like this?

“hah Surprised? Bet you are. Besides the weapons, notice anything else?”

Hearing Stewards question, Seth took a closer look at the room. All he saw the display of various weapons lined up. The most obvious thing to him was that there was a secret room in the first place.

“Here let me make things easier for you.” Steward then proceeded to take a gun from one of the rack and handed it to Seth.

Seth could only look blankly at Steward as he had never held a gun in his life.

“Go on. Hold it. We haven’t got all day.”

Seth decided to reach out and grab the handgun that was handed to him. The first thing he noticed was that it was surprisingly light. The material of the handgun also a bit fragile. Aren’t all guns suppose to be made of metal?

“Still don’t get it? All right, this should speed up your understanding.” Seeing his confused face, Steward took a different gun and pointed it at Seth.

A bad feeling immediately began to grow in Seth’s stomach. “Hey what are -”

BANG.

“Ooohhh. Good reflexes,” Captain Steward complimented.

Something had flew past Seth’s face. It was only thanks to his quick reaction that he was able to avoid whatever was being shot from the gun. It looked like a bullet from what Seth could glimpse, but something seemed off. Then it dawn on Seth.

“Was that a rubber bullet?”

“Bingo! We have a winner. Unfortunately, there is no prize.“

The revelation gave the room a whole new light to Seth. Could it be that this the whole room was filled with imitation weapons?

Captain Steward grinned as he could see that Seth understood what the room held. This time he gave up the pretense and began explaining. “This room holds practice weapons for group training. It is similar to the real thing, but not quite there yet. When people want to train together, they come here to get weapons.”

“Why is it hidden away?”

Steward shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe one time this room held actually weapons? That or its easier to get equipment to train with in the training room when it's so close. We just need to keep things clean here. A lot of the equipment is kept in shape thanks to an honor system. Keep it clean for everyone use and if you break it, pay for it or let everyone know about it.”

Steward then led Seth out of the room and onto the balcony. This time his role in the training room wasn’t a participant, but as a witness.

“Todays group activity would be team elimination. We're going to split off into groups of two and annihilate each other. You won’t be participating. Just wait up there and watch for now. Get a feel of how things are done.”

“How come?” Seth was interested to see how he would do in such an elimination match. It was one of the most exciting things that happened since he entered as an intern.

“Jacks orders. And you’re a newbie. For now, just enjoy the show. There’s one more surprise in store for you.”

Leaving a curious Seth behind, Steward left below to begin the exercise. At that point, everyone was already assembled and split into teams with ten people each. They had dressed themselves in preparation for this activity. The two groups faced off each other as if they were about to have a showdown. Every person had the weapon of their choice in hand and aimed at their opponent. With a rifle in hand, Steward said “Everyone ready? Then on the count of three.1...2...3. Begin!”

That was when the room transformed.

Building began to materialize out of nowhere. Streets filled with cars were formed. What was once an empty room became an urban city block. Seth watched in amazement as transformation finished in a matter of seconds. Different buildings such as stores, offices and houses became part of the room.

As soon as everything was set up, the two teams immediately started shooting each other. There was no signal, just a silent preparedness for the oncoming onslaught. Everyone was moving for cover as they tried to take out a member of the opposing team .Seth observed as Captain Steward’s team gather behind some cars while the other team inside a building. Names were being announced on a loudspeaker for the fallen members.

“Carly Nash down.”

“Steven Rouge down.”

“Lemming Pille down”

Every time a name was called, a person would drop as if they were injured. As the game progressed, Seth realized each down person announced was ‘killed in action’ during the combat exercise. The ‘dead’ could only lie there on the ground helpless as the rest of the members continued.

As a spectator, Seth had a bird eye view of how both teams played out. Both teams worked quickly and silently to take out the opposing teams. No orders were given as if every member knew what their roles were the minute they gathered. It was as if they were each cogs that were put together complete the machine. It was a testament to all the hardships they had gone through as Federation soldiers. To Seth it was fascinating in a way. To see how everyone understood each other without speaking .Everyone had gone through enough dangerous mission together that words were no longer. They all knew what their roles were and what needed to be done.

Seth watched as the number of people ‘alive’ dwindle down to the last person. The fighters had scatter in the beginning and gathered together. Both team slowly closed in on each other and tried to gain the advantage. It had ended with someone from Captain Steward’s team winning as their member was the last one standing. It was a close match as the game nearly ending in a draw. There was only one person on each team after ten minutes and the winner had won with a fluke shot. Seth had watch the shootout between the last two people and hadn’t realized one of them had been taken out until he heard the announcement.

“Ray Troy down. Team A wins.”

Team A was apparently Captain Steward's team as the down members all got up and cheered for the last survivor. The losing team could only dejectedly gather together and pat each other on the back for their effort.

Seth thought it was finished until he heard Captain Steward shout “Good job everyone! Load up your weapons and finish preparing for another round in 5 minutes. “

***

“So what did you think?” Steward asked once the training exercise had finished.

The combat drill had ended up being three rounds, but each round was intense. The environment for each round changed as soon as it began. It went from a urban environment to a forest and then a desert. While the first round may have began spontaneously with a elimination match, the next two matched were much more structured. The two teams were given time to prepare and began on opposite sides of the field. It was a game of capture the flag with Captain Steward holding the flag in one round, and the opposing team starting with it in the next round.

The training room had return to normal with no sign of the previous transformations. A few small flat machine disk could be seen vacuuming up all the rubber bullets. Seth and Captain Steward was on the side stuffing the gathered bullets and reloading them into cases so that they could be used next time.

“I thought it was pretty cool. I have a question though. How can you turn the training room into so many different environments? The buildings, the trees and all the other places don’t just seem like projections.” This was the main question that stumped Seth as he watched the combat scenario play out. The way the people ducked behind objects showed they had some physical presence so it could offer protection throughout the stimulations.

“Technology baby. It’s not noticeable, but the floor is filled with millions of nanomachines. The Federations has these little buggers programed to stimulate actual real-life environment that we can encounter in battle. The room first creates projections of the battlefield and the nanomachines fill them up to make it more realistic.”

“How many different types of battlefields are programed?”

“Ehhh, the number of battlefields programed changes every year. Right now there should be about 10 different types of battlefields. We have it set to random right now for the combat exercise, but we can choose which one we want to practice on if we wish to. There’s not really any special battlefield we need to train for right now. It’s been a few months since the last program change and we know the layout for most of them now. Most of them are either city or natural environments that are programed in. Sometimes they make some really impressive ones too.

“Oh what made the program field so special?” Seth asked.

“Once they tried to replicate a quicksand swamp. The whole floor was covered with it and you wouldn’t know where to step. One wrong step and you’ll be sucked down to the bottom. The programmers used the nanobots to give us the feeling trudging through the bog. If someone step on quicksand, they’ll be sucked down and funneled out of the exercise. It was a really impressive programming. They couldn’t quite replicate the wet feeling of a bog, but the nanobots would flow past your feet like water,. Only problem was that the bots couldn’t maintain the stimulation for too long and ran out of power after about ten minutes. Its easier to maintain a stationary object instead of a constant flow that changes every second. The same goes for aquatic environments. Sometimes they throw in a few lakes and streams for us to practice in, but those quickly run out of power quickly. You would think with such impressive technology that they would have fixed the power issue by now, but nooo, complex stimulation can only run for so long.”

Seth tried to imagine how a stimulated aquatic battlefield would be in the training room. Maybe if he asked, Captain Steward would show the other current field programed for the room.

“Huh, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe next time I'll show you the other field programmed in. Right now we’re pretty much done on reloading these rubber bullets. Go see Jacks. There was something he wanted to show you.”

“One more question, how come you began the exercise with both teams facing off? Why didn’t you have both teams start on opposite ends? Wouldn't that be better and more realistic?”

“That’s three questions you’re asking, but I get what you’re saying. We set the field to random when we began, so no one had any idea what the field was going to look like when we started. For all we know, a giant rock could have popped up between the two teams at the start. As for why we faced off like that, we don’t always enter a battle with ideal conditions. This way we start off in the worst way possible and learn from that.”

Seth nodded. It all made sense. This was coming from an experience of a soldier from the Federation. Seth felt admiration for them until he heard Captain Steward’s next words.

“That and it’s much more interesting that way. We can’t all use our Awaken in this room. The training room wouldn’t be able to take it. So we use guns as replacements. And whoever you’re not happy with on the opposing team, you take them out first. I suppose that’s why Steven got taken out so quickly since he gets on everyone’s nerves.”

That admiration that Seth was feeling quickly died down as he set off for Jacks office.