Suddenly the door to the dorm flew open. The inside metal handle slammed against the wall with a loud bang and ricochet back to hit Harrison who was getting aggressively wrestled through the doorway.

Axel watched with wide eyes as the new boy, who looked about his age, was yanked inside the dorm by two large men wearing uniforms. He had blood dripping from his nose and dribbling down his chin, and was trying fruitlessly to fight back against the other men but they were twice the size of him and his voice was starting to get wrecked with cries. Not cries of frustration. More like cries of sadness.

The two guards threw him down and he landed on the floor in a heap. Then they slammed the door shut as they left.

Axel sat rigidly still on the top bunk, hoping the boy on the floor might not have noticed him. Sniffling, Harrison pushed himself up off the ground and wiped at the blood coming from his nose and the tears coming from his eyes. Slowly he walked over to the bottom bunk of the bed across from the one Axel was up on, and sat down onto the mattress.

"The fuck you looking at?" Harrison suddenly snapped up at him, swiping at the blood trickling from his nose.

Axel quickly jerked his head away from looking down at the new boy and back out the window.

He'd never been outside of Chicago, not even enough to see the city skyline. Looking at the Denver one now felt odd but also somehow sad.

After a little while Harrison below him spoke. "Did you just get here?"

Axel swiveled his head back and nodded.

"Me too."

"What happened to you?" Axel asked cautiously.

Harrison crinkled his nose and dabbed at the blood dripping from it with the back of his hand. "Apparently the leader of this place knew my Dad," he said.

"So he broke your nose?"

"I guess he didn't like him very much."

Axel looked down at his hands again. They were callused and raw and his nails were cracked nubs having been shaven by clips from buildings or runaways. They were also still covered in dirt and grease like the rest of him.

Aside from the blood streaking over his chin, Axel noted that the boy below him was clean. He had dark brown hair, washed and silky. He had clean dark denim jeans that actually fit him and weren't ripped or scuffed up, and a pristine white t-shirt that wasn't stained or ripped. His skin was clean and smooth. When he'd gritted his teeth earlier at the guards who'd thrown him into the room you could see his teeth were straight and white.

Axel looked down at his own clothes and skin. His black jeans were ripped around the knees and ankles and had thinned out around his thighs from sliding over concrete so often, and all the belt loops had broken off a long time ago. His baggy, black long-sleeved shirt had rips in the elbows and the stitching was coming apart around the neckline. His wrists were stained greenish yellow from being held by those gangsters a few days ago.

"How old are you?"

Axel looked back down and Harrison was staring at him with dark brown eyes. The blood had stopped coming from his nose and was instead crusted over his hands where he'd been wiping at it.

"12. You?"

"Same. Where you from?" 

"Chicago."

"Jersey."

"Where?"

Harrison stared at him. "New Jersey?"

Axel tilted his head.

"It's a state?"

Axel just stared at him.

Harrison eyed him warringly. "Ooookay. How did you get here?"

"Um," Axel scratched the back of his head. "I dunno. I helped these soldier-agent guys catch a gangster mob and they said they had this place for spies and asked if I wanted to come."

"They asked you?" Harrison scoffed. "Shit, I got dragged here."

"Why?"

"My parents just died."

"Oh," Axel said quietly. "I'm sorry." He swung his legs back and forth over the side of the bed and looked back down at his hands anxiously.

Below him Harrison sniffed again. "Won't your parents be upset that you're here?"

"I don't have none," Axel said in the same quieter tone as before. "I mean, I do. Well, I did. But they're ain't around no more. So, no, I don't think they care."

"Well that sucks."

Axel snuffed a breath out his nose in laughter at the other boy's bluntness towards such a traumatizing situation.

Harrison stood up and started walking around inspecting the dorm room they were in. "Do you know where we are? Or what this place even is?"

Axel noted that the other 12 year-old sounded different than himself. He pronounced his vowels differently, and spoke just generally quicker, stringing some words together as if they were all one word. "I know this is some kind of spy training place and we in a city called Denver."

"Spies actually exist?" Harrison didn't sound convinced.

"That's what I said."

"Why us?"

"Dunno. I ain't nothing special. I don even know what state we in."

"Colorado," Harrison said, turning and looking out the big window.

"And that is... where exactly?"

The brunet looked up at Axel with a squint. "You don't get out much, do you?"

Axel looked down at his hands again and shook his head.

"We're pretty much in the middle of the country," Harrison explained, knocking on the thick glass. "Completely landlocked and surrounded by six different states. Kansas --where there is literally nothing-- is to the east, Utah --also nothing-- to the west, New Mexico --aliens-- to the south, and Wyoming --cowboys-- is north from here. We could make a boot to Vegas if we really tried, and Texas isn't too far either and there's no laws there."

Axel stared at the boy below him with complete fascination at how the 12 year-old was able to casually sprout their exact geographical location, complete with generalizations and everything. It could be wildly incorrect for all Axel knew; he knew nothing about geography other than that Chicago was kind of close to Canada, and you can get to Michigan if you take a boat.

"How'd you know all that?" Axel asked in wonder.

"School."

"Oh."

"Didn't you learn that at your school?"

"Never gone to school."

"Seriously?" Harrison turned from the window to stare at the ruffled up boy on the bunk above him. "Lucky!"

"I dunno 'bout that. I dunno nothin 'bout nothin.'"

"Grammar especially," Harrison muttered.

"I'm not stupid," Axel narrowed his hazel eyes. He knew he didn't know much, but he could read people pretty well. "Just cause I dunno 'bout no geography don't mean I dunno how to fight."

"What's your name?"

"Axel."

"Sick. Like the singer?"

"Who?"

Harrison sighed. "Never mind. I'm Harrison."

Suddenly the door to the dorm swung open again, and a 20-something Asian man in uniform beckoned the two boys outside to the hallway. "Let's go newbies." He had an unmoving and annoyed dark gaze and a thick scar over one side of his face. "I gotta get you shitheads registered."

Axel and Harrison shared a look. "I guess we're in this together," Harrison surmised.

Axel jumped down from the bunk and landed right beside him. "Guess we're in this together," he agreed.

-

The agent led Harrison and Axel down several hallways, up some stairs and into a small windowless classroom/office-type room. There was a whiteboard that took up the majority of one wall, and a table and chairs towards the center. A digital camera on a high tripod was set up a few feet from another wall, and a x was made in masking tape on the carpet floor in front of it.

"Shirts off boys," the older agent instructed.

Axel's hazel eyes widened and he instinctively wrapped his arms around himself in a protective hug.

Harrison crossed his arms with a glare and demanded, "why?"

"It's for your profile," the agent in front of the two boys explained. He spoke in Japanese accented English and went and stood behind the camera. "They get updated every year to chart your growth. The government gives out assignments and the Director chooses which agent will go based on the info in your profile."

"Chart our growth?" Harrison raised an eyebrow. "What, are we animal test subjects?"

The agent glared at him. "Yes. Now shirts off."

Harrison rolled his eyes, but slid his white t-shirt over his head and mindlessly tossed it down on the floor.

With pain and hesitancy, Axel slowly slipped his long-sleeved shirt off himself and rolled the thin fabric into a tight ball in his hands.

"Whoa, what the hell happened to you?" Harrison's eyes bulged as they took in Axel's sunset-stained chest and stomach. The bruises were in full bloom, dark pink and purple and green and yellow splashed all over his thin form.

"Jesus," the older agent retracted his head, disgusted.

"I--I fell," Axel stammered.

"Yeah, right," the agent pointed to the white screen in one corner of the room.

"I did!" Axel protested.

"I don't care," the Japanese man snapped. "In fact, no one here cares. So don't bitch about it to your mommy, because she's not here." He pointed more violently this time at the x mark. "Now get over there."

Harrison glanced between Axel's hurt face and the older agent's sneering one. "What a fantastic welcome committee you got here," he started over to the corner. Axel quickly scrambled over behind him.

Harrison stood in front of the camera on the tape mark on the ground. He dropped his hands to his side and the amused look from his face as the agent got ready to take the picture.

Axel looked at the other new agent. In the dorm room he had noticed their differences, but now he could see that they were actually kind of similar too. They were the exact same height, both had brown hair and brown eyes, though Axel's had a bit more color to them. They had the same skin tone and amount of freckles dotting them.

But Harrison had a strong figure, muscles in places where they should be, and more than was normal for a typical 12 year-old boy, so Axel supposed that he played a lot of sports and maybe even worked out. Then he looked down at himself. He knew he was strong too, but didn't look it like Harrison did. Scrawny, bruised, dirty, sad.

As for personality, their similarities continued to thin. For one Harrison was a lot more comfortable in this brand new environment surrounded by all this technology and actually being inside an office space. He was comfortable and confident enough to be a sarcastic smartass and talk back, Axel just felt insecure and overwhelmed.

After they both got pictures taken, the two new agents put their shirts back on and were told to sit down at the table. The Japanese agent then handed them each a thick file of papers and a pen.

"Fill out what you can," he instructed them.

Inside the files was personal paperwork, asking for date and place of birth, parental info, medical records, educational history, racial, cultural, and religious background, living history, essentially a massive report on your entity as a person. After each section there were lines for further information, which Harrison took quickly to.

Axel on the other hand just leafed through the pages and swallowed nervously. He found the packet on education. All he could mark on the page was kindergarten, and even that was a bit of a stretch since technically he didn't even finish.

He peeked over at Harrison's papers, and saw them completely filled, with info written in every single section and multiple boxes checked off and even the 'other' options written in. Axel looked back at his own records. Blank. He flipped through the many pages, managing to fill in the odd box here and there with the peppered information he knew about his family, and the legal, structural parts of his life.

Harrison clicked his pen and smacked his file shut about 20 minutes later. "Done." He crossed his arms again and leaned back in his chair.

Axel gently closed his folder too and set his pen down, and the older agent snatched the two of them up. He quickly flipped through Harrison scribbled pages first, eyebrows raising as he read some of the info.

"Military family, huh?"

"Not anymore," Harrison glared at him.

"Army brat," the agent muttered. "Oh shit, private military academy? That fancy one in New York?"

"Also not anymore."

"Boohoo," the agent replied dryly, picking up Axel's file next. He laughed a little as he looked through it. "Yeah you're going to have to fill in some of these blanks." He got to the section on education and snorted. "Can you even read?"

Axel reddened. "Yes."

"Can you write?" The agent questioned

"Yeah," Axel replied, a little annoyed now.

"Then what the hell is this?"

"I didn't understand some questions."

"Birthday?" The agent asked blandly.

Axel curled a bit of wavy light brown hair around his ear. "I dunno the exact day," he mumbled.

"Year?"

Axel shifted in his seat.

"Please tell me you know how old you are?" The agent groaned.

"12."

"Jesus Christ," the agent exclaimed loudly. "You were born in 1996, dumbass."

Axel looked down at his hands sadly.

"Says the super spy doing paperwork," Harrison smirked. "Lay off him, secretary."

Axel cracked up then he saw the older agent glaring at him and he quickly coughed the laugh down. The agent muttered something in Japanese under his breath that sounded like a curse.

"We'll do some research on you and see what we can find," he said. "You put down that your Dad is deceased and your mom is MIA and you were in foster care at one point?"

Axel wriggled uncomfortably again. He didn't like his vulnerabilities being so blatantly exposed like that to a boy he didn't even know. "Yeah."

"How long were you in the care of a family? And that's when you went to Kindergarten, right?"

"Nine days. Student life didn't agree with me."

Harrison snorted.

"Do you have any other blood relative that might show up on government records?"

Axel shook his head. "I dunno anyone else. I was raised by Mrs. Lawrence, this old woman in my camp, but she wasn't related to me."

The Japanese agent sighed. "We'll call you back in to redo your profile in a few days after we do some research and test your blood. And we'll retake your picture after we fix all of," he ran his eyes up and down the 12 year-old, "that."

Axel glanced down at himself. "What?"

"You need a haircut. And a shower. And vaccinated. And deloused. Defleaed probably, too."

"I don't got fleas!" Axel glared. "I ain't some animal, and I wasn't treated like one just 'cause I didn't have a house all my life."

"Every agent here has a specialty, kind of like a college major, that you'll study and practice throughout your time here, in addition to learning basic information like you would in school," the agent completely ignored Axel's response to his ludicrous assumption.

"Ah shit, this is a school?!" Harrison groaned.

"Technically, yes."

Harrison folded his arms and slumped in his chair. "Yippie."

"So we have like classes or somethin'?" Axel asked nervously.

"Of a sort, yes," the older agent stacked the files together. "But first you have to take an academic test so that we can place you and decide what your field of study will be."

"Ew," Harrison continued to pout.

Axel looked scared. "What kinda stuff is on the test?" His voice trembled a little

"Math, science, reading, language, a bit of history. It's to get your baseline intelligence level. After that is a physical test and then one that tests your intuition and pattern-finding skills, like a psychological IQ test."

"Physical test?" Harrison perked up.

"Did you see that obstacle course as you came in?"

Harrison's sudden excitement turned sour. "I couldn't see anything as I was dragged in here. But when they dumped me in the Director's office I saw it."

"You'll be timed on running it," the agent said.

"Cool!" Harrison's dark brown eyes sparked again.

"You'll also be given more basic physical tests to see how fast you can run a mile, distance runs, the max amount of pull ups, push ups, crunches you can do," the agent continued. "We will do medical tests as well --blood tests, cancer tests, dental tests, STD tests, DNA tests--

"Woah back up," Harrison spread his hands. "STD testing?"

"What's that?" Axel piped up.

"Testing for sexually transmitted diseases," the agent explained.

"Yeah but we're 12," Harrison squinted. "And virgins." He glanced at Axel. "Right?"

Axel nodded quickly, a little blush creeping up his cheeks.

"How many 12 year-olds come in here having had sex?" Harrison asked. "And what's their secret?"

"I think their secret is that they weren't allowed to say no."

Harrison's eyes widened. "Oh."

"You two won't have to worry about the STD testing for," he tilted his head back and forth, "4 to 5 years or so."

"What?!" Axel and Harrison both exclaimed and sat forward in their chairs at the same time.

The agent across from them burst out laughing. "Yeah, agents rarely mention that little detail when they do the recruitment speech," he continued snickering.

"Little detail?" Harrison demanded. "Back the hell up--"

"This is an all-boys spy agency, isn't it?" Axel said quietly.

The older agent on the other side of the table had a shit-eating grin on his face at the two younger boy's distraught expressions. "Yep."

Harrison bit his tongue and slumped back in his chair again. "Fuck."

"You'll have to watch your language too, the Director doesn't tolerate that."

"The Director who just busted my nose?" Harrison growled.

"Yes."

"Anything else?" Harrison rolled his eyes.

The older agent turned serious. He ran a hand through his dark silky hair and then set his elbows down on the desk. "Probably the most important: if you guys are into the other way around, don't be."

Axel and Harrison glanced at each other. "The other way around?" Harrison asked.

"You mean if we like boys?" Axel supposed quietly.

"Bingo," the agent said. "Don't do it."

Harrison eyed him. The environment he was raised in wasn't particularly fond of people who were different, especially those who weren't straight. He knew that Stryker's Dad Uncle Phillips and even his own aunts and uncles didn't exactly support that movement. Harrison himself didn't care much, he hadn't met a gay person in his life. Well, an out of the closet gay person yet.

"What happens if we do?" Axel asked. "Not--not that I do. Honest. Just curious," he stammered. On the Dragonfly Hotel and in the other homeless camps he had been in he had met some queer people. Almost all of them were homeless because of that fact. Axel thought it was dumb and horrible that families would dump their own kin out on the street because of something they can't control.

"You don't want to know," the Japanese agent said simply. "Trust me."

Axel and Harrison exchanged another look.

"Anyway, you'll get tested every year for all of these things, so remember the date October 19th because for the next 14 years it will be this day that you get examined for anything and everything."

"Like a final," Harrison guessed.

"Yay," Axel swallowed.