Your Training Begins

We cruised down the streets of Acttio, passing familiar sights like the dock, the store where I worked, and the place where I first met Iain. However, Iain then took me to the other side of town. Over here, the houses were bigger, the streets were cleaner, and the grass was greener—it was a strange change of pace. After approximately 20 minutes of driving, we turned into a lot that held a massive warehouse. The warehouse's walls were a light grey and the roof was a pitch black, the warehouse looked brand new. Iain parked his car and got out, I followed closely behind. I refrained from asking any questions, confident that all would be revealed in due time.

Upon reaching the entrance to the warehouse, Iain brought his face close to a screen hanging beside the warehouse doors. As he did this, a scanner scanned across his eyeball. When the scanning was complete, the entire screen turned green, and the warehouse doors slowly slid open—quite fancy, I must say. The doors opened completely, and we stepped into the dimly lit warehouse.

The interior appeared almost entirely empty, save for one object near the front—a black stand topped with a clear box. Inside the box, I noticed a blue crystal, or at least that's what it seemed to be. Just as I was about to inquire about our purpose in this place, Iain continued walking toward the crystal. "Uh, Iain, what exactly are we going to do here?" I questioned, initially I had assumed that there be some type of training course in here however seeing as that wasn't the case I was left thoroughly confused. I looked to Iain for an answer, but instead, he simply said, "You'll see," before placing his hand onto the box.

Then, he closed his eyes for a few seconds before opening them. However, as soon as he opened them, darkness enveloped the surroundings. In less than a second, materials started materializing from seemingly thin air. Tiles, bricks, and wood swirled through the atmosphere, akin to a tornado, gradually forming into a large building. After a minute or so, a three-story structure stood before us. Iain turned towards me, sporting a smirk. "Pretty cool, huh?" he remarked.

I was at a loss for words, but I answered Iain with a meek "yeah." Iain then circled around me and looked me in the eyes. "This is the building that we'll be raiding in three days' time." There was a look of pride on his face when he said this. Then Iain walked back over to the crystal and put his arms in front of it as if he were presenting something. "You look pretty confused right now, so I'm going to explain how this works before we start. This crystal was found deep in the Hole by the Sinker Corps. There were 20 other pieces like it, and they were all auctioned off. Long story short, we ended up with one." I nodded to let Iain know I was following.

Then he continued to explain. "Now, this crystal can be used for plenty of things, but it's best used like this." Iain pointed towards the building. "This is Augmented Reality; basically, it's able to augment the reality around us in any imaginable scenario. The only drawback is that you need photos of the area you wish to augment. Luckily, our informant took care of that. However, the great thing about this crystal is that it augments your senses as well—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and most importantly, touch." I could instantly see how useful that could be for training people.

Finally, Iain told me what I'd be doing there. "Eve, for the past few weeks, I've been running my men through this augmented training course. The course has three difficulties: Simple, Average, and Difficult. It took my men about three days to pass Simple, a week to pass Average, and for the last two weeks, they've been practicing Difficult. However, you don't have weeks. In the next two days, I'm hoping you'll be able to complete the course perfectly. Don't expect to be going to work in the next two days either."

I didn't want to miss work, but I didn't really have a choice. "Well, I don't have a choice, do I?" Iain flashed me a broad smile. "Well then, Eve, before I start the course, what weapon do you want?" "Um, I'm not picky. What weapons do you have? I'd prefer a gun though." Iain then brought his palm to his face. "Eve, this is an augmented reality. Go over to the crystal, put your hand on it, and just think of a gun. I'm sure it'll appear. If it doesn't, it just means we haven't taken a picture of it yet. Oh, and don't pick anything explosive because we won't be bringing that type of equipment on the raid."

Slowly, I walked towards the crystal. When I was close enough, I reached my hand towards it, resting my palm on the clear box. After that, I closed my eyes and started visualizing a gun. Immediately after doing that, I felt a cold chunk of metal hit my hand. Sure enough, when I opened my eyes and looked down, a pistol was in my hand. Turning my head back to Iain, I saw he was also holding a pistol, and he was pointing it at me! "Iain, what are you—" Before I could finish speaking, Iain pulled the trigger, and the sound that followed was a loud bang! After Iain pulled the trigger, I felt something hit my forehead, almost like a flick. It didn't hurt much, but out of pure shock, I screamed and fell back to the ground.

"W-W-WHY'D YOU DO THAT!" I thought I was about to die, while Iain was laughing his head off. "Hahaha! That's how it's gonna feel when you get shot. Sorry, I shouldn't have done that!" He said sorry while laughing at my suspense. I slowly got up from the floor and fired at Iain's forehead. The bullet hit, and his head flew back. "Ah, I deserved that." He rubbed his forehead with his pointer and middle finger before lowering his head. "So, Eve, do you think you'll be ready in two days?" Iain looked at me directly in the eye. He was serious. So, I looked right back at him and put a cocky smile on my face before speaking. "Of course, I'll be able to do it. If I can't do something as simple as this, I'll never survive in the Hole."

Iain smiled back at me. "Well then, Eve, as of today, your training has officially started!"