Chapter 3: Training

August 16 2134

I wake up at 5AM. Not by choice, there's a blaring alarm coming from the table next to the bed. I resist the urge to punch it, instead digging myself out from under my blanket and looking for an off button on the small white box. One button on the top of the box in the top right corner looks promising, so I press it. The sound stops, and a small hologram projects from the box — "5:01AM". I groan, fall back on my bed, and press my hands over my eyes. My headache from yesterday still isn't gone, but at least I don't feel like every little sound will make my head explode.

After several minutes of sitting in silence, laying on my back, I decide to finally look at the rest of the room. There's the bed and the table, obviously, but there's also a wardrobe against the far wall. All of the furniture is grey as well as the bedsheets, and there's a door midway between the table and the wardrobe that I assume goes to a bathroom. The floor is carpeted and the walls are padded. It seems a little barren, but then again it didn't seem like I'm going to be staying here very long from what they were saying yesterday.

I look down at my hands and flip them around a couple times. I run my fingers over the backs of both of my hands, trying to figure out what mechanism exactly it is that pulls up the Cortex menu. If I'm going to have a freaky robot brain, I want to at least know how it works. I don't want to turn it back on, though.

I can't feel anything in my hands, but that's probably just because whatever chip they have implanted is too small to feel. I press the backs of my hands together like I did yesterday, and I jump a little as the menu pops up across my vision. It looks like a VR menu, with a search bar at the top and a directory on the left. The main section of the menu is filled with news articles and even a few apps — did they just give me an entire desktop computer in my brain? That’s kind of cool, actually. I look at the apps — there’s a music app called Kadence, a calculator, a messaging app, a video calling app, a camera — creepy — a library app called Bibliofile, and a social media app called Space.

I immediately open Kadence and start playing some Tally Hall — finally, something familiar. Gentle ukulele strumming fills my ears as Hidden in the Sand comes on, and I hum along to the tune — “We were playing in the sand; and you found a little band; you told me you fell in love with it, hadn’t gone as I’d planned; When you had to bid adieu; said you’d never love anew; I wondered if I could hold it and fall in love with it, too; you told me to buy a pony, but all I wanted was you.”

Hearing the song threatens to bring tears back to my eyes, but I manage to fight them back. It doesn’t even have that much emotional significance, it’s just some song, but it’s familiar. Nothing I’ve seen since I woke up yesterday has been the slightest bit familiar, except maybe the shape of the furniture — that doesn’t count, though. Furniture has looked the same for thousands of years.

I slowly get ready for the day over the course of the next half an hour, which doesn't really involve much — go to the bathroom, brush teeth, poke around the wardrobe to see if any of the clothes they gave me look nice. The clothes don't look that nice, they just look weird. They’re overly formal with blocky colors and stiff fabric, and some of them even have a nametag on the left breast over the heart with the number 72 on it. Those ones also have a symbol that looks like a pair of hands holding up a small globe on the right breast with the words "United. Together." under it. I'm definitely becoming more suspicious of these people the longer I'm here, and I haven't even been here that long.
There’s a knock on my door at 6:00AM and Mac pokes his head in after cracking the door open. “Good, you’re awake.” He punctuates his words with a firm nod, then opens the door a little wider and steps out of the doorway. "We're going to the training room.”

“Oh goodie, my first day as a guinea pig. Can’t wait.” I grumble, voice monotone and unenthusiastic as I slowly leave the room and follow the slightly shorter boy out into the hall.

“Listen man, no one here wants to be in this situation right now. What happened with you was a total fluke, not to say we’re not all thrilled that you’re… you, but it’s just a case of right place, wrong time. We need to accept that, as it stands, we all just have to go along until we figure all of this out."

I grumble a bit under my breath, but don’t protest. I just keep reminding myself that the people here have a job to do, and they could get in trouble with their employers if they don’t do it. Just sucks that I have to be part of that equation.

We end up back in the gym area where we all met yesterday, full of workout equipment with cushioned floors and mirrors on all of the walls. Rachel stands in the middle of the large open area of the room, wearing a compression top and basketball shorts; her feet are bare and her hair is tied up even more into a tight bun.

“Good morning, 72.” She smiles, swinging her arms back and forth in between stretching her shoulders out. “How are you feeling today?”

“I’m fine, I guess…” I respond, unsure of exactly what to say. “Um, is there any chance you could call me something other than the number I was assigned?”

“Oh, um… sure, we can come up with something. Let’s see… Mac, do you have any ideas?”

He scratches his head and looks around for a moment, I can practically see the cogs in his mind turning. “Seventy-two… How about Vincent?”

Rachel and Mac both turn their eyes to me and Rachel looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “Well, what do you say?”

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I toss it around in my head a bit. Vincent. Vinnie. Vin. That isn’t bad. “I like the sound of that.” I smile. “You can cut it down if you want, it would be fun to have a nickname.” To still have a nickname, I remind myself, Matt was short for Matthew. “So, uh, what are we doing today? I thought it was all going to be boring cognitive functioning tests?”

“I thought we should start out with self-defense.” She responds, wrapping some bracers around her wrists. “I assume you remember the basics?”

“Mostly…” I squint as I try to dredge up everything I can remember from the practice Matt did in high school, and compile all of the snippets of memory together into a group in my mind. I close my eyes for a moment and try to replay them, but suddenly it doesn’t feel like I’m standing in the gym with Mac and Rachel anymore — it feels like I am Matt, or rather looking through to his eyes — it still feels oddly alien, despite how connected I still am, and the events are all predetermined.

“Alright Matt, let’s try it again.” Mari says as she holds her arms up, cushions tied to her forearms. I almost fall apart just from the sight of her. “Give it to me, Anston!”

Matt/I punch(es) the cushions a few times, thumbs next to fists in short, powerful bursts like springs. “Come on, this is easy!” He/I say(s), holding up his/my uncovered forearms. “Come at me, Jones!”

She scoffs and sways about in her perfectly Mari way, looking away before returning to make eye contact. “Fine, let’s see how much the skinny white boy can handle.” She lets her arms down to her sides so the cushions slide right off of her arms. He/I get(s) ready for the incoming blow, but he/I see(s) her leg move first, so he/I quickly change(s) stance to catch her leg as it flies towards him/me. Mari huffs and he/I laugh(s). “I’ve been practicing, Butterfly. I’m not so easy to beat anymore.” With that, he/I let(s) her leg down.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” She flashes a sinister grin, immediately going back to the spar. I grab her by the wrist as she tries to strike me in the solar plexus, and again as she strikes for the same point with her other hand. I twist her around enough to get her to fall flat on the mat we set out in Mari’s living room. A little round of applause comes from the couch that had been moved to make room for the sparring, and I want to close my eyes or not look over at the source of the gentle sound — I might’ve collapsed if this weren’t a memory. Will gives us both a gentle smile, ‘good job to both of you,’ he signs, ‘though Matt definitely did better this time.’

“See, Mari? Will agrees with me!”

“He doesn’t count, you guys are dating!” she growls, crossing her arms and pretending to pout. “One of these days I might stop being nice to you, y’know.”

I pull my mind from the memory and realize that only a moment or two has passed, no more than five seconds. I take a few deep breaths and remind myself that those are nearly 75 year old memories, despite how vivid they were. That was before. That was… someone else? Are we really different people? Questions to answer another time. Focus now, Vin. that’s what I’ll call myself, I think. Just Vin.

I shake my wandering mind of the thoughts flooding my brain, and focus back on Rachel. “Okay, I’m ready.”

She gives me a slightly devilish smile, and widens her stance to resemble more that of a sumo wrestler. “Alright, let’s have a few rounds then.”

All of the rounds have mixed results for both of us, round one I get pinned but I manage to flip us over and we both roll into the rowing machine; round two Rachel slams me into the floor a little too hard so we take a break, but the score is 0-1 for me; third round I manage to hit her in the solar plexus, putting us 1-1. Round 4, tie break; Rachel tries to swipe my feet out from under me, but I dodge, keeping my arms close to my body. I make a few swats at her, but she dances around the strikes effortlessly. She spins around and goes for a low blow at my side, which I try and fail to dodge. I wince a little, but stay upright. She takes another strike, which I dodge. I try to hit her again, but she redirects my blow and twists my arm, dropping me to the ground and pinning me with her knee. I hit the ground, surrendering the fight. 1-2, I lose. Rachel stands up and pulls me up from the ground, patting my shoulder and shaking my hand.

“Good game, kid.” She smiles. The praise makes me feel warm and fuzzy, and I’m sure I’m blushing a bit. Nice to know my emotional intensity is preserved.

Maybe this won’t be quite as bad as I thought.

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