“Oh nobody had to ask, it totally just happened and had to be pointed out.” David replied laughing. Justin was still sitting on the floor, Austin walked over and offered him a hand up.
“I got this,” Justin replied standing up.
“Fine, don’t say I never offered you anything,” Austin replied.
“Don’t be a smart ass. Its poor manners.” Samuel said to Austin.
Austin just hung his head. Austin wanted to be like Samuel but he just couldn’t be that smooth. Austin tried to dress like Samuel, styled his hair like his, and tried to stay in line with everything Samuel did. Austin was smaller than most of the rest of them but was Samuel’s ally so he, like Marie, had protection.
“Fine, I don’t want to hang out with any of you anyways, you are all no fun.” Justin called to the group. “Ethan, you want to hang right? They are all party poopers but you’re cool.” Ethan said nothing, he just stood there, like always he had nothing to say, he never did. It was hard to know what Ethan was thinking since his expression rarely changed. Ethan talked more as a child but as he grew his vocabulary shrunk or at least it appeared that way. He never really spoke but followed orders. It was best he didn’t respond it made it easier to not question his orders. “And that’s a no from Ethan yet again.” Justin laughed. Ethan walked away.
“Quit being mean to him,” Marie said to Justin.
“Oh, stop, he has a good sense of humor, or at least I think he does.” Justin laughed.
“You’re such a bully sometimes, you know that?” Marie responded.
“Stop. Marie, come on, you need to lighten up and have some fun. He isn’t a little kid and neither are you.” Justin replied tapping her on the head with his bo.
“Stop it!” Marie yelled swatting the bo from her face.
“This is over. This is not productive. Nobody is learning anything.” Michael ordered.
“I agree,” Samuel added.
Bruce and Kenneth had been watching the whole thing. Bruce turned to Kenneth, “Ok, time to test them out.” Bruce said to Kenneth.
“Full blown killer fun or just playing around?” Kenneth asked
“Let’s just play today. They’re just kids after all” Bruce said as he patted Kenneth on the shoulder and walked down the stairs from the metal overlook of the training floor. Kenneth followed. “Line up!” Bruce ordered to the group. Quickly they all moved to line up. “Gentlemen and lady we have a project for you that we need done by the end of the day. Can you handle it?” Bruce asked.
“Yes sir” they all replied in unison.
Bruce grinned, “In the basement of this facility is the storage room where I have hidden the key.” They all looked confused,
“The key to what?” Michael asked.
Bruce waved his hand and four guards stepped up and handcuffed them to each other; Justin to Austin to Samuel to David to Michael to Ethan to Marie.
“You are all connected now so you have to move together. You are only as strong or as weak as you are as a team. Figure it out. I want you out of those handcuffs and I mean I don’t want any of you and back here, oh I say in two hours or you will get to spend the evening cleaning your dorms with your toothbrushes.” Bruce ordered.
“I thought we had till the end of the day?” David replied.
Bruce shot him a dirty look.
“What? You said by the end of the day!” David protested.
“You now have one hour, anyone else got anything to say?” Bruce asked. Everyone was silent. “Ok, then, your time starts now.” Bruce said walking out of the room. He didn’t have to stay to watch. He was only interested in the outcome.
“Nice going cutting our time down by an hour,” Justin sneered at David.
“What, I had a valid point. He changed the rules,” David responded.
“You two are wasting time. We need to figure out where the key is and get out of these.” Samuel said.
“We could just figure out a way to break out of the cuffs. He only said we had to be out of them. He never said we had to use the key he hid,” Michael responded.
“Why would he have talked about the key if we didn’t need to retrieve it?” Samuel asked.
“I agree with Samuel. We need to find the key and get out with it.” Austin added.
“I’m with Michael. We can find a way to get out of these without a key. It will take too much time to try to find it.” Marie responded.
“Of course you’re with Michael.” David added.
“Shut up David. Look, let’s just try to get out without the key, then, if we can’t in like thirty minutes, we go for the key. Is everyone ok with that?” Michael replied.
“Fine with me. What’s your plan?” Samuel responded.
“We could pick the locks!” David exclaimed.
“Yes! David where’s your kit?” Michael responded
“I don’t need it I need paperclips.” David said looking around the room.
“Sargent’s desk probably has a paperclip or two.” Marie added pointing to Kenneth’s mess of a desk at the far corner of the practice floor. Kenneth didn’t even get an actual office, just a desk in the training room. It wasn’t like he needed it. He wasn’t there for his brains. The desk was covered in paper, water bottles, and various office supplies.
“Yes!” David exclaimed running towards the desk almost pulling everyone else down as they rushed to keep up so they didn’t fall.
As soon as they got to the desk Samuel threw up his hands, “Hold up if we mess with his desk we might be bringing down the wrath of Sergeant.”
“Agreed. We have to look without touching until we find a paperclip then make sure they get back.” Michael ordered.
“David don’t touch. You will make it a mess. Small hands only; Marie, you do it.” Samuel replied.
Marie hesitated; Kenneth was never very nice to her and always looked at her ‘funny’ as she would always say. She didn’t want to upset him and potentially take the hurt for it.
“Oh come on seriously? I want out of these.” Justin said moving to the desk and starting to move the papers around.
“It was Marie who was supposed to do it, you were not instructed to do it, stop!” Samuel ordered.
“Instruct this,” Justin said flipping Samuel off.
“Justin just be careful.” Michael replied.
“You’re not going to back me up on this?” Samuel shot back at Michael.
“Look, it’s getting done, it doesn’t matter who does it.” Michael responded.
“Found one!” Justin exclaimed as he held up a large red paperclip.
Marie just kept looking at the even more disheveled desk.
“Relax. It’s always a mess. He will never know we even touched it. He probably didn’t even know he had a paperclip,” Justin assured her. Justin handed the paperclip to David who instantly started working on his right hand cuff.
“No, get Ethan out first,” Michael told him, David looked up. “Just do it,” Michael ordered. David maneuvered so that he could reach Ethan. “Get him unattached from me,” Michael ordered. David didn’t question him, but Austin did.
“Why are you getting Ethan out first? Why does it matter?” Austin asked.
“I have a plan. Just trust me,” Michael replied.
Austin began to get ready to protest again.
“Just do as instructed,” Samuel ordered to Austin. Austin was silent. David was working fast and was able to disconnect Ethan from Michael,
“Ok now get Ethan and Marie separated.” Michael ordered.
“Hang on I want out too, these things are agitating my wrist.” Justin protested.
“Seriously, don’t be a baby. You will be out soon enough.” David replied. David was fast at work getting Marie and Ethan separated. David was finally able to get them apart.
“Ok. Separate yourself David. Marie and Ethan get to the basement to find the key. You two are the fastest and most agile and last time I was in the basement it was a disaster of stuff. You two can get around all o
f it the fastest. You have twenty minutes since we have thirty five minutes left. If you don’t find it in that time frame get back up here, David can get the rest of the way out with the paperclip and we all have to be out of the cuffs before the hour is up.” Marie and Ethan nodded their heads and ran out of the gym towards the basement.
“Why are you after the key now?” Austin asked.
“Because he knows that we might be asked for it. Smart move, Michael.” Samuel said Michael grinned as David separated himself from Michael.
Marie and Ethan had moved swiftly to the basement door, down the flight of metal stairs.
“Ok there is too much here.” Marie got flustered and looked at her watch. “We have fifteen minutes. Let’s separate and meet back in ten minutes here.”
Ethan nodded his head.
Marie instantly started to check the metal shelves that lined the border of the room. Ethan climbed up to the top of the large wooden crates that filled the room.
“Be careful I’m pretty sure those have weapons in them.” Marie yelled to Ethan. Marie was frantically searching the shelves as Ethan was moving from crate to crate checking the tops and in-between the crates for a key.
“Got it!” Ethan yelled.
Marie smiled. She loved it when Ethan would talk. She hadn’t heard his voice in over a month. He had always struggled with speech, even when they were children. He stuttered and as a child the other boys had teased him for it and Marie always felt that he didn’t speak not because he couldn’t but because he didn’t want to.
“Let’s go. We only have five minutes to get back up in our time frame.” Marie said with a smile, helping Ethan down from the crate, Ethan was busy taking the remaining cuff off his arm. Once down he handed it to Marie who did the same. They ran as fast as they could and returned to the group within one minute on their time in the basement to spare. “Ethan found it!” Marie exclaimed as they entered the gym. David was still at work freeing Austin and Samuel, there were three locks to go. Marie handed the key to Michael was quickly unlocked the remaining three locks.
Michael instantly looked at his watch, “Ten minutes to spare,” he said proudly.
“We are the best!” Justin said with a laugh and dancing around the room. Everyone laughed. “Let’s put the cuffs together, a nice little display,” Justin said with a laugh.
“Let’s not. We completed the mission and now we wait for Sir to return.” Samuel ordered back.
Justin started to pick up handcuffs, “Drop them.” Michael ordered “Samuel is right we wait for Bruce.”
“You’re no fun and besides you are supposed to call him Sir, you better not mention his name with him around.” Justin said dropping the handcuffs.
“I will call him whatever I want.” Michael sneered back.
“And we are going to do, what, now just sit here for ten minutes?” Justin questioned.
“Yes just sit still. It will be a new thing for you.” Michael said with a laugh.
A moment later Bruce and Kenneth walked in. “I see you are done.” Bruce said to the group. They all stood at attention.
“Yup, all detached,” David said proudly.
“And the key?” Bruce asked.
“Not like we needed it but Michael’s got it.” David replied.
“What do you mean you didn’t need it?” Kenneth asked.
“I picked most of the locks.” David said with such pride in his work. The rest could see Bruce wasn’t impressed.
“So what you broke some out and they went and found the key? You didn’t go as a group to the basement to find it?” Bruce questioned.
“This was Michael’s idea” Austin replied. Samuel shot Austin a dirty look then looked at Bruce who was looking straight at Michael. Michael was facing forward and not making eye contact with him.
“The instructions were not clear that we had to use the key to in fact get out. You only offered the key as a possible solution to getting out of the cuffs. The key was always a last resort in case we couldn’t get the locks picked fast enough. Trying to get all of us to the basement and around it handcuffed was not a feasible option and it would not have worked and we would have failed.” Michael responded still not making eye contact with Bruce.
“It could have possibly worked with the right leadership. However, our leader made the call and we followed and we were successful,” Samuel added.
“What did you use to pick the locks?” Kenneth asked.
“A paperclip we found on your desk, Sergeant” David said, still quite proudly.
“You shits touched my desk!” Kenneth yelled.
Marie felt her body shake. He was mad and they would feel the wrath from it.
”Who touched the desk?” Kenneth questioned still visibly mad, red-faced with a large vein popping from his bald head. Nobody spoke; they all looked to each other.
“We found the paperclip.” Michael replied.
“We? I want to know who touched the desk.” Kenneth yelled.
“We found the paperclip.” Michael replied again, everyone else was silent.
Kenneth walked over, “I want a name”
“We” Michael responded.
Kenneth lunged back to punch Michael but Bruce stopped him. Bruce was laughing, Kenneth was not.
“Calm down, you can’t find anything on that desk as is. If tweedle dumb over there hadn’t told you they touched your desk you would have never known, so let it go,” Bruce ordered.
Kenneth was regaining his composure, “Touch my stuff again and I will make your lives miserable.” Kenneth ordered to the group as he walked out of the room.
“So you passed, you completed the task in the assigned window of time. Congratulations. However I would suggest teaching your little mouthy one to keep his mouth shut about your techniques. That’s a good way to end up dead.” Bruce said glaring at David. “You are all dismissed.” Bruce turned and left the room, a grin was on his face. They were right where they were supposed to be, problem solving at a fast rate and following the directions of one, their leader, Michael. Now all Bruce had to do was to make sure Michael followed his.
Chapter 6
Bruce had watched them even closer after that day to see if the team status would remain the same. Michael had become even more protective of Marie and the others resented it a bit. The others knew it was due to his romantic interests in her. Bruce found it to be fascinating. He always figured it was Michael’s way of establishing dominance. He was the alpha male after all. It was only fitting that he claimed the only female. Time passed slowly but their progress didn’t. They excelled at a rapid pace. They developed into both strong physically and strong willed individuals. Michael held command as Bruce had anticipated. They listened to him and they followed his instructions. Training was a daily occurrence and by the age of twenty two only Michael led exercises.
“Line up.” Michael ordered flashing his bright smile.
“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Justin replied with a grin stepping up to the red line on the training floor.
“Drop the attitude. It isn’t funny.” Samuel added walking towards the line with Austin following behind. Ethan followed along with Marie and David close behind. They were all there and ready. Dressed in their training greys, they were designed to be comfortable and to not restrict movement when trainings. They were tight and showed off their extremely fit physiques.
“Today is course day.” Michael said and with a firm hand pointed to the new course in front of them.
“You changed everything,” Samuel said with a frown. The normal equipment was gone and in its place was an elaborate combination of bars and mats, with no ladders to get up them or across them. “It was designed by Sir and Sargent the way it was for a reason. Did you have a real reason to change it?” Samuel continued.
“I’m digging it,” Justin said with a smile, scanning his blue eyes around the new course.
“It is going to require we all push ourselves more in our ability to get up and around t
hings.” Michael replied arms crossed across his chest.
“It’s more of an agility course” Austin added looking at the course.
“It’s totally like that parkor shit I saw on the internet, sweet! It’s got all those mats and such,” Justin said as his eyes lit up.
“So, what now, Marie and Ethan get to show everyone up? Was that your plan?” David asked. Then he saw the look of disgust on Michael’s face, David looked down and tucked in his grey shirt. He could tell Michael had been eyeing it.
“Maybe I think that the rest of us could use more work in that area, since it is a bit troublesome that only two of us can climb and evade the way they can.” Michael said, his piercing green eyes laying directly on David.
“Hey, I’m in, no complaints. Let’s do this.” Justin said, clapping his hands.
“Marie and Ethan will be taking point as this is their area of expertise,” Michael said, gesturing his hand for Marie and Ethan to step up.
Marie stepped forward, but Ethan didn’t. Marie turned to him and Ethan shook his head. Even after all these years Ethan still couldn’t bring himself to regularly talk around the others. Ethan’s physical skills were not in doubt but his social skills were. Marie nodded. They had a silent form of communication and she knew she had to take point. Marie stood before the others,
“Ok, Ethan and I designed the course, it is passable. However you have to get through it any way you can, and there are no specific means for getting through, that is ladders, ropes, and those kinds of things. Use the physical skills you have and get through it. It is that simple.” Marie said knotting her blonde ponytail into a bun. “Ethan and I will run it first so you can see how it is done. We will use different methods but both will pass it.” Marie added, gesturing to Ethan for him to ready himself to do his run.
The rest stood to the side to watch Ethan go. Suddenly the building was shaken by a loud blast, followed quickly by a loud blaring alarm.
“What is that?” Justin questioned covering his ears.
Michael looked to the panel on the wall. It was flashing red. He ran to it and touched the screen, “There is a security breech in the armory.” Michael called out looking back at the rest of them.
Marie (Teumessian Trilogy Book 1) Page 4