Code Frostbite (STORM Book 1)

by John Darling

  My mind went black as soon as I heard the word “all.”

  Chapter Twenty-One: This Is Only A Test

  “Trevor! Tre-vor! Wake up!”

  I woke up in a cold sweat to Alexei yelling my name over and over. My heart was racing and I felt extremely lightheaded. I found myself back in my own bed with Alexei standing on a chair next to my bed with his hand on my shoulder.

  “Trevor, you were screaming. What happened? Was it another bad dream?”

  I looked at Alexei. The last thing I remembered was Dwayne shooting me. I quickly threw the blankets that were on top of me aside and examined my thigh. I had expected to find a wound or cut but there was nothing. There wasn’t even a scratch, and not a drop of blood. How could that be? My pain had been way too realistic to be fake. Could my mind have made all of that up? I looked back up at Alexei.

  “I thought I was dead. Dwayne shot me right in my leg and this orange vial filled with poison crippled me to the point where I couldn’t move my body. The pain took over my brain and I could barely stand it. I really thought I was dying.”

  Alexei’s face froze and he continued to look perplexed as he glanced at my leg. We didn’t say anything for a few moments until the awkward silence was shattered by the sounds of the OICs storming the hallway outside our room. Our door flung open and Commander Knight screamed at us to get out on line. I slowly climbed down the ladder from my bed and studied my legs as I moved. The feeling was back and every part of my body felt normal again. It’s like whatever happened on the island had been just another horrible dream.

  “LET’S GO, RECRUITS! QUIT WASTING MY TIME!”

  We rushed out into line and waited as everyone else shuffled to get to their spots. The OICs continued banging on doors and strongly encouraging the other recruits to move faster. After thirty seconds, just about everyone in our hallway had made it out, except for Robert. The OICs converged on his room like a group of hawks descending on their prey. From the hallway I could hear them yelling at Robert, but he was freaking out. Apparently his roommate Dwayne had disappeared and not returned to his bed last night. The OICs swarmed out of the room as quickly as they had entered, with a sluggish but dressed Robert in tow.

  “Attention everyone! In case any of you are looking for Mr. Quackenboss, let me stop you from wasting your time. He, like several others before him, are no longer a part of this training.”

  Commander Knight went on to talk about how he was proud of our class and how everyone had been working together well as a team, however, Dwayne had been dismissed last night for not buying into that. There was no way my dream could actually have had something to do with him leaving, was there?

  “Even when everyone is getting with the program, sometimes there are still outliers and that’s why we had to cut him loose.”

  Lieutenant Ward rushed over to Commander Knight and whispered something into his ear. I briefly made eye contact with him and quickly redirected my eyes back toward the wall ahead of me.

  “All right, instead of PT this morning, the OICs and I are going to answer some questions that have probably been bothering you these last few weeks. Follow me.”

  The entire class followed Commander Knight down the main hallway. Past the lounge, the dining room, and the medical center was a small hallway that appeared to be a dead end. However, Commander Knight walked up to a blank wall at the end. He placed his hand on the center of it and a blue outline of the hand appeared as he removed it. The wall opened up to some kind of secret room. If this was any other base this would have come off as strange, but not here.

  We all stepped into the room, which appeared much smaller from the outside than it was on the inside. In here, there were several computer stations, each with a big swivel chair and lots of buttons and keyboards. Ahead of us was a giant screen showing some kind of white room. I’d never seen any room like this before.

  “This is where we play with all of your heads and create the simulations which take place on Deck Four. This simulator was created by one of our Swedish scientists a few years ago. It’s the only one of its kind because we can turn that blank white room into any environment on Earth. Anything from the desert to the ocean floor can exist in there.”

  Commander Knight directed our attention to the giant screen and we all watched as it changed. Come to think of it, I’d never been on Deck Four until now. I looked over at Alexei, and he seemed just as confused as I was.

  “We can also add other life forms such as animals and even people. They’re not real of course, but due to the serum we inject into your bloodstream after you’re unconscious, you perceive them to be so. Once your mind can figure out what is reality and what isn’t, you’re brought into the simulator. The scenario is then adjusted to your actions or inactions. Some of you took hours to wake up in there.”

  A few people began murmuring and Alexei pushed past two people to get closer to Commander Knight.

  “Are you saying those weird dreams I had were not actually dreams?”

  “Precisely.”

  The entire class began shouting and blurting out the scenarios they had gone through. Some people said that they had been underwater while others said they had been attacked by vicious animals. Alexei said three times that he had been on some base in outer space that had exploded. All of the situations sounded just as scary as what I had been through.

  “Settle down, please. The reason we are all in here is so we can explain the purpose of the simulator.”

  Alissa shouted out from the back of the room is a sassy tone, “So what is the purpose of the simulator?”

  “Our job as your Drill Instructors is to prepare you for combat in the field. Short of putting you directly in the field with a Strike team, this is the closest thing we have to that. Creating fictitious zombies that act like the real thing, but can’t harm you physically, gives us great insight in seeing how you will react on a real life mission. We ran all of you through three different simulations and those who we deemed couldn’t handle them are no longer with us.”

  Marcus jumped in, saying something about seeing one of his family members in one of his simulations. I immediately thought about Natalie. They may not have harmed us physically, but they sure had messed with me mentally. As it appeared, I wasn’t the only one upset.

  “I can explain that. Some of the other Officers here went a little crazy and created scenarios that messed with some of your personal memories. For the record, I do not think it’s fair to toy with personal memories so I apologize to any of you that had to go through that.”

  Commander Knight explained that dozens of recruits had been eliminated right away on their first simulation. They had been sent home and not told anything about S.T.O.R.M. so they would return to their normal lives and will always perceive the simulation as a weird dream. The second round of simulations had eliminated a few more recruits and explained why I had thought the class had seemed to get smaller about a month ago. Since they had been with us for much longer than the first wave of dropouts, they had been sent to other divisions within S.T.O.R.M. So they’d still be Stormers, just not Strike Officers. Dwayne was the only one that hadn’t make it through the third round and I had to say that was happy about that. No one should ever shoot one of their teammates. I wish there was a way to find out why he’d done that.

  The commotion picked up again as several recruits wanted to know why this had been done without our consent.

  “This is how we conduct our training and it is only a test, nothing more. You can question it all you want, but none of you got hurt and we monitored all of the simulations the entire time. If you still have questions you can ask Lieutenant Ward later this afternoon. As for the next few days, the OICs and I have decided to give you time to work on whatever skills you need to prepare for the trials. Standard boundary rules apply, however, there will be no zombie tag in the range. Let’s leave it there for now and break for breakfast.”

  My class immediately reacted to his instructions. For t
he most part, everyone moaned and expressed their dissatisfaction with not being able to play any more rounds of zombie tag.

  “Don’t forget we still have PT every morning and we can make that last all day if none of you are interested in having time to yourselves.”

  And just like that, the mood of the class flipped the other way. Lieutenant Ward quickly ordered us to leave and head to the mess hall for chow as I reflected on the simulations. I knew those dreams had been too surreal to just be in my head. A few recruits, like Alissa and Marcus, were still upset that we had been drugged and put through that without being told the deal. As long as they didn’t do it to us again, I was happy to put it in the past. Although I did wish Natalie really was alive.

  The next three days went by fast and with each passing day, I worried that at any moment the trials would begin. I wanted to spend most of our free time in the range, but it had been packed. I had expected most of the recruits to wander elsewhere since we couldn’t play zombie tag. Yet, just about everyone had been practicing in there. I wanted some range time to myself so I could really focus and figure out why I couldn’t get any headshots. Instead of working in the range, Alexei had convinced me to go into the pool with him each morning. We’d had the pool to ourselves and he’d helped me work on my stroke technique, as well as add some extra speed. We had also broken out our SCUBA gear and made a few dives. Although we also had some fun messing around underwater instead of training.

  We checked the shooting range again this morning and it was still packed. Our class must be going through thousands of bullets by now. Since we already hit the pool, Alexei asked if I could help him get through the O course a few times. Without hesitation, I agreed to his request and we ran through the course half a dozen times this morning. He’s still having a tough time climbing and shimmying his way across the rope but I think he’s going to be fine if the course is part of our trials. He’s come a long way since getting stuck on my first day.

  After lunch, I told Alexei that we should take it easy for a few hours in case the trials were tomorrow. Although, that hadn’t exactly been the reason I had wanted to relax. Between the pool and the course, I’d been a little sore. To my surprise, Alexei fully embraced the decision and broke out his Xbox. We spent hours playing in our room until I looked over and found him asleep in his chair. I had had the feeling all of the running we had done this morning would catch up to him at some point. It was pretty late and I knew I should probably have gone to bed but I wasn’t tired. A few minutes ago I had had an idea and decided to go down to the range. Like I had thought, it’s completely empty. This was exactly what I had been waiting for.

  I found my locker in the back of the armory and picked up my pistol. It had only been a few minutes for me to gather up my gear and grab some ammunition. The OICs hadn’t said anything about being down here this late and until someone told me otherwise, I was going to practice alone while I can.

  The first magazine slid into the barrel of my gun like butter as the range system booted up. I pressed a few buttons on the screen next to me and chose to set the target at a stationary position of five meters for right now. It’d been a while since I’d been down here and starting out with a relatively close target was probably best for right now, at least until I felt confident with the weapon again. I slowly raised my gun and aimed at the target. With my finger on the trigger and my sights set on the fake person’s head, I pictured where I wanted the bullet to go. I pulled the trigger and lowered my gun to see where it had hit. Sadly, it hadn’t gotten him in the head. Thankfully, I hadn’t missed the target completely but a shot to the elbow wasn’t going to get me noticed.

  “Keep your eyes open!”

  The voice nearly made me jump out of my skin. A brief laugh from her followed and I turned around to see Jemma standing behind me. She must have snuck in quietly because I hadn’t heard the range door open or her footsteps. Then again, until a few moments ago I had ear muffs on.

  “Keep your eyes open. Your aim looks good but as soon as you pull the trigger, your gun jerks to the left.”

  My first impression of Jemma’s advice was to not believe it. However, she was a much better marksman than I was so she probably knew what she was talking about.

  “Well, that explains why I had hit him in the left elbow.”

  Jemma walked over to my bench and took hold of the gun. I went to take my hands off it, but she prevented them from doing so.

  “Yeah, you really got him. Unfortunately, that shot won’t kill him.”

  Jemma instructed me to grip my pistol and to keep my finger off the trigger. Apparently, that was a huge mistake I had been making up until this point. At all times I had to keep my finger straight unless I was about to fire. I looked down the sights of the pistol and looked at the target again as she put my earmuffs back on.

  “Fire whenever you’re ready and remember, keep your eyes OPEN!”

  I took a shot and unfortunately, the bullet hit the target’s right knee. I tried to keep my eyes open but clearly, I was still not doing something right. Jemma tapped me on the back and told me to put the safety back on.

  “OK, look. You’re too tense. Relax and just let the gun be an extension of your body. You control the weapon, not the other way around. This time, just before you shoot, I want you to take a long, deep breath. As soon as you finish your exhale, take your shot. And…”

  “Keep my eyes open.”

  “You got it, hotshot.”

  Jemma backed away again and I took the safety off. I gripped the gun with both of my hands and gently placed my right index finger parallel to the trigger. Her words echoed through my head and I closed my eyes for a moment. I visualized the target and envisioned exactly where I wanted to the bullet to go once again. Air slowly came up into my nose as I took a long ten-second breath. After I exhaled, I opened my eyes as wide as I could and regained my focus. Less than second later, the next bullet flew downrange.

  “WHOO!”

  Jemma screamed and I lowered my gun in awe as I became fixated on the green light. I had done it. I’d actually gotten one!

  “SEE! I told you to keep your eyes open!”

  I ripped off my earmuffs and benched my pistol. Jemma jumped into my arms and gave me a big hug. I was thrilled to have finally gotten a green light but she was ecstatic. I hadn’t seen this much energy ever flow out of her.

  “You did it!”

  I had finally done it! It had only taken a few hundred shots to get a headshot but I was glad to take it.

  Jemma let go of me and continued to brag about my shot, repeating over and over that keeping my eyes open was what had done the trick. Not that I wanted to disagree with her since she was the expert, however, I think the deep breath had had a much greater impact. Calming myself down had definitely helped a ton.

  I put my earmuffs on and set the target an additional five meters back. Picking up my pistol, I began to repeat the process. Five seconds later I found myself staring at my second green light. For the first time I thought my shooting percentage was about to get much, much better. Finally!

  Chapter Twenty-Two: I, Trevor Flashman…

  Alexei and I woke to the sound of sirens and car alarms going off. Even though the noises the OICs used to wake us up were extremely loud, they didn’t seem that bad any more. Like a weird alarm clock, they had become just part of our normal routine. In a way, hearing them brought a feeling of comfort. Don’t get me wrong, it also forced me to be extremely alert the second I hear them. I hadn’t gotten back to our room until really late last night and thankfully I hadn’t woken up Alexei.

  It would have taken a lot to wake him up since he had been snoring pretty loudly. He must have climbed up into his bed at some point. I asked if he remembered doing so but he said he didn’t. One of the OICs banged on our door and the two of us ran out to get in line. Just before we exited the room, I told Alexei that I had hit thirty-two green lights last night. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me.


  “You did what?”

  “Quit talking and get into formation!”

  Lieutenant Ward quickly scolded us as he walked by. Alexei gave me a high five and then patted me on the back. I promised that I would explain exactly how it happened to him later. Last night had been a whirlwind and one of the best nights I’d had since this training had begun. After I got my first green lights, Jemma had walked me through a few more positions and even introduced me to some of the other weapons from the armory. Some of which were definitely ones that the OICs had told us were off limits.

  However, Jemma hadn’t cared. I had noticed her getting happier as our session went on. While I was thrilled to finally get some headshots, I think she was happy that she was the one there to help me. Just before we said good night, there had been a moment of tension between us. It hadn’t been bad, I just went to hug her and as we released from each other, I felt something that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I wanted to kiss her but I didn’t act on it and awkwardly said goodnight like an idiot. Part of me was wondering if she had felt it too. I’d never been good at picking up on signals like that.

  “Good morning everyone!”

  The entire class replied in perfect synchronization: “Good morning, Sir!”

  Unlike every other morning, I had noticed that all of the OICs, including Commander Knight, are wearing their dress uniforms. Each one of them had several ribbons and medals on their chests. Commander Knight had by far the most and it looks like he needed a second uniform just for them.

  “Today is a big day and one that you will all remember for a long time. I still remember the day I took my oath, and now it’s time for every single one of you to officially join the ranks of the best teams in the world.”

  * * *

  Commander Knight instructed the entire class to form a single file line along the left side of our hallway. The recruits from the other two hallways joined us and it took a few minutes for everyone to get shoulder to shoulder. We were told to face inboard as the OICs lined up on the opposite side facing us.