Project Sparta (The Xander Whitt Series Book 1) (9 page)

Chapter 16

The Compound

November 29
th
2010

“Good Morning, Spartans. Today’s forecast is cold. Snow storms and high winds are expected. Dress warm. Please report to the transport to be taken to your first battle by oh-nine-hundred. Have a good day, Spartans, and remember, nothing is as it seems,” Anni’s robotic voice spoke over the intercom system of the Compound. Xander lumbered out of bed to the sound of the strangest alarm clock he had ever had.

After bundling in a winter coat with the Spartan helmet logo patch on its arm, Xander walked outside and surveyed the snowy Compound. He traced the flurries to the high vents in the dome ceiling. The vents had leaked rain, blown wind, and even increased the humidity during the summer months, but they had only recently had snow. Xander took a moment to admire the engineering behind the Compound. It almost felt real today as white sheets of snow covered the Compound floor. It was a strange moment of awe until a snowball hit him in the face. The sting of icy dew dripped down his neck as a giggle sounded to his right.

Xander followed the undulating note and spotted red curly locks bouncing behind the fence next door. Xander smiled and decided he could use a warm up before the battle. So, he threw himself down for cover at his own fence and began making snowballs. Once he had formed a small ammunition stash, he peeked over his fence. He could still see Fiona’s tangled red mane through the fence. He fired off a round but her cover proved effective. Xander snatched his beanie off his head and propped it up so it could be seen atop the fence. To an onlooker it would look like the top of the head to a body that was stationed under the fence. Xander grabbed his snowballs and army crawled along the fence toward the back of his house. He reached the end of the fence and barrel rolled over it. He stayed low as he scurried along the back of Fiona’s fence. He noticed she had many snowballs formed and was preparing for a full-scale onslaught. Xander crouched out of sight. Fiona popped up and unloaded her snowballs at the decoy that Xander had laid for her. Fiona’s stash of ammunition quickly became depleted. Flanking her successfully, she was easy picking. He approached her casually, snowballs in hand.

“Out of snowballs?” She turned to him, surprised by his position. A smile came over his face as he hurled a few rounds at her from the side. She fell back into the pile of snow and put her hands up over her face, giggling uncontrollably.

“I surrender, I surrender!” Fiona squealed. Xander dropped the rest of the snowballs and smiled down at his victim.

“Good practice for the battle today, huh?”

“Obviously I need some more!” she laughed. He helped her up and they both smiled wide at each other, as she came up close to him. They took a moment with each other, locked in eye contact. He felt warm in her gaze and sensed the mutual attraction building between them. Her glacier-blue eyes pierced him as he focused on her. He immediately felt the friction between his feelings for her and his new mission to spy on her. His eyes wanted to explore every inch of her but they had to remain locked on her gaze, searching her for her true allegiance.

Remain close. You don’t want to raise suspicion by being distant. But keep your head, Xander, she’s your mark.

“Come on, let’s go.” They joined the other Spartans gathered in the street as the large transport arrived. It was a boxy van with no windows to the back cabin, resembling a SWAT van. The Spartans loaded up and sat on either of the benches lining the interior walls of the van. Colonel Hardy awaited them and began speaking as the transport pulled forward and out of the Compound. It was the first time since their arrival six months ago that they had left the Compound.

“Spartans, welcome to your first battle.” Hardy held on to an overhanging hand loop for balance. The ten cadets all sat chests out and shoulders back. It was hard for them to look at full attention because they all had on heavy jackets and snow hats.

“Each Spartan will have at their disposal a wide armory of different weapons that fire these capsules.” He held up a pill-shaped bullet with red blinking lights on either side. “These will not kill you, but they will activate your suit from the point of impact and the electrical charge in your suit will drain from the inflicted wound. As the charge drains from your suit you will begin to lack mobility. They will simulate the damage a real bullet would do. If you get shot in the arm, you may be able to continue, if you get shot in the chest or the helmet, no chance. Spartans, strip down and put on your suits here behind me.”

The operatives disrobed down to their standard-issue underwear as they filed in to retrieve their suits. The recruits remained focused on the impending battle and not on one another’s lack of clothing. Upon reaching the shelves of armor, Xander noticed that their sleek helmets had clear visors and each had a different colored stripe running up the back.
Xander saw that his was yellow and then took note of the color assignments before him.

Xander noticed that the linings in their suits corresponded to the colors of each of their houses. Seamus got his suit first. He then brought the helmet over his head and secured it. His suit activated and illuminated in a neon orange trimming. A collective gasp sounded from the half-dressed Spartans.

“Seamus, why don’t you slam your arm against the wall?” Colonel Hardy instructed. Seamus obeyed and slung his arm against the wall. Sparks flew out from the point of impact. The color in the arm of his suit dimmed. Seamus tried to move his arm back, but it was rigid and stiff.

“I can barely move my bloody arm!” Seamus exclaimed.

“These are your suits. They are made of a material called elastane. It is a synthetic fiber that aids your movement. Microscopic bulbs are ingrained in the fabric that release a spark once you are hit, causing a chain reaction that could release all the suit’s spark through one wound. Your suit’s charge is your life. Once you lose it all, you have been tagged and you’re out.”

Hardy brandished a charging device and put it to the back collar of Seamus’s suit. He pressed a button and reenergized the suit. The lights on Seamus’s arm brightened and mobility returned.

The Spartans finished dressing and then found their seats and settled back to their thoughts, nervous about what was before them. The ride was about thirty minutes long. While the Spartans sat without speaking a word, Xander studied each person’s color.

Fiona’s white suit will blend in with the snow if the battle is outside. Rearden said this was a free-for-all battle, so it doesn’t matter who I’m shooting so long as I’m not getting shot.

Xander knew it would be difficult to identify anyone outside of their luminescent color, especially in the falling snow. Then the transport came to a stop. Hardy’s voice towered over the excitement.

“Today’s battle will be a free-for-all. Every man for himself. Outside these doors will be your first battle landscape. We like to call this location the Park. Let me be the first to warn you, it is an unforgiving place with a wide variety of elements. It will be a good starter course for you to test your instincts.”

At hearing this, Xander began to strategize.

It’s a park. Reach high ground in a tree or dig a trench in a boulder cluster. Stay away from any potential ponds, they will be out in the open with little to no cover.

“Spartans, you will have thirty seconds to arm yourself and find your positions before the battle begins,” Anni chimed over the speakers in their helmets. “Your preparation time will start now.” And with that, the back doors to the transport opened, revealing an astonishing sight: the snow had started to thin and the sun peaked through the murky clouds overhead. The air he breathed was fresher than any breath he had taken in the last six months he’d been in the Compound. It was their first field trip and Xander could not believe where the instructors had brought them. His eyes traced the landscape up and down, focusing through the floating remnants of the flurry. It wasn’t the kind of park Xander had imagined; rather, it was a small, operational Carnival, closed for the winter. The rollercoaster was docked on the track, after finishing its steep descent. Figurine horses spun around the merry-go-round. His eyes rose to a revolving Ferris wheel and settled on a crooked building with a large clown face marking its façade—a fun house.

Xander’s enchantment only broke when Anni’s voice chimed in his helmet again, “The battle will begin in twenty seconds.”

When he was off his guard, Xander often defaulted to reactionary decision-making. He watched the Spartans make their weaponry selections from the armory. They had set up a makeshift armory in what used to be a ringtoss booth. It was the first in a cluster of booths as they entered the park. Fiona picked up an assault rifle and booked it fast.

She flew, faster than all the other recruits.

The thought of his mission tugged at his mind. His gaze remained steady on her, but she vanished in the distance, swallowed in the flurries before him. Ashton chose the M24, a long barreled sniper rifle, slung it over her back and ascended the landscape. Judging by her gait, Xander knew she was most likely heading up the hill to the Ferris wheel.

The Ferris wheel will provide her the greatest vantage point of the Park for her sniper rifle.

Seamus selected the shotgun.

Shotgun—good for close quarters. He’s planning a tight fight. Must be running to the fun house. And Duke is taking the M400 assault rifle, which means he’ll be moving around on the ground.

Xander didn’t have a plan, so he knew he should take the M400, as well, the best of all worlds.

Without an in-depth plan, default to the most versatile.

All the Spartans had filtered out into the battle landscape as Anni counted down.

“Four, three, two, one. Begin.”

Xander grabbed the semiautomatic rifle and rolled out into the battlefield. Immediately, bullets flew behind him as he ran.

Let’s move.

He ran toward the furthest set of stalls where coin tosses and other games would have been played. He hopped in one and started to scale around to the north side where the rest of the amusement park was laid out before him.

Where else would we want to play a game?

His thought was broken by gunfire that hit his cover. Xander dropped, unsure of where it came from. There were multiple rounds fired so it wasn’t Ashton with the sniper rifle. He hadn’t been spotted yet by the eye roaming the park from the sky. Judging by the quick pattering footsteps that were approaching his stall, it was Jooles. Just as the footsteps got closer and louder, they were cut short by a loud single bang.

“Jooles has been eliminated. Eight Spartans remain,” Anni chimed in their helmets. Ashton had nailed her with a head shot in stride. She flopped before Xander, consumed in the sparks shooting from her suit. Xander could hear Ashton in the distance cock the Sniper Rifle back and forth, ejecting a cartridge. Xander remained under the cover of the booth, worried that Ashton’s scope was searching for him in the vicinity.

Then another loud bang echoed through the Park.

“Knowing that her rifle was now searching a different area of the grounds, Xander jumped out from his cover and bolted north toward the fun house. He knew he needed to get inside if he was going to stay out of Ashton’s line of fire.

He reached the entryway to the Fun House just in time, as Ashton fired off another round in his direction. Wood chips exploded off the door frame in every direction at the point of impact. The Fun House was dark and morbid, lined by concave and convex mirrors of different shapes and arcs. The floor was covered in black-and-white diamond-shaped tiles that appeared to stretch on forever. Light feet crept passed a fat reflection and then a tall and skinny reflection until he reached a room where he didn’t know where he was. He entered a chamber where mirrors met mirrors—his reflection extended out into infinity. Xander was lost, but in this room he was able to see Seamus staring straight ahead at him. Seamus cocked the shotgun and fired off a round in the direction of Xander’s chest. Xander dropped in fear, clinging to the hope that Seamus would miss. Nothing happened.