The Cipher Code

chapter 1

There was a brief silence as the older kids looked at them, most likely judging them, the poor kids felt small and intimidated under the senior's gaze.

"Welcome to TNX newbies, I am Azalea and they are Quinn and Kai" Azalea said, introducing the two next to her.

Azalea Walker is the elite recruit of TNX. She was scouted at the age of 13 after she won a martial arts tournament and left almost all of her opponents in tears. She was a bit skeptical of joining the organization but her mother urged her to, and now here she is, the best fighter in the compound.

"Being here is a privilege so be proud of yourselves for being the 59 out of 100 to qualify to be here," Quinn said, looking at each and every one of them.

Quinn Lynch is also one of the bests followed by Kai Callaghan whs has been Quinn's best friend since let's say forever. Before joining the organization, the two were orphans but were also very intelligent in stuff such as technology and coding and they would normally mess around with the computers at the orphanage, as well as snatch whatever they thought looked cool and created small gadgets with them.

At the age of 14 they were scouted, and the owners of the orphanage were more than delighted get rid of the two 'trouble makers'.

Azalea continued, "Being here is no walk in the park as you can see," she gestured to the people training around them. "You will need to work extremely hard, you are not here to play around."

"But first, we need to go over the rules that you need to follow," Colt said.

"Curfew for first years is 9:30 pm, which means no leaving your rooms after that time, no talking or playing around, the lights should be off."

"Never be late to practice, being late to practice will serve you a punishment of running three laps around the outside of the compound."

"Respect your teachers and seniors."

"No vandalizing the compound's property, you will have to pay a fee."

They could see some looks of displeasure from some children, I mean who would blame them?

"But besides the rules we do have some activities here to make things less.. boring," Tyler said. "For example on Wednesdays we have a little competition where you can sign up for who you want to fight against. Fridays we go into the woods start a campfire, if it's raining then we have a huge sleepover here in the training room, which consists of watching movies or playing board games."

"Saturdays and Sundays there's no training so you get to relax, go home and do whatever," Quinn added.

"Now on to training," Azalea started explaining what she needed to and the first year's asked whatever questions they wanted to.

"Okay now, Aaron over there will be taking you to your assigned rooms, good luck."

The new kids followed the kid named Aaron out of the training room, leaving the four alone.

"I have a feeling this is going to be a long summer," Kai sighed.

"Tell me about it," Azalea agreed and crossed her arms.

"Well isn't it my favorite people," another kid said from behind the four. He squeezed himself between Azalea and Kai and wrapped his arms around their shoulders.

"I don't know if I should be honored or disgusted," Kai said, trying to get himself out of the kid's hold.

"I know what I am. Lucas let go," Azalea deadpanned.

Lucas sighed, "Fine," he let go of them and Kai looked more than relieved. "I thought you'd be excited to see me since we haven't seen each other in months."

"Months, not years," Azalea corrected.

Lucas Turner is also one of the best fighters in the compound. At the age of 13 he applied to join the organization as a joke with literally no hope of being accepted, but isn't the universe a funny thing, he got accepted.

The day he found out he was accepted he cried the whole day, while his parents were telling him that it would be fine his older sister on the other hand found his 'situation' hilarious.

"What great friends you are, absolutely amazing," Lucas said sarcastically.

"Who said we are friends?" Quinn queried and crossed her arms.

"Well if you think about it, we are all mostly paired for missions and stuff."

"Doesn't mean we're friends," Azalea said nonchalantly.

"Shh, we're all one big happy friend group," Lucas thought for a second, "Oh right I came here to tell you that we're all being called to Mr Burns' office."

"Why?" Tyler asked.

Lucas shrugged, "Don't know, all I know is we should be there now."

The group left the training room and made their way to Mr Burns' office, with there being little to no conversation, no matter how hard Lucas would try to start conversation it would be shut down.

"Honestly I think that cats will be the death of humanity, not a zombie apocalypse, because think about it, those things are learning how to open doors and know how to type." Lucas said, making the others look at him questioningly.

"Okay, what?" Azalea asked.

"Just think about it, soon they will be smarter than all of us combined."

"You need help."

"No, you need help for not understanding my amazing theory."

They finally reached Mr Burns' office and knocked on the door, not hearing a response.

"Should we just open the door or?..." Quinn asked.

"He's probably not there," Kai said.

"Let's just check," Lucas opened the door and as Kai said, Mr Burns was not there but his computer was on.

"Ooh, the computer's on," Lucas stepped forward but was stopped by Azalea, whose arm was in front of him, preventing him from going in.

"Nope, don't go through people's business."

"Oh come on, haven't you wondered what's on there?"

"I have but you need to learn something called self-control and how to mind your own business."

"I have self-control," he said matter-of-factly, "and it's currently telling me to look," he pushed past her and went to the computer and read whatever was on there. Almost immediately his face lost color and he muttered. "Uhm guys, you might want to see this."

"Nope, unlike you, I actually respect someone's privacy."

"I'm serious, come look."

They all went in the office and closed the door behind them. They stood next to Lucas and also looked at the computer, now understanding what Lucas wanted them to see, leaving them all beyond shocked as a heavy silence filled the room.

"Holy shi-"

"shizzle."