Project 438

Chapter 9: Project 438

Brittany was not my escort and a part of me was thankful. Instead, she took me to a young guy a little older than me who went by Fang. It was weird hearing his name and I immediately wanted to ask why but figured it would be best not to ask. He was tall in a navy blue uniform and combat boots and was very slender. I wondered how he could fight as small as he was. But his serious attitude and tense formation told me he probably was lethal when fighting.

He took me to the gym first that was on the second floor. We had taken the elevator up and when the doors opened, I saw that the whole second floor was the gym. Mats were covering the floor and workout machines were everywhere. There was a hallway to the left of the room that led to the bathrooms and showers. On the right side was the bleachers. There were teenagers working out on every machine and when I came in, all eyes spotted me. They all looked too serious and were tense like I was a threat.

Fang told me about every machine and the rules when using them. My favorite machine so far had to be the shooting range. They made hologram people in this small room and you were to shoot them as they ran around. The room was darkened a little with small lights in the ceiling. Judging from the boy in there, he was a killer with a gun.

"Make sure that with each exercise machine, you only spend 30 minutes. The instructors don't like when we overdo ourselves."

I tried to keep up with everything Fang said, but it was hard when excitement took over. My mind was already planning what I wanted to do and I had not even been here 20 minutes. There was the treadmill which was a typical workout machine, but when I asked, Fang snickered and told me that it was to train us to run fast or fall behind. The one that worried me the most was the weights. The girl who was using it had her back to the machine lifting up on the weights with her back. I feared of breaking my back but did not mention it.

Fang led me to a punching bag that was bigger around than I imagined they were. He rested a hand on it and looked at me as if daring me to hit it.

"This punching bag is important in this whole gym. If you can't hit someone without hurting yourself, then you show us how weak you really are. It's important to show everyone in this room you're tough because when the time comes to actually be tough and you chicken out, the people on your side will get hurt. That will be on you. No weaklings."

I nodded clearly noting that he was already picking me out as the weak one. I never punched anyone before so I was not sure if it would hurt me, but he was probably experienced with this enough to notice whether or not people were weak. He finished explaining the gym and led me to the third floor which was the cafeteria. It was clean and looked like a huge dining room. There were tables all over the place with fancy tablecloths and candles in the center of each table. There was a salad bar in the back and the bathrooms in the corner. The kitchen was past the salad bar and vending machines with water against that wall. He explained that here, you were to eat healthy to keep you from getting sick or weak. Looking at Fang, I wondered if he was eating way too healthy. I thought he needed more weight on him.

Since the building was only five floors, the next two floors were the bunks. The girls on the fourth and boys on the fifth. When I asked why the bunks were on separate floors, he looked at me like I asked a pointless question.

"Boys and girls being on the same floor can cause distractions from our jobs. We may be trained like adults here, but we are still teenagers and they have to take caution. Not to mention that there are also showers and separate hangout rooms for when we have downtime. The only time we combine the sexes is when we eat and have group day. You will learn about that later on." He walked forwards a little then turned to me again. "And dating is forbidden here because our mission is important."