I see one of the authority bots step forward, and for the first time I notice it is holding a rather large strip of paper.
"Would the following students please step forward when your name is called....Ace, Trouble, Cole, Penelope, Lobster."
The handful of my classmates that stepped forward all look around in confusion until the bot speaks again. "This group will be Team A"
Ace and Trouble immediately face each other and high-five. Pablo slams his hands together and whoops, shouting, "YES! Get it power couple!" The same authority bot holds up its free hand in a shushing motion. It is then that the Wicked Witch of the West notices my presence. She extends an arm towards the others and adorns the nastiest smile she can muster. " Please...join the other recruits against the wall."
I do as she says and take my spot beside Tyrone, with Pablo on his other side. The bot continues as I see Pablo glance at me from the corner of my eye. He wears the teensiest smile with the most noticeable blush spreading to the tips of his ears.
"Would Team A please wait in the corridor?" We watch the five of them file out the door before the bot starts again. "The rest of you will be Team B... Lasso, Behty, Tyrone, Pablo, AIR, and Jimmy. While I am informing Team B of the mission, Team A will be getting a slightly different rundown by one of my colleagues." Ms. Jones hurries over and hands each one of us a small notebook. She smiles and quotes too giddily, "Distance makes the heart grow fonder...but I never liked you mouth-breathers anyway...Ciao." And she salutes us before walking out the door.
Well, I guess the feeling was mutual then. Thanks for so openly expressing your feelings, witch.
I flip through the notebook in my hands and stop towards the last few pages to see something was already written in a neat script.
Dear recruits, this is your first mission solo. You all will be sent to the old planet in your teams and accomplishing set tasks. Team B, you all will be in charge of exploration and research analysis. Each of you will be given gear packs, and Team B's will include solar powered cameras, flashlights, a first aid kit, and differing weapons based on your individual skill sets. The expectations are to gather as much intell about the state on the planet as possible and physical evidence is encouraged. You will be sent off tomorrow morning, so take the rest of today to prepare. Do not pack bags; for arrangements have already been made.
Dismissed,
HQ
—--
After the authority bots exited the room, we headed home.
—--
Dang. That's a lot to take in. Dang. "Wow" I throw my hands up dramatically, fully intending to fall back onto my bed...I miss; horribly. Ow. Note to self: do not trust-fall the concrete anymore. She mean, disrespectful, and she didn't even try to catch me.
The impact of the cement flooring is as sudden as this wack-ass mission to save the world that I've never been to but apparently it's super important to our future. Big confusion my guy. How they gonna drop this big ole stink bomb of suckiness on a group of teenagers raised by motherly robots? I don't know how well this is going to work out but I guess our class has got a whole new load of things to figure out. I fall asleep thinking of what our 'individual skill sets' could be. Like am I a sword wielder?
I am not. I am not a sword wielder. Oh well, nice to think about I guess. I am a baby sword wielder; I have knives. They're pretty cool. More subtle and easier to kill with. Better than Behty. She got a book of plants and recipes and a firestarter, which we all got in our packs. So they basically gave her nothing. HA! Even the security bots know she's useless. Lasso got a whip, kinda fitting. Tyrone has muthafuckin nunchucks! Love that for him. Jimmy, like the boss he is, got darts with varying injections. Now Pablo got a long wooden stick. He got a staff like an old man's walking cane. We haven't seen the others in group A yet. I think they're being sent a week or so after us, because Jimmy said he overheard one of the bots exchanging information about how 'the others are being released later'. I guess they don't want to send us all in at once in case we fail. Then we're all dead and humanity has no hope.
Smart move honestly. They really planned out everything.
We all grabbed our packs and moved onto the small ship transferring us to the old planet. That's where the cool shit started. Each of us got different suits to wear that accommodate to our skill sets I'm assuming. All of them look somewhat similar, but there are small differences. Like mine is black with green stitching and there are multiple little skinny pockets all over where I can hide my many knives. Jimmy's by far looks the coolest. His is black with bright orange stitching and he has a waist piece filled with darts and a double crossed sash piece for all the different injection vials he carries. Dude looks like he came out of a secret warrior assassination guild.
The ride to the old planet is going to take a while. We all know this so we get dressed and take our seats. All of us are ready for anything. Hands on packs and weapons, bodies ready to spring into action the second anything troubling happens.
When we finally catch sight of the planet we'll be inhabiting for who knows how long, there's a collective gasp from the group. It looks like something out of what the textbooks called magazines. The foliage has obviously taken over the world, but in a naturally beautiful kind of way. I don't know how the bots sent us here thinking it was going to be hell.
Oh, how we were wrong.
