Free Fall ♚ Eggsy Unwin

eleven

They frogmarched us through the corridors towards the outside. Davies clamped one of my arms, and Dave my other, though less tightly. The cold hit me like an icy bucket over the head, sending chills down my body. McEwen opened the back door of a minibus that stood in the yard and Davies gave me a shove.

"Get in, Marigold," he said, as he took off the handcuffs.

I stepped into the van and Dave threw my boots and shorts after me.
"Put 'em on," he said grudgingly. The van was used exclusively by the training department, and although Kingsman was a fancy organization, the seats on the minibus were caked in mud and the distinct stench of sweat filled the bus. I cramped into a seat, Eggsy sitting beside me and Roxy behind me. As the bus started to move, I peered into the darkness to try to see where we were headed.

"Where do you reckon we're going?" Eggsy asked from beside me, but I ignored him and tried to concentrate on the bus movements to figure out where the hell they were taking us.

From what I could see the first part of the drive was through the open part of the grounds, which contained all of the buildings as well as the athletics track and obstacle courses. For the remaining two kilometres, the van crawled along a dirt path around the edge of the training compound. It was hard to tell at night because it was pitch black outside the headlight beams, but I was fairly sure that we were travelling towards the forest where we had had our first exercise.

"I don't know, maybe-" Roxy started.

"The wood. We're going to freeze," I concluded, and as if on cue my body wracked with shivers.

Eggsy raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"How do you know?" he asked me, and I rolled my eyes.

"Pay attention, you dolt,"

Sure enough, my theory was confirmed when we branched off to the right and found ourselves driving parallel to the back wall of the grounds. In the open part, you could go right up to the fifteen-metre-high walls, but out here in the wilderness there was ten metres of gravel between the wall and huge coils of barbed wire three metres high. The gravel was crisscrossed with motion sensors to detect anyone who breached the wall and signs urged intruders to wait for the security team or risk being blown up by unexploded tank shells –for secretive purposes, Kingsman headquarters was supposedly situated on an abandoned mine field, a fact that didn't particularly reassure me. All in all, the security was top notch.

The road ended at a rectangular clearing half the size of a football pitch, with tall weeds growing in cracks between the tarmac. At the far end was a concrete storage shed, beside which was an old golf buggy with a flat tyre and covered in a decade's worth of rust. As we stepped out I saw an electronic surveillance post bristling with aerials where the sections of perimeter wall joined at right angles. We were in the farthermost corner of the grounds, almost three kilometres from the main building and my comfy bed.

"Christ it's cold," I swore, as I tucked my hands under my armpits.

"Oh bollocks," muttered Eggsy as spotted the trainers.

All likely in their mid 20's, they wore combat trousers and body armour and there were quad bikes lined up alongside them.
"I think they're the enemy," Roxy said, as she too shivered.

"Fine observation there, Dr.Watson" I said through chattering teeth.

"You alright?" Eggsy asked me, as he looked down at my skimpy running shorts and my training bra.

"You mean apart from the fact I am freezing my bloody arse off out here?" I replied "I'm fine and dandy, yes"

"Gather around," McEwen shouted, and the eight candidates huddled into a circle.

Eggsy leaned in and whispered to Roxy and I: "Look at the gut on some of these guys. They can't have done any training. We'll run rings around them."

"One to many beers, if you ask me," I replied, and Davies swiveled and glared at me.

"What was that, Jennings?" he sneered, walking up to us. "Would you like to share?"

"Just clearing my throat, sir," I said.

Davies grabbed me around the neck and choked me.

"Is it clear now?"

"Yes sir," I croaked, as my face probably turned bright red and I started coughing.
Davies let go and shoved me backwards.

"I do not expect back chat," he shouted, as Charlie sent me a mocking smirk and Digby and Rufus tried to hold in laughter.

"The next trainee who speaks out of turn will spend next weekend scrubbing the mud out of the minibuses with a toothbrush," threatened McEwen.

"The objectives are simple," Dave continued. "You have shorts and boots and we will be giving you safety goggles. You must make it from here back to the main building. Once you're inside you can get into bed and enjoy the rest of your night's sleep."

A relieved sigh passed through the trainees.

McEwen let out an evil chuckle.

I hate it when they do that.

"Unfortunately, the trainers will be trying to stop you. Each time they capture you and put on handcuffs, you will be brought back here to start again. They will be equipped with rifles, two hundred rounds each of simulated ammunition-" I groaned slightly as I realized that would hurt, "-night-vision equipment, full body armour, radios, quad bikes and most importantly Dave and I will coordinate their movements with full access to the security system including all cameras, heat sensors and motion detectors," he said, and Eggsy let out a small groan of his own.

"We have also picked some of our crack-shots, positioned in strategic locations around the grounds. They cannot capture and return you to the starting position, but they're scouts, positioning traps and of course shooting at you with simulated ammunition. The exercise will end at 0700 hours. Any trainee who doesn't make it to the main building before then will be expected to complete a ten-kilometre run with a thirty-kilogram pack before breakfast every morning for the next three days. All other standard safety and containment rules apply. Any questions?" McEwen asked.

Roxy raised her hand. "Sir, we don't have any protection. Won't the simulated ammo tear us to shreds?"

A broad smile spread over Davies's ugly face before he spoke:

"The simunition is grade three. It's not as powerful as the ammo you might have used over at the SAS training ground when you were in full body armour. However, it will still hurt a great deal if it hits bare skin, so I would seriously recommend doing everything you can to avoid getting shot up the arse,"

I'm gonna ask if you would be so kind as to put at least 10 votes before my next chapter. It's just that it's kind of discouraging to see that plenty of people read it, but only 3 decide they wanna show it by voting. Sorry guys,
-C