The Game

Prep Day Meeting

Once we make it back to Skinker, we all disperse to use the restroom, change etc.

"Meet in the conference room in 15 minutes," Matt tells us, already taking his place as our leader. We all agree with him.

"Is it okay if I keep this for a bit after the meeting? I'll give it back to you tomorrow." Tom says quietly to me when we are the only two left in the hall outside our rooms. He gestures to my tablet.

"Of course, that's fine. You should probably spend the evening with everyone else's tablet as well. For the sake of the group."

Tom nods. "No weapons needed on this first mission so Jamison and Cassidy will probably be with me during it. Unless they're needed as foot soldiers. I'll work on theirs then."

"Are you going to add the communication system you used for our group's gadgets?" I ask referring to the items he gave Sydney, J.T. and I last night.

Tom shakes his head then lowers his voice speaking quickly, "ours is off the radar but our Team needs to be aware people are watching us. We can't hide our actions."

Tom and I stand in the hallway a few more seconds, he watches me to see if I understand. I give him a quick nod and he looks relieved. He leaves me in the hallway as he goes off to his room to get prepared for a long day.

A few minutes later I enter the conference room and find most of our group already seated. Amelia is seated near the door talking to Myles. In front of him sits a set of keys to our van for the mission. Amelia sees me come into the room and gives me a little smile and rolls her eyes at Myles who's talking her head off about his ability to drive but also complaining about having to start with this van.

I give her a quick smile back, pretending as if we are co-conspirators. I need to stay friendly with her even if I feel there is something off about her.

Tom comes into the room next and we take two seats next to each other. The rest of the group files in with Matt bringing up the rear, his arms full of binders. He shuts the door behind him and starts sliding the binders across the table to each of us. Tom isn't paying attention so I quickly reach out and stop his before it falls into his lap.

Everyone settles in and waits patiently but I can tell they're all as anxious as I am to open these binders.

"Our mission starts early tomorrow morning so I'll try to make this meeting short." Matt opens his binder and flips through a couple pages and the rest of us take that as a cue that we can now explore the binders.

"Wow this one thing is really all for the first game?" Jamison comments and lets out a low whistle.

"I skimmed through them earlier and it's just basic information really since most of our assignments or missions will be on our tablets."

While they talk, I take a quick look through the binder and find the general information; where the garages are located that house different vehicles for our use, two safe houses specific to our group.

"These binders are to stay locked in this room or in your personal rooms but they are never to leave this building. This information is private and if anyone else got their hands on it, our missions would be compromised as would all of our safe locations and vehicles." Matt looks around the table and receives a few nods.

"Then I vote we lock them in here every night and before every mission." Myles speaks up. "I might want to bring mine back to my room to study up on everything but I think it'd be smart to keep all of them locked in here just as a precaution."

"Agreed," Matt says. "Everyone else okay with that?"

A collective voicing of agreement goes around the table and with that settled Matt moves on to the real mission. He pushes the binder aside and picks up his tablet going to the projector and flicking it on.

"Okay, as you all know, The Game starts tomorrow," as he begins talking his tablet screen takes of the projector and we all grab our tablets too. As Matt navigates to our first mission file, we all follow along and I am the first to notice that my assignment looks very different than Matt's.

"Hey, my mission looks nothing like that." Amelia speaks up and leans over next to her to look at Myles' tablet. "Yeah and doesn't look like his either."

"From what I can tell," Matt scrolls through and flips through his mission, "we each have different assignments and we need to figure out how they all fit together and who best to work with to complete each task."

"Oh yeah, in the meeting they did mention something about seeing how well our team works together." Jamison speaks up and Matt nods.

"Yeah so I think tonight we should try but I work out a game plan. Figure out where to begin, how each of us fits together for this first mission. Like I said, I want to keep this meeting short but I do think it'll be a good idea to have a base to start with tomorrow so we can just jump right in." Matt looks at me and looks as if he wants to say something but he thinks better of it.

"After breakfast of course," Myles comments and elicits a few laughs from the group.

"Okay, so it looks like our first mission is essentially a scavenger hunt. Nothing too extravagant. We will be working together on certain objectives and alone for others. This first mission is just to figure out how our team works together and we can see what we need to adjust or change before our next mission," Matt says and then pauses which gives others the opportunity to ask questions.

"Are we competing with the other teams?" Amilia asks.

"Is it like a race to see who gets there first?" Cassidy asks as a follow up to Amilia's question.

"No," Matt answers confidently. "Our missions may be similar but we are being graded on how well we work as a team and how well we complete each mission, rather than graded against other teams based on who finished first or did the best. Does that make sense?" Matt asks and looks around the table at us. We all nod and I'm impressed that Matt actually seems to know what he's doing. I guess he did some reading or research before our first meeting. 

"So we can switch positions?" Jamison asks then clarifies, "If we find out during this mission that someone might be suited for a different position."

"No," Matt says. "Our teachers gave us these positions for a reason, but that also means that we cannot switch. But we can reevaluate and figure out what works best for our team. " Our team members nod along, agreeing with him. "Okay, I guess that's it for today. Meet back here at 8:30am tomorrow. I want to get started early just in case we need a lot of time to plan."

"Sounds good, boss," Myles salutes Matt which makes a few of us chuckle. Matt laughs and rolls his eyes then waves us off. 

"Get some rest everybody, we have a big day tomorrow." Matt says and we all grab whatever we want or need to prepare for the mission before heading out the door. 

Tom stands by the door asking for everyone's tablets on the way out. Some people hold onto them for the time being but promise to hand them over to him at some point today. They want to go over a few things on their tablets before tomorrow and they don't know how long Tom will have them, so better to use them now and give them to Tom a little later. I hand mine over immediately, but keep the binder that was on the table when we first arrived. I want to make sure I know where everything is and how to access certain things if I ever need them.