[TheRaisin]

Ian

Ms. Fletcher led me to a large plated-steel door. After she slid a card through a slot next to it, had her retinas and fingertips scanned, and provided a voice sample for a voice verification device, there was a heavy thock and a hiss of hydraulics, and the door slid open. I stepped through after her, and my first reaction was that I was outside. The floor was covered in grass, in the distance there was a stand of tall pines, and in another direction was a large patch of dirt. But as I looked around, I realized we were still inside.
The ceiling was dozens of yards up, and covered in flourescent lighting panels. The wall behind me stretched half a kilometer in either direction, and I could vaguely make out three others of the same size. It was a gigantic one square kilometer room.
The door slid shut behind me, and I snapped back to attention. Several yards away, Ms. Fletcher stepped through a small side door set in a protrusion from the grey metal wall. The door locked behind her.
Now I was alone. Even the company of Ms. Fletcher was better than none when I didn't know where I was or what was going on. I would have much preferred the hell I knew to the hell I didn't. The room was eerily quiet, like all the rooms in this place. The lack of natural sounds was disconcerting in a place made to mimic nature. After a minute, the silence was broken.
A section of the ceiling at the center of the room slid aside, almost imperceptibly from this distance. A huge shape like the carrier part of a blimp descended, it's sides covered in mirrors.
"Welcome to the training room." Ms. Fletcher's voice echoed through the room over the intercom. I realized the shape on the ceiling was an observation room: it's mirrors were one-way.
"Training? What for?" I asked, unsure if she could hear me.
"For you. You are a soldier, and this is a war."
"A war against who? And how can I be a soldier?" This didn't make sense.
"A war against the Tenae race, idiot! The aliens who infiltrated our society and now have been turning our cities to smoldering piles of glass for the last three months! You were found in the rubble of Los Angeles and we decided you would be a perfect candidate for a military project."
"Project?" I asked. I did not like where this was going.
"This is a military institute. We are funded by a secret splinter branch of the government to experiment with ways to create more advanced humans, capable of performing with more efficiency and potency than any other human. In a word, a supersoldier. Inititially we tried making stronger, faster humans, focusing on physical aspects. The results proved catastrophic. So this time, we tampered with the mind instead, to see what increased cranial activity would do. It's pretty hard to believe what we found."
"I'm listening."
"Well, you know that the most anyone ever uses of their brain is less than twenty-five percent. We electrically stimulated the seventy-five percent of the brain that isn't used, and when those neurons started firing, well, voila." She sounded extremely pleased with herself.
"So I'm the result of that? The telepathy, and the ability to tell when someone is lying?"
She chuckled annoyingly. "That's just a fraction of it. With your brain working at full capacity, we were able to download practically an entire database of knowledge into your head. In fact, you probably possess more information than any other single person on the planet. Also, you.... well, maybe now isn't the time. I wouldn't want you to get a big head."
"So what about the amnesia?" I pressed.
"No time for that. We--"
"You're dodging my questions," I said angrily.
"Damned right! You're on a need-to-know basis, and at the moment, you don't need to know. Now let's get on with this."
"Screw it! I'm not doing a damn thing until I get some answers!" This was starting to annoy me.
"I think you will," she hissed. "We wouldn't want an accident to befall Lyra, would we?" There was venom in her voice. A holoscreen slid out of the wall, showing Lyra still on the table with one of the black robots hunched over her. Several small arms extended from the back compartment, holding syringes, small blades, and a twisted variety of other devices that looked like they had been designed by a madman for the sole purpose of killing while inflicting the most amount of pain.
"You're sick," I spat.
"No, I'm just very willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want. And if that includes--"
"No! I don't want to hear it. I'll do what you want." I had no choice.
"Good boy. And remember, I hold the key to Lyra's future. If you don't behave, I could simply push a large red button here and.... well, I'll spare you the details. Now for your first training mission..."
A small portion of the wall extended itself and slid aside, and a large rack full of weaponry slid out. It was covered in weaponry, from small knives to state-of-the-art laser weaponry.
"On that rack is an automatic assault rifle and clips of ammo. Take the rifle apart, clean it, reassemble it, and load it. You may proceed."
I looked at the weapon uncertainly. I had no memory of using one, but if I really had all that knowledge...
I picked up the gun and willed myself to obey. Suddenly my hands were flying in a flurry of activity, with hardly any prompting. I somehow knew exactly what I was doing. Within a matter of seconds I finished by slamming the clip into place.
"Yes! It would appear your information recall is working splendidly. Your next mission..."
A small plastic target popped up from the ground several yards away.
"...destroy that target."
I lifted the gun to my shoulder, steadied it, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. The industrial plastic flew apart in splinters with a loud crack.
"You gave me live amunition?! I thought they were blanks! What kind of person would give a kid an assault rifle with live ammo?!"
"From this point on, you are no longer a kid," Ms. Fletcher said. "Like it or not, you are a soldier. Now calm down. There's much more training to do."


Kind of crappy, I know. I know exactly what I want to write later on, but I'm having trouble working through the present chapters. Oh well, there you are. Next one will be in a couple of days.