Chương 2: I Didn’t Drop Out Of High School For This

"Project Ark is a Top-Secret operation currently being undertaken by the U. S. government," the general informed them, his gaze slowly sweeping across the room of seemingly ordinary citizens. Vin tried to count the number of shiny medals decorating the man like a family of eight's kitchen fridge, but he kept losing track as the general paced back and forth.

"The information I am about to give you is therefore beyond classified, and if any of you attempt to distribute said information to the public, you will be executed on the spot." Now that silenced the whispers going around the room, and even Vin sat up a little straighter in his chair when he realized the grim-faced general didn't look like he was joking.

After arriving via magical rainbow tube wherever here even was, Vin and the others had been quickly shepherded by fully decked out military troops into a nearby conference room and told to give the general their undivided attention. He was beginning to understand why. Seeing he finally had everyone's eyes on him, the general nodded, clearing his throat.

"Forty-eight hours ago, the President received first contact from an unknown source we have now officially declared as alien in nature. Large portions of the information he received is classified even beyond Top Secret, but by virtue of you sitting here before me today, you have been given the right to hear some of it."

"In three days, the United States will be sending one hundred people to an entirely new world," the general said, as emotionlessly as though he were telling his son 'of course' when he revealed he got an A on his report card.

"We have no knowledge of what this other world will be like, other than confirmation that the gravity and atmosphere will be nearly identical to Earth."

"You've got all these big, tough looking guys with guns… Why the hell are you sending us?" A man closer toward the front shouted, throwing his hands up in disbelief. Based on the bright green mohawk and torn up leather vest the man was wearing, he didn't strike Vin as the military type. Vin glanced at the soldiers lining the sides of the room, waiting to see if any of them would grab their rifles and shoot the guy for interrupting the general, but they all remained standing at attention.

The general didn't even reprimand the man for speaking out of turn, which showed just how dire things truly were.

"The unknown originator of these messages, who we have dubbed Sender X, gave us a list of rules which I will explain to you if you can sit quietly," the general said, glaring at the punk.

"For reasons we don't understand, the President was only allowed to select fifty of the first one hundred people being sent to this new world. He was informed the remaining fifty would be randomly selected from the 'able bodied' population of the country. Congratulations everyone. You all are the winners of Earth's first ever intergalactic lottery." Glancing around, Vin took in the random sampling of U. S. citizens sitting in the room with him.

The spread of men to women seemed fairly even, and while he didn't have the best eye for age, their motley crew seemed to stretch from around his age to the upper fifties with only a few outliers. He did a brief double take at the single high school looking kid sitting a few rows behind him. He'd eat his socks if that kid was eighteen, but he supposed aliens couldn't care less for their definition of 'adult.'

"During the last forty-eight hours we managed to select our fifty candidates and bring them to this secret facility, along with having our experts put together a crash course in survival training," the general continued.

"Over the next three days, you lot will be trained to the best of our ability to ensure you have the greatest chance of survival possible in this mysterious new world you'll be sent to once the three days are up. We have no idea what to expect, so your training will encompass as many areas as possible. Everything from self-defense to identifying toxic plants."

"This situation is obviously unprecedented, but seeing as Sender X chose the fifty of you, the U. S. government is throwing a lot of our standard rules and regulations aside to try and make this work." The general paused, his lips pursing as though his words physically pained him.

"Congratulations everyone, you've all officially been drafted into the military's brand new seventh branch. Welcome to the Ark Division." That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back, as the room finally exploded with questions and people yelling as they were informed they'd essentially been drafted into the military without their consent. The soldiers lining the walls even had to step in and physically restrain a few people who tried rushing the general, demanding to be sent home.

It took the first newly drafted citizen trying to break through to the general getting tased and collapsing to the ground in a convulsing mess to finally get the crowd to quiet down and return to their seats.

"We don't like this any more than you do," the general said, fixing his hair as the unconscious man was dragged out of the room. Just before the door closed, Vin realized it was the punk with the mohawk that had shouted up earlier. He looked a lot less threatening with drool all over his face and a large wet spot on his crotch.

"Then why do any of this at all?" A woman around his age still wearing a McDonald's uniform spoke up, clearly angry despite the wavering in her voice. She had short, curly red hair, and her face was flushed to match. The act of speaking up in front of everyone clearly made her uncomfortable.

"Why not just let us follow Sender X to their world and do our own thing?"

"Because this is bigger than any one person," the general snapped, silencing their group as his calm and collected persona finally shattered.

"If you knew what I did…" He paused, taking a deep breath and doing his best to collect himself.

"The one hundred of you that will be sent in three days only constitute the first wave. You'll need to work to prepare our landing zone for wave two." Holding up a remote, the general tapped a button, and the entire wall was revealed to be a smart board of some sort showing a rapidly growing chart.

"Wave one is only one hundred people," he explained, using a laser pointer to highlight the small start to the chart.

"Ten days later, a thousand people will be sent after you in wave two. Waves three through eight will also consist of a thousand people each, and wave nine, the final wave, will contain a total of ten thousand United States citizens." This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Silence stretched throughout the room as fifty pairs of eyes took in the chart, trying to imagine so many people being whisked away to the new world.

Seeing the gravity of the situation had finally set in, the general nodded, slipping the remote back into his pocket.

"Our only saving grace is that the duration between each wave increases by ten days every time. That means ten days between waves one and two, twenty days between waves two and three, and so forth.

You'll have some time and plenty of additional manpower to prepare for the massive final wave, but this is why we can't just allow the fifty of you to run off on your own and get yourselves killed," he said, looking pointedly at the woman who'd asked the question in the first place, causing her to shrink back into herself under his piercing gaze.

"Everyone here will need to do their part to ensure everything is ready for those who come after." Nobody said anything for a few moments, their eyes busy scanning over the projection chart as the general's warning echoed freshly in their heads. Eventually, a quiet voice spoke up from the middle of the group.

"You said the President was contacted forty-eight hours ago," a thin man wearing slacks and a button down said, eyes glued to the chart.

"... and that we'd be sent to the new world in three days... which makes five days from initial contact to wave one." The man paused, his hand shaking slightly as he pointed toward the chart.

"If you add up the total time between all the waves on top of that… It's one year exactly." He hesitated, as if unsure if he even wanted the answer to his own question.

"You called this Project Ark … What happens at the end of the year? After the ninth wave is sent?" If the room had been quiet before, it was deathly silent now as everyone stared at the general, waiting for his answer. Sighing, the man's icy facade broke again, and he ran a hand through his thinning hair.

"Unfortunately, that's classified," he frowned, his own eyes flickering to the chart once again, his gaze lingering on the empty space displayed just after the final wave.

"All I can tell you is that we, and by that I mean the entire United States government, are depending on you to do your best after being sent to the new world."

"That said," the general turned back toward them, clasping his hands behind his back and giving them a firm nod.

"It's time to start training." The next three days were strangely both the most intense of Vin's life, while also being surprisingly enjoyable. On top of his passion for exploring the unknown, Vin loved learning new skills and trying new things. Thankfully, it had been decided that there was no point in trying to work in any physical conditioning over the three days. Instead, every moment of their time was spent either listening to an instructor, getting some hands-on experience, or sleeping.

How to find water, how to administer first aid, how to build a fire; the list went on and on. It seemed like they were bouncing from one lesson to the next too quickly to fully take everything in, but it was explained to them that the higher ups deemed it best that they had a firm understanding of a lot of things rather than a perfect understanding of only a few.

Someone had asked why they didn't just split people up into groups and divvy up the lessons rather than cram everything down everyone's throats, and they were informed that isolating knowledge in such a way was deemed too dangerous as they had no idea how many people would survive the first few days in the new world. They didn't question the higher up's decisions after that.

Vin quickly learned that while he had a knack for many of the survival skills, he was pretty terrible when it came to anything related to combat. When they practiced sparring with one another, he more often than not found himself groaning on the mat, nursing a new set of bruises far more frequently than most of the others.

"Dude, are you actually trying?" Brian had asked the second day, choosing to make sure his mohawk was still standing straight up rather than checking if Vin had broken anything after his latest meet-and-greet with the floor.

"Fighting you is like fighting a monkey with two broken arms."

"I'm a lover, not a fighter," Vin had groaned, pushing himself up off the mat and hoping he survived the remainder of the lesson. They'd been told the next activity would be fishing practice, and he'd been looking forward to that one. Three days seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, and if it weren't for the various bruises and one or two puncture wounds that may or may not have been fish hook related, Vin wouldn't have guessed they'd just spent nearly half a week in the world's most intense prep course.

Another pleasant surprise was that despite technically getting drafted into the military, they weren't forced to shave their heads or anything like that. That meant Vin got to keep his rather messy haircut he'd recently gotten from a fellow free spirit in exchange for three bucks and a can of beans. He wasn't exactly in love with his current look, but his dark hair was thick and grew fast enough that he'd normally take whatever he could get.

With their time nearly up, Vin found himself once more standing in the large concrete room the fifty of them had first appeared in. However, rather than the dazed looks and colorful assortment of clothes they'd arrived with, the fifty of them now came far closer to matching the fifty lined up soldiers standing at attention on the other half of the room.

While the civilian half wasn't quite as organized or muscular, they wore the same light grey camouflage clothing riddled with far too many pockets and had identical heavy packs secured on their backs. As the clock up on the wall slowly counted down their remaining time, their favorite general stepped into the room and addressed the crowd one final time. Half of the room gave him crisp salutes, while the other half continued whispering among themselves, eyes darting to the clock every few seconds.

"It's nearly time," the general said, his weary eyes scanning over the faces in the crowd as though searching for some glimmer of hope. Vin didn't know what the general had been up to the last three days, but the already older man had seemed to have aged a decade in the short time since he'd last seen him.

"We don't know what you'll find over there, and we don't know if Sender X will restrict what you're allowed to bring with you. In the hopes that there are no restrictions, we have distributed a wide variety of equipment and tools amongst your packs. This way, even if your tablets and laptops are fried in transit, you'll still have plenty of physical guides and reference material."

"At this point, I have nothing more to say to you. For those of you who have answered the call, you've done your country a proud service. I speak for the president when I say we are honored to have such brave men and women serving this country, and we wish you the best of luck. Godspeed everyone." The general snapped them one final salute, and maybe he was just getting swept up in the moment and all, but Vin was surprised to find himself almost tempted to return it.

Before he could decide if he should or not, the final seconds ticked off the clock, and Vin steeled himself as the world erupted into color once more, washing away all the people around him. Ready or not, it was time for the new world.