5 Chapter 5

Luckily the rest of the lessons went by normally which didn't help the growing paranoia grown from Mr Michael. Each teacher I met could be an accomplice to him and trying to explain this to Sylvia will probably be a bad idea because those same teachers could be Derek's extra eyes and ears. In the end I had to leave it to stew inside my mind and hope Sylvia doesn't see anything off. She hasn't grasped the idea that I'm acting overreactive to her comments, she mostly finds my reactions funny. The lessons we had were Biology, maths, music and art. She excelled in all of them except for Art. She was authorised to work on other lessons in art, so she worked on English.

"Why don't you just goof off?" I asked her when she began to answer the questions from the English class we missed, Derek must have emailed it to her.

"My mum will kill me if I'm off track in my lessons," she explained.

At the end of the school day she was taxied out of school by Derek while I walked. Before leaving she gave me a small object which had a few numbers and letters on it.

"What is this?" I asked.

"I don't know, Derek asked me to give this to you," she shrugged and got into the car.

The screen of it read: firespark_2171. I stored it in my bag and walked the busy streets home. Living on a space station can be busy, loads of traffic on the ground and the air as cars travels up and down levels to reach their destinations. I always had to head through an alley o reach my home and it always made me anxious. I'm going to end up being attacked in this alley way, aren't I? I usually ignore these thoughts and speed on through however the event that happened this morning has reinforced the problem. While walking through I hand griped my right shoulder and caused me to go pale. I was spun around by the hand to see a woman. She clicked her free hand and pointed at me.

"F I r e S p a r k 2 1 7 1?" she read aloud.

"The numbers Derek gave me," I whispered.

"Aye your agent name, you're the VIP's primary protector?" she asked.

She looked young, around her twenties and looked like she was going out to a party, she had a belt with a bunch of metal objects which had lights emitting a soft blue.

"I'm agent Lightshow, aka your protector," she bubbled while grabbing one of objects on her big belt.

The object was a large metal disc, it had many bevels and was very thick. She held it out to me and accepted the gift. It suddenly flew out of my hand and landed on my left wrist. There it wrapped around. I gasped when I glowed brightly, and a field of energy quickly spread from it, while this happened a handle grew out to wrist in my hand. It was a shield made of energy!

"That's your main tool," she motioned to her left wrist which had a similar object.

She pressed a button which made it create its own shield. I pressed it and it vanished.

"You know I thought spies would have something like a grappling hook," I said with dismay.

"Sure," she said but activated the shield again "but they can it do this."

She looked like she was guarding against a garbage can then she pressed a button on the handle and a flash and explosion of energy sent the garbage can flying several meters away.

"Now use this wisely, if you use it willy-nilly against anyone your cover will be blown, and the shield deactivated," she pressed a button and my shield lost all its light "once you've gotten more training more features will be unlocked as well as gadgets."

"When is the first training?" I asked.

"Looking at the time," she looked at the inside of her wrist a hologram showed up which showed info to her.

I did the same however my hologram was huge and very blight, I threw my head away from the intense light.

Lightshow laughed "oh I got you ha-ha."

"Ow ow ow," I said while rubbing my eyes with my other hand.

"Ok I've had my fun, the user settings are now editable by you only," she swished around with the hologram and my hologram became duller.

"Alright have fun I'm heading off, ta ta," she turned around and walked away.

She's likely going to be following me though. I remembered where I was, and the alley seemed to close in around me so continued walking speedily through it. Once through the alley I was practically home free, I walked up the empty driveway of my house and opened the door. I walked into the living room and suddenly hugged from behind.

"Oh, I'm so proud of you," it was my mother.

"What did I do?" I was confused.

"You can't hide it from me, a man from the government came to our house and told us you have been selected to be a part of a special VR training programme," she looked so happy.

"Oh yeah," I played along with it "I was just acting dumb, so I could surprise you!"

She squeezed me again "oh I can't wait to tell Sharlene she's going to be so proud of our little trooper."

Sharlene is my other Mum who works as Nurse, same sex parents are common.

"Oh, the man said to go up to your room as soon as you get here, they replaced you old VR machine with a new one so that you can do the program," she kissed my cheek.

"Ok ok stop smothering me then," I wheezed while I was being crushed.

She released me and went back to what she was doing. She's a VR artist who works in architecture to create a simulation of a new building.

I walked up stairs to see the new model they place in. It was a lot bigger than my original one. A VR machine is a big machine, dominating half my bedroom which seems to have been increased in diameter to allow more space. It creates a force field around itself, so the user can't fall out or injure people around them. The machine simulates the environment using Nano-cubes which quickly build together to create objects seen in the virtual world for example a table or plant. It can create the climate of the place as well. It monitors your vitals so that you will not die in the machine however the more realistic ones can cause injuries. If a mace flies towards you in a game, a real one will but with a softer impact. It appears mine is the newest model which has these as features. I was so excited, this machine can give me levels of immersion that my previous one couldn't, I will be able to touch the stuff I can see in the game, feel the climate the weather like I was there! My version of VR used wands as the way to control actions however this one uses gloves. My excitement was distracted by a Duffel bag Within the machine, it had a post it notes attached.

It read "uniform for the 'training programme' from Derek."

I crushed the note with an angry face. Derek is such a smart ass. I went to the toilet then suited into the uniform. The uniform was a jump suit with thick padding and made of a black material. I switched on the machine and the VR helmet lowered along with gloves and realisation lowered onto me as well.

"I'm gonna be trained to be a spy," I exclaimed with a half-smile.

I'm being forced to do a hellish version of the gym.