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"South Africa has just been approved for the Beta trial and applications are now open."
Ryan chokes on his cereal and runs to the tv room to watch the news with his parents.
"The requirements are for youth 21 and older to assemble a team of 8 within one week and make it in time for the trial next weekend."
Ryan's eyes widen with bright excitement in his eyes, he's practically leaning forward so much his milk is almost spilling out of the bowl, he does not want to miss a single important detail.
His mother shakes her head, "No wonder the other countries failed, a team on such short notice? And they change the tests every time, right honey?" She turns to her husband nodding in response.
"Yes, the tests are different per country. We don't know what they will be tested on, but I heard in Egypt there was piloting, combat, and more."
Ryan's phone beeps and his best friend is calling making him forget his plan to not miss a single detail, "What's up Madafakah?!" He yells purely ecstatic dancing in his seat and finally the milk spills after a trying period.
His mother lightly taps his cheek with the back of her hand, "Language!" She scolds turning her attention back to her husband.
Ryan laughs leaving the room, listening to the guy on the other side of the line scream his lungs out before he finally calms down and uses words to express himself.
"Dude, did you see? It's all over the news." Ryan's best friend exclaims excited making Ryan laugh even more.
"Yeah, but we can't do it the two of us. We need to build a team." Ryan enters his room grabbing his jacket knowing his friend already has a part of the team assembled.
"Way ahead of you dude, come over."
Ryan grabs his neon blue hoverboard and surfs to his best friend's place. Angel, another one of Ryan's childhood friends made it for him.
She's the best engineer Ryan knows with an obsession with weapons, and used to take martial arts classes with Ryan's best friend, Xavier, A.K.A Madafakah Jones.
Ryan arrives at Xavier's house and finds Angel and her neighbour Lily high as the moon, the whole room smells like weed.
Lily is also another martial artist on the team but she doesn't look it at all, she's a small framed, short female with a bright smile, and relaxed attitude. Angel is the silent but deadly type because she too doesn't look like much of a fighter.
"Hey man, join the circle." Xavier suggests that Ryan sit closer to the others while he's cooking on the stove, "We already have 5 members." He continues while dodging flying oil from the pan.
Ryan looks around and doesn't see the fifth member, "Who's the fifth member?" He asks addressing everyone in the room, anyone can answer the question since Xavier is occupied going to war with his meal. It looks so dramatic, all he has to do is turn the heat down and the oil won't burnt so hot, but Xavier's way, is a bit more, aggressive.
Angel passes the joint to Lily before she answers Ryan's question, "Remember my crazy cousin who moved to Mars?"
Ryan nods.
"She'll be arriving in the city tomorrow. You know with her criminal record she can't do much to earn money and the cheque is pretty inviting for someone in her position, so she'll be joining in a heartbeat."
Xavier swirls into his seat next to Ryan letting the meat simmer on the stove, "I put up an add that we're looking for a second pilot, a hacker, and someone with a lot of money." He shows Ryan the ads, "I also hacked each of your social media accounts and posted the ads there. We'll have a complete team by trial day."
Lily looks towards Xavier confused, "I have a lot of money."
Xavier rolls his eyes, "Yeah, but I already listed you as the team doctor because you actually completed your degree, I am the Pilot obviously, but we need a second one."
Angel turns her head, "I'm a pilot. I fly better than you."
Xavier again just simply replies with rolling his eyes, "Yes I know that, however I assigned you the role of Engineer so someone else has to be the backup pilot."
Ryan raises his hand, "What position am I?"
Angel points a finger at him smiling, "Team leader."
Ryan's eyes widen, "What? Me? Team leader! Why?"
Angel slowly rocks her head side to side to the music playing in her head, "You're the only one of us with a last name people can pronounce, and you're better at taking the heat from authority for blunders, always have been. Lily would always cry, they said I looked like I don't care, and Xavier well, he'd kill them all, so, you're the only option we have."
Xavier nods along, "Yeah, that's the perfect role for you, and we will assign the crazy cousin the role of Ranger, she is very good with Glocks, and Angel has a hidden stash of a lot of illegal weapons she designed in her house. All we need are three members by next week."
Angel and Lily sing along to the song playing lowly on the radio in the background.
Xavier shakes his head eyeing Angel who knows the lyrics word for word, he leans in towards Ryan to share a very important plan with him, "We need a way to detox those two in a week." He says glaring at Angel who is glaring back as he walks backwards towards the stove his hand readily clutched onto his laser gun.
Angel has a pen in hand that is actually a laser beam shield.
Ryan shakes his head watching Angel and Xavier argue back and forth about methods of detoxing, "I think we should add Owen to the team." He suggests and everyone looks at him with cross expressions on their faces.
"Ryan, shut the fuck up." Xavier says turning back to frying the chicken on the stove.
Ryan observes his friends listening to the music on the radio, relaxed, and high. None of them even look like they can run a marathon, but they plan to participate in the Beta trials next week and he isn't confident they are really serious, "Are you guys serious about the Beta trial?"
Angel looks up at Ryan with a neutral expression on her face, "Yeah, I'm psyched. I've already got new tech improvement ideas in preparation for the trial. We're totally getting chosen. I read the rules when Egypt leaked them, and we're allowed to bring our own tools and gadgets as long as we can prove we made them ourselves, so an Engineer is definitely necessary on the list we should have two as well."
Xavier sings along to the song on the radio pouring his heart out until the song is over and finally decides to address Angel's statement, "We already have a second Engineer, Ryan is better than you he just doesn't brag like you do."
Angel narrows her eyes at Xavier, "You're just jealous you're good for nothing on this team."
Ryan rolls his eyes when Xavier and Angel have another short argument back and forth before the room is quiet.
Lily is still in her own world and somehow the arguing makes the music sound much better, "Hey, Major, remember that time you took us to your uncle's shuttle simulator after he was crowned the first black person to own one, and you suddenly became a rich kid and moved away, did you know we found the key ring you were looking for." Lily states rocking her body side to side.
Xavier turns his attention to Lily smiling at her, "You guys found it? Where is it?"
Angel digs through her pockets, she actually remembered to bring it along with her today, "Here, don't lose your things anymore you cluts." She scolds with a slight scowl on her face. He's always losing his things.
"I don't lose things they just so happen to end up in your sticky fingers." Xavier uses an accusing tone convinced she's always stealing from him.
"Yeah, because I'm the one always cleaning up your mess, or did you forget the time you broke the windows at my house and I blamed Lily because her parents have money to spare."
Everyone laughs and Lily shakes her head remembering that day like it was only yesterday, it was the day she met Angel, aged 10. She was new in the neighbourhood.
~
Angel just up and slung an arm over her shoulder from out of nowhere.
"Hey, be my friend." Angel shouted with a bright smile on her face her head slightly tilted to the side.
She doesn't look any different from how she used to look when she was young, she still ties her hair in a high ponytail, her small eyes look like they got smaller over the years, or she's just always stoned, the thin face looks the same just older, her eyes are much greyer, with a tinge of blue, that was not there growing up, but either than that not much has changed.
She is still dirty mouthed, hot tempered, over protective, workaholic, and always expressionless like back then, it takes time for her to open up to strangers, her guard is always up no matter how friendly she seems to be.
Lily agreed on the spot to be friends nodding her head up and down with a big smile glad she made a friend so early.
Angel smiled pecking her check, "Great! You broke the windows at my house, let's go to tell your parents." She took a step forward her hand on Lily's back nudging her towards the front door of her house.
Lily kept her body firm refusing to be moved, looking at Angel with a confused look on her face, "I didn't break the windows at your house. I don't even know where you live."
Angel persisted towards the house nodding in agreeance, "Yeah, but your parents don't know that. Hurry up. The windows need to be fixed before my parents come back. Major ran away like a sissy."
~
Xavier sits between Angel and Lily snapping Lily out of her memory lane.
Lily and Angel have been inseparable ever since that day, they met Xavier at the martial arts studio after Angel coaxed Lily into tagging along. Ryan joined the team when he moved into the neighbourhood in the 6th grade.
Ryan shakes his head "You guys stress me out too much, I'll see you when you call me for a meeting." He leaves going back home to find his father reading the newspaper, "Let me guess, you and your friends already signed up." Ryan's father states not taking his eyes off the story he's reading about.
"Not yet, we need three more members."
Ryan's mother turns her head surprised, "5 members already? Wow that's impressive."
Ryan shrugs his shoulders, "That's my friends for you." He goes to his room and continues with his fitness training he was planning on joining the military next year if South Africa was not chosen for the Trials.
People in the military usually stand better odds of being recruited by a space club scouting for new members. He was determined to join by any means necessary, it's always been his dream to travel to other planets and see more of what is out there. Bonus points if he gets to do it with his friends.
~
Lily and Angel leave Xavier's house walking back to their houses together.
"Hey Angel, you know people die during these trials, right?"
Angel nods.
Lily nods along too, "We know we might die, but we're still doing it anyway, is that it?"
Angel nods in response again and they both laugh, "What the hell is wrong with us and bad choices?" She asks leading the way into a short cut.
"Bad decisions are all we know, even if we can see there's fire where we're going, we trust our ability to survive enough to jump."
Angel snorts shaking her head, "Ai, there you go talking things that make no sense when you're high."
They walk in silence until they reach their final destination Angel taking a left while Lily takes a right.
Angel gets inside the house and goes straight to the garage to start working on her new tech upgrades.
She grew up tinkering, at first, she did it to get her parents attention, but they never noticed the things were put apart in the first place, so she started piecing them together and since then she took an interest in technology and engineering.
She was the best in her school and won trophies for her inventions since middle school, on her free time Angel is building something new or completing an old project she left incomplete.
~
Lily sits in front of her computer and searches up any information about the trials from other countries. Medical reports leaked by other countries, there are things out there rumoured to be killing people, poison plants, deadly giant monsters with clause the size of the average human. She needs to be prepared for any medical emergency.
She walks downstairs and sits at the dinner table with her family, "So, uhm, I was wondering if you guys would mind if I go to visit Xavier's uncle for the week, he has Murdock, the famous ranger doctor coming to give a seminar, I would really like to hear all about the new procedures he's been working on. He's advanced medical science to a whole other level."
Her father smiles with approval, "Of course, but I still will not condone you joining those people in space, it's dangerous, you're doing a better service for yourself, and your future by staying here and being a doctor. It is still a high paying profession."
Space travel is the highest paying profession, Lily thinks to herself before nodding along. She just needed permission nothing else.
~
Xavier is already making plans with his uncle to gain access to the shuttle experience simulator he owns.
"Bring your whole team, it could come in handy. I have other teams who already signed up for the simulator, space is running out and you know me, family doesn't get any special treatment son, first come, first serve, but I'll make it free for you and your buddies, what do you say?" Xavier's uncle states from his side of the line relaxing in his office chair.
Xavier swings in his seat smirking. "Sure, thing uncle, we'll see you Friday."
