Weekend

On his way back Kaze started to regret that he didn't check the exhibits thoroughly. He still needed information about the people of Lysseris and thus his venture to the museum was not entirely fruitful.

Recalling that ZIA had access to some files here, if not all, he decided to hide in the bathroom, sit there and ask ZIA about Lysserix. 

"Lysseris is a planet that is fourth in its system. The beings of the planet are known as Lysserion, who are most physiologically similar to human beings". ZIA briefed him.

[Z/Tell me about the differences, mainly in their abilities]. He asked.

"Most of their physical abilities are limited than human beings, however their average intelligence level is much higher than the humans. To put it simply an extremely smart person here is a common man there".ZIA informed him. 

This fact got him curious if his level of intelligence was indeed too high. Could it mean that he figured out Kaze's identity? He wondered the same for a really long time. Knowing there is nothing much he could do except be cautious and less conspicuous he went ahead with his original plan.

~~~~~

The following few days have been quite the same for him, ignoring people and learning most of the things he already knew about. For example, their training includes them to operate basic spaceships, something which is way harder than driving a car. It wasn't a pleasant experience for many candidates, including Xander, who have a fear of heights. As for others, it was still a bit of a struggle. 

Kaze, however, has not only operated a spaceship, he was a captain of one. Despite having differences in the operating system, he knew his way around when he was off the ground. In fact he was so good that towards the end he actually pretended to be bad, (which was still quite awesome according to Xander) just to keep his cover of an amateur candidate. 

The physical training, which included the combat lesson they had the other day, became a daily thing. Every morning they had to practice for at least two hours before they could go on to the assigned training sessions. Naturally, most of them were pretty much exhausted by the end of it thus decreasing their performance further. 

"I swear to god, I will be dead before I am disqualified". Xander muttered on their way to the Field simulation at the end of first week. They weren't sure exactly what their task would be, but they anticipated that it has to do something with their attitude on the field. 

"Welcome to the Field simulation" A feminine but stern voice uttered as soon as they entered the room. Xander who was exhausted suddenly became active and alert on seeing none other than Captain McKinley standing at the corner of the room. The Sanders siblings were however not very pleased with her.

"I hope you guys remember the exams you gave. Things will be somewhat similar, but this time you will have a shared simulation". She smirked. All of them recalled how everyone gave their exams virtually. So, they will be going to a virtual land once more?

She pressed a switch which resembled a car key, and suddenly the ground began to shake a little. There was a circular outline in the middle of the room which started to rotate independently from the rest of the floor. All the candidates took a few steps back and soon the circular platform started to raise above the ground level.

The platform turned out to be nothing but a chamber where six body pods were kept in a circular manner, with their backs facing the center which was connected to some kind of machinery that was hard to see from the place they were standing at.

"All of you, and me will take each of these pods and we will go for our training. Now before we begin let me give you a hint of what we are doing here" Captain McKinley cleared her throat before explaining., "Throughout this week you had various kinds of trainings, each of them is as important as the next one. But the thing is, training alone won't help you, you need to know how to apply them in reality. Here you will be presented with one of many situations that we have experienced in the past and all of you will put your skills to use. For the training I will be accompanying you, but for the rankings, you will be all by yourself". She finished with her explanation. "Any questions"?

Everyone looked at each other with a tinge of excitement. All the training, all the humiliation and the body pain they suffered through the week was finally paying off. Even if it was just a simulation they would get to finally put all of it to use. The lady Sanders raised her hand to ask a question enthusiastically, so Megan gestured to her to speak, "Where exactly will we be going to"? 

"That… you will find out. Now get inside the pods". Captain ordered.

Once inside the people who were accompanying the Captain attached the leads to their head and their arms and legs. They helped the candidates position their goggles before they switched on the machine and everyone dozed off immediately. Everyone found themselves in their room which was allocated to them in IAEA. Everyone looked at each other confused whether the whole simulation was real or not.

They started to walk out of the room one by one and checked everywhere if anyone was nearby so that they can clarify the situation. After a thorough search of the entire building they found none. Kaze was tempted to use ZIA, but if it were a simulation, doing so would only put everyone in danger. 

"This is ridiculous"! The Sander's brother huffed. "If there is no one here, nothing here, what's the point of sending us here"? Suddenly they heard a strange sound of someone constantly knocking on the door. First the checked the door and windows to see if anyone was in there. When they failed to find anyone they started to search even more focus. 

Kane started to follow the source of the noise and in doing so they shifted to another room which turn's out to be the kitchen of their premises. They found the noise emerging from a closed cabinet on the topmost shelf. Climbing, she opened it and a cat jumped out of it. Kane remained stood on the platform, startled and suspicious why there was a cat when there is nothing else.

Meanwhile everyone else (Apart from Kaze) felt bad for the cat and cooed at it. Sanders sister was the one to reach it first and thus started petting him while her brother and Xander observed from her back.

"Ahhh"! Suddenly large tentacles emerged from the cats mouth and latched it onto Sanders sister's hand trying to pull her in as if it would eat it. Before her hand was engulfed by its small turned-to huge mouth, her brother grabbed her and pulled towards the outward direction. To aid them, the rest of the members tried to pull the brother.

It became a tug of war between the cat and the humans, 1 against 5, seemingly unbalanced however surprisingly a fair competition. Even with so much force it seemed that the cat was winning. Slowly and gradually her whole hand was inside her mouth, and before the cat could chew on it a sudden blast attacked it, throwing it away to the wall before completely burning it.

The traced the source of the shot with their eyes to find none other that Captain McKinley standing there with a gun. "Why don't we get a gun"? Kane asked her furiously. 

"Its your fault for not getting one yourself from the training facilities. I got myself mine" She said holding out her gun. "Now, let me explain you how this works. Today this is an empty space, filled with aliens, dangers throughout the building. Today's task for you is pretty simple. All you have to do is to survive" she smiled. 

"The exit to this simulation is the exit to this building. You make it there, you wake up from the simulation" she shrugged. 

"Dammit! We were there minutes ago"! Xander huffed quietly. 

They were about to leave but she stopped them by putting her hand (the one with the gun) in their way. "One more thing, make sure you don't die. If you die in here you are dead out there" she warned.