We discussed with Elena the most likely situations that would stem from that. We reassured her that if anything, we'd protect as many as we could from the tricked countries. The countries that had already sided with us had already said they'd accept refugees if they needed to as well. Her mind was still not completely at ease, but we reminded her this was still just speculation and not to stress too much on the 'what if's'.
Before we left the medical building, we got one of the beds moved closer to Elena's and helped a barely conscience Cass into it. Elena thanked us as we bid her good night, before we headed back to the training compound.
We were back in the offices and walking into the rooms where the surveillance was taking place, we saw our aides all talking together around a particular screen.
"What's going on that requires you to be ignoring the rest of the room?" John asked startling a few who quickly went back to their stations.
"Sorry, but I think someone is cheating somehow in this room. I had asked if they could review what they did and give me their opinion on it." One of Johns aides stood up and pointed to his monitor.
"Show us." John and I went forward and took a seat next to his monitor.
"I was watching these in room 4. They've done as expected so far, but one of the guys asked to see one of the puzzle boxes that had the key to the next problem. Now watch what happens." He rewound the video back a few minutes for us and pressed play.
It was the guy who had stopped everyone before the jump and got them in order to safely jump across. He takes the puzzle box, looks at it from different angles then he moves his hands and suddenly it's open.
"What the hell?" Me and John exclaim.
We played the clip a few times trying to see something, but at normal speed we couldn't, leaving us bewildered.
"Okay let's zoom in closer and see if we can't get a clearer picture of what he's doing. Play it at half speed too." I narrate what I'm doing as I go.
When I press play now it's hard to tell but something is up. There was no way someone could open the puzzle box just like that, they had to many sliding mechanisms to work through first.
I pull up the live feed of the cameras and they are still working on figuring out the room, but by the open doors on the walls, I can tell they're almost done. I look at the clock and it's almost one in the morning. They've done well and not really ahead of the length of time it would take someone to figure out the room.
"Is this the only thing you have seen tonight?" I ask the aide.
"Yes Ma'am." He answers.
Giving John a look that says we will talk later about this I give my attention back to the aide.
"Don't worry about it for now, when they figure out the room, tell them to go rest. We'll bring it up with him later so we can see it in person."
He nods in confirmation and goes back to watching the screens.
John and I stand and head to my office where we have some cots set up to catch a few hours of sleep on. Four thirty would be here for us pretty quick.
And it was... no sooner had we closed our eyes it felt like it was time to wake up. Thankfully, when we got to the surveillance room they had a pot of strong coffee that we were able to drink up quickly.
"So how did the rest of last night go?" I ask one of the aides.
"Out of the ten rooms, only two haven't finished the puzzles. They are at the last stage of clues but I'm not sure they'll figure it out in ten minutes."
"Well, ten minutes is ten minutes we'll just have to wait and see. Do you have the list of names that will be moving forward and the ones that will be dropped from the rooms already finished then?"
The aide hands me those lists and another list too.
"What's this?" I ask.
"The list of people in the rooms still that showed a lot of promise and skills and the ones that can be dismissed for lack of effort in helping. If you so choose to keep any of them too."
"Thank you for thinking ahead." I give a tired smile and try to remember the face, she belongs to Johns team of aides.
I look at the clock and whistle at John so we can start going to the hall to open the rooms. The rooms that everyone figured out the problems and puzzles were told after we kicked the ones who didn't help out, to go rest and we'd see them Monday morning. The two rooms where everyone was working still we took care of as well. Then we went to the field and did it all again.
This time though, we took turns taking a nap, waiting for them to show up at the obstacle course. By the afternoon when all were done with the course who would be we sent them to rest before their turns in the 'escape rooms' test. We don't know how we did this for the next few days as we went through all the teams.
The last test was simple enough. Grouped into platoons of fifty, they were placed in VR suits. We had a randomized situation and terrain they had to work through. The goal was at the end of two hours, they were to save the refugees and make it to an extraction point.
We let the platoons decide on the five squad leaders of the groups. Out of those squad leaders we'd decide on who'd we make second lieutenant of the platoon. This test was to see how they handled themselves theoretically in the field. The suits were rigged with small electrodes that would zap them if they were hurt. The intensity depended on the wound. Nothing that would actually harm anyone, but enough to admit that they were hurt.
This was explained to them after they were suited up and in the gymnasium that was filled with foam and padded obstacles and mats. The entire gym was rigged with environmental sensors so these obstacles would be visible to them in VR, just as different things. We even had a platform up to the ceiling that had a caged staircase to mimic a stairwell and roof top. Under the rooftop was a safety net, so if you fell off the rooftop you were automatically considered dead for the simulation.
The suits could regulate temperature too, so if it was hot where the simulation was chosen, the suits would make you feel hot. So it didn't matter if it was raining, windy, hot, or cold it did it all. The graphics were very realistic too. When the program started it would scan their faces so everyone would see the other persons reactions as if they were not in VR at all.
Everyone did well at this point, even though we were not cutting anyone unless a clear cut reason was presented.
I was proud of Lily making it through, like I knew she would. Futere and Suites made it through just fine as well. We were so exhausted after three days we had almost forgot to ask the man who got through the puzzle, how he did it so fast.
His name was Hughes, Bradley Hughes. He was part Fae. This we could 'sense' when we sat him down with us alone. John and I were starting to be able to 'sense' these things now that we were more in tune with our magic. He didn't know this fact about his heritage. He just thought he had the natural talent of slide of hand, like a magician. He showed us right in front of us how he opened the puzzle box, we had several more and he opened everyone with ease. We were curious how he was able to do it without the aid of those blue bottles to replenish the power he used though. He did mention he couldn't do much more otherwise he'd end up with a migraine. We figured the migraine was his body telling him he was using too much energy. He didn't know about any of this so we told him we'd be setting up some special tutelage for him to learn.
We realized we may have more Faeling descendants mixed through out the people here that we and they were unaware of. We tried to think of one of our Fae friends that we could ask to come and check the people that made it to our hand selected squads. Lar, his brothers, Temple, Turk, and most of the others were busy already. Grier had finally moved to our compound and we had decided to ask her to help us after careful thought. He seemed more excited that after some training he'd be able to snap, like we did.
The last test day, we looked and sounded like Zombies, getting by with just a few hours of sleep each day. We did it though and by the end of it all out of roughly three thousand, we had between us just over half of that that we felt passed or fit into what we were looking for. Our own soldiers that could work as a team no matter who they were with and ones that could be depended on.
Ones who would help us save people when the Erl-king did attack.