William looked at the two boys in front of him, they were looking at him with expectation waiting for a reply.
He had not heard a word from them, in his haste he answered "yeah ok" hoping it was the correct response if they had asked him a question.
The boys' faces lit up as they grabbed his shoulders and pulled him away from the small tree.
William followed, not wanting to ask why they were leading him away as he did not want to admit he had no idea what they had said.
All three arrived at a small building that was off to the side. Once inside he saw three ping-pong tables, all but one in use. The boys ran to the one not in use and beckoned William to follow. Apparently, he had agreed to play ping-pong with them.
"I can try to play but it would be my first time" said William.
"Yeah, that's ok we just needed one more person to make doubles work," said Allard.
The bell rang and William and the rest of the boys left the small room and went back to class. William didn't like wasting his practice time but in the end, he had fun with the others.
After class William took a detour back to his practice spot where he found his shadow waiting for his commands when he got back in range as well as a flood of information streamed into his head.
The information was boring, just a few hours of the surroundings and the sky until the shadow saw one of the drill sergeants walking across the field, which it followed, keeping the drill sergeant in its field of view until he left the field on the ground.
His shadows could move and see without him. This was a whole new ability he did not know his shadows could have.
He wanted to test it out, but that would have to wait for tomorrow as he needed to go back to the barracks before it got too late.
...
Sitting by the tree again, William had his eyes open reading a book bound in leather. He no longer needed his eyes closed to feel his shadows and he was not consciously controlling them as they wandered in and out of his perception following a few basic rules.
One, don't be seen, two, go as far as possible and three, to report back.
After a few days of his shadows moving on their own, he started experimenting with more complex commands.
He told two to race to the barracks and back and another to sneak into the principal's office.
In the race one shadow was faster than the other, as well as some of his shadows could not get into the principal's office so they came back without any information.
Two of his shadows not only got into the office unseen but also were able to look through the desk draws and other documents before coming back.
This showed that not all of his shadows were the same, they all had their own qualities, with some being able to go almost transparent while others not being able to go lighter and could become pitch black.
This explained why sometimes his disguises were black, allowing his face to be completely hidden and sometimes it could not. The sun did play a role in how dark his shadows could become, but even in full sun some could become dark enough to hide what was below them.
He started applying roles to his shadows, the one that could become the most black stayed by his side in case he needed to hide himself, while the most transparent was for infiltration, and the faster of them was used as an advanced scout, going ahead and finding the locations.
Using this set up William sent his shadows every night out in the general direction he knew the base would be located.
But every morning they would come back with no new location, so he sent them out for days. He started to doubt whether the base was close enough to the academy or if it was here at all.
One night William was desperate and sent all the shadows out before the end of classes in every direction in the hope that he could find the base somewhere.
His blackest shadow, no longer close to him, he felt alone and went to the small building to play ping-pong, only for the normal competitiveness to anger him, so much that he had to leave before he broke something.
When the sun went down the shadows returned.
They had found it.
The base he was looking for.
The shadows had searched for hours in all directions, and the location of the base was in the opposite direction.
He had driven past it on the way here, somehow without noticing.
The base was hidden in the most unlikely spot. It was in the mountains hidden as an industrial workshop that made machinery.
Two entrances were located by the shadows. One was located through the workshop and one came out the side of the mountain.
The shadows could not get close to either as the security was extremely tight, warding them off each time they tried.
William sent out the shadows each and every night to get more information.
Apart from the endless trucks coming and going from the workshop entrance, showing the need to disguise the base and not just hide it, how would you hide ten trucks coming and going to one location each and every week to a random location in the mountains? You couldn't but you could hide what the cargo is. If people assumed what the facade showed it would not be abnormal for a large number of trucks to come and go and the only thing that gave them away apart from the second entrance that was used for personal to come and go was the security it looked more impressive then the militaries.
The place was all a misdirection, with obvious cameras taking away from the numerous hidden cameras that observed everything.
For the next three nights the shadows kept watch, from further than the cameras could see. This was all he could do to watch the base without being seen.
For the three nights, the two men would come out armed at a different time each night, one shadow followed the two and one stayed to watch the base.
The two men led the shadow into the ever-darkening night, through brush that covered the ground, covering the men up to their waist did not help to stop the wind from tearing through the trees icing the men to the bone, shivering as they went.