"We understand that you may have several questions right now. They will be answered in time through emails that will be sent to you. I am here to only talk about the most important things. What your daily life will look like here, what's expected of you as recruits and most importantly what you're allowed to do. First what you're going to spend your time here doing. As you might know already, Domus exists in opposite timing of the planet Earth. Meaning, that when you would usually sleep, that's what you want to enter Domus. Since your future jobs revolve around your actions in Domus, you will essentially be working a night shift. To make up for this, you will not be expected to do much in your mornings aside from physical training and a class regarding the advancements that we have made in Domus, and further directions to what you are expected to do as a human representative. Next, what you will be doing as a human representative in Domus. We will not be extremely involved, or have specific tasks for you to execute. This is ,frankly, due to our lack of knowledge as to what is required for us to climb up the alliance ranking. Here is what we recommend though, other than helping the world through discoveries and such, the ongoing war in Domus could be a way for us to gain points. If you choose to help the human race in the war in whatever way you can, and play a prominent role, our rankings are bound to go up. Finally, what you're allowed to do. While you are here, anything you say and do is representative of the US. As you know, this means what is illegal here is illegal in Domus. And anything you do, to setback the human race or hurt any human, will be treated with severity. Thus any actions you take will have to be informed to us, without fail. Anyone who fails to comply, is out. I hope that answers most of your questions. Head to your rooms for now, first physical class is in an hour."
That was pretty much what I had expected and it was not too bad. It's unfortunate that I have to report what I had done to them though, it would be quite awkward to deal with that but I was sure that I could make up white lies at the time. More importantly though, it seemed that I had only an hour to freshen up and get ready for training. I looked around and saw a couple signs on the roof that had directions on them. The rooms were through the door at the right side of the large entry hall. I was going to go there, but I did still have someone to talk to.
"That was interesting, you think we're gonna see more of him?" Valeria thought about it for a while before saying "Probably, so lets hope he's nice." I nodded before "Yeah, that's true, not like we can do much about it. I'm going to head to my room now." She replied "Sounds good, see you around recluse." I then walked away towards where the crowd was currently funneling, the same hallway that I mentioned earlier. I looked back just in time to see my blonde acquaintance vanish into the remaining crowd in the entrance room. I looked forward again and went on my way. In about 2 minutes, I reached a place with several splitting corridors with rooms all around. The room doors had a name and number, and I could see people looking around for their own. According to the email had sent recently, my room number was 343. It looked like this floor had only the hundreds so I looked for a stairway to climb up 2 floors. Then after a bit of searching in the drab, cheap hotel like hallways I reached my room. I opened the door and stepped in, hoping that it wasn't too bad.
Luckily, it was just fine. A small bed to the left of the room with a desk alongside. There was a closet on the right wall and a couch facing the desk. There was another small door adjacent to the closet as well. The bathroom was standard, just a small shower and a toilet. I quickly opened the closet, where my suitcases already were placed. I pulled out the one with my clothes and took a decent pair out, after laying them out on the bed, I grabbed a towel and went to the bathroom for a quick shower.
After a good 15 minutes or so, I was freshened up and felt pretty good. I still had 45 minutes, so I pulled out my laptop and got to research. I had kept up with the news about Domus quite well throughout my short lived vacation but I had no clue what had happened in the real world. So I looked into it. At this point, it seemed that the big companies had started to capitalize on Domus. Companies like Google and Meta had released Domus exclusive news websites and newsletters. This was only the beginning for sure though. The governments had also kept active. The major ones already had their training centers started up. America and some European countries had started educating the public on Domus. The most surprising news though, was that America had started advertising specific people. People that had started achieving stuff in Domus and what they had received as a reward from the government. It was not all out propaganda, but it was getting there. There were a couple people who had reached a similar level as me so I definitely had to pick up the pace with the military idea. I had had a couple more training sessions with Raven, and I felt pretty good with my skills. The trident had spoken every now and then talking on my technique. I only had to figure out what my own unique fighting style was. As the trident had said earlier, I hadn't fully accepted the weapon yet. Though I had no clue how I could do so.
I mean it seemed too complicated for me to even think about, how could I answer when I didn't even understand the question. I figured I just needed to train enough until I sorta understood what I needed to do. So that's what I had done for the past week, but that didn't work out too well. I decided that when I next go to Domus, I'd pester the trident until it told me how. But for now I had to go to train in real life.
I looked at the time and seeing that it was already 4:57 PM, I realized that I had daydreamed way too long. I had 3 minutes left to change and run all the way to the training center but I didn't even know where that would be. I had to figure out though, I stumbled out while still putting on a comfy shirt to work out in and looked up for a sign of where to go. Luckily I saw a group of people in similar workout clothes heading somewhere so I decided to follow them.
Luckily the gym would end up being pretty close and I reached around 5:01 while there were still some people coming into the room. The room itself had a pretty standard gym in the left half, but the right half was a completely empty space, with a bunch of cameras focused on the space. For now it seemed that most of the people were collected in the empty area, with three people wearing military uniforms and the one guy from earlier stood in front of the crowd. It seemed that we would be having another announcement.
I joined the crowd and waited for the class to start, and in another two minutes or so it would. A slightly tanned man, standing alongside the general from earlier would this time come up and start speaking. "Good Evening soldiers, I will be your physical trainer for the course of your work here. I suppose that there's not much to tell you except that we will be having tests first to determine your current skill and thus measure your progress. Please wait until your name is called and come up for your test."
This was not going to be fun, I mean I had a just average build but I sure wasn't going to perform average with a bunch of people looking at me. Well, its not like I had much of a choice. And so the wait begun. "Aaron Sanders" a robotic voice called out, seemingly in alphabetic order. It would only take so long until my name would be called. "Abarrane Moore, Abbey Martinez, Abdal Ali Shaikh ,Adam Moore and Aiko Sato, please step up." 6 names at a time the voice would call out people to come up and do their tests. They would be timed on their 100m run, jump distance, a simple bench press machine, a punch machine and finally a breathing test. I felt calmer now that I knew what I would have to face, and started warming up my body by doing a couple jumping jacks and stretches. Soon enough, most people in the gym would also do the same. A couple rounds later and sure enough my name was called. I stepped up following the other peoples movements and waited.
Soon enough, the 100m track was cleared up on the open space and the timer was set to 0. There would be a whistle blown to signal my start. A moment passed, and another, and then a few more and out of nowhere the whistle blew, and I run as fast as my legs would take me. They felt lighter than usual, but it was probably just because I had eaten much lesser than normal. It felt like an eternity, trying my best to make every stride as long as possible. Soon enough another whistle blew and I had reached the finish line. I looked up to the timer to see what my time was and... it was just a bit above average, 16 seconds a bit. Not too bad though. The rest of the tests would go similarly, with my performance just above average. And soon enough I stepped back into the crowd.
As I reached my spot, I saw a familiar figure waiting near where I was standing earlier. "Not bad for a recluse. You proud of that?" Looks like she insisted on the nickname so I didn't bother asking her. "It's alright. Most people here are pretty fit so." She scoffed and said "Doesn't make much a difference to me, I doubt anyone here can beat my score. But I have to wait quite a while before my go." It did seem like it would be a long time before that because of the amount of people here. "Well, what can we even do about it? Its not like we can go anywhere." I said this because it was not like I could just leave because the training class would still go on for an hour. "Probably can't sneak out either huh. That's boring." she said with a sour face before asking "Wanna talk?" I said sure, and we moved away from the crowd. "Soo, what do you wanna talk about?" The thing is, I didn't wanna talk THAT much but I didn't wanna be rude. So I gave the best answer I could think of "I don't know, ask me a question and I'll answer." This way at least I could just be honest and not have to come up with anything. "Uhh fine, why are you here?" I didn't think she would ask that deep of a question but sure. "No where else to go, home didn't feel safe so I moved. Figured this would be the best way to get a job and some place to stay. Seems fun too." I didn't wanna reveal too much but I didn't wanna lie either so. She said, "Damn. Don't make the vibe too happy." I scoffed and said, "Hey I'm just being honest, what about you?" "I-" she paused before completing. "Domus was fun the first time I went. An infinitely better world, better science and bustling opportunity? I wouldn't give that up for anything. Being able to make money while doing it is just a bonus. I talked to my parents about this, they thought it was fine so I packed my suitcases and you know the rest." I realized something and asked her "You must be around my age huh." She seemed pretty surprised before asking "Wait how old are you?" I looked at her and said "I turn 19 in 5 months." She looked shocked while saying "I'm 21." It seemed like she thought I knew why she was shocked as she just stopped talking. I had no clue. "Why the shocked look?" i asked and added "Did you think I was younger?" I only asked because there was no way she thought I was older "what? no. I thought you were older than me." Well shit. "Really? I don't even look 19 though." She shook her head while saying "Its not how you look, you just act very... old." "That makes me feel very good thank you." Her face quickly changed back from the surprised one to the normal smug look. "You're welcome." It got quiet for a while after she said that but not awkwardly so, soon enough she now had a request for me "You ask me a question now, keep the flow going." I already had a question in mind to ask her but I wasn't sure if it was something people were willing to share. "Who did you choose? You know as your 'most respected individual'." She looked at me curiously, saying "Didn't think you would ask me that but fair enough, I chose Artemis. Greek god of the hunt."