Chapter 3
“Let’s move! Let’s move!”
The characters in the room being barked at like they were slaves caught slacking on a plantation operating under a tight deadline hardly looked the part. They were a sundry assortment. Everything from lawyer to accountant to banker might have been reasonable guesses for a large portion of their number. Woodsman, carpenter, blacksmith, or even serf would have sufficed as logical guesses for a large minority of them.
But all of these guesses, though reasonable, would be wrong.
Koksun, then a young man of twenty, looked like a banker, but when he approached the two-hundred-foot wooden wall, ejected a pair of wicked-looking claws from a contraption hidden underneath each sleeve of his suit coat, jumped several feet up into the air, and drove his claws into the wood, he looked like anything but.
Without even so much as a pause, he gave the wood a hard kick with his left boot, and spikes shot out. Another kick with his right boot accomplished the same, and in a matter of seconds, Koksun was making his way up the wall easier than a squirrel up a tree.
Varter wasn’t far behind him and in fact was gaining rather quickly. Koksun saw this and went from merely climbing to leaping up the wall. As if his muscles rendered gravity little more than a small annoyance, Koksun’s powerful back muscles yanked his body high up into the air with each powerful pull, and his legs simultaneously provided a push that in combination made him almost look like a frog hopping up the wall as if it were horizontal.
Now, Varter was comfortably behind Koksun and getting farther behind by the second. It was rather anticlimactic when Koksun reached the top of the wall a full fifteen seconds before his companion. “It’s a new record!” announced Vilgor, the instructor. Koksun had excelled his companions in almost every test that these Varco recruits had undergone during the last rigorous eight years of their lives.
Graduation from Stage One of training did not seem to be a serious question for any of the recruits filling the room. Eight years of merciless training in language, weapons, unarmed combat, climbing, forgery, and any other area useful to practitioners of the espionage arts had surely long ago weeded out those unfit to call themselves Varco. But competition, amongst even these recruits for whom graduation seemed a foregone conclusion, was still as fierce as between starving wolves fighting over a piece of meat.
Only those obsessed with perfection managed to make it this far, and this obsession was continually encouraged by their instructors.
Vilgor called everyone to attention, and both Koksun and Varter, immediately produced a grappling hook from one of their many secret pockets, hooked it to the top of the wall, and rappelled down almost at free-fall speed. The wire connected to the grappling hook was invisible from even a modest distance, but upon close examination one would see it was thinner than fishing string, although strong enough to hold the weight of any three individuals in the room without breaking, thus allowing an incredible length of the wire to be stored inside the wooden handle it attached to.
As soon as Koksun and Varter’s feet touched terra firma, they each pressed a button on the wooden handle. The spikes at the top of the wall quickly reversed directions, thus extricating themselves, and then the wire receded briskly into the wooden handle like a swift snake disappearing into a hole.
There was barely a sound as the spikes folded back forcefully into the handle.
“You have been told scaling the wall would be your last physical test. But there is one more test. It is psychological, yet many of you will find that it is the hardest test. You must pass this test in order to graduate.”
An uneasy silence permeated the room, yet the curiosity was palpable.
Vilgor opened a small container and began walking by each of the recruits.
“Take a whiff!” he barked. “What you’re looking at is one of the best-kept secrets of the Varco. It’ll enable you to swim longer, run longer, lift more weight, run faster, suppress your fear, increase focus, go weeks without eating, go days without drinking.”
“It’s called Valder,” he continued.
As Vilgor passed Koksun, he leaned forward and smelled. A powerful odor—partly sweet, partly spicy, and partly he had no idea what except that it was overwhelming—ascended into his nostrils.
“The downside is this little gadget of ours happens to be a little addictive. Truth be told, forget what you think you know to be addictive, because you’re wrong. This is addictive!”
“So why do we use it? Performance enhancement. And, if used properly, its addictiveness can be controlled. You are going to each receive a specific chart based upon your height and weight that will tell you what constitutes a dose, and how long you must detox after each dose.
“Take Koksun here, for example. He’s 210 pounds of solid meanness and shrewdness. This” (and he pulled out a small vial) “is a dose for Koksun. If he has one dose, he’s going to feel the effects for around twenty-four hours. He’ll feel a little groggy once the effects wear off but will feel normal within about half a day. But let’s say he’s got a really special mission he’s on and doesn’t want to do a whole heck of a lot of sleeping during the next week, and so he has a dose every day for a week. He’s going to need a week to let this pleasant substance work its way out of his system afterwards.
“There are hundreds of exact scenarios calculated out for you on your chart, as well as a formula to calculate the dosage for any situation you might come across not already included on the chart.
“Gents, follow these instructions to the letter, and you’ll find that Valder is your best friend. It should not be used by default on any mission. This is a back-up weapon. This is for any situation where your normal physical and mental faculties are just not going to get the job done.
“You’re going to undergo supervised usage over the next six months.”
In spite of the silence, a groan could almost be heard escaping from the lips of these sourly disappointed recruits who thought that after eight years of training they were mere days away from getting out into the real world and starting to do the kinds of harrowing, adventurous missions that were the stuff of Metinvurian folklore and that had captured their imagination as children and made them choose this arduous path.
Nonetheless, silence reigned, and not even the slightest movement of the face betrayed the immense disappointment that came crashing down upon them.
“Anyone who deviates one iota from the dosage specifications is OUT! Is that understood?”
“SIR, YES, SIR!” they sang in trained unison.
“Koksun, you’re up for a five-day dosage period followed by a two-week detox.”
Koksun looked at the five vials with some confusion.
As if reading his mind, Vilgor said, “It goes up the nose!” loud enough for all the recruits to hear.
Koksun tilted the small vial towards his palm, emptied the contents, and snorted everything.
POW!!!!!!!
It felt like a clap of thunder had just gone off in his brain. He nearly reeled backwards from the strength of the drug. But he didn’t. He resumed at-attention posture and looked forward.
One by one, various recruits were being given their doses, and pretty soon it sounded as if everyone had an egregious cold, as sniffles erupted around the room like dominoes falling against one another.
“If some of you are finding it just a liiiiitle hard to stand still right now, don’t worry. This drug is mostly used for physical purposes, although it affects everyone a little differently. With time, you’ll learn to control this drug and make it work for you. As for now, we’re going to go ahead and explore its physical enhancement. KOKSUN—UP THAT WALL!”
Vilgor didn’t’ have to say it twice. The “L” had barely escaped his lips before Koksun was bolting through the ranks of his fellow recruits and headed towards the wall as if a pride of lions were behind him. Eight feet away from the wall he jumped like a gazelle, activated his
hand spikes in the air, and dug them into wall, while simultaneously kicking both boots against it and activating these spikes.
“GET HIM, VARTER!!” shouted the instructor.
But if the drug had some effect on Varter’s determination, it paled in comparison to its effect on Koksun, rendering it nearly a candle next to a bonfire. Koksun was up the wall before most of the recruits could blink more than a few times.