All right, now Agent Black managed to bring the three kids under her wings and got them ready for the main event: the Test! You should know, first looks are deceiving. The kids are 13, 15, and 18, mere teenagers, but they come prepared from a monster encounter in real life. How? Where? When? All in their first full book-length adventure “Teen Monster Hunters”.
„Teen Monster Hunters“, now available on Amazon as print and eBook.
The drive to the institute was uneventful. It was a large Lincoln with enough room for all the three in the back. The silver lining for them was that they did not have to go to school, as Black had given them a alibi in writing based on the same cover he had used to make Moe available. Shortly after nine, they arrived at a small clean office campus with water ponds in the middle. The main building looked like any other office building, lot’s of tinted windows, three levels, and a lobby with large glass doors. The company logo read “Singular Information Associates” and looked like just another forgettable logo.
“Hiding in plain sight,” muttered Ryan when they left the car.
“The company’s abbreviation is clearly SIA, but I bet the ’S’ stands neither for Singular nor Science,” Sally said.
Black greeted them at the door and said “Let’s get you to your stations.”
“We are not tested together?” Ryan asked.
“No, each evaluation is based on individual parameters.”
“Will we get to see Director Fletcher?” Sally looked around. It was just a regular lobby, if not for the ingenious security gateway door that was the only way to the inner part of the building.
“Maybe in the afternoon,” Black said and ushered them to the far end. “I’ll be around in the morning, but not in the afternoon. We have an exercise off-campus. But the evaluation team will take you to the car at sixteen-hundred hours sharp, so will be home in time for dinner.
“This arrangement looks secure,” Sally remarked and knocked on the thick glass that divided the lobby from the inner part of the building.
“No one in, no one out. Except for authorized people.”
“Keeping secrets?” Ryan said.
Black did not answer but continued. “Over here at the security desk, we take a retina eye scan and your thumbprints plus a photo.”
All the three kids went through the identification process. The doors of the security gate only opened after a security guard had visually inspected them and had pressed their thumb at a scanner to verify the newly created ID. Sally had to squeeze into a small tubular gateway. She looked sideways and found Ryan stuck in the same situation. The door behind her closed. Inside the gate, there was another check—an eye scan. After a few clicks, the one in front finally opened.
Three people waited for the three kids on the other side—one in a lab coat, one in a brown turtleneck pullover with a narrow reading glasses, and one in a training suit. Black assigned the kids. Moe received Mrs. Lab Coat; Ryan got Mr. Turtleneck; Sally got stuck with Mr. Trainer who almost looked as mean as her training partner in the dojo.
“Have fun today. Take it seriously.” Black said to the kids, and the Monster Hunters followed their designated evaluators.
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The lady in the white lab coat looked at Moe doubtfully. “Have you understood the instructions?”
Moe stared at the desk in front of him—a number of wooden baby building blocks of different sizes lay in a box.
“You are supposed to attach these blocks to make the highest tower possible as fast as possible,” Lab Coat explained. “So you have to balance your speed and the stability and height of the tower you are building while doing it.”
“Understood?” Ms. Lab Coat asked.
Moe did not react.
“You may start.” Lab Coat pressed a button on her stop-watch.
She saw that Moe did not move. “Moe, you may start.”
Moe started to perform the task in his own pace, slowly, and took block after block and formed a single line.
“No, Moe, you did not understand. A high tower. Not a long line.”
Moe moved some of the blocks from one position to another.
“You kids will kill me!” Lab Guy exclaimed and stood up to get a coffee. “They don’t pay me enough for this!”
Her good manners took over, and she turned to ask Moe if he wanted anything to drink. Moe still sat in the same position. In front of him, there was a single line tower with the bigger blocks on the lower end and smaller cubes on top; perfectly balanced—the highest tower possible.
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“You must be kidding me!” Ryan Montgomery stared at the guy in the brown turtleneck pullover who had put a stack of paper in front of him.
“Too much for you already?” Turtleneck asked.
“As all of you guys seem to have secret color-scheme names, can I call you Mr. White?”
“That is not my call-sign,” Turtleneck defended himself.
“Mr. Not-White, what year do we have?”
“I am not supposed to give any help here. I just run the test.”
“You are asking me to fill out a test of about two hundred pages on paper? Ever heard of electronic test tools.”
“What is wrong with paper? It will survive an atomic war and an electronic pulse catastrophe,” Turtleneck said.
“I doubt that my testing grades will be that important after an atomic war or an electronic pulse catastrophe,” Ryan challenged. “You might want to concentrate on water and power. Farming. Maybe pharmaceuticals and hospitals.”
“You have no idea how the internal audit guys are drilling us when the paper trail is missing for a hiring.”
“Sir, please get your story right! A downgrade in arguments from atomic war to bureaucratic hassles in less than thirty seconds? Impressive! A new record!”
“Kid, why don’t you stop shooting your mouth off and just take this test?”
“I am not impressed seeing my parents’ tax dollars going to waste here,” Ryan crossed his arms.
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“Is it possible to test us only according to our abilities?” Sally asked the man in the training dress. They stood on the side of a basketball court sized gym. Some sports items had been arranged throughout the court, and various tests were obviously prepared for her. A man, introduced to her as Mr. Jumper, had shown her way to the locker room where she had changed to sports clothes, including the shoes provided by the agency. Jumper had a constant sour expression on his face, as if working with Sally was the worst punishment he could get.
“I did not design the tests, young lady,” Mr. Jumper said. “I am just doing Director Fletcher a favor by evaluating you.”
“Just saying, all this sounds a bit simplistic to me,” Sally shrugged. “What do you test me for?”
“Endurance, speed, and fighting abilities.”
“You are in the military, too?”
“That’s confidential.”
“You are standing ramrod straight, and your hair is clipped down to a sub-inch length. All these indicators are not very confidential, if you are ask me. That is like an advertising poster.”
“Point A: No one asked you. Point B: I am not on an undercover mission, so a little formality and discipline are never wrong.”
“Not on my behalf,” Sally retorted.
“And that is what’s wrong with the youth of today. But, no more talking! Let’s start with some warm-up, shall we?”
“Warm up? That sounds so yesterday.” Sally was just teasing Mr. Jumper to get him into a bad mood and to keep the upper verbal hand. Of course, she knew the value of a proper warm up from her own training schedule.
“Young lady, believe it or not, both of us have been born yesterday.” With that, Mr. Jumper started an easy jog around the large gym.
Sally found no flaw in that logic, did not reply this time, and ran after him.
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“Is it possible that you are a little slow in everything?” Ms. Lab Coat said to Moe.
Moe stared patiently ahead.
“Sometimes my job kills me.”
Moe did not react.
“Why do I even bother? What makes you so special that we are spending resources testing you?”
Moe still stared ahead.
“Can you talk at all?”
Still no reaction.
“Can you hear me?”
After a few moments, he repeated “Moe.”
“I feel as if I am in a Kafka movie. My instructions say that one word answers are the norm for you. That’s right?”
“Moe”, Moe agreed.
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“When I make a mistake in one of the answers, will that go against me?” Ryan looked up from the paper stack, pencil scribbling and crossing in multiple choice answers.
Ms. Lab Coat looked up from her laptop. “Not against you, no. But you won’t get the full points, of course.”
“Do I get bonus points when I discover an error in the test?”
“There are no errors in the test.”
“I am a kid with an IQ up in the stratosphere. You want to argue with me on this? When I see an error, it is an error.” Ryan never was of the modest kind.
“These tests are used in a wide variety of governmental functions to evaluate intelligence, aptitude, and character. They have been taken by probably a million people, developed by the best specialists in their area, peer-checked, and then ran through a thorough quality check before being used.”
“That is a long speech that shows me I already put you in a defensive position,” Ryan pointed his pencil at Ms. Lab Coat
“Kid, you can’t bluff your way out of this test. The test has no errors. And it is designed to fail. It is impossible to reach one-hundred percent. Not even Neil Armstrong had it all right.”
“Neil Armstrong was born when? In the early nineteen-thirties? The test is that old? Anyway, tell Neil, Albert, and Mr. Oppenheimer that on page 121, the multiple choice answers all start with a capital letter, grammatically correct. Except for answer ‘b’ in this section which starts with a small-caps. Error!”
Lab Coat wrung her hands. “The concept foresees no bonus point. But thanks for pointing it out to me.”
“Best specialists in their area, eh? All right, I’ll carry on to ensure your pension is safe.”
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