Taking a Master

The Castellan sat silently sipping his wine which seemed to automatically refill whenever it became empty.

After a few more minutes, Lance asked:"So what should I do now? I have some understanding of everything you have told me, but I have no idea what to do next. I just know that I want to become like those 3. And not like the rest."

"Good.", said the Castellan with a smile on his face. "The first major challenge for any Wisher is that each step will be much harder for you than for almost anyone else. The only conviction you must hold is that step by step you will cross the rest of them as long as you persevere. It is completely up to your will."

"First, you need to understand something before we can decide what to do next. Each and every Wisher is a vital asset of the IE station. Their potential alone can drive any outsider race to sacrifice hordes of elite units just to find out a single identity of a wisher. Thus, all information on wishers is classified to be top secret. From the moment you walk out of this room, only a select group of people will know your actual IN. For the rest, we will invent an IN which will match you."

"That's fine, but who are these outsiders? All I know is that they kill a lot of humans. Other than that, I haven't heard a thing about them from any official sources.", asked Lance. This question had been gnawing at him since the mission.

The Castellan blinked before replying,"Oh. This was supposed to be explained at the mission debriefing but I guess you missed it due to your special condition. Let me give you a short explanation. The outsiders are one of the major threats that the Earth faces. Typically, those who are called outsiders have nefarious purposes. Human experimentation, DNA analysis, behavior analysis and many other such ongoing clandestine operations of theirs cause them to abduct a horrific number of humans every year. This is all of the information that you initiates are cleared to know right now. The rest will be declassified as you continue succeeding in your missions."

"Another thing that is covered in the debriefing is how missions are scored. Each mission is actually a series of scenarios of increasingly easier settings. In your mission, the only way to enter the vault was to make the Pentagon evacuate. As you might have guessed, this is something that cannot be done by just any group of initiates. If all of them were tested with this scenario, wouldn't most of them fail?"

Smart, thought Lance. He had had this hunch but didn't have the time to think about it.

"Hence the multiple settings. Even in a setting, multiple criteria are analyzed such as the body count, time to solution, effectiveness of each team member, etc. We take our initiates very seriously. Each scenario is checked on a case by case basis both by a human and an AI. Another crucial thing that is tested is the reaction of an initiate when they hear the words said by the men and women ready to sacrifice themselves. This helps us to decide where an initiate can be posted. Of course, it is not just your visual responses that are evaluated. The pod lets us analyze your brain waves in real time so that we know exactly what it is that you are thinking. Thus, the analysis is fairly accurate."

"Normally, the results take a few days to come out. Your team though, has accomplished something so far above the others that I can tell you your result right now. There is a percentile associated with each scenario, with the 100th being the hardest. Your team is the only one to have passed the mission in the 100th percentile! Such a result hasn't been seen in decades. Its certainly going to create a buzz when it gets out."

Lance beamed with pride hearing this. He was proud of both himself and his team for their perfect cooperation.

He just couldn't wait to rub this in Apollo's smug face.