phil jones2 (3 page)

The Grand Admiral didn't rise from his seat upon their entrance, such was his importance. Instead he waved away their salutes and demanded they be seated.

'Annika, would you care to tell me who these two young gentlemen are?'

She gazed over at Agent Smith with a look of confusion, Smith sighed.

'The glove-wearer is a man from Earth called Phil Jones, the man beside him is known as Agent Smith.'

The Admiral frowned, turning to the Agent who was still sporting his shades. 'Smith, eh? A new man?'

'I've been with Star Command for twenty years Grand Admiral Burroughs, sir.'

Confusion broke out over the Admiral's face. 'Twenty years? What department are you in?'

'I'm a special Agent sir, under your command.'

Burroughs nodded. 'It's so difficult to keep track of all these Agents, you'll forgive me for not recalling your name.'

'Yes sir,' Smith replied in a tired voice as if from rote.

The older man dismissed him with a nod of his head, the Agent remained seated but largely forgotten about. Instead he turned to Phil Jones.

'The glove you are wearing is part of the causality effect that those of us in command are entrusting will give us the edge on those ghastly Voravians.'

Phil looked back at him blankly. 'What's a Voravian?'

The Admiral looked at Phil's bulging waistline with a strange look of admiration. 'Do you like food, Mr. Jones?'

He paused, wondering if the Admiral was asking him a trick question, then at the encouragement of Annika he nodded tentatively.

'I suspected as much, tell me Phil, I can call you Phil can't I?'

Phil nodded.

'Do you like waffles, Phil?'

Phil nodded hungrily, scanning the room for any waffle-shaped objects. None presented themselves, perhaps they were in hiding.

'Imagine a delicious waffle that is stuck in the toaster on too high a setting. You're trying to stop the thing but the lever is stuck, you try and dig it out with a fork and you manage to electrocute yourself. You slip on the kitchen floor and brain yourself against the fridge and still it won't come out.'

Phil relived some painful memories, he had tried digging the waffle out with a spoon when the fork had got caught in the grill. The charred remains were too far gone to savour, no matter how much honey and cream he poured on it.

'The Voravians have their hands over the eject button and they're watching our waffle burn with a smile.'

Phil stood up, sending his chair flying across the room. 'Those bastards!'

The Admiral hammered the desk in approval, sending a series of monitors fuzzing across the air before settling back into the surface. 'That's the spirit that man! Annika he certainly shows the right attitude towards these things!'

Annika beamed a smile adoringly at Phil, Agent Smith remained unmoved by the display.

The floor opened up and a second chair rose to greet Phil's posterior, much to his enjoyment.

'So you see Mr. Jones, this is where you fit in. The glove was to land on the hand that would land on the hand over the toaster button.'

Phil looked at him blankly.

'You were chosen to stop the Voravians.'

Phil looked at him blankly.

'We will outfit you with a craft and a team and some tactical analysis of the opposition, from there we are confident that the choices you make will result in victory.'

Agent Smith chose this time to interject. 'Grand Admiral, we have yet to ascertain whether he truly is the one that the glove has chosen to be worn by or whether this is pure coincidence. We still need to run some tests before we can supply him with a team.'

The Admiral blinked. 'I'm sorry, who are you?'

Smith sighed. 'Agent Smith sir, I'm a special Agent under your command and have been for twenty years, I came into the room with Annika and the chosen one not a moment ago.'

'Smith eh?' the Admiral mused. 'Doesn't ring any bells.'

'I've saved your life from numerous disasters on sixteen separate occasions sir, the details are in your logs.'

The Admiral clapped his hands together. 'Yes, of course, that Smith! Nice of you to join us that man! So why are you here?'

Smith sighed.

'What I think Agent Smith was trying to say is that we need to test Phil Jones before we're completely certain that he is the chosen one and that we shouldn't immediately form a crew around him until they are complete.'

The Admiral smiled. 'An excellent idea! Annika, take him to the test chambers! I don't know where you come up with these but you're getting a pay rise.'

Smith sighed.

Chapter 4

Box! Testing! Rrrzzarrgghhzzz!

A
nnika led Phil Jones and Agent Smith down the bright Star Command corridors and out into a large room filled with consoles. Men in white coats tapped at the holographic images with a frenzy of moves barely visible to the human eye. Phil felt quite overwhelmed by the whole experience, silently wondering what all this testing would entail.

'Mr. Jones.' A bald man in a lab coat too large for him approached with an extended arm. Phil shook it nervously, waiting for the inevitable probing and prodding he had come to expect from doctors.

'We have been setting up the holographic projector to run a series of aptitude tests on you, first we'd like to take a look at that glove of yours. If you don't mind of course.'

Agent Smith walked over to a desk with a smile on his face, he had clearly been waiting for this. Pulling out a small box he proceeded to a large table and set it there, Phil was flanked by Annika and the doctor but didn't feel any safer for having company. There was something entirely unnerving about that smile.

Seating himself at the desk, he looked up at Smith with questioning eyes. 'What is this?'

Smith's smile seemed permanently etched upon his face, he was enjoying this a lot. 'It's a box for your glove.'

Once again, Phil didn't feel any wiser for having been told something.

'What's in the box?'

'Your hand will be in the box in a moment,' Smith replied. 'Then we shall see whether the glove really has chosen you or if this is all a bad coincidence.'

'Will it hurt?'

Smith shrugged. 'I guess we're going to have to find out. Place your hand in the box, Mr. Jones.'

Phil Jones stared at the small wooden box, it looked oddly out of place surrounded by all this high-tech equipment. He hesitantly reached forward and put his hand into the dark hole at the base of the box.

A sucking noise came from the box as it attached itself to his hand, he leapt off the seat and turned over the desk, falling sideways and bouncing off one of the walls in his frantic attempts to get this thing off his hand. He vaguely heard voices trying to reassure him that everything was going to be okay and not to panic but when your arm feels like it's being sucked into a portable pool of quicksand it's more than a little distressing.

It took seven lab technicians to restrain him, Agent Smith didn't seem overly fussed with the reaction but the doctor in the white coat was aghast at the potential damage Phil could cause their equipment.

Then as suddenly as it had begun, the sucking noise ceased. Phil lay there in relief as the box slowly detached itself from his hand and dropped harmlessly onto the floor.

He looked down and a familiar sight greeted him, he was still wearing the glove.

Smith stared. 'No. There must be some kind of mistake here.'

It was Annika that cut in protectively. 'Agent Smith you have used the box, it has a 100% success rate with everything except the glove-wearer. The human genome station designed it that way as a fail-safe, it is not in error.'

She gazed at Phil adoringly. 'He is the glove-wearer, he is the chosen one.'

Smith was silent, clearly he didn't hold that opinion.

'Regardless of whether the glove is successful in identifying the suitability of our candidate, we still require a barrage of tests to be run on Mr. Jones,' the doctor said.

'What sort of tests, Doc?' Phil asked, his fear starting to rise once again.

'I'm a scientist, not a doctor. First thing we need to do is determine your aptitudes and capabilities so that we may select a team that fits around your skills.'

Seeing his blank stare, Annika prodded the doctor into explaining more.

'Yes, well, you see the tests are virtual in nature. We project images around you and give them form which you can grasp and control. Most of these images will be to test you, others will be available to aid you in that test. Are you ready to begin?'

'The chosen one is ready for any task that you throw at him!' Annika exclaimed, bubbling with positivity.

Phil looked at her in shock, he'd much rather have just gone home but he doubted that was an option any more considering they couldn't get the damn glove off.

'Er... I guess we can start the tests now if you want.'

Agent Smith smiled. 'By all means Hanniman, start the tests on our intrepid chosen one, they should be most... enlightening.'

Annika shot him an icy glare, her grip on Phil's arm now painfully tight after his latest ordeal. 'I have full confidence that Phil will suffice in every challenge you throw at him.'

Hanniman decided to be the neutral party in this encounter, approaching Phil with a studious expression. 'Mr. Jones, if you'd like to follow me into the chamber we can begin the tests. You will not be able to determine how you fared until after the completion of every exercise. Do you understand?'

'Yes.'

Agent Smith's smile widened noticeably at that.

'Then we shall head to the chamber now.'

'Okay,' Phil replied, slowly degenerating toward monosyllabic responses.

He followed the man he had previously thought was a doctor to a strangely shaped object. Phil had never been the best in school so he had no idea what to call it other than a big foam polygon with a hatch.

'So this is the chamber we will be using to test you Mr. Jones, if you'd kindly like to step inside and wait for further instructions.'

It wasn't a question, Phil pressed a foot down on the foam ramp leading up to the hatch and slowly guided himself into the darkness.

The hatch slammed shut with a muffled thud, he was alone in the dark and had no idea what was going to happen.

'Mr. Jones,' the voice of Agent Smith rang out across the intercom, startling him, 'can you hear me?'

Phil nodded.

'Mr. Jones, are you there?'

Phil nodded once again, he could indeed hear him.

'One moment Agent Smith,' Hanniman said, approaching the mic. 'You need to turn on the viewer like this.'

A faint humming sound could be heard now, the foam walls started to glow slightly.

'Mr. Jones, we are now warming up the holopads,' the voice of Hanniman said. 'Can you hear us?'

Phil nodded.

Agent Smith cut in. 'You were nodding the whole damn time I was asking if you could hear!'

Phil nodded again, hearing a muttering over the intercom he couldn't quite make out.

'Mr. Jones, the images you are about to see will be graphic in nature and most life-like. I just wish to assure you that none of it is real, do you understand?'

'So it's a holodeck, got it,' Phil replied, giving a thumbs up at nothing in particular.

'A holowhat?'

He heard a female voice whispering, possibly Annika's.

'Ah, yes, one of those contraptions from a TV show, yes. It is a bit like that.'

Phil's heart pounded in his chest. Annika had known what Star Trek was. Annika knew what a holodeck was!

A table appear in front of him, lit by a bright white light.

The bright white light was in his sight, it caused him no end of fright the bright white light of fright.

'Mr. Jones, on the table there will be a selection of weapons. You do not know who you will oppose, which weapon do you pick?'

Phil looked over the weapons that had materialised on the table, ignoring the sight of the bright white fright light. There was an axe, a crossbow, some kind of laser pistol and a huge laser gun.

Phil picked up the laser pistol and the other items vanished, including the table. The light remained.

'You have chosen... poorly,' the voice said. Phil found himself wishing there had been a whip.

The lights started to dim, leaving him in darkness once more. The next thing he knew he was in a desert of unknown origin, still clutching his pistol for protection, this wasn't a good sign.

A strange gurgling sound came from across the desert floor, it reverberated disconcertingly off the canyon walls as a beast of unknown origin stepped out from hiding.

'rrrzzarrgghhzzz,' said the beast, thumping its green chest and hissing at Phil.

'arggghhhhh!' Phil replied, pressing frantically at multiple buttons on the pistol in the hope that they'd do something.

'rrrrzzzzzargggghh?' the beast asked, seemingly confused at Phil's lack of running.

Phil stared at the ground in despair... then noticed a small thin piece of tubing and several diamonds, perhaps he could fashion some sort of...

The tubing exploded, sending a shower of sand over both Phil and the lizard creature.

He watched through a curtain of sand as the beast proceeded undeterred toward him, this wasn't going to end very well.

Redoubling his efforts he mashed as many buttons as possible in the hope that something would happen to dissuade his opponent from tearing him to pieces.

'rrrrrzzzzarggghzzz,' intoned the beast ominously, now mere feet away from a very tasty banquet.

Phil found himself in fierce disagreement with the creature's previous statement, he very much wanted to live at this point. He wasn't entirely sure how he was going to go about prolonging said life but he was determined to do so.

The beast decided that it was time to advance, placing one scaled foot in front of the other in slow succession. It dawned on Phil that it might actually be possible to run from this thing.

He looked around him frantically, run to where? There was nowhere to go, the sand lasted as far as the eye could see. Was this test to determine how physically capable he was at defending himself? Why did they even need to ask that question of him? Phil's was the face that launched a thousand fast food commercials.