The Compound

2010

It had been six months and the program was carrying on. The winter had swept a chill through the recruits as the training grew harder. Throughout the Compound, snow was falling from the vents in the dome. The Simu-climate was reading thirty-eight degrees and the Spartans were bundled up throughout the day. The Compound was covered in white sheets of powdery snow. Xander walked with Ezra down the pathway, slipping here and there. They had grown close – best friends.

Weapons training had focused almost solely on hand to hand combat. They learned a variety of techniques of mixed martial arts, whether it be Jujutsu or Muay Thai. Intelligence training began to explore basic hacks of security systems and the rudiments of virus dissemination. Espionage class moved on to infiltration tactics and the proper way to tail someone. Physical training had picked up as each Spartan was putting more and more time in at the gym. Their workouts, just as everything else, took a variety of forms, Yoga, Cross Training or Free Weights. Bronson remained the most developed physically, but each Spartan could see slight improvement in their physique. Each muscle group had grown more defined as if their bodies had been chiseled by a wood pick and they were slowly forming into Greek statues.

Xander had finally settled in and for the first time in his foster-life felt like he belonged somewhere. His life had purpose and his friendships brought him happiness. The more intense phases of training had picked up. The other day Axle woke up the Spartans in the middle of the night and took them for a five mile run through the Compound. Another night they were forced through a simulated torture sequence that included water boarding and solitary confinement. All in an effort to familiarize them with what was in store for them if they were ever caught by the enemy.

Duke continued to offer the occasional intimidating tactic, but it was more to get into his head rather than to cause harm. Since, he still felt the need to assert himself as superior, Xander allowed him to think whatever they wanted, choosing the high road at each of their intersections. He decided to leave it to battle season, which was soon approaching, and ignore his incessant taunts.

Xander and Ezra had become best friends in the Compound. One night they snuck into Duke's house and planted a frog from the Thicket in his bed. When confronted about the prank by Colonel Hardy, Ezra quipped. "Just practicing stealth, sir!" Xander thought he could see a slight grin crack over Hardy's face.

In such a dark place as the Compound was, Xander and Ezra had found a friend in each other. They reminisced about home together; they enjoyed laughs together and hunted in the Thicket on a weekly basis.

All was going well for Xander and he was adjusting well to the Program. He carried with him a general happiness even when sitting and listening to another history lesson from Hardy. Xander liked Hardy more than the others but he understood why no one else liked his class. It was boring, genius or not. It was difficult for the group of sixteen year olds to go from ballistics training to the stratagems of the Spanish Armada.

Xander listened intently as Hardy lectured on the battle of Troy. Hardy explained the Greek's use of the Trojan Horse, which allowed them to infiltrate the walls and ultimately bring down the bastion that was Troy.

"Not only does this echo our motto, 'nothing is as it seems', but it also provides the most important lesson in warfare. The one thing above all else that can be the reason you are victorious in battle or defeated is trust," Hardy concluded with a point that resonated deep in Xander. He thought everyone was nice and couldn't help but trust them all. He naively believed that people were naturally good, mostly because he hadn't met many bad people. But in this line of work he knew he would, if he hadn't already, as his eyes scanned the room, looking over the other Spartans.

"You must always be on your guard, even here in the Compound. You must always ask yourself, am I being played by someone? Is there are a Trojan Horse among me?" Hardy completed his lecture, leaving the Spartans uneasy.

His eyes fell from Hardy and scanned the other recruits before him until they rested on Duke. After a moment of reflection, Hardy spoke up with announcements.

"As you all know, battle season begins tomorrow. I know you all don't fully know what it entails, but that will be explained tomorrow. You will report out on your street at 0900, where you will be picked up and taken to your first battle landscape. See you there. Class dismissed," Hardy concluded. The Spartans scattered immediately upon his word.

Xander filed out and found himself shoulder to shoulder with Fiona. They walked out onto the path behind everyone. Fiona's hair glistened like a ruby under the street light. Then she turned to him with a bashful smile.

"Is that History class or sleep deprivation training?" Laughter paved their footsteps as they walked together toward the barracks, warmed by each other's presence.

As she turned, her feet slipped out from underneath her – the sheet of ice ready for her body's impact. Xander's arm whipped out and caught her at his knee's level. With a deep exhale, her red locks blew off her face. Her blue eyes gazed up at him from his arms.

His grip on her – tight.

Just for a shy second.

They didn't feel trapped in a training program, they didn't feel like they were living in an underground hangar, rather they were two people connected and lost within each other. Xander smiled, she smiled back as she found her feet and slowly left his embrace. Once they detached, an awkward jolt returned them to the Compound. Guilt seeped it way between them as they remembered where they were and why they were there. At that feeling, Fiona and Xander walked their separated ways in an awkward departure.

Ezra jogged up from behind Xander, having seen what had happened.

"She obviously likes you man. And you get all middle-school awkward around her. You're a frickin' covert operative for the blackest spy program in the country and you can't muster the courage to ask her out," Ezra heckled.

"It's against the rules. There is no dating in the Compound."

"Who gives a shit about the rules? You got feelings buddy, and nothing can take that away from you. That's all you got in here buddy," Ezra explained, slightly morose as he crossed the road to his house.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Later that evening Xander built a fire, a nightly ritual during the season. The Simu-climate had reached its lowest of the year. He was reading the book entitled 'The Fox and the Grapes'. His rushing mind found a steady speed in its pages. Reading the Apology, Plato's dialogue, recounting the death sentence of Socrates, Xander tried to make sense of its text. The subject matter was loftier than any he had ever read.

What is true justice?

What are human beings naturally inclined to pursue?

Just then he heard a click, like a chest unlocking – a creak followed. Xander darted up and looked around his living room, perplexed. The Spartans didn't visit each other's houses very much. He had only had company once, consisting of his lunch table over for a game of charades. But now his hallway bookshelf had just swung off the wall, like a door.

"What the hell?" Xander whispered as he closed his book and tucked it back into the deep cushions of the couch. "Who's there?!" He saw from behind the bookshelf a female figure take shape from the shadows.

"Xander..." The slim figure materialized - it was his espionage instructor, Juliette Rearden.

"Of course you'd be the one to break into my house.... How did y—" She cut him off short.

"Never mind that." Xander sketched out a series of underground passages below the Compound, deducing she had come from some sort of network of tunnels. He heard Hardy's words echo in his head.

Tunnels within Tunnels...

"I'm here to give you your most important assignment yet." Xander's ears perked up, his back arched to attention.

"Yes..."

"We know that you have only been in training for six months. But we need someone in your position. A Spartan. We are confident of your abilities, Xander. You certainly have excelled here. This is not training, Xander. This is an active field duty assignment. Do you understand?"

"Yes I do, but I'm not sure leaving the Compound at this point is a good idea. I'm not ready for –"

"You won't have to. Your mission will be here." Xander turned his head to make sure he heard her right.

"Well if that's the case then you guys must think you have a mole in the program." Xander's unique skills of deduction never ceased to amaze Rearden.

"Your mission, Xander..." His chest puffed out. Ready for the undertaking. "Is to set up surveillance and monitor Fiona Jenkins."

The sound of her name deflated him.

"Fiona?...but why?" he thought aloud. His eyes turned to the window, where he gazed out at the white house next door.

"We have suspicion that one of the recruits is a double agent. She is currently the primary suspect," Rearden's eyes held a gravity that crushed Xander.

"What?! Are you kidding me?" A knot formed in his chest and climbed its way to the back of his throat, he gulped it down, trying to maintain his composure.

"We do not know who she works for or if she is in fact a double. You are to infiltrate her house and establish recon so we can confirm her allegiance. Cusick will have what you need for that, but no one else is clued into this mission. It is imperative that you keep your mission and objectives to yourself. You will report to me on her weekly movements." He hesitated, knowing his own personal feelings for her. After consulting Rearden's grave expression he knew this was no drill and his number had been called.

"Okay, what am I looking for exactly?

"Are her routines normal? Does she have guests? Does she do anything out of the ordinary? You are to psychoanalyze her and report your results directly to me. I will come by each week for an update. And this mission is to be kept confidential obviously. No one can know what you are doing or that we suspect Fiona as being a mole."

"Yes Ma'am." Rearden dropped to a more at-ease demeanor.

"You have your first battle tomorrow, don't ya?" Xander nodded, still struck by the assignment. "Good luck, tomorrow is a free-for-all, no teammates this time around. So all you can do is rely on yourself."

"Who can I trust anyway?" He spoke soft, preoccupied toward the white house. Rearden gesticulated a sad agreement with his skepticism.

She walked to the book shelf and slid her keycard in the side of it, causing the bookshelf to swing off the wall again. Xander could see behind her was a set of stairs that descended into a deep unknown. She turned at the top of the stairs and offered a sullen parting word.

"It will be okay, Xander, we are the good guys..." The bookshelf closed and Rearden disappeared into the gullies of the Compound. Xander turned his head from the bookshelf again to his window. He didn't want to believe that Fiona could have questionable loyalties. He even considered it was the Program playing psychological tricks on him. He sighed a pity, knowing their suspicions must be well founded and everything would change from here on out. He had just become settled in the Compound and now he was met with something that couldn't be more unsettling.

Have I trusted a mole? Who's playing me this time?

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