Fixture updates

I woke up to 7 new notifications. Something was wrong.

Basic profile_

[Fixture update: Squad Dalet vs Squad Zayin ]

[Due to unforeseen circumstances, this fixture has been postponed. Both squads will miss the first round of fixtures, but will participate in the next. Rescheduling will occur at a later date. ]

Like some random dentist appointment. Our little hacking stunt immediately came to mind. The laptop on the yacht, the squad phone with the fake profile…

Speaking of the squad phone, Caspian’s the one who had it. I was still caught between calling or texting him when the notification popped up.

[Flynn: Hey… Happen to know what’s up with these fixture updates? ]

‘Texting it is…’

[Me: Nope, you think it’s about the phone? ]

[Flynn: Maybe. Or maybe it has nothing to do with us. Could be Dalet. ]

[Me: Elrod? ]

Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.

[Me: He was suspended, remember? It might be catching up to him. ]

[Flynn: What does the squad profile say? ]

We’d resorted to calling the fake ‘Eron Black’ profile the squad profile. He sent screenshots via email, though there wasn’t much to see.

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[Squad Dalet

Status: Restricted

Squad Zayin

Status: Restricted

Squad Alef

Status: Active… ]

I looked for major changes from when I’d last viewed it. Nothing. No new fixtures posted. No squad had moved up or down. Just Dalet and Zayin sitting there flagged.

[Me: Let’s meet up. Food court. And bring the phone. ]

[Flynn: Give me ten. ]

I showered and got dressed, suit first, more out of habit than instruction. Fourth day and I still hadn’t figured out if the suits did anything when we weren’t in a training hall, or if they were just there to be worn.

‘Always have your suit on.’

I got there first. Several squads were currently undertaking their first fixtures, so the place wasn’t too busy. Echo app only showed fixtures and the order they would take place, but not when or what time

‘I haven’t seen any members of Squad Tsadi since I left my room. They must be undertaking their fixture right now.’

Flynn arrived as I was taking the first sip of the smoothie I had ordered.

“Table for two… You didn’t invite the others?” he asked, approaching the table. He had his own phone in hand. He also had a smoothie in hand.

“I didn’t. You were expecting me to?” I replied.

“I wasn’t,” he chuckled, pulling back his seat.

“Then have a seat,” I laughed.

He placed the phone on the table face down.

“Still think it’s about the phone?” I asked him.

“It’s still a possibility. Though Dalet didn’t hack their laptop.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked Jason,” he said.

I froze, staring into his eyes.

“Just kidding… Lucas checked their laptop’s server. Plus, there’s no other advanced level profile.”

He slid the phone towards me.

‘There’s the possibility that Dalet tried and failed, so he asked Jason to confirm they didn’t. Smart…’

“What else do you know?” I asked.

“There’s someone who knows we have the profile.”

I froze again.

He continued sipping his drink.

“Advanced level profiles have a feature to check who viewed your profile,” he said.

“I didn’t see that when we were on the boat.” I said.

“It wasn’t there at that time. It was added recently. I only found it this morning when the notification that someone had viewed the profile came.”

He paused.

“And since it couldn’t have been an agent…”

“It was an admin…” I said.

“But… whoever that admin is, they want us to know they know we have the profile. If they actually wanted to get us for that, they’d have done it the moment we left the boat along with Larson. But they didn’t. They want something. I’d say the restriction isn’t directly related to the profile.”

He stayed silent for a while. We had more questions than answers, and more just seemed to pop up with every thought we put into it.

That’s when the notifications came.

Basic profile_

[Fixture update: Squad Zayin vs Squad Tsadi ]

I picked up the squad phone immediately.

“Are you sure we should continue using that with our current circumstances?” he asked me.

“You said it yourself, if they wanted to get us, they’d have done so the moment we left the boat. Might as well indulge ourselves in the meantime,” I said, sliding the phone across the table.

Advanced profile_

[Squad Tsadi vs Squad Alef

Squad Alef won. ]

I stood up.

“Let’s give them a second loss.”

The next day_

Alicia and Flora hadn’t arrived when I got there.

“That’s them?” I asked Lucas.

“Yep. Squad Tsadi.”

None of us felt like approaching them, so we just stood there. Well, Garnet wanted to approach them but we stopped him. I noticed something, or rather someone.

“Why is he here?” I wondered, disappointed.

“Who?” Garnet asked.

“Lance, the annoying guy I was telling you about.” He was smirking at us.

“Room 18?” he laughed. “Look at the bright side, at least you can become friends now.”

I didn’t reply.

The girl started walking towards us the moment Alicia arrived.

“Alicia,” she said. They hugged, as Flora arrived.

“So, this is Layla. She’s a long time friend, we used to take missions together before this squad system came along. Anyways, Layla, meet Garnet, Lucas, Caspian and Flora.”

We were confused for a moment whether to shake her hand, until she offered it.

“It’s nice meeting you all,” she said, as the rest came over. After introducing them, and a brief stare down with Lance,

“Hope you’ve all gone through the instructions for the match,” Layla said.

The instructions were well explained on the app.

‘Divide and conquer. Same thing Tsadi did against Alef.’

“You guys did it against Squad Alef. How was it?” Flora asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Lance replied.

“Someone’s still a little sour about that loss,” Reisha(Squad Tsadi) replied.

Lance just rolled his eyes.

“Ignore him…” Reisha said. “It’s not that complicated, just try to coordinate with each other. You’ll be fine, rookies.”

‘Rookies?’

“You’re not beating us though,” Randall(Squad Tsadi) said laughing.

“Challenge accepted,” Alicia replied.

Jake (Squad Tsadi) was silent the whole time. He didn’t talk to anyone.

Squad Tsadi walked to the other side of the huge hall. They were going to start from that side.

“Ready!” she shouted once they were all there. On our side, we all stepped behind the yellow and black striped line on the ground.

[Ready]

As soon as Alicia pressed it, a buzz echoed across the hall, and some sections of the ground beyond the yellow line opened up. Steel walls emerged from the ground, and rose to a height of about three meters, forming a huge maze.

“So cool.”

“You never mentioned Layla,” I said to Alicia.

“She never told me she’s in Tsadi…”

[Training Hall activated_

Mode: MILES

Exercise: Divide and Conquer ]

The session began.

[Squad Tsadi vs Squad Zayin

Match ongoing. ]