Excerpt: Untitled

Elizabeth finds herself in a small room containing three dummies. The dummies are mechanized and turn three hundred and sixty degrees on an axis, giving their scanning equipment full coverage of the room. This equipment emits a unique frequency that keeps other dummies in the vicinity from setting off the alarm during the sweeps of the room. Otherwise, the dummies are stationary and do not move about the space. Elizabeth crouches on the ground, as a red laser beam travels above her. Within moments she has made note of three weaknesses in the system: the lack of movement, the laser’s blind spots and the ability for one dummy to remain invisible to the others.

She seal-crawls across the floor to a dark corner behind one of the dummies. “Damn, I hope this works.” She lays there watching the pattern of lasers circling around the room, waiting for a large blind spot where no two or more lasers are in the same part of the room at the same time. She finds it and quickly makes her move, bringing herself to her feet, sprinting to the nearest dummy. She grabs one of the boxes off of the dummy’s chest, rips it off and drops to the ground narrowly missing being caught by one of the beams… She lies prostrate once again, waiting for the blind spot again, watching the dummy that now has its equipment removed, desperately hoping that the alarm is not triggered. To her surprise, there is no sound. The movement is not enough to get the attention of the other dummies. Good.

When her path is clear, Elizabeth holds the box against her chest and casually walks through the room as if there were no danger. Her plan works. She moves into the next room, and remains invisible to every dummy in the house. Once she finds the entrance to the attic, she is in a room with only one dummy. She waits, calculates the time it takes for the single machine to make a full sweep of the room, and once she is clear pulls the door on the ceiling open, runs up the ladder and closes the door again, nearly blowing the mission in the process. Once the door slams below her she drops to the attic floor to catch her breath, looking around for the access point onto the roof. She gets up to her feet and moves slowly towards a small door angled on the ceiling about 25 feet from her. She opens the door to find Schott on a flat section of roof, sitting in a lawn chair with two glasses of iced tea and a small monitor in front of him. He motions for her to sit down in another chair and slowly claps his hands.

“Fascinating. Truly fascinating. As many times as I’ve watched this training exercise, I have never once seen anyone as resourceful as yourself. Nor have I ever seen anyone so easily exploit the technological weaknesses like that.”
“That’s kind of what I do.”
“What, exploiting weaknesses? Yeah, I figured that out when I fought you.” He drinks his tea, “so I suppose now, you would like for me to go replace those dummies with real agents.”
“Bring it on.”
“Alright, then.” Suddenly Schott is interrupted by his cell phone, “excuse me, Elizabeth, hey Bradford, can you get the house set up with the live agents? – Sorry, Mr. Grant – well I’m in the middle of training – oh really – you’re kidding me? – yeah, I’ll be right there.” Schott gets up tells her to wait on the roof and wait for Bradford’s signal. “I am needed urgently, “he starts down the ladder, “Agent Bradford will signal you when he is ready to begin the next phase of training. Good luck. “He then climbs down the ladder to the ground.

After a few minutes, the dummies have been removed and placed in a pile to the side of the house. Elizabeth enjoys her tea as she watches the life-sized machines being hauled out of the house. After the twelve dummies have been removed, twelve men in black and gray camo are shuffled into the house through the back door. Elizabeth is given the signal to come down off the roof, to which she quickly climbs down to meet Bradford, who hands her a vest and a semi-automatic pistol.
“This pistol contains paint balls, as do the guns used by the agents inside.” He tightens the vest around her and once assured that everything is in order, continues, “Unlike the dummies, these agents are free to move about the house. As such, you will not be given as strict a time limit to get through the mission. That is, of course, not to say that you may take all night to complete the mission.”
“Understood.”
“Great. Then Let’s get started.”