SMART Agency: The new Agents

The opening scene is the first day of training. You have not met your other teammates nor know about them. You have learned about your virtual form but have very little experience in working with it so some training is required before you go out on missions. You were all given directions to a training facility owned by the SMART Agency and were told to meet there at 9 o-clock sharp and wait for further instructions. Inside you see it is strangely quiet for a training facility as you and your teammates are the only ones there, or so it seems.

And Action!

Mildred grumbled as her car stalled yet again in the middle of traffic on the busy interstate. It had been stop-go bumper-to-bumper traffic for the past forty-five minutes due to some huge event, a concert or something like that, that was supposed to be happening that day. As if that wasn't enough, in the chaos, a semi had crashed into the railing just before the bridge, and with the moment that it had accumulated, broke the railing and fell into traffic on the highway just below. Now there were no open alternate routes, and her exit was to be two kilometres right after the exit to the arena where the event was to take place. She had expected the traffic for the event. She had expected a wreck. But she had not expected a wreck of these proportions.

She finally arrived at nine o-three sharp. Just her luck, it appeared that the instructor had not yet arrived. It was quiet, but she paid no mind. She found a chair, sat down, and waited patiently for instructions.

Vee bit the inside of her cheek as she raced between the traffic on her bicycle. A year and a half ago, when her car broke down, she had been concerned about riding her bike to work, but she slowly began to realize that it was the only way to travel. Going in and out of trafic- it was nice.

Of course she had also really wanted to go to the concert, but getting herself in a career (and one at SMART Agency too!) was definitely priority- maybe she could sneak into the concert later.

She kept a careful eye on her watch. She was practically early by her standards! Even with the three wrong turns the map she had printed off the internet had told her to take.

She hopped off her bike at 9:07 and saw another person sitting at a chair. She shrugged and walked over to her.

"Hi, I'm Vee, I'm new so I'm here for training."

Today was already turning out to be a horrible day, Jeannine thought. It had all started with the sun. That darn sun, waking her up eleven minutes too early. Normally, she wouldn't have had a problem with this, but today was her first day at the SMART Agency. Everything, even the sun, had to follow her schedule — scripted down to the nearest second — and if they didn't, well, there were going to be consequences. Unfortunately, she really had no way of snapping nastily at the sun or throwing various objects at it. It was all she could do to sit back in her car and glare at the stupid rays that shone in her eyes.

Finally, the traffic moved, and she sighed in relief. One would've thought that if Jeannine had woken up early, she'd have gotten to the training facility earlier. But with Jeannine (Emilia) Koch, that was not the case. Life just got messed up if you went off schedule, including forgetting to get your tea and having to pick one up at Starbucks and not being able to find the outfit that conveyed just the right balance of professionalism and comfort.

She swerved into the next lane, ignoring the angry honking that followed her. Whatever. It's not like they knew what kind of crappy day she was having. It wasn't like they knew how important it was that she get to the training facility on time. Alas, no higher being took pity on her and sped up traffic, and she arrived at the training facility at 9:09 on the dot. She really hoped the instructor wouldn't notice. Or, at the very least, he wouldn't think too badly of her. She quickly parked the car, and ran out, only pausing for the slightest millisecond to look back and make sure she wasn't forgetting everything. Cell phone? Check. Emergency tea packet? Check. She was ready to go.

With surprise, Jeannine noted that there were two people already in the room. But that was okay by her. As long as they didn't tattle on her tardiness, she didn't care who was there. "Hey," she said breathlessly. "I'm technically Jeannine, but just call me Em. After my middle name, Emilia, that is. You guys here for training too? This is the SMART Agency training facility, right?" She added as an afterthought.

Vee had fallen asleep and woke up to hear someone talking. She groggily opened her eyes and saw three people, all blabbering away. A quick eye-rub showed her that there was only one person, and she was introducing herself.

Vee pushed herself off of the floor. "I'm Vee," she said. "I think we're in the right place, or I at least hope I am." She shrugged, "I'm really just glad I'm not the last one here."

Mildred's eyes met Vee's as she approached her chair and then somehow was distracted (by the sounds of the writing, it seems as if she fainted or fell or something, but I don't want to make assumptions). Without a single word, her eyes trailed over to Jeannine, who looked stunningly professional compared to the attire she was wearing today. At least I remembered to put my hair up today, thought Mildred.

"You two got stuck in traffic too?" she asked aloud, her slightly accented voice indicating only a little bit of empathy and mostly irritation; maybe she was still irritated at how the wreck had caused her to be three minutes late, but at least she wouldn't be the only one in trouble for tardiness on the first day.

Jeannine sat next to Vee in the one of the two empty chairs left. "Ugh, I hope I'm not the last person here. I mean, don't tell anyone, but I really need this money. You know, for college and all." She went on. "Don't even get me started. The construction workers just had to work on the main road on today of all days. Today! You'd think they could've waited till tomorrow or something."

"Construction?" she asked. "You must not be from the same part of town as me. All the traffic on my end was due to some huge event, I don't know what it was, and a semi causing this huge disaster." She shook her head. "People drive like idiots on this Interstate." She reached into her purse (black leather, of course), found a file, and began to file her nails.

"Greetings Trainees." A male robotic voice stated "Welcome to the SMART Agency Holographic Training Arena. Your Mentor is currently on a mission and will be with you shortly until then continue as you were."

Mildred's eyes trained over to the source of the male robotic voice. They flickered quickly with mild surprise and immediately returned to their normal state. How had she managed to get so easily distracted? This was not making out for a great first day on the job, er, training session. Sure, there were hours to go, but as a start it was pretty lousy on her part.

She resumed filing her nails, but her eyes flickered around every so often so as not to miss anything else. Expect the unexpected, someone had once told her.

"Creepy voice much?" Jeannine muttered. "At least we know we're in the right place, I guess, SMART Agency Holographic Training Area and all. And yeah," She turned towards Mildred. "I guess not. I'm from Strawberry Cove myself. You know, near Whole Foods and sort of near that ugly statue of the town's first mayor."

Jeannine looked down at Mildred's nails and then down to her own. Oh, snap. Her nail polish was chipping. It totally wasn't the muted peach or tan colour that made good impressions, but Sarah had convinced her to go for green when they'd been at the mall yesterday. Looking down once again at Mildred's much more professional nails, she sighed.

Vee watched the other two exchange remarks and then again as they eventually drifted into silence. She wasn't in the mood to strike up conversations, not on her first day, so she decided to make a great impression on her new co-workers.

Unfortunately, sitting still and silent wasn't working for her. And she was hungry. So she reached into her purse and pulled out a bag of cantaloupe. Ignoring the other two, she began to eat, before she held out the bag.

"Either of you guys want any?"

Jeannine gave Vee a questioning look. The other girl was...offering them cantaloupe? Who carried around cantaloupe in their purse? Why would you even do that if you could carry around grapes instead? At least grapes weren't orange. But she had to be polite. Make a good impression, she told herself. It'll be worth it. "Sure. I'd love some. Thanks."

Vee smiled and passed the cantaloupe. Then she looked into her purse deeper and pulled out a bag of wheat thins, along with grapes and strawberries. "I have some other stuff in here too." She sighed, "don't ask, it's a long story involving the Sahara, Ferris Wheels, and potatoes."

"Potatoes, eh?"

Mildred put away her file, her nails now looking quite professional. Especially compared to the rest of her, anyway. Jeans, a wrinkled T-shirt, and leather probably wasn't the best thing to show up in, but it was far better than that gaudy orange-striped pencil skirt her aunt had sent her for the occasion.

Speaking of orange, Vee apparently had some, but had already handed it off to Jeannine by the time Mildred had bothered to look up. She saw the grapes, however, and if she had allowed herself to drool greedily she would have.

"Now that you do mention it, I am a little hungry. Yelling at traffic takes up a lot of energy, you know? Would you mind if I had some grapes?"

Vee smiled and handed some grapes to Mildred as she lazily threw one up and caught in her mouth for herself. "Yeah, it's a rather...interesting story. It's also one of the reasons I got called back for this opening." She ate another grape and thought for a minute.

She continued to smile but her eyes were drawn to both Mildred and Jeannine's nails. Mildred's were finely filed and Jeannine's were just painted. Her eyes turned to her own nails. The light coat of sparkles didn't look necessarily bad, but she couldn't help but feel it was a little to...adolescent. Even if she was a teenager, she was applying for a real job now, in the real world. But she really liked the sparkles, so she figured if she didn't overdo it, she'd be fine.

"So, do any of you guys even have a clue what this trainign is going to be like? I'm beginning to get a tad bit nervous."

Jeannine munched on her piece of cantaloupe thoughtfully and shrugged. "I've got no clue. All I know is that I was in the mall with my friends and I got this call saying that they'd been watching me and that I should come in sometime if I wanted a job. I mean, really, how creepy is that? But the thing is, my parents refuse to pay for more than fifty percent of my college tuition, so I need money, and fast."

Vee shrugged. "I used to want a car, which is why I kept trying to get a job. Then I learned I'm just as happy on my bike. Plus, this way I can stop at the organic food market on my way to and from work, since I found it's directly on my route her. Still though my bike is getting a bit worn. And I want new running shoes too."

Aloysia ran up to the doors of the building and abruptly stopped before going in. Catching her breath and putting the obnoxiously loud music blaring earphone that had fallen back into her ear she pushed open the doors.
'...is that a cantaloupe...' she thought as her eyes immediately went to the three girls who were sat down in the room.
Deciding there was no point in simply standing there, Aloysia started to walk towards the girls.

Jeannine finished the rest of the cantaloupe, sighing. Maybe orange foods didn't always taste horrible. Just most of the time. The door clicked open and she looked up at the sound of the door opening. A girl with dark blue-black hair walked determinedly toward them. Maybe it was the instructor she and the others had been waiting for. Maybe they could finally get some answers about what exactly they were supposed to be doing. "Hey," she greeted. "Are you the SMART Agency trainer?"

In a separate room, a man in black with a detective's trench-coat and hat watched the group through a one way mirror.

"What's the status of our attendance Sentinel." The man said

"Four are Tardy, Two have yet to come in, Agent KC" The male robot voice reported to man

The man gave a slight nod, "I'll excuse the tardiness and wait a little longer, traffic was corrupted today. Construction, accidents, and a concert. You would think VIRUS was working overtime to stop me from getting new Agents"

"The only activity detected this morning was from the concert which was in the mission you just came back from, I assume it was a successful mission.

The man smirked "I still got it even with my condition."

Sentinel said "how long are we going to wait,"

The man said "I'll give them fifteen minutes."

(If anyone sees Atlas tell him that this RP has started.)

Back in the room, Vee smiled. "It doesn't matter if you're our instructor or not, do you want some food? She looked at the girl, who had headphones in her ear.

"Can you even hear us," Vee asked curiously. She held out a handful of peanuts towards the new girl, hoping that she wasn't allergic to peanuts, or if she was there instructor, she didn't care about recruits handing out food.

"I wonder if this is all the recruits," she said to herself.

Jack rushes into the designated building, trying his hardest not to be late.

He knew he shouldn't have gotten so engaged in his reading, and now he's likely going to reap the consequences.

Jeannine looked at Vee incredulously and against her (much) better judgement, blurted out, "How much food do you have in your purse?" Inside, she was cursing herself. This was why getting off schedule was never a good idea. Instead of the usual packets of fruit snacks and dried pineapples she usually had, she'd had to pawn food off of someone. Granted, Vee was nice. But still.

"You're right," she told Vee and gave a slight wave at the new girl. "I'm Jeannine. But you can call me Em for my middle name if you like. Or Jeannine. Or Jean. I'm not really picky with names. Um...if you can hear me, that is."

"The fifth player has just made his entrance KC." Sentinel reported

"They still got ten minutes..."