More than most, Xander enjoyed his days off. He had been playing video games and flying drones longer than most of his co-workers, and it was beginning to wear on him. The majority of the other pilots at the Center were between eighteen and twenty-five, and so hooked on gaming that when they weren’t doing it at work they were at home sitting in front of a monitor. The last thing Xander wanted to do during his time off was work a controller. He felt sorry for this generation of post-Millennials, and if the Exceptional Skills Bill passed Congress, mindless gaming would be further institutionalized and rewarded.
The Center was in desperate need of more pilots and scanner operators, and not just anyone, but the most-skilled at war games and combat drone strategies. Unfortunately, many of the top candidates for these positions were kids aged twelve to seventeen. The Exceptional Skills Bill would open up employment opportunities to youngsters fourteen and older to join the Center. Schooling would be provided part-time on-site, with the remainder of the day utilizing the phenomenal talents of these young operators.
Thinking about this, Xander felt a twinge of regret for the lost youth of these new recruits if the bill passed, and yet he’d also seen firsthand the results from the test groups run through the Center. These kids were good, and they could save a lot of lives, even if they did go about the task of fighting real terrorists with the same detachment and complacency as someone playing a video game. The surprising thing, however, was that the psych tests also showed these kids suffered no lasting effects from their participation in real operations; they were already so desensitized to the games that they couldn’t tell the difference between reality and make-believe. With the current nature of warfare, these kids might never come face-to-face with the real world they were entering when the FPV goggles went on.
The saddest thing, in Xander’s opinion, was that the people running the Center — and others like it — didn’t care. These talented children were simply assets to them, assets that begged to be used in the never-ending war against modern terrorism. They would come to the Center already trained to an eighty-percent proficiency level, which would save the government both time and money. With all the support within the establishment for passage of the Bill, Xander couldn’t see it not becoming law.
How he would cope with managing a bunch of immature, inexperienced, and emotional teenagers was something Xander chose not to dwell on. The benefits might indeed outweigh the consequences, so he would wait and see how it went, which was all anyone could do at this point.
And so Xander Moore left his other life behind — at least temporarily — and did his best to pretend he was just a normal guy, living in a normal neighborhood and with normal dreams. Few would ever know the truth…
Xander changed into a bathing suit, and then without hesitation jumped headfirst into the deep end of his swimming pool. At first blush the water was refreshingly cold, a by-product of the incongruity of winter in the desert. The outside air was a very brisk forty-three degrees, and even with the pool heater set on low, the water still registered a crisp sixty-five degrees, and it cast off a light cover of fog as his passage stirred the surface.
He had five days off — except for Monday’s half day for the interview. As he rolled over onto his back and floated effortlessly in the crystal clear water, Xander began to run through the list of female companions he could call upon to help take his mind off the job.
There was no shortage of extremely attractive women in the Las Vegas area, and Xander Moore was a favorite among those he met. At just over six feet tall, with curly blond hair and a well-groomed goatee, he looked more like a well-aging former surfer — which he was — rather than a highly-skilled drone pilot fighting terrorist activities on a daily basis.
According to his cover story, he had a high-paying job in IT consulting which required him to travel frequently. His female friends could count on him to show them a good time when he was in town, but they also knew he was not the kind to commit. Most accepted this fact and enjoyed the moment. The few who didn’t were discarded, not out of some cruel aspect of his personality, but from the necessity to shield his profession.
In the early days of the drone program, when the emphasis was on ISR activities — intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance — pilots could exist in the open more than they could today. Now with the proliferation of mini-drones, every RDC operator was the proclaimed target of a variety of armed groups, be they foreign or domestic. It wasn’t that taking out the occasional drone pilot would make a difference, but it would, however, give the killers bragging rights, while also serving to deter some skilled gamers from joining the Center.
And so the need for his secret identify.
His term as a pilot at the Center would probably last another five years, at the most, before he would be either bumped up or booted out. He’d be in his late thirties, and with plenty of time still left to think about settling down.
Until that time, he had to keep secret the fact that he played video games for a living… real-life video games with real-life body counts.
Chapter 5
Molly Snow — her real name — was the lucky lady Xander called up that evening for dinner, a movie, and as much intimate play as they could both handle. Fortunately, the interview at the Center wasn’t until 1p.m. Monday afternoon. Even still, it was an ordeal dragging his body out of bed that morning.
He parked in the underground garage of Caesar’s Palace this time, before walking next door and down into the bowels of the Venetian. After passing by several screeners and through four secure entrances, Xander boarded the plush motorhome bus for the thirty minute ride to the Center. This was an off-time for the shift changes, so only two other people were on the bus. Even though Xander knew them both, after a friendly acknowledgement none entered into conversation. It was how it was done at the Center. Except for the teams, most others kept to themselves, choosing to remain anonymous and unconnected, separating their private lives from their professional personas.
In fact, except for an occasional surfing junket with Charlie Fox, Xander didn’t associate with any of his co-workers. He had some small experience with the employees at the infamous Area 51 military installation located not too far from the Center, and he knew the same held true for them. It was just better that way.
With a budget no one complained about — not in light of the horrific damage caused by domestic terrorist attacks — the five-year old complex was a study in modern architecture, and visitors to the RDC, including politicians and contractors, arrived in limos leased by the government in a process designed to impress. Gone from the drone program were the dimly-lit, drab trailers dotting nearby Creech Air Force Base that had once served as the control rooms for the two-man Predator pilot teams. Those facilities had been shuttered several years ago, and the program’s mission absorbed into the more all-encompassing RDC. Pilots now enjoyed the best the government could afford at its most visible, and frankly most-needed, national defense facility.
Colonel Simms met Xander in the corridor leading to the conference room located in the Operations Building.
“Lucky bastard,” he greeted.
“That good, huh?”
“Hell, I thought she was knockout on TV. In person… well, damn.”
“Watch it, Jamie, you’re a married man,” Xander said with a smile.