Chapter Text
Maybe Cody had been a bit too excited to get here. No, really. He hadn’t been able to sleep all night no matter how much warm milk he downed. I mean.. who wouldn’t be excited to meet Chris McLean?? In the flesh?!?! To not only meet him, but also talk to him everyday for two months and get special training from him personally. Just thinking of it made him want to run up and down the rows of this airplane. Speaking of the plane, the crackly intercom began to buzz overhead.
“Passengers, we will be landing shortly. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for landing.”
Cody buckled himself up and went back to his inner monologue, if only to distract him from the turbulence(after all this was his first flight ever, and he was alone… what better way to keep company than talking with yourself?). The fact that he was even accepted into this camp? An absolutely insane chance!!! There were probably millions of forms entered into the request inbox. Cody didn’t know how he of all people got chosen, but he wouldn’t let Mr. McLean down. He refused to. After all, he looked up to him so much. Chris McLean was a famous Cyber Hunter—he was even known to be one of the top ones in the whole world. Cody was absolutely obsessed with Cyber Hunters. They fought real monsters.. with cool guns. It was basically like Kosmic Khaos in real life!! That’s why it was his dream to become one. Of course, only after his dream of becoming Billiards Champion. He hoped that there was a pool table there—then he could keep practicing his skills while at camp…
“Please stay seated until further notice.”
Wow, he was already practically there…he had been a bit distracted dreaming about meeting McLean, so it made sense how it felt like barely any time passed from when he’d left home.
Cody waited a couple minutes awkwardly swaying in his seat until people started getting up and grabbing luggage. He followed the old granny he was sitting next to the whole time. Surely she was experienced enough with this stuff, considering her age. Was that offensive?? It was just the truth.. Cody didn’t know. Yes, he was the ultimate ladies man but that didn’t apply to old ladies.
He scattered to follow after the granny once he got his overhead baggage, which was just a second backpack. It wasn’t necessarily heavy, the boy was just weak—which made him have to lug it around, making it difficult to keep up with the granny… who was actually pretty far from him now. Goodness, why did she walk so fast? No, how?
With a sigh, Cody chose to give up on following the granny and chose to follow this other teen who looked like she knew what she was doing. Either way, no matter who he was following he boarded off the plane with his two backpacks and arrived in the lobby. Cody stood in the middle of all the people rushing around him, slightly overwhelmed. He hadn’t known there were rush hours in airports too. He glanced around at all the people, trying to see if the person he was meeting up with was anywhere. Ugh.. where was she? He wasn’t given any sort of picture of her appearance, but he knew her name was ‘Izzy.’ Plus, she had to at least be his age, considering the form was only accepting a certain age range. Still, upmost to none of that information helped him because the only people here were middle aged men in suits who looked like they had a place to be.
As soon as he saw a teen-like girl, he hurriedly walked after her, awkwardly trying to get the attention of the girl while bumping into various people on the way there. “Um, hey- excuse me-?” She whipped around after the boy touched her shoulder. “What?!” Cody visibly shrunk into his shoulders. He didn’t wanna do this anymore... “Are you- are you Izzy..?” He smiled slightly but was quite obviously intimidated. In all truthfulness, he prayed this wasn’t Izzy… “No. Stop touching girls, creep.” He frowned. It was just a shoulder tap… still, he somehow had enough courage to keep on looking for the girl, continuing to ask more people he hunted down.
“Are you Izzy?”
“What? No.”
“Is your name Izzy?”
“Nope. Could you move?”
“Please, are you named Izzy?”
“Where’s you Mom, kid?”
“Have you seen any teen girls that look like an Izzy around here?”
“…I don’t think so?? Weirdo.”
Cody gave up after about five minutes of searching for and asking teen girls what their names were. He was never going to find Izzy. Whoever she really was…
He decided to lounge on one of the stuffy chairs in the lobby closest to him. Coincidentally, after a couple seconds the granny from earlier sat right next to him. That in itself was strange, since practically every seat around them was unoccupied, but maybe old ladies were just like that.
In defeat, Cody glanced over to the old lady, speaking up. “Do you know any Izzy, miss..?”
She slowly turned her head to him— only at this moment did Cody see how strange it was that she was wearing sunglasses inside, and how her polka dot head-scarf covered any trace of hair she could’ve had.
She didn’t respond.
Sweat dripped down Cody’s nervous face. Why was an old lady intimidating him? He looked away, if only to hide his panicked expression. “Sorry.. I shouldn’t have bothered-” He cut his own sentence off when she leaned close to him. Oh no. He didn’t know what kind of threat this could be but anything the granny seemed to do scared him out of his wits. He wasn’t sure why, at this point. He gulped nervously.
“Could I tell ya a secret, kid?”
Eh? That’s.. that’s all she wanted? Was to tell him something? That didn’t seem so bad.
“I uh, I guess so?” He mumbled in return. She leaned closer to his ear.
…
……
Was she gonna say anything? Cody was starting to feel awkward like this. Well—more awkward than he is on a daily basis.
Finally, the granny whispered.
“I am Izzy!”
. . . . .
What.
Surely McLean wouldn’t accidentally choose a granny to come to the camp. Surely, a granny wouldn’t catfish McLean so she could get into the camp. He was probably overthinking it. Many people could be named Izzy.
The granny ripped off her sunglasses, large coat, and head scarf to reveal a girl just his age with frizzy orange hair and some sort of green outfit made of… vines??
Okay. The grandma really was Izzy, then, he’s fine with being proved wrong. He was born to be humiliated! An example of this is right now, and how Izzy had chosen to very loudly talk about her ‘clever disguise.’
“That was the second time I've dressed up as granny Linda! When I'm her, I don't get targeted.” Her grin was wide, almost creepy. “I bet YOU didn’t know the CIA is too scared to go after old ladies. It’s honestly really useful info, hahahaaaaa!” Her tone of voice implied that it was quite a relatable scenario, but it wasn't, and never will be, no matter how hard she believed. “Wow, that’s… cool?” Cody tilted his head at her, pretty confused. Luckily Cody is naturally curious. “How exactly do you know that, though?” She just laughed again. “Oh, y'know!” She waved her hand uncaringly. “They’ve been playing hide and seek with me for FOREVERRRRR, and so far I'm still winning! It's disappointing, some people are sooooo bad at it and still just, like, won’t stop trying! It gets me riled up!” She growled a bit, then laughed again. “…what?” Cody’s voice cracked. Izzy ignored his confusion, or maybe she didn’t notice it. She brought her wrist to her face, reading the time from a watch that wasn’t there. “Oh wow! Look at the time, we’ve gotta get goin’! Come on, Cody!” She grabbed his wrist, pulling him and- ow. She was strong. She pulled him so easily too, goodness! It left him barely any time to grab the rest of his luggage by the seats they sat on a moment ago. Actually, it seemed Izzy had no bags. Strange.
“-this was wayyy back when I was in the Montane Forest trying to hunt some moose, oh! Did you know moose are already quicker than humans once they’re five days old? I had been watching this moose raise her newborn and after a week I guess they got tired of me and got all angry! The mother went all Ggrrraahh..” She made up antlers with her hands and stomped the ground, making moose noises—which were scarily accurate. “…and then she tried to ram into-! Oh hey! It’s our ride, woohoo!” The girl pushed Cody aside and opened the door of the taxi and jumped in. Cody quickly loaded his luggage and got into the car beside her—for some reason he thought Izzy might leave him behind if he didn’t go fast enough, since she was so quickly paced.
Cody was tired.
He had wanted to sleep on the car ride but… Izzy had a bit too much fun. Apparently trying to show Cody her “interpretive dances” while in a moving car without any sight of a seatbelt around her hadn’t been a good idea, as they had just about crashed 15 times in the 20 minute car ride. Cody was surprised they hadn’t been kicked out by the driver, but he surely wasn’t surprised when he shouted at them to get out as soon as they arrived at their stop.
Speaking of their stop, the two stood in front of a towering metal gate that led into the forest. Yeesh, creepy much?
“DO NOT ENTER — Private Property, crossing beyond this point is trespassing and will take legal action.”
“Izzy! Maybe you shouldn’t-” The boy's voice cracked, though it didn’t stop Izzy from climbing up the bars of the gate. Just how athletic was this girl? Cody couldn’t even do a push up…
“Ahahah! Silly, it’s not trespassing if we’re supposed to be here!” She hung upside down from the top of the gate, looking down to the other. Cody gave her a concerned expression. “I dunno if we’re even supposed to be here… wouldn’t McLean be waiting for us? And where are the others?” He asked this out loud, as if Izzy would have the answer. “Pshhh, tsk tsk. Don’t you know we’re here early?” She had an upset and disappointed expression. “We have to sneak in!!!”
His expression increasingly got more and more worried as the girl went on. Anybody in a five mile radius of Izzy could probably develop an anxiety disorder. And it looked like Izzy wasn’t going to be changing her mind, as she had just backflipped off of the gate onto the opposite side where Cody was. “Oof! Haha, fun! Just like when I jumped over the gates of this secret military base!! Mueheh…” She leaned over with a smug face. “It was so tall even the giraffe couldn’t get over it… so, are you gonna get over here or what!” She grinned at the shorter boy from between the bars. Cody stared back, brows furrowed in thought.
In all honesty, it was better to just go along with her. She may be.. a bit crazy, but this forest was eerie. No one wants to be alone in an eerie forest, especially someone who has particularly bad navigation skills.
He was about to get onto the bars, but… “Izzy? How am I gonna get my bags over there?” She looked at him like he was crazy. “Just open the gate, silly.” He looked back to where the gates were attached and… well. There was no lock in sight. In fact, nothing was keeping the gates closed at all. “…great. Thanks for telling me.” He (with struggle) pushed open the large metal gate, bringing his luggage through and politely shutting the gate behind him. Izzy had already skipped and jumped a bit ahead, meaning Cody had to speedwalk after her with his luggage in hand. One could say his walk was not very speedy. Cody just hoped the camp wasn’t too far.
“Wowie, this camp must be pretty far!!! Makes you wonder what Chris is hiding, haha! Probably some monsters of his own!” Psh. Cody had been grumpy for a while now. After five minutes of waking he was pooped, his arms and legs ached, and Izzy’s banter just made it all the worse! He was barely even paying attention half the time, all the things she said seemed to be so randomly meaningless, but now she’s talking bad about McLean? There really was something wrong with her. “McLean isn’t hiding anything, he’s a famous star and hunter. And you act like you know him personally, calling him by his first name.” The disrespect on McLeans name… Cody’s heart couldn’t take it. “Ha! Have you never been in a situation like this before?! When a secret building is far from civilization, the big man behind it is always hiding something. Oooo! I smell something fishy..!” Cody was taken aback at the topic change. “Oh crap, there could be a bear nearby. The fish bones they leave around-” Izzy shushed him, sniffing the air and beginning to crawl around and through some of the trees that were around them. Cody nervously followed behind her, also looking around for… actually, he didn’t know what for but he looked regardless. He practically jumped in the air when Izzy loudly gasped, running off very quickly. “Wh- hey! Wait! Izzy!” His voice cracked desperately. Why did she have to have so much stamina… once again, the boy ran after the girl. Once he caught up, he leaned over and leaned on his knees, panting. “Guh… how about.. we stop running for a while…!” He threw his head back up to yell at Izzy, but was distracted by the big building in front of him.
It looked incredibly futuristic, kind of like a huge lab. Blues and greys covered the whole of it, and multiple small buildings snaked out from the main one. Cody’s eyes shimmered. All the anger he had been feeling was wiped away instantly. “This is.. awesome!!” He looked over to Izzy again, who’s face wasn’t excited, but more so leaning on insanely fixated on the building. “I can just taste him in the air…” She sniffed again then cackled. “If you can sniff McLean out, then let’s put that nose of yours to good use and find a way in!” Cody wanted to see McLean so, so badly. After looking up to him his whole life he was closer than ever to shaking the man’s hand, and he didn’t want to wait any longer. “Um, my nose can’t do everything, ya know! Don’t be mean to her! But, Izzy’s brain knows the entrance is just over here.” The two walked to the building, and were greeted by a metal door with a keypad on it.
“Please enter password.”
“What’s up with this place being so guarded? Won’t that make it kinda.. hard for the others to get in..?” Cody wondered out loud. Though he guessed it made sense—cyberhunters were very secretive people after all. Especially with all the government involvement they have…
“Beep boop boop beep… boop!” The noise of the large metal doors sliding opened met their ears.”Ooo, fun!” Izzy walked in as if she hadn’t just guessed a most likely insanely secure password. “How’d you guess the password?” He walked beside her in the on-theme futuristic hallway, a big thud sounding behind them from the door shutting. “I was thinking we could hack in, but then I remembered how bad I am at hacking things…” Izzy rolled her eyes. “It’s obvious! It was just his anniversary date. Anybody could guess that.” Cody turned to her with a weird face. “McLean doesn’t have a wife.” She glared at the space in front of them. With a growl, she hit her hand with a fist a couple times. “Oh trust me, Izzy knows…” That gave Cody absolutely nothing, so he took it as a sign of Izzy’s worlds being unimportant.
The two wandered for a bit, Izzy constantly looking around the halls skeptically. As she snooped around in some of the boxes in the hall, Cody heard something from up ahead. Izzy… should be fine alone. Maybe McLean was on the other side of the hall! It was a chance he couldn’t ignore. Leaving his bags behind so he didn’t make noise, Cody snuck over to the end of the hall, peeking around the corner like he was in a spy movie. When he was met with the luscious black hair of the famous middle aged man McLean, he immediately whipped back around the corner and leaned straight against the wall. Chris McLean. Chris freakkking McLean. He was right around the corner. Cody wanted to scream.
“Do we have enough food for the whole two months, Chef?”
“You know we’ll have to buy it fresh. They’ll get angry, we can’t have that happen too extremely or-”
“Yeah, yeah, or they’ll break out. I should’ve known… ugh, I just can’t think straight right now.”
“We both know you’ll be happy soon enough, ya demon.”
Cody didn’t recognize that deeper voice. Maybe it was one of McLeans staff members. Cody kind of forgot that McLean couldn’t run this whole thing himself.
“Oh shut up, Chef, you’re not any better-”
Cody felt a hand on his shoulder. He let out a tiny scream, but definitely not tiny enough for McLean to not notice. “There you are! What’re we looking at?!” She grabbed both of Cody’s shoulders and shoved him to the side, peeking her full head around the corner. She gasped and Cody saw her face go red. “YOU…!!!” Cody could barely fathom what was happening before he felt Izzy push off him harshly, launching around the corner. Unfortunately for Cody, being pushed also means that you will fall to the ground. And unfortunately for Cody, falling to the ground and being too slow to process it means you black out from head trauma. The last thing he heard was Izzy going “Hyaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!”
“… stupid job, stupid Chris, stupid kid…” It was that voice from earlier, Cody recognized. He felt insanely groggy, slowly blinking his eyes open to a white tiled room. Luckily it wasn’t too bright. After processing that he was awake, Cody glanced around the room and saw the tall guy that was with Chris. He was hunched over a counter top that was next to a big red cross on the also-white walls. Cody brought a hand to his head, just now noticing the bandages that were there. “Huh..??” Cody couldn’t really remember what had happened.. just that he and Izzy were in a hallway, then Chris and this guy… and… yeah, that was about it.
The man turned around after hearing Cody, “Finally, you’re up. Ya gotta go unpack, kid.” His face was just as intimidating as his voice. This guy was the camp nurse? Cody prayed that he wouldn’t get into any accidents from here on. “Oh. Yeah, cool. I’ll go.. do that…” He sat up from his laying position and got up from the bed, not without struggle. His head still stung like he was hit with a metal bar. Violently.
He felt the man watching him, his eyes practically lazered through his brain. “…head still hurting? You fell hard, that we all saw. Out like a bulb.” Cody turned to him, a bit surprised at the “small talk.” “Yeah, actually… it still stings. Or- yeah.” Cody shrunk into his shoulders at his voice crack. “So… I fell?” He wasn’t a person who fell often. Not at all, but maybe the flooring had been slippery. “Well, not really. Ya got pushed over, kid. That Izzy girl is crazy.” That made a lot more sense now—Izzy had pushed him over. “Anyway- take these. Once ya do, you’ll feel better.” The guy went over to Cody and handed him a couple pills and a water bottle. “Wow. Thanks, sir!” He smiled widely. He was pretty nice after all—just… still intimidating. “Chef.” Cody stared at him. “I don’t like sir.” Chef was his name? Or maybe it was a nickname. Cody shrugged it off—it wasn’t something to linger on anyway… “Alright, thanks Chef..”
The boy had been slowly traversing through the halls. He had been too shy to ask where he was supposed to be heading, but he’s sure he’ll find it sometime. His shoes clacked against the tiles in the hall, echoing too much for his liking. After listening to it for long enough it got annoying.
However, one good thing was that the pills Chef had given him earlier were starting to work. Now it just felt like he was hit with a small sack of coins, instead of a metal bar. He had already finished the water bottle the man had given him too—guess sleeping for a while makes you parched. Now he was just hungry. He didn’t know what time it was, but he hoped that he hadn’t missed lunch or dinner yet.
Cody turned down a left hall, but paused when he heard some voices from the hall across. Multiple, ones he hadn’t heard before either. He silently stepped across the hall, peeking around the corner to see who was there for the second time that day. He was met with four opened doors, two on each side facing one another. He guessed that one was for the guys and the other for the girls. There had also been a closed door at the end of the hallway, he assumed it was some sort of supply closet. Either way, Cody decided to stop peeking around corners and strolled into the hall, looking into each room. On the right side were the girls, as he saw one room with about five people and another with six. On the left side, it was the same with the boys, except one room had four instead of five. That must be where his bags were now. He really hoped his two month roommates were going to be cool… and hopefully not have the need to humiliate the poor boy every second they got.
Cody began walking through the door and screamed when he was pulled backwards by the collar. “Woah, hey Cody!” He was met with the grinning face of the Izzy, who was practically dangling him in the air from his shirt. “I-Izzy!! You scared me!” She moved her other arm casually as if she wasn’t holding Cody with one hand, “Ooo, now I know how to scare you! Anyway, sorry about blacking you out back there—thank goodness you’re alive, I don’t know what I'd do if I messed up someone’s brain again!” Cody was about to question her before she cut him off. “Haha, anyway! See you later, Cody!” She abruptly dropped Cody and walked away casually. Cody let out a cry and fell straight to the floor at the unexpected weight of his own body. Luckily he covered the back of his head with his hands before it hit the ground… didn’t want another injury, after all. He laid there for a good second with his eyes shut tight.
“Woah, dude, you alright?” When he opened his eyes, a tall, chill looking guy was looking down at him. “Here, get up man.” He smiled and held out a hand to the boy on the floor. Cody took it and balanced back onto his feet, dusting himself off once he let go of the others’ hand. “Thanks… the name's Cody, by the way.” Cody introduced himself coolly, as if he wasn’t thrown onto the floor by a girl just a minute ago. The guy smiled back amused—unbeknownst to Cody. “Trent. I’m guessing you’re rooming with us since we’re the only room with an empty bunk, haha! C’mon in and meet the guys.” He waved Cody into the room, which wasn’t too big yet somehow fit two bunks and a single bed. He was met with two other guys, one was really, really handsome… and the other had a maple leaf on his shirt. “This is Justin and Owen. Meet Cody guys.” The two waved to him, and Cody waved back with a huge grin. “I’m so psyched to be here—I still can’t even believe McLean chose us each individually…ahem.. hm..” He was a bit embarrassed at how he geeked out about the camp again. He didn’t want to seem like a loser—he already had that title at school. This was his only chance to be cool! “I know, dude! And I’m so excited that all us guys get to room together…” They all looked at.. Owen, Cody thought, with a strange look. “Wait, no! Not like that! Cmon, I mean like—if we roomed with the girls we have to deal with all their gossip and girly things… who likes girls anyways? Ah, crap! I mean-“ Owen smacked his palm to his face, Justin placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’re only making it worse for yourself. Just stop.” Everyone else nodded along with him.
While Owen was talking, Cody had realized that there were only four of them. “Hey, guys, aren’t there supposed to be like… five of us?” He looked around the room, there was luggage at each bed…
Owen and Trent glanced around awkwardly, though Justin didn’t seem to care about it, picking at his nails. “Well—I’ll be honest with you, the fifth guy doesn’t seem too friendly…? He was giving us some serious attitude for just saying hi.” Trent said in a hushed tone. “He’s not that bad! Maybe he isn’t good with travel!” Owen backed up the mystery guy. Cody nodded along. “I think Owen’s right. Even I was grumpy on the way here! The walk was insane- and Izzy wouldn’t stop running ahead…” He scratched the back of his head. Either way, Cody didn’t want to make any enemies here, so no matter what he was going to try and be friends with everyone.
“Ugh, the taxes on toilet paper can NOT be that expensive. Chris is as cheap as candy bars back in the 1910s.”
More diss on Chris? What is up with these people? Cody thought that most people here would at least kind of be like him… but it seemed everyone wasn’t really happy with the famous guy.
Cody turned around at the new voice, being met with the fifth guy, who- just as described, looked and sounded grumpy.
“Oh, Noah’s back! I was starting to worry if you had fallen in…haha.” Owen attempted to joke, but sadly Noah was not amused. He just side eyed the group before walking over to the bottom of.. Cody’s bunk. “Har har, hilarious…”
Cody awkwardly watched the other boy while Trent winced. “Sorry man, his bunk was the last one available to put your stuff with..” Cody glanced at the taller boy, then shrugged. “I’m sure it won’t be that bad..”
With that, Cody walked over to his bunk and to beside Noah, giving him a small wave. “Hey. Guess we’re bunk mates!” Noah glanced at him for a split second before immediately looking back to his bed and continuing to set it up. Each second that passed with Noah not responding thickened the air. Cody rocked back and forth on his heels. “You’re really gonna stand there until I respond?” Noah eventually said. Cody just shrugged, "Probably?” The boy sighed. “Yay, we’re ’bunk mates’, I’m jumping for joy.” He crossed his arms after he turned to talk to the other directly. “Is that the response you wanted?” Cody gave an awkward laugh. “Hey, I swear on my life I won’t shake the bed. I’ve been to wayyyy too many summer camps and—trust me—I know how annoying top-bunkers can be.” He held a hand up to his chest to prove his dedication to being a good bunk mate. He quirked an eyebrow at Cody. “Thanks, I guess.”
He had gone back to making his bed, but Cody had a feeling that Noah was a bit less grumpy now.