Page 103 of Strays
This time, when we arrive at the garrison, only the Solomon pack is there.
According to our schedule, mornings are for physical training, and sensory work comes in the afternoon.
David Solomon gives us a tour of the gym and walks us through the exercises, but we already know most of it. We had done our homework and studied every set on the detailed protocol in our files.
The training is brutal, but oddly satisfying. After a lifetime of restraint, I finally get to let go. No need to hold back, just full strength, all-out effort. It surprises even me how much weight I can lift. On the incline treadmill during the endurance push, I surrender completely. No pacing, just burn it all.
By the end of the morning, we’re soaked in sweat, lungs burning, but smiling like idiots. It feels really fucking good.
After lunch, sensory training is the opposite, though. The setup reminds me too much of the Strays Program: same sterile lighting, same quiet tension. But there’s no pain involved this time, and for that, I’m genuinely grateful.
The drills are all laid out in the T1P folder, but reading it doesn’t prepare you for how clinical it feels.
The first is called buried scent recovery. Josh meets us at the entrance of the chamber with a steel tray holding three sealed scent capsules: clear plastic tubes, each containing a swab of fabric.
“These are trace samples pulled from clean environments. You’ll train your ability to isolate them under interference,” he says.
We each take a tube and uncap it. The scent inside is faint but distinct. Mine has a human skin smell mingled with sweat and a hint of something like deodorant.
We enter the padded chamber. Its soft flooring is filled with dozens of buried scent pouches: engine oil, sterile cloth, different human traces meant to throw us off. Somewhere in the mix there’s a match for each of our targets.
It takes more than an hour for me to find mine. Shane’s a little faster, andJay’s the last one to finish. But Josh says it’s solid work for a first try.
Next is the Acoustic Threat Detection Drill. We go in one at a time.
The room is circular, walled in with acoustic paneling and matte black mesh. I can’t see the speakers, but I know they’re everywhere: inside the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Before the sound begins, the lights cut out, and the room goes pitch black.
The sound doesn’t just play; it moves. It’s everywhere. A disorienting cacophony: street noise, wind, footsteps, background chatter, at least three kinds of music layered across one another. Some sounds are close; others are distant.
And in the middle of it, barely audible, I catch my first target: metal sliding. It’s a pistol being cocked.
“Left side. Close,” I call out.
A ping confirms I got it right.
Later, I catch another: a muffled cry.
“Help. Front. Far end.”
I call out ten different noises before the lights come back on, signaling that the drill is complete.
The last one is a micro-expression drill. It’s simple. We sit in front of a black screen, and a face flickers onto it, so fast it barely lasts a full second, then disappears again. The goal is to log the emotion displayed, whether it was genuine or masked. But the flashes are so quick, I miss the first few entirely.
I wait for them to replay and try again, but is still too fast for us. Eventually, we start picking them out. The first emotion we get takes eighteen tries. After that, we’re more focused, but it’s still a stretch. We’re nowhere near the goal: instant recognition.
By the time we finish sensory training, I feel like I’ve been peeled open and rewired. And way more exhausted than I was after the physical session.
It’s after five when we finally head home.
The Solomons weren’t exaggerating when they said the training would hit hard. For the first time, I’m out cold before Jo even finishes her shower. The next morning, I find out Shane was the only one still awake when she climbed into the nest: while Jay and I wake up disoriented and in our shorts; he wakes up naked, smelling like sex and in a good mood.
The rest of the week doesn’t get any easier. Between training at the garrison, digging through file after file on the new drug at the DEA office, and trying to hit our daily intake targets for food and water, it feels like every minute of the day is spoken for.
The good part is that I can already see progress.
Thursday is only our second full day of training, and I’m lifting more weight on every piece of equipment. I run faster too. During our first session, I managed nine miles in an hour. The second time, I nearly hit ten.
There’s a slight improvement in sensory training, and we manage to finish thefull sequence a little before five this time.
