Page 98 of Strays
Samuel finally moves, walking over to a cabinet and pulling three folders from a drawer.
“You’re about to start T1P,” he says, handing them out to us. “Tier-One Progression training.”
I take the folder and feel the weight, literally and otherwise.
“The goal is to speed up your development, so you hit full Tier-One capacity,” Samuel says. “Naturally, that shift would take up to a year, but you’ll be pushed through in months. The protocol’s aggressive, but if your body holds up, it works.”
Jay glances down at the packet. Shane opens his immediately.
Samuel continues. “Inside, you’ll find the lifestyle protocol: nutrition, hydration and sleep. You’re expected to eat clean. The protein target is 1.6 grams per pound of body weight per day. You miss that, you stall out.”
“No drinking and no drugs,” David adds. “Minimum eight hours of sleep unless you’re on assignment. Hydration’s set at 0.53 ounces per pound. If you fall behind, your system crashes, and you’ll feel it.”
“The physical work starts in the gym,” Samuel says. “The details of the training sessions are inside your folders.”
“Then there’s sensory development.” Josh says. “You’ll train to isolate scentsunder interference. Target identification through buried scent markers. Visual tracking. Micro-expression drills. Heartbeat rhythm recognition. Voice stress testing. You’ll be expected to detect fear, attraction, deception, aggression.”
I swallow hard. It’s not just the physical load, it’s the precision. The expectation that everything about us can be honed into a tool.
Josh continues. “You’ll be on a six-day rotation. Three days here for training, evaluation, and desk duty. The other three, you’re embedded with your assigned agency, DEA Bridgeport, in your case. Once you move to T1M — maintenance training — you’ll only be required to show up here once a week. The rest is fieldwork.”
“You report here by 0600 on your scheduled days,” he continues. Then he steps aside and taps a door marked EQUIPMENT. “Inside here, you’ll sign for your gear and your Bronco XL. It’s already tracked and registered to your pack.”
“Come,” he says, then glances toward Samuel. “Sam, call the team. Let’s do the welcoming briefing.”
Josh opens the equipment door, and we follow him inside. It’s a smaller adjoining room, with concrete walls lined with heavy-duty storage. A small desk sits near the front, fitted with a digital sign-out terminal and a fingerprint scanner.
“Touch ID to verify, then sign the digital release. That’ll activate your assigned locker. You retrieve your bag directly,” Josh says.
We step forward one at a time. Jay goes first, presses his thumb to the scanner, taps through the digital form, and signs. One of the huge lockers behind him clicks and flashes green. He walks over and opens it. Inside is a large black tactical bag with his name stitched onto a Velcro patch.
Shane’s next. He follows the same process, and another locker unlocks with a click. Another bag retrieved.
Then me. The screen pings after I sign, and the locker directly in front of me releases with a soft thunk. I open it and find my bag inside, just like theirs — black, reinforced, with my name stitched in white block letters across the front.
Inside I find body armor, black tactical boots, a harness rig, gloves, a hydration setup, and a folded uniform sealed in plastic.
All our lives, we’ve had to make do with whatever the humans had in their station, none of it meant for us. But here, it’s our first day, and they already have our lockers assigned and our names stitched into the gear.
Josh checks the terminal one last time, then glances toward us.
“Your vehicle is parked in Bay 3,” he says. “If anything’s off, you bring it to me.” He nods toward the command room. “Let’s go. They’re waiting.”
When we exit back into the room, the large table is now crowded. Josh gestures toward the empty chairs at the end, and the three of us sit.
He takes the seat beside his brothers. “So, we owe the honor of having everyone in the same building for once to our new pack,” he says. “As you allknow, since the Jones pack retired four years ago, this garrison’s DEA post has been empty. Two months ago, MAB finally notified us they’d scored another Prime bond. The Larsens have now reached Tier-Two, so they’ll be covering the DEA slot from now on.”
He turns to me. “Stand and introduce yourselves.”
I stand, not sure what to say beyond the basics. “Kory Larsen,” I say. “My brothers, Shane and Jayson.” I point left, then right.
The other packs only watch, assessing.
I sit, and Josh faces the room again. “Everyone else, go around. Pack name, agency, case focus. Keep it tight.”
The first pack to stand is the one that met us at the gate earlier. All three have light skin and square jaws. One has ash-blond hair, but the other two are strawberry blondes. They all share the same piercing blue eyes.
“Bielke pack, Homeland Security Investigations,” the ash-blond says. “We track transnational trafficking: humans, narcotics, weapons. If it crosses borders or ports, it lands with us.”
