The Missile 2
Copyright© 2025 by Zen Master
Preface
‘Missile 1’ Recap - If you read ‘Missile 1’ just skip this
We had just popped out of one of the pink Gates after clearing Level 1 on our first Portal ‘Dive’. The Alabama state PRA, usually just ‘ALPRA’, had decided to set up controlled training runs in some of the less-deadly Gates. Due to some suggestions that I and a friend had made, they had requested that we be their guinea pigs for the very first test run.
Well, they had asked me, and I had immediately asked Cindy. It was a no-brainer, ya know? She was beautiful, she was nice, she was a LOT smarter than me, and she seemed to like me. Oh, and she was a Healer. Yeah, she was WAY out of my league, but as long as she didn’t seem to care I wasn’t going to fu-, uh, screw it up.
Then, we’d asked two other 15-year-old friends who had gotten Weapons back on August 1st. Well, we’d asked about a dozen of them, but our two first choices had been allowed to go. Matt the Fire Mage had turned 16 since then so only Cindy the Healer and George with his sword and shield were still 15. The PRA had provided a pair of veteran ‘Hunters’ -who could have done the whole level by themselves I was sure- to take the four of us in, show us the ropes, and generally try to keep us from getting killed.
Hi, I’m Sam, Samuel Alfred McGowan, writing in my journal while I’m a 16-year-old teenager. Or, publishing my journal as a story about how I got where I am, now that I’m a 23-year-old adult. If I screw up the tenses some, I apologize. If I’m publishing TODAY, taking from my journal 7 years ago, about what I was gonna do TOMORROW, what tense should I use? Yeah, there’s no good answer. No matter how I do it, it’ll be wrong. Just ... go with the flow, okay?
I’m calling it “The Missile” because, back when I was playing football, my buddies used to call me the ‘Missile’ for my initials. Yeah, I was a pretty light-weight missile, like a SAM, but I was a fire-and-forget weapon. Point me where I’m supposed to go and I’m going there.
If there are people in the way, well, they can move. I was a tight end and I did a lot of run-blocking. I can’t help the runner when he first starts, but if he gets through the line then the linebacker I was assigned to isn’t gonna be a problem!
Because of my size I was a backup, but I was going to be a backup on varsity this year. Only, I was a better baseball player and I really needed an athletic scholarship or I wasn’t going to college, so I’d stayed out of football this year so maybe I’d still be healthy for the baseball season.
Anyway, the reason the PRA had asked me to go in for this first training test run was that, well, I was ‘special’. Hey, don’t laugh, that’s not nice. I didn’t ask to be special. It just happened.
Everybody knows what happened for the first set of Weapons, right? They woke up one morning, had medieval weapons hanging in the air above them, and when they touched them they went away.
Some time later, those portals appeared in several colors. Pink, Violet, Indigo, Green, Blue. People who had been given weapons could enter them. People who had NOT been given weapons couldn’t. On the other side of these ‘Gates’ they found, well, we’re starting to use the term ‘opponents’.
Once you were in there, the entry Gate disappeared. You had to get through the opponents and find the exit Gate before you could leave. Along the way, the Diver collected experience and loot, silver nuggets and assorted magic items.
The world beyond the Gates was divided into ‘Levels’. Some people had found documents (scrolls and such) which identified it as ‘Dungeon World’. The opponents in Level One, the one you got to first, might be easy for you to defeat. Or, they may not be. You had to defeat them to get out. If you didn’t defeat them, well, you weren’t going home again. A lot of Divers never came home.
Once you were done with the Level, you got two stairways. One went up and out. The other went down, and it wasn’t too long before the Divers were reporting that Level Two was a LOT harder than Level One was. There were more opponents, and some of them were bigger/stronger/more powerful than the ‘normal’ ones. And, as before, there were a lot of teams who said that if Level One went well they were going to head downstairs, and ... never came out.
Anyway, I didn’t wake up on August 1st and see my weapon hanging in the air. Instead, I apparently hit it with my hand as I was rolling over. Gashed my hand bad enough to bleed, and it was only then that I woke up. Naturally, my weapon was long gone by the time my eyes were open and looking up at the ceiling. Hey, my hand was bleeding. I was looking at my hand, okay?
So, apparently, on August 1st of last year, the Portal System decided to give thousands of fifteen-year-olds all over the world their own weapons. I was one of them, but I had no idea what my weapon was. Not a great start to my career as a hero, right?
Of course, we don’t actually GET our weapons until the first time we enter a Portal -or Gate- and see it hanging in the air in front of us. We can pick it up, and from then on it’s ours. Why would I want to enter a Gate when I had no idea what my weapon would be? How was I supposed to get training for my weapon and practice until I was ready for it?
Meanwhile school started. I was sixteen and a Junior. I wanted to go to college in two years. I wasn’t really a jock, but I was a pretty good baseball player. Since Mom and Dad weren’t that well off, I was aiming for an athletic scholarship to play baseball with one of the SEC powerhouses. Auburn, by choice. Bama, Georgia, Tennessee, Vandy, or FSU would all be fine, though, if Auburn didn’t want me. I had to make varsity this year, though, and I had to make my bones there, or no one would want me. Getting a full ride to play baseball at college was pretty much my goal for the next two years.
Yeah, getting a girlfriend was up there, too, but if I had to I could wait until I got to college for that. So, baseball was my priority. I’d decided to not play football this year just to make sure I was healthy for baseball. Man, that gave me so much more time, not having football practice all day.
Three days into the school year, they screwed my whole life up. Etowah High always had a school-wide assembly in the gym, where all the important people told us how important they were and then told us the rules. Some of the rules were the same every year, some changed.
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