The wall across from the door shudders, and starts going down, revealing a hidden area behind it. The room stops rumbling. Suits of different colored clothing line the wall behind the original wall, along with backpacks below them.

“What are those things?” Jacqueline asks incredulously. Nobody moves until I step cautiously forward. Calvin grabs my arm.

“What if it is dangerous?” He hisses. I smile wryly at him.

“If there were booby traps in the room I think they would have already killed us.” After a moment of consideration, he nods and lets go. I walk forward and touch one of the suits. There is a full body suit made of thick, yet flexible material, and very stretchy. There is also a helmet, chest plate, pants, gloves and boots made of some kind of strong material. There were also a set of metal knee pads and arm pads. 

Everyone else was holding back and watching me. When they saw that I had not been decapitated, they also ventured forward and started to observe the suits. There were 5 suits in total, and they all had the same kind of design, but each was a different color. A peculiar thing about them were that 3 of them had full chest plates, and 2 of them had half chest plates. The half chest plates had a strange bulge around the chest area.

“I guess…we wear them?” I say weakly. Calvin gives me a deadpan look.

“Are you serious?” He asks. I shrug.

“Well, there is nothing else, and we aren’t exactly fit to go outside…” I gestured to our thin, gray, cotton shirt and pants. When we had woken up, everyone was wearing the same thing, and barefoot. It was a good thing Jacqueline and I still had our glasses on.

Liam sighs, and says.

“Well they don’t look dangerous. Yet.” I shrug, and make my way over to the suits. Jacqueline just stared at me with her mouth open. She marches over to me and looks me in the eye.

“You serious? If you are serious I’m supporting you, but you don’t look very sure. Hell, you don’t ever look unsure about something” She says.

“To be honest, I don’t know. But look at us, Jacqueline.” Whenever I use her name and not her nickname, she knows that something is serious. I gesture to myself, the others and the metal door.

“We just woke up in a room with no food, a locked metal door, in these clothes, and we just found what might be our way out. What else can we do?” I say wearily. She sighs, and nods.

“Alright. I guess we’ll just have to put them on. But how?” She ponders. I turn back to the suits, and pick out the purple one. It was all black save for an intricate design of swirling dark purple waves. I shrugged the thick material on first over my cotton shirt and shorts. I notice the zipper on the back and show it to Jacqueline. She gently zips up the back.

I move my limbs around experimentally, and grin.

“It feels like I’m scuba diving.” She snorts, and holds up the chest plate. As I put it on, I find that it shrinks to accommodate me. The 'sleeves' went to the middle of my bicep, and the 'hem' stops a bit above my belly button. I then slip on the pants, surprised that it was very flexible. The cuffs of the pants went to above my knees. The whole suit was snug against my body, and I could easily move around in it. I turn around and see the boys gawking at me. I raise an eyebrow.

“Privacy? Please?” I mumble. Their eyes widen and they look off to other places, pretending as if they had never looked at me in the first place. Jacqueline then holds up the arm guards and gloves. I slip one arm guard on, and find that it also shrinks to my small frame. I experimentally move my arms in circles, but it stayed put. I then put on the knee pads, and the boots. All of these were a perfect fit once I put them on, making it very easy for me to move around in. The bottoms of the boots were spongy and flexible, and I hopped around experimentally. I slip on the gloves, and Jacqueline hands me the helmet. 

I look at it apprehensively, examining it. It was a sleek oval shape, with the back of it empty. It was all black, except for a purple streak in the middle, with a semi transparent screen which I could look out of. The transparent screen showed my face, but covered some of my cheeks. It was a very smooth object, save for two buttons nearby where my mouth is. I click on the first button, and the screen glides back smoothly. I grin and slip it on over my head to find that it fits perfectly. My glasses were somehow not disturbed when I slipped the helmet on, and I could look out of it just fine.

I turn to Jacqueline, and ask “Well…?” She circles me, and nods.

“Hot damn Hailey!” Liam whistles. I grin at him. I examine the suit, and was pleased to see that though it looked sturdy, it was very light as well. I turn to Calvin.

“What is it made of?” I ask. He runs his hands over the black one he was currently holding, and he nods.

“State of art carbon fiber material. Automatically adjusts to the person wearing it. The body suit is made of strong bulletproof polyester. Also, there seem to be electrical pulses imbedded in the body suit somehow, maybe to regulate body temperature or something. I need to take a better look.” He confirms. Liam was also holding a suit, which was dark blue.

“This is really sturdy material. Looks like it would be water proof as well. Maybe the electric pulses can sense body conditions. They’re powered by batteries, though I don’t know what kind. I can see from the outside that these can be charged by sun though, because solar panels are integrated into the suit itself. As long as we stand in the sun, we can charge.” He continues. Only Jacqueline was going over to the wall of suits again.

“Guys! Look at this!” She called out. In her hands, she held a thin white book made of delicate paper. With large black print, the title said “Power Suit Instruction Manual.” Calvin was still examining the wall of suits. Liam and I head over to Jacqueline. Jacqueline opens the book, and reads out loud.

“Whoever finds this book, burn it after you read it. There is another copy in the ‘Settings’ section of the Power Suits. You have just come across a top secret government experiment, and you have come across it for a reason. These suits were created specifically for battle and infiltration, and the powers they hold are the results from countless years of testing and research. Keep them safe, use them well, and do not let them fall into the wrong hands.” She trails off. All was silent.

“Well that was optimistic.” Calvin deadpans. I roll my eyes.

“Please continue Jackie.” I say. She flips the book and shows everybody a page with the different suits on them, complete with labels and diagrams.

“You will see that there are five suits, in purple, green, blue, black, and white. Avoid using the white suit unless it is deemed absolutely necessary. Everything is voice controlled, and on recognizing your voice and your voice only, the suit will obey instructions. These suits have never been used, so the first voice that it will hear will be the voice that it will obey. To start up the suits, wear the helmet and say ‘Activate suit’. The suit will light up, and recognize your voice. Hailey?” She looks at me.

“Uh… here goes nothing…” I gulp. Slipping on the helmet, I press the button to make the visor go down.

“Activate suit.” I say, my voice slightly shaky. Immediately, the suit lights up, small pricks of fairy like lights running along my arms and legs. The screen in front of me lights up, and a robotic, vaguely feminine voice starts speaking.

“Voice recognition activated. Running diagnostics…” The sides of my vision is suddenly peppered with LED lights and numbers I could not make sense of. Diagrams and graphs spun confusingly, and my vision was focusing on random objects. I stumble, disoriented. Calvin catches me.

“Woah, woah. What’s wrong?” Calvin asks, concerned. I blink, still trying to adjust the confusing plethora and explosion of lights. I click on the button for the visor and the screen fades away as the visor slides up, bringing me into non LED light-peppered world.

“It’s just um… the screen is suddenly filled with diagrams and stuff. Jackie?” I sit down to try to clear my head, and hear Jacqueline ruffling through the book.

“Here. To simplify the screen just say ‘simple format’ that should lesson some of the lights and diagrams.” She says. I slip the visor back on, and immediately, my vision is all lights again.

“Simple format” I say. The screen lights up briefly upon recognizing my voice, and the diagrams organize themselves into neat stacks of labeled folders on the sides of my vision, and the screen lights dim. The numbers disappear, and the only thing I could see now were three icons on my screen, labeled ‘Settings’, ‘Diagnostics’, and ‘Combat’. 

In the upper right corner of my vision, it showed the time and date as well. 2052, September 5th. It was 3:27 pm in the afternoon. As Jacqueline spoke, the two boys were also struggling into their suits, Calvin choosing the black one, and Liam choosing the blue one. I help Jacqueline into the one that she chose, the green one. 

Typical. Knowing her, of course she would choose green. As Liam slips on his helmet and activates his suit through the voice recognition, he starts stumbling around the room, probably experiencing the same thing that I did. Calvin only snorts at him, and taps him on the shoulder, causing Liam to whirl around and stumble, causing both boys to crash to the ground.

“Simple Format Liam, Simple Format!” Jacqueline calls as I hold out an shin guard. Calvin manages to disentangle himself from Liam, spluttering all the while.

“Dude, I’m not interested in you!” Calvin yells. Liam’s visor goes down, revealing his annoyed face.

“Is this what Iron Man feels like all the time?” He mumbles to himself, staring at his metal gloves. Jacqueline smacks him, causing me to drop the arm guard that I was fastening on her.

“Can you hold still for like ten seconds.” I deadpan. She looks away sheepishly. Calvin had already put on everything, and just slipped his helmet over his head, while activating his suit. Again, the telltale bits of light run down his body, but he stands still, before his visor goes up to reveal his relieved face.

“You’re right Hailey. That was really disorienting. Too much stuff…” He grumbled. I smile at him reassuringly, and he colors slightly, looking away. All of a sudden, a robotic voice speaks from a corner of the room. My eyes, along with everybody else’s, widen in horror at the ominous message it said.

“All residents of base 121, please evacuate. The base will self destruct shortly. You have 30 minutes.”