The day had finally arrived, the air was buzzing with excitement as a new rumor was spreading across the agency.
"Hey did you hear, Dep A-5 are participating in this competition."
"Are you for real."
"Yes that's what everyone's saying."
By now Dexter and the others already knew they were the talk of the competition.
"Do you think it is good enough, I think we need to recalibrate the thrusters and, and.." Sophia said as she went on and on, on all the things they needed to fix.
"Calm down." Dexter said with a smile, "It would all go well, better than you guys imagine."
Angela was in her office working, head down focusing on what she was doing, her assistant was beside helping her out when she can, them Angela asked,
"Were they able to do it?"
"I don't know when I went to check I didn't see anything."
"I guess we'll have to wait and see." Angela really wanted this to work, her agency had been in decline for a few years and she needed something to her back on the global map.
************
The arena for the competition was a closed roof stadium, it could fit a capacity of seventy thousand people.
The atmosphere was electric as everyone was ready for the competitions.
There were lots of competitions one could participate in, but the ones that department A-5 were participating in were the Combat, weaponry, speed and technological innovations sections.
Weirdly enough Department A-16 were also participating in those exact sections ( Department A-16 is the department of the young man that was taunting Dexter and his colleagues ).
"Why do you think Department A-16 is participating in the exact sections as Department A-5?"
"Who knows all I know is that we are in for a show."
Everyone was pumped up for the show and just waited for the host to start things.
*********
At twelve in the afternoon when the atmosphere had reached fever pitch, the host walked unto the stage.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the annual Research Competition, man do we have a line up for you today, we have the likes of the returning Dep A-5, the upcoming departments like A-20, A-56 and A-34, I don't know about you but I am pretty excited about today's show, so let's hop right into it." After the host said that he looked at the big screen in the stadium.
"The first section, technological innovations, Introducing first, Department A-14." As he called out the name of the Department, it would be shown on the big screen and they members of the Department made their way to the arena.
After he had called out twenty more departments he then called out Department A-16 and later A-5.
The host looked at the group of people lined up in front of him, and said,
"You have a few moments to prepare your presentation."
They formed hurdles with their department members as they discussed their plans.
"How was the test run Dexter?" Travis asked.
"It was a success." Dexter said with confidence, his confidence was quite infectious as every one was also feeling confident as well.
"Ok we are going to go in and win this!" Travis said with enthusiasm and they all nodded with equal enthusiasm.
Philip noticed department A-5s confidence and couldn't help but look at them in disdain.
"Hey Philip look over here, department A-16 needs you to plan our presentation."
Well you guessed he was the young man that was taunting the department A-5 earlier.
After a few minutes the host called unto all the participants to start their presentation.
Department A-14, were the ones to go first.
A middle aged man who had lost some hair form the top of his head went on stage.
"Our invention is a prototype toy car that can move at mach 5."
After the man said that there were collective gasps around the stadium.
To move at five times the speed of sound, not even fighter jets could achieve that level of speed.
The man seemed pleased with everyone's reaction and went on to start his presentation.
He dropped the car on the race track in the stadium and turned it on.
At first it started slow but then it began to pick up the pace, it kept on getting faster and faster until everyone collectively heard a Sonic boom.
They hadn't recovered from the shock of that one when it occurred again and again, luckily it was just a toy car or they would have become deaf from the noise.
A speedometer was brought to check the speed and it read Mach 4.78.
Soon the car came to a stop and there was a round of applause for their project.
Even though it wasn't Mach 5 on the dot, Mach 4.78 was still a very difficult number to reach.
"If those guys participate in the speed section they are sure to win."
"Absolutely, I nearly become deaf due to the number of Sonic booms it created."
The competition continued, although none of the others was truly ground breaking like the Mach 5 car.
They were still good, Dexter of course had no interest in what they were doing but then it was department A-16s turn and Dexter perked up for this.
"Let's see what they have to show."