by Kal Spriggs
Her tone suggested that I was untrustworthy to even be allowed in the room. I didn’t care why she disliked me, but her tone and manners increased my anger. I don’t even want to be here, I thought, why would I care about one more stupid test?
The door cycled open and I stepped into a brightly lit room. A young woman, shorter than me, with a nest of curly red hair gave me a smile. She wore a sleek one piece uniform that had medical badges on the shoulder. “Candidate Armstrong, you’re the last one. Please follow me.” She had an odd accent, light and foreign, something that reminded me of entertainment modules from old Earth. Beyond her I saw a number of what looked like dentist chairs, each held another Candidate, with five total from my section. Each of them were cocooned in instruments.
Her smile and manner threw me off for a moment. Before I could respond she pointed at the last, empty chair. I went over and gingerly took a seat. It was remarkably comfortable, the more so after the smart material in it conformed to my body. At first it felt good… until it locked my arms, legs, and shoulders in place. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing to worry about,” the Doctor said with a friendly smile. A moment later, equipment descended from the ceiling above me. Flashing lights and beeping sensors surrounded me.
The Doctor moved toward the front of the room. She spoke quietly, but something in the equipment around me repeated her voice. She had a warm, friendly tone, “Candidates, your initial scores suggest that you are viable candidates for Sensory Cerebral Interfacing. This is a good thing. This test is called the Sensory Cerebral Interface and Mapping, or SCIM. It will begin momentarily.”
“What’s that mean?” I heard Sashi ask, her voice breathless.
“SCIM is a pilot program we are adopting with your Candidate class,” the woman said. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much more until we’ve completed the test and further evaluations. Do not worry about your performance in this test, it does not have a direct correlation to your performance here at Prep School. Please try to relax and remember, accuracy is more important than your individual performance.”
I had dozens of questions boiling through my mind. The name of the test suggested something do with our brains. Which was scary, especially with how little I trusted this whole procedure. I heard the machinery around me begin to hum and that only amped up my anger and anxiety. Who do they think they are? I thought angrily. What gave them the right to do any of this? I felt my heart race faster and my breathing rose to a ragged pant. Something seemed wrong, though. My vision began to blur. The lights and sounds of the machinery began to fade. Then I felt a sharp jab as a needle punched into the back of my head and the world went white.
***
Chapter Six: Not Quite Dead...
I stood in a grassy field, under a blue sky. I wore a skin-tight white uniform, unadorned and spotless. I looked around, there were five others with me. I recognized Sashi and Karmazin, but not the other three. I couldn't help but notice how the skin-tight uniform stretched across Karmazin's shoulders or the way it clung to his tall, muscular frame. “What’s going on?” I asked, feeling myself flush and look away.
“Some kind of linked simulation,” Sashi said. “It’s very good, sight, sound…” Sashi gave a sniff, “Even smell.”
“Why?” the only other girl asked. I saw her uniform had a nametag that read Takenata.
“Candidates,” the Doctor’s voice spoke. Her friendly and cheerful voice seemed somehow sinister and omnipresent. “You have completed phase one of the examination. All of you have passed to this point. Please allow a few moments for the SCIM to calibrate before the next stage.”
“That somewhat answers the question,” one of the other boys said. He and the one next to him were either brothers or perhaps even twins, both dark skinned and short. “I’m Ryan Zahler and this is my brother Tyler.” He looked around, “We’re all Sand Dragons, right?” Everyone nodded. “Well, at least this is a break from getting yelled at. I knew this would be rough, but…”
Sashi snorted, “This isn’t rough. This is just day zero. Mostly processing and paperwork. Day one is tomorrow, that’s when it really gets rough.” She had a tone of amusement and superiority. For just a moment I wanted to punch her hard enough to knock the smirk off her face.
Takenata squatted down, “I wasn’t expecting this.” I rolled my eyes at that, but I drew closer as the others talked. Sashi seemed to effortlessly lead them in discussion, dropping hints about what lay ahead.
Beyond her, I saw Karmazin walk along, kicking at the imaginary landscape. He had a scowl on his face. His superiority sent a spike of anger through me again. Thinks he’s so much better than the rest of us, I thought darkly. It shocked me to realize that I had identified with the group, even though I didn’t really know them. It didn’t surprise me to realize that I’d labeled Karmazin outside that group.
“Mapping sequence will begin momentarily. Please try to relax, the process will take only a few moments,” the technician said, her voice soft.
Takenata looked up, “What does she mean by—”
An icy cold hand forced its way into my brain. I lost every sensation but one of shock as the hand seemed to move through my mind, like a stranger paging through a book. Odd memories and sensations pulsed through me. The smell of fresh laundry, the taste of honey on pancakes, and the color purple all at once and then gone again. I thought for a moment that I heard screaming, but the noise cut off before I could tell if it was real or imagined. All the while, the icy hand moved through my brain, implacably driven by a cold intelligence.
I could sense that intelligence, I realized. It was powerful, but a thing of ponderous strength rather than finesse. The anger I’d felt simmering exploded into rage at this latest debasement. I focused all of that anger, all of that rage, and reached with my own mind to catch that icy hand… and hold it.
It made my brain ache. I could feel the strain, feel a moment of impossibility as I tried to hold the dreadful alien intelligence out. My mental focus and emotion strained against it and I could feel my will begin to crumble. Then, with a shock, I realized that if it could look into me, then I could do the same. I grasped the iciness into myself and merged. For just a moment, I perceived a world of absolutes, of calculation and precision… and then, before I could realize what had happened, it was gone.
I was standing again on the green field. Now there were only three of us. I looked around at Sashi, then at Karmazin. “What was that?” I asked.
Sashi shook her head, “Powerful program, lots of processing power. It felt like something laid me out on a grid and dissected my brain. There wasn’t anything I could do…” she shivered and looked at me, “Then I was here. And Alexander Karmazin appeared a minute or two later. You were gone the longest.”
“Minute or two?” I asked. It had seemed both like an eternity… and at the same time I felt like no time at all had passed.
“Yeah, it felt like a long time before you showed,” Karmazin said. His eyes narrowed, “What did you do?”
I looked away from him, “Nothing. Where are the others?”
“They haven’t appeared yet,” Sashi said. “Since we don’t know how long it will take until they arrive…”
The Doctor spoke, “Candidates, congratulations. All three of you have finished phase two of the SCIM. Your exam results will be processed and evaluated. The simulation will now terminate. You will regain consciousness momentarily.”
The grass and sky faded out to white. A moment later I blinked my eyes up at the instruments and machinery that cocooned me. I heard voices, “…poor kid. Anything you can do?” I didn’t recognize the deep voice, but he sounded concerned.
“I’ll do a memory block. It should erase the psychological trauma,” the Doctor said. I almost didn’t recognize her cold voice, it sounded leached of empathy. “The other two failures suffered no trauma, they weren’t ever able to fully integrate. I’ll also ask their Cadets and Instructors to keep an eye on all three
of them for any symptoms of neurological effects.”
“Seems wrong,” the deep voice said. “Did we have to do it this way?”
“No choice,” the Doctor said. “This program requires the SCIM to take place early on, even your youngest Cadets are beyond the threshold. And you can see the initial results are very promising.”
“Right,” the deep voice responded. “But it’s a good thing you didn’t lobotomize any of them, be a hard time explaining that to some concerned parents.” I tried to raise my head up, but the chair still held me still. Caution prevented me from saying anything… especially with the casual talk of ‘mental blocks’ and ‘neurological effects.’
“That was never a significant risk,” the woman said. “And before you run off to complain to Admiral Armstrong, let me remind you that this program has the full backing of the Charter Council.” Her voice sounded even colder as she said that, as if a direct dispensation from the head of our system government was a simple thing.
“Yeah, she knows,” was his response, “And that still doesn’t make her happy about it.” I heard a confused mutter come from Sashi. The deep-voiced man spoke again, “The Candidates are rousing. You should probably get back to work.”
“Yes,” she responded. A moment later the cocooning equipment withdrew into the ceiling again and the chairs rotated upwards to face the Doctor. I saw no sign of the other speaker. “Candidates, well done.” Her voice was warm and comforting again. “You three passed the initial two phases of the SCIM. I will remind you that you have signed a confidentiality agreement in your applications and that you will be held to it in regards to this room and the testing procedure.” She said the last in a cheerful and friendly tone, but I shivered at the implied threat. Who was this woman… and what had she done to us?
The chair released me and I stumbled to my feet. Sashi stood next to me and Alexander Karmazin stood near the door. I saw that the other three chairs were already empty. The Doctor pointed at the door, which cycled open, “You may leave.”
***
The others and I didn’t have time to discuss what had happened. Outside the door we were shouted at, told to run, and that we were already late. Sashi and I were sent down a separate corridor, which led to another lab. The first thing the female doctors did was have us strip down and then they began to poke and prod. They drew blood and administered injections. More of them than I would have thought possible. Before each one, they scanned my biometrics, just in case I somehow managed to trade places with some nonexistent identical twin.
After a tenth round of injections, they drew still more blood, and then pushed me into a full body biometrics scanner. The machine gave a low hum as it began its process. I stepped out of it after it had finished. The female doctor gave me an encouraging smile, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
I grimaced, “Yeah, thanks.” I was still too disoriented to do more than that. My earlier anger had evaporated and left me feeling confused and exhausted. I dressed, grabbed my bag and gear, and went through the next door. Cadet Salter was there to greet me.
“Candidates Drien and Armstrong, hope you had a good time... nice and relaxing?” she asked with a derisive tone. Her words rekindled my anger. I clenched my jaw, though. I would keep my head down, I did not imagine that attracting attention would be good for me.
She waited a moment longer, as if disappointed she hadn’t provoked a response. “Get moving,” she growled. I followed Sashi in a jog down the corridor, until it opened out into a large room. The high ceiling rose above our heads to where ground level must be, and dim natural light came in through the narrow windows. There were dozens of formations, all in the same dark blue shorts and orange shirts. Sashi and I ran forward, directed by the shrill shouts of Cadet Salter, until we rejoined our section.
We stood there, silent and unmoving, until Cadet Paulos appeared in front of the formation. “Candidates, this is the indoor parade ground. This spot is where you will form up when instructed to do so. From here we will go to your assigned barracks. You will remember this spot and how to return to it. You will, upon arrival to the barracks, receive a very generous three minutes to secure your assigned gear to standard and then return here to formation. We will then continue administrative processing. Is that understood?”
We gave him a somewhat ragged “Sir, yes, sir.”
I could see his scowl, even out of the corner of my eye, “If we weren’t so pressed for time, I’d conduct some remedial training. Fall out and follow Cadet Salter, move!”
***
Late that night, I finally dropped to my bunk with a sigh. The barracks were actually quite a bit better than I’d expected. I shared a small room with Sashi. It had a door for privacy, a pair of bunk beds, two small desks with chairs, and even a sink. I’d halfway expected an open bay with no privacy at all. “I’m exhausted,” I groaned.
“Wait until things really kick off,” Sashi said with a grin. She was up, laying out her gear and carefully stowing it away. “The next week will be the worst. We’ll lose… oh, I’d guess ten or more to injuries.”
“That many?” I asked. I’d already heard the Cadets say that we weren’t allowed to quit. That they let people leave for injuries made sense, though. The tone she’d used though suggested that some of those injuries would be with the intent to get out. “People hurt themselves to get out of here?”
“Yeah, some will fake it, some will actually make sure they fall and land wrong or something like that, others won’t have prepared themselves for this and they’ll exceed what their bodies can handle,” Sashi said the last with a bit of relish. “My brothers told me they had one Candidate go crazy with heat stroke and attack them, last year.”
“I would think they have some protections in place,” I said, uncertainly. It seemed stupid to lose almost thirty percent of their starting numbers so quickly.
“Yeah, but smart Cadets will find ways around that to work Candidates,” Sashi said. “I mean, we’re supposed to be the future leaders of the military, they need to find weakness and expose it, now, rather than later.” I felt uneasy at the way she’d phrased that, as if people were just cogs in the machine. She also seemed to enjoy the idea in a rather bloodthirsty manner.
I just felt too tired to care. The commands and drills the cadets had taught us had all blurred together into a mass of confused thoughts. My stomach rumbled, a reminder that several hours had passed since dinner. I couldn’t even remember what I’d ate, just that I’d eaten everything off of my tray. The entire day had blurred into what seemed like an unending nightmare.
They had cut my hair. I stank of sweat and I probably looked ghastly. My body was so tired that I could feel random muscles twitch and tremble. I felt ugly and tired and so completely exhausted that I just wanted to crawl someplace dark and die.
I didn’t even want to be here in the first place… but I couldn’t quit. That didn’t leave me with many options. I could somehow injure myself so that they sent me home, as Sashi had implied. That thought left me feeling queasy, though. Yes, this was miserable, but it wasn’t bad enough that I wanted to hurt myself. Even if I did, it might be bad enough that I’d be hospitalized. That’s sick, I thought, it’s something only someone truly desperate would do… and then why would they be here? The thought resonated with me. Everyone I’d seen here so far seemed to genuinely want to be here… everyone but me. How would I feel after another week of days like this, when even the people who wanted to be here were finding ways out?
It seemed like I’d already gone through months of time during just this one day. The instructor cadets taught us orders, commands, drills, names for everything, and rules. The rules seemed the most complicated. Each of us had a Candidate Book in our gear, which we were allowed to study when not otherwise occupied, holding it out at arm’s length, peering at the tiny, archaic plasfilm pages. No food in the barracks, no food from anywhere besides the mess hall, which turned out to have nothing to do with messes, it was act
ually just a cafeteria. The odd names and rules didn’t seem to make any sense at all, yet others were so common sense as to be pointless. No aiming a weapon at another Candidate or Cadet... who needed a rule to figure that out? Elimination of body waste is only authorized in the heads, which confused me until I looked through the book’s index and found out that a head is a bathroom. Which brought me back to why they had to tell us to use the bathroom in, well, a bathroom…
To say I was confused and tired was to understate it to almost meaninglessness. I’d had an absolutely wretched day… and Sashi seemed bound and determined to stay up working on who knew what. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t look up from neatly folding her socks. “They’ll do a gear inspection every morning. If your gear is put away according to the standards in the book, you can spend the extra time studying. Otherwise they make corrections and from what my brothers said, that involves a lot of muscle memory,” Sashi said. I'd already learned that the term 'muscle memory' was used whenever they punished us with the most grueling physical workouts.
All I wanted to do was collapse and get some sleep. I didn’t know if I could continue to function, not without rest. Part of me wanted to just curl up into a ball… but part of me felt that anger rekindle. I was certain those cadets wanted to catch us with our gear strewn about, so they could take exacting revenge. They were petty tyrants… and robbing them of their fun was the only way I could strike back. I groaned and levered myself out of my bunk. “Can you show me?”
***
Chapter Seven: Why Did I Do This To Myself?
The morning dawned... dark and early.
