Until now, everyone who had fallen out had done so voluntarily. Now that we were so far apart from one another, our numbers were visible, and we began to hear them called out.
“Number five!”
I’d passed number five three times already. He was not even jogging anymore, but walking with a little bit of a jump in between steps.
So we couldn’t just stay in the game. We had to keep up.
A sharp ache grew in my stomach, like a little knot of pain rocking back and forth. Jolting around inside me.
This wasn’t just a physical test; it was a psychological one. Some lesson about the unknown quantity of time passage in space, the monotony of it, how it can fracture people’s minds.
I’d run miles and miles before. But I always knew when I got to stop. I was in control of it. Not knowing when it would end was brutal.
That must be the point.
I began to miss breaths. My stride shortened. No, no no no.
What the hell was wrong with me? I’d run this long dozens of times. Hadn’t I?
“Number thirty-seven! Number fourteen! Number twenty-two!” Nearly everyone behind me went away.
I was next.
Someone passed me. I looked up and blinked away sweat, my exhales as loud as my footfalls.
It was Hanna. Our eyes met as she passed.
The fair skin on her cheeks flamed red. Her blond ponytail was plastered to her neck and she limped slightly on her left side. She was struggling just as much as I was. Yet she was passing me.
Her eyes narrowed. She held my gaze a second longer than was comfortable. And I knew suddenly what she was saying. I dare you to keep up.
I felt my stride lengthen until we were evenly matched. My lungs protested, but as long as we were both last, we were both safe.
I hoped.
Silently egging each other on, we caught up to the runners ahead of us. The group was a fraction of what it had been. Emilio was ahead of me, black curls matted against his forehead but huffing along in a comfortable and strong rhythm, like he’d been born running.
That should’ve been me.
Luka was leading the pack. He was pouring sweat like the rest of us, but his rhythm was solid, his breathing steady, his form still perfect. His face showed no sign of stress. What the hell was this guy, a robot?
We jogged together so long I felt that this would simply be my life from now on. Jogging, heat pouring from our combined bodies, sweat staining the red track until an asteroid destroyed the earth and we all dissolved into atoms.
Was that a whistle I just heard?
“That’s it! Catch your breath,” Colonel Pierce called.
My first thoughts were incoherent strings of thanks to all the merciful gods who’d kept me alive. My second thought was that I was going to die.
My body screamed and seized. Lungs wheezing and legs trembling. Streaks of pain arced up my legs. Brain fuzzy. But I forced myself to walk and not stop. My heart was pounding so fiercely that if I stopped, it might just gallop right out of my chest and keep on going without me.
Groans of relief surrounded me, and as soon as the gray faded from my vision I was able to see who else was left. Hanna was bent double with hands on her knees, grimacing and covered in sweat. Mitsuko stood on the track, stretching, graceful as a gazelle. Emilio broke out into a huge grin and began moving through the crowd to high-five everyone who could raise their arm. Luka smiled as Emilio slapped his hand.
The girl in the hijab was still there, too—she’d managed to keep pace even with her head and arms covered. Holy hell. Now that demanded respect.
I caught her eye, gave her a nod, mouthed “wow” because I didn’t have breath for words. She jerked her chin up in acknowledgment, like she’d expected to be underestimated. Expected to exceed our expectations.
Emilio jogged over to me, huffing but somehow still animated. “Guys. That was awesome. We did it!”
I couldn’t talk. All I could do was nod breathlessly, sucking wind like I was drowning.
Mitsuko caught my wrist with both her hands and leaned her forehead on my shoulder, grinning with relief. I couldn’t help but smile, too.
We’d made it.
We walked a victory lap together to recover and then collapsed as one on the finish line, gasping and retching and rubbing our calves and yet unable to stop grinning. I looked over to find Hanna sitting on the track with us, bent over and heaving up a liquid version of her breakfast. Well, at least she managed to hold it down until the whistle.
Water had been left out for us in ice-filled coolers. As soon as I could breathe normally I chugged all the water in my bottle and lay flat on my back in the dry grass, feeling my heart knock against my ribs with less and less force.
Colonel Pierce had been conversing with his two attendants, comparing notes. Now he looked over at us pathetic lumps on the ground. “Everyone still on the track—congratulations, you’re in. When you’re ready, you twenty-five can go inside and cool off. Everyone else, we’ll escort you to your rooms to pack your things.”
I climbed to my feet gingerly—every individual muscle and tendon in my legs groaning at once—and a sudden white haze came over my vision. The world evaporated away from my eyes, and some small part in the back of my consciousness realized I no longer had any idea which way was up.
Hands reached out and grabbed me at the elbow, kept me up. Gradually the colors of the world bubbled back through the haze. I swayed, unsteady, but the dizziness was draining away.
“That was weird,” I mumbled, confused. Time seemed to stand still. My eyes moved slowly up the arm that was keeping me vertical.
Luka was looking down at me—he was taller up close—with a look of concerned bemusement.
His hands were wrapped around my upper arm. He’d caught me. I’d basically fallen into him.
Emilio bounded up beside me, hands closing around my other elbow. “Whoa, Lola, you okay? Come on, let’s get you back into the air-conditioning.”
My brain was running slow. I could’ve sworn Emilio had just called me “Lola.” I looked back to Luka, but he was already gone.
The losers glared at us as they went inside. Limping back into the building, my entire body was in agony. Everything was sticking to me—my skin feeling like I’d rubbed it raw with hot sandpaper, throat dry as wood shavings no matter how much I drank. I collapsed into a chair, put my forehead against the cool slate table, and closed my eyes. The dizziness was still there, tossing me around like gentle, insistent waves.
After a while I realized Giselle had been among the ones who had thrown up and been tossed out early. I didn’t see her leave. Landon, whom we all were supposed to recognize, was gone, too.
I thought we’d go straight back to our rooms, but Colonel Pierce and Ms. Krieger came to us first. Today she was dressed casually, white polo tucked into khaki pants, but her hair was still blow-dried Texas high.
“Congratulations,” Ms. Krieger said. “You made the first cut! I’m sure you’ll all be very relieved to know that you passed the hardest physical test we plan to give you. The rest will be academic and psychological, and those tests, for some people, will be much harder. Good luck on the rest of your week!”
The colonel spoke. “We’ve ranked you based on your times on the track. These rankings will be posted here in the cafeteria and will change depending on your performance throughout the rest of the selection.”
We were dismissed. Most headed back to their rooms, though a few stayed in the cafeteria to load up on some more food. Personally, I didn’t want to see food again for a week. I wanted a shower and a nap, preferably at the same time.
Emilio and some of his friends whooped down the hallway, jumping and waving their sweat-soaked shirts around over their heads like victory flags.
“How are they able to do that?” I complained. My muscles were barely working.
“Oh God,” Mitsuko groaned, clamping a hand over my and Hanna’s shoulders to support herself. “I feel like all my bones are
made of shrapnel.”
Hanna pried Mitsuko’s hand off her shoulder, where it left a white handprint on her flushed skin. “Yeah? Well, my skin feels like it’s been baked, so let’s ease up on the touchy feely.”
Our room felt slightly bigger without Giselle and her luggage. I was about to fall headfirst on my bed when Mitsuko called out, “Don’t!”
I only had enough energy to raise my eyebrows.
“You’re disgusting. No offense. But who wants to sleep in dirty sheets?” She fell backward onto Giselle’s bed with a soft thump and raised an upside-down eyebrow like a question mark. “She won’t be using it again.”
FOUR
THEY GAVE US a half hour to recuperate, most of which I spent waiting for my turn in the bathroom. Our first class was at eleven, which meant we’d circled that track for at least three hours.
Showered, sore, and limping, I hobbled to class with my roommates, fuzzy-brained but ready for whatever else they might throw at me.
With only twenty-five of us still in the competition, we were all in class together. As I opened the door, my eyes swept over the remaining candidates. Before the race, a little under half of the contestants had been girls, and that ratio seemed to hold up afterward.
Emilio was already there, busy talking to a group of guys—that kid made friends faster than the speed of light—so I took a seat near the door with Mitsuko and Hanna. We were quiet, too tired to talk, which was fine by me.
No windows in the cinder-block walls, no decoration, only a desk and a digital display board at the head of the room.
Emilio, laughing, turned around and saw me. “Hey, Lola! What are you doing all the way over there?” He patted the empty desk beside him. “Come sit next to me so I can cheat off you.” The boys around him were smiling, too. Everyone was still basking in the glow of making the first cut.
I smiled tentatively, feeling an unfamiliar sense of camaraderie instead of typical annoyance that came from social interaction. I’d never had an invitation to sit next to someone before, so I slid out of my chair and into the one beside him. Mitsuko gave me a raised eyebrow, interest piqued. But Hanna didn’t seem to notice or care.
“You don’t even know my name, do you?”
“Of course I know your name, Cassandra Gupta. I remember everything.” He tapped his temple. “Perfect memory. But I’ve decided you look more like a Lola. No offense?”
“Nicknames are kind of Esteban’s thing,” said a smiling boy behind Emilio.
I was warming to Emilio. He’d apparently had enough chops to make it through that grueling run and he still managed to have a smile on his face afterward. And I’d never had anyone in my last eleven years of private school be as nice to me as he had been in the past twenty-four hours. “Nah. I like it.”
“Cool.” He winked. “Have you met Antony?”
The other guy had an open, friendly face and curly brown hair. He put out his hand for me to shake. “It’s actually Antonio—most people call me Anton, present company excluded. I had the good fortune to end up Esteban’s roommate.”
I smiled politely. “Good luck with that.” He laughed.
“Antony’s from Brazil,” Emilio said proudly. “So he speaks even better Spanish than me. Which, to be fair, isn’t too hard as I have, like, preschool-level Spanish.”
“We speak Portuguese in Brazil,” Anton said with a teasing grin, elbowing him. “Hombre.”
Emilio laughed, taking the hit to his ego without flinching. “I knew that.”
Just then, the guy sitting in front of Emilio turned in his chair, and I realized with a start that it was Luka. Clean, with his blond hair still a little wet from the shower, combed neatly just as it had been when I first met him.
Did he expect me to greet him because we’d met before? Awkwardly I opened and closed my mouth without making any sound. Luka cocked his head a little at me, his expression curious like a bird’s.
Just in time, a man in a blue polo came through the door. “Good morning, candidates,” he said with a genuine smile. Laugh lines crinkled around his bright, intelligent eyes. Rusty-red hair fell over his brow, and though he looked youthful, his skin looked prematurely aged from the sun. I’d guess midforties. “Welcome to your first class. I’m Logan Shaw, former NASA astronaut and mission specialist with ten days logged in space. I have degrees in aerospace and mechanical engineering, as well as astrophysics, so that’s mostly what we’re going to talk about in here. Since this is your first class, and you will be spending pretty much all your time together, why don’t we start by learning each other’s names?”
Everyone went around the room introducing themselves. The boys I’d noticed earlier were Deepak and Samir. The hijabi girl was Nasrin; the girl with the pixie cut was Katrina. There was a Boris, Mahdi, Pratima, Kendra, Sarnai, Marisol, and Giorgia. Names and people from all over the globe.
Shaw said, “Who knows the closest star to the sun?”
Everyone raised their hands. I smiled as he looked over at me and nodded. “Proxima Centauri,” I answered. Really, this was where we were starting? With the basics?
“Of course,” Shaw said. “And it is how far from Earth?”
“Approximately four light-years,” Anton said.
“Right again. So here’s a thought experiment for you. Say we want to get to the Alpha Centauri system. How would we do that?”
“Nuclear pulse propulsion,” Deepak said. “It’s been in theory since the first moon landing.”
Shaw nodded thoughtfully. “We could do that, if we had the inclination. But four light-years? Even with nuclear propulsion systems currently in design, that would take us . . .”
“Over three hundred years,” said Katrina.
“Problematic,” Shaw said with a smile. “Any other ideas?”
“Ion engines,” I said. “They generate smaller levels of thrust, but they can last for hundreds of years and accelerate almost indefinitely.”
“Good,” Shaw said, nodding. “A primitive version worked for the Deep Space 1 mission at the turn of the century. What else?”
The room was quiet, and then Emilio spoke. “What else is there? Short of breaking the laws that hold the universe together.”
“There’s antimatter catalyzation,” said Mitsuko.
“That never got out of its infancy,” Emilio argued. “Nobody wants to pay for it to be studied nowadays.”
Hanna joined in. “Even if we had technology like that, you’re still talking about a star so far away that light itself takes four years to reach it. What’s the point? Without faster-than-light travel, it’s impossible to get to another solar system within a human life span. And with FTL travel, if we ever circumvent the known laws of physics, you’re still asking an astronaut to leave Earth as they know it, maybe forever.”
She had a point. A depressing one.
The way Shaw watched the discussion, arms crossed and leaning against the desk with an amused look on his face, made me suspicious. I cut in. “Just because we don’t know about it yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
Shaw smiled. “How right you are. Who here has heard of something called an Alcubierre drive?”
My heart skipped a beat. I raised my hand. Maybe half the other kids did the same, including Hanna. “It’s not a real thing,” Hanna said.
“It’s theoretical, true. For those who aren’t aware, an Alcubierre drive is a speculative engine that works off the principle of theory of relativity. Instead of breaking the laws of physics, it would only . . . bend them. This technology would allow a spaceship to contract and expand space-time in a small bubble around itself, allowing humans to approach relative speed of light, without the time loss of conventional faster-than-light theories. No one has ever built a full-scale model with conclusive, positive results. Until now.”
The room fell so quiet I wondered if I’d lost my hearing.
“Sir . . . are you saying that humans have developed faster-than-light travel?” Anton asked, a hush in his vo
ice.
Shaw’s face was enigmatic. “No, I’m not saying that. But let’s labor under the presumption that we have, and discuss the possible ramifications of this technology. How would it work? How fast could it travel? What are the risks?”
The discussion continued for two more hours, leaping way beyond me, delving deeper into theoretical aerospace engineering and astrophysics than I’d ever learned about either in school or on my own. I perched on the edge of my seat, watching words fly like Ping-Pong balls, volleying whenever I could, soaking up as much knowledge as my mind could retain.
By the end, I felt dizzy. Shaw had effectively just told us that humanity had made the most significant space travel breakthrough in its history, and it hadn’t been made public. Why? Because it hadn’t been tested? Because it was dangerous?
We broke for lunch, heading to the cafeteria en masse. I silently made myself an avocado and hummus sandwich and sat at an empty table, mind still reeling from class, wanting time alone to think.
“Hey.”
I jumped. Hanna was leaning over the seat next to me. “Hey,” I answered, wary.
“What’d you think of class?” She was looking at me in that scientific way, unsmilingly curious, trying to examine my face for clues like I was a new species she didn’t understand.
I hadn’t gotten a good feel for Hanna yet. Unsure what she was looking for, I kept my answers curt. “Kind of out there, isn’t it? The Alcubierre drive stuff?”
“Yeah, wild.” She didn’t seem too interested in discussing it.
“I’ve never had a class like that. But at least they aren’t grading us.”
Hanna nodded slowly. Then she said, “You realize they are watching us all the time.”
I stopped chewing. “What?”
“There’s no grades because they don’t care how well you can regurgitate answers from the book. We’re in a controlled experiment. There are cameras in the halls and the classrooms. Maybe even in here.” She looked up and over her shoulder, leisurely, like one might expect from someone saying such paranoid things. “Haven’t you noticed? There are no windows, no natural daylight. No calendars to mark the days. The only clocks are the digital alarms in our rooms. We have no access to outside information, only what they tell us. The only entertainment is what we find for ourselves. We may be allowed to go outside—for now. But really? This is a simulation of a spaceship environment.”
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