Feuds

by Avery Hastings

  With only ten minutes to spare before her evaluation, the glass peaks of the Jenkins Center rose before them like a glittering castle. Davis took in a sharp breath, admiring the way its angles reflected light back into the street and onto the other buildings, creating crystal-rainbow patterns all around it. She’d always loved the Jenkins Center.

  “Right up to the front, Gideon,” her father instructed the chauffeur. He had unceremoniously replaced Malik, an Imp Davis had known all her life, with Gideon just two months before. Davis had asked why and received no explanation other than that her father felt he was sending a mixed message to the public by allowing Malik to be a part of their lives. Davis had liked Malik, who had always slipped her a special good-luck treat—usually a square of caramel chocolate, her favorite—with a wink and a smile before competitions. She had been sad to see him go—she’d forgotten, in a way, that he was an Imp. Now that she was seeing some of the violence and anger in the streets, she wondered what had happened to him.

  She stepped from the car, ducking her head against the sea of cameras that greeted her and her father. With the election looming ever closer, they’d been following him wherever he went. It made her uncomfortable, and even walking no longer felt natural. She wondered if the cameras would pick up on everything she was trying to keep inside. She ducked her head, folding into herself. Her dad pulled her close against him and wrapped one arm around her shoulders rather than ushering her through the crowd as he usually did.

  “Smile,” he whispered. Davis glanced at him, and his own smile looked painted on. She did her best to straighten and smile anyway. Her dad patted her shoulder, releasing her, and Davis gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Good luck, sweetie,” he called out after her as she made her way toward the glass building. “Make your mother proud.”

  Even though she knew he’d meant them to be encouraging, his words felt heavy on her heart. Not winning meant losing the best shot she’d ever had at making her father happy, at honoring their family and her mother’s image. Winning would mean the world to her dad. It would make him smile. It would bring her mother back to life, if only for an instant. And that was everything.

  * * *

  “PA?” a nurse waiting in the lobby asked.

  Davis nodded.

  “That way,” the nurse replied. “On the left down the corridor. They’ll give you your number.”

  Davis walked to the enormous conference room that had been dedicated to this purpose. It, too, was glass, yet somehow she couldn’t see the hallways once she was inside. Double-paned glass, she thought. Only the best. She walked to the registration table and swiped her P-card to record her arrival.

  “Please press your thumb to the keypad,” an automated voice intoned from her DirecTalk. Davis did as instructed, firmly holding the pad of her thumb to the surface of a small, rectangular device glowing red and mounted to the back of a large computer at the registration desk in front of her.

  “All set,” said the admin who was perched atop a stool behind the computer. She typed furiously, glancing up at the screen in front of her. “Fifty-two,” she said tersely after a few seconds had passed. “That’s your group number. Just wait over there,” she said, gesturing toward an enormous computer monitor to the left, in front of which dozens of Davis’s classmates lingered, “and it’ll pop up when they’re ready for you.”

  “Thanks,” said Davis.

  The wait couldn’t have been long, but to Davis it felt interminable. A small part of her wished she were a little kid again, with her dad waiting at her side. She shifted uneasily in her chair, wrapping her fingers around the bottom edge and squeezing tight. Finally, her number appeared on the screen, accompanied by the boom of another monotone automated voice. Davis filed into a smaller room with about a dozen others. There, she spent the next three hours completing a test tablet filled with rigorous questions meant to test her intellectual aptitude: her interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, spatial, musical, existential, and logical-mathematical intelligences. By the time the proctor called, “Styluses down!” in a clipped tone, Davis’s brain felt like total mush.

  The intellectual aptitude test didn’t really matter, though. It was just a formality, a pass/fail system meant to verify a basic standard of brain functioning among qualified athletes. Sometimes it culled those who scored in the top 0.1 percent for recruitment programs, but that wouldn’t apply to her. The most important exam was yet to come: a bodily-kinesthetic intelligence test. Physical Aptitude. The PA test would determine whether she would qualify for the Olympiad trials—and from there, the Olympiads themselves. Davis filed out into the hall with the others, craning her neck for a glance at Emilie. But she was nowhere in sight; it was possible the proctors had planned it that way. Maybe they were deliberately mixing the testing groups. She peeled off her outer layers as instructed—the jacket, her black workout pants, and sheer blue top—until only her leotard, tights, and slippers remained.

  After a short half-hour stretch break, it was her turn.

  “This way, please,” one of the proctors said, directing her toward a large white door marked with the number 4. Davis turned back as she went, watching the proctor as she nudged the other athletes from Davis’s group into other similarly marked doors according to their respective concentrations.

  The gymnasium was large and domed and made of glass. High above her, Davis saw evidence of artfully concealed observation decks. There wasn’t a stage in sight—or even a good surface to dance on—which caused Davis’s heart to swell and thud with a pressure so intense she thought it would crack a rib.

  The judges, Davis realized. The judges were up there. At least the council had made an effort to conceal them behind double-sided mirrors, though their shadows were still detectable. It took just another quick scan of the gym to see what the goal of the event was: the proctors and judges wanted to see how the competitors would perform under pressure.

  Inside the massive indoor gymnasium, she faced Emilie, along with other dancers from top-tier dance programs across the New Atlantic territory. They had been reunited with one another for this competition. This should not have been a surprise, Davis realized, even though the format of the PAs varied every year.

  But in addition to the expected faces—the dark, magnetic beauty of Alexis Bateman, a superstar from Echo Solar; the willowy Carolina Sheppard; and Leanne Pastor, so pale she appeared ethereal—were the legends. Davis’s heart pounded and she tugged nervously at her simple regulation white leotard as her eyes scanned the room.

  All the winners of the ballet Olympiads from the last ten years were standing before her, wearing their medals. Davis realized with a wave of new panic that she would be competing against the greats, the women and men who were now globally considered the best.

  Davis took a few deep breaths and curled her toes in her pointe shoes. She fought the urge to tear them off, taking a few deep breaths instead. She had to pull it together. This was it. It was her moment. And it didn’t matter who else was going to be there, because she’d been training her entire life for this.

  “Welcome, contestants,” said the proctor. She teetered in high heels next to the athletes who dwarfed her on either side. “This year marks a change in the format of the PAs. As you can see,” she continued, gesturing toward the previous Olympiad winners who stood beside her, “for the first time in history, we have invited the dancers of the prestigious New Atlantic Dance Company to attend the trials.” She paused then, taking a moment to applaud the athletes and gesturing for the students to do the same. The former athletes weren’t there to compete, Davis realized with a rush of relief; they were there to judge. Which was better or maybe worse, depending on how you looked at it.

  “We have also changed the nature of the trials. We have modeled our program after the classic training programs of the country’s best athletes. The program will gauge not only your capacity for physical excellence, but also your mental acuity and your cognitive-physical fac
ulties. These are all essential qualities for becoming a professional dancer.”

  As the proctor rattled off the rules for the competition, Davis glanced up at the events roster that flashed via hologram above their heads.

  The female dancers were required to do a minimum of seventy-five push-ups in two minutes, though Davis knew the minimum was far below what she’d have to achieve to be competitive. Then they’d complete a hundred sit-ups in two minutes, followed by twenty pull-ups. At the very end, they’d be asked to strip while their body measurements were calculated. Davis could read between the lines. She’d have to beat all of these minimums by a landslide.

  “You have been preassigned an athlete judge who will record your performance. It is only once you have achieved the minimum expectation for all of these challenges that you will be given a ten-minute break to rehydrate and a seven-minute opportunity to showcase your improvisational ballet to the music of the judges’ choosing,” finished the proctor. “These judges will determine whether you are qualified to compete in the Olympiad trials. And of course,” she said with a broad smile, “only a few of you will go on from here to the Olympiads. Remember, competitors: your futures start now. Judges, find your students.”

  Davis’s judge was a winner from seven years back, Molly Medina, who came from South Gulf—a territory that hadn’t yet produced many winners, as they’d been hit harder and were slower to rebuild after the floods that had consumed major portions of the coastline. Davis remembered watching her in the final rounds; they’d had second-row box seats, which they’d been given by one of her father’s friends. Davis had been mesmerized by Molly as a kid. She was still radiant with long blond hair, full lips, and striking blue eyes, and her compact frame looked strong as ever. Her shoulders and arms rippled with muscularity and femininity both.

  Molly smiled at Davis in a way that seemed meant to convey kindness. “We’ll start with the body-resistance exercises and move on to the rest,” she told her. Davis hit 140 sit-ups with barely any effort, though push-ups were a little more difficult. She managed to break thirty pull-ups, however; when she finished, Molly was grinning.

  “You did almost as well as the boys,” Molly told her, smiling full-on then. “So I’d say you did pretty well. Now all you have to do is dance your heart out.”

  “And get measured,” Davis corrected her. She allowed herself a little smile but took another long breath, fighting to keep her excitement in check. She could feel the end, taste it. She could almost see the letter inviting her to compete in the Olympiad trials. All she had to do now was dance.

  “What about Emilie?” she asked, knowing Molly would understand what she wanted to know.

  “She slipped to sixth,” Molly said. Sixth. That was so bad, Davis almost felt sorry for her. Only four dancers from their area would advance to the trials, and only two to the Olympiads after that. “You’re tied for first,” Molly continued.

  “With Alexis?”

  Molly nodded. “I’m not supposed to say this, Davis, but I’ve been keeping an eye on you for the past few months. Ever since I found out I’d be judging the PAs. You’re a darned good dancer. I was glad to find out this morning that I’d be paired with you. Now go get changed, then get out there and kill it.” She handed Davis a smoothie: a cup of green sludge that tasted like chalk and went down thick and sticky. Davis downed it in two gulps.

  Spots of sweat were already staining her leotard; she hoped the judges wouldn’t take off points for that. For now, though, the stage was obscured by a plasma screen, darkened to a deep shade of gray—almost black—an odd, mottled color that resembled smoke. She couldn’t see who was performing behind it. She stood on her toes, flexing her calves in an effort to breathe life back into them.

  All she had to do was feel the music, breathe life into a routine, nail it. It was the easiest part of the whole day. So why did she feel so nervous?

  A second later, Emilie emerged. Davis tried smiling at her, but Emilie just grimaced, looking super pale. Had she fallen? Emilie was famous for being flawless, almost robotic. Emilie avoided eye contact and pushed past Davis, her pace quickening. Davis’s world narrowed a little, dampening at the edges before shifting back into focus.

  “Pay attention!” Molly said sharply. She nudged Davis toward the stage, and it was only then that Davis heard her name being called. She walked through the dark barrier onto the cold stone slab, and Molly was gone.

  Everything was gone. She was enveloped in a sheet of black. The screen that separated her—and the stage—from the rest of the gymnasium extended in all directions, its surface a disorienting, cloudy black. As a result, the stone stage appeared to float in a chasm of nothingness, as if she were suspended on a tiny island in outer space. Davis couldn’t see anyone. From somewhere beyond, music piped and as a result, her pulse slowed. It was Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. She’d have known it anywhere. It was lovely, playful, and most important, familiar. She’d danced to this ballet more times than she could remember.

  As the opening chords filled the space around her, enveloping her body and working their way into her limbs, Davis felt her body coming alive. The Olympiads were right in front of her. She felt as though she were stealing them from all the others, as though the trials had been rigged in her favor.

  And then it happened: she felt a spasm shake her hands as she completed her jeté. It jolted her entire frame from spine to tailbone. And there was a sharp shudder in her head, as though her brain were sloshing as it tried to keep up with the movements of her body. It must have lasted only a fraction of a second, but when she regained control, her timing was off. The flute and viola worked together in a frenetic pace and she worked to chase them. She felt wave after wave of panic consume her, and her pace became frenzied as she tried to pace her movements against the escaping rhythms.

  Then it was over. The music cut out.

  Davis fought tears, fought the trembling of her hands. And she curtseyed to a wall of black.

  * * *

  The rumors must have spread quickly.

  “It’s not the end of the world,” said the nurse who was taking her body measurements. Her waist-to-hip ratio blazed its red hologram above her, in letters bright enough for whoever was observing to see from above. “Your timing was just a quarter second off,” she continued. “You’re a favorite, you know.” She gave Davis a warm smile. “Your mother was … well, she was a dream. Everyone wants to see you follow in her footsteps.”

  Davis tried to smile but found herself fighting back tears. At least her body measurements were right on target, even closer to perfect than she’d dared hope.

  “This won’t affect your ability to qualify,” the nurse said around the miniature calipers that she gripped between her teeth as she worked a thin wire around Davis’s forearm to test her bone mass density. She gave her a reassuring pat on her shoulder. “We hope it won’t, anyway. Everyone’s rooting for you to make the trials.”

  We hope it won’t, anyway. The sentence hit Davis with the force of a boulder. She staggered back, struggling not to give in to another bout of the same overwhelming light-headedness she’d experienced onstage.

  “Are you okay?” The nurse gave Davis a concerned look. “I know this kind of thing can be disappointing—maybe you ought to lie down. We’re finished now.” Now Davis was sure she was attracting attention from the other girls. A brunette with a pixie cut whom she didn’t recognize giggled a little, and Davis burned with fury and embarrassment.

  “No,” she said, stepping away from the nurse. She hopped down from the pillar. “No, I just need to use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” She struggled back into the clothes she’d put on that morning and slipped out of the room before anyone could protest.

  Once in the bathroom, Davis leaned over the sink and took a number of deep breaths. How had this happened? Her stomach began to roll. She wasn’t supposed to be feeling this way. She was supposed to meet her father for a fancy dinner to celebrate her straight optim
als on her PAs. He’d be sick with disappointment. She imagined the look in his eyes when she told him the news—when she told all of them. Fia and Terri had just assumed she’d win—they had all the confidence in the world in her. What would they think when they heard she didn’t make it? Would they feel bad for her? Or would they be let down? Nothing, nothing, though, would compare to her father’s reaction, his face, his dismay. Davis had never felt so miserable. She wished beyond anything that she could turn back the clock, have a second chance.

  But instead, she was here, in a public restroom, trying not to be sick. Sick. She looked in the mirror. Why was she so pale? Her skin had never looked pasty and translucent like this before. It reminded her of how Emilie had looked in the gymnasium, too. Was there something wrong with the lighting?

  Davis blinked and examined herself more closely, and this time she looked fine. Better than fine.

  A fit of coughing—followed by a thud came from one of the stalls behind her, making Davis jump; she’d thought she was alone in the bathroom. “Hello?” she called out.

  Silence.

  She crept closer to the stall door and knocked twice. Receiving no response, she peeked under the bottom of the door and saw a pair of legs splayed at an unusual angle, bent at the knee and tilted sideways, almost as if the girl inside were praying.

  “Hello?” she called out again, jiggling the door. A stripe of panic worked its way from her chest to her belly, and in an instant all of her own issues were forgotten. “Who’s in there? Are you okay?” She jiggled the door hard this time, and it swung inward.