by Edge, T. C.
“And please, gentlemen, if you'd accompany me we can all get going,” says the tall woman. “The sooner we finish, the sooner we can break for lunch.”
The sound of scraping chairs fills the room as the boys and girls begin filing out in opposite directions. I turn to see Jackson hop quickly towards me and slide his hand over my palm. “Good luck,” he says quietly. “Do your worst.”
Then he hops back just as quickly, a smile dancing on his face, and joins the back of the boys.
Do my worst. That's precisely the plan.
2 - The Testing
Once Jackson's left, I turn to join the back of the girls filing out of the hall by the left passage. There's a bit more spring in everyone's step now, after the testers' assurance that the final genetics test might be their ticket to a better life elsewhere.
It's true that some people have hidden qualities that their school lives and exam results don't show up, but for most it's little more than a dream. And clutching at hope will only make things worse come tomorrow, when everyone gets assigned their duties.
I trail in behind a few girls who are now giddily discussing the possibility of where they might be sent. Aside from the regions on the mainland, there are some nicer places on the coast, although they're generally populated by ship-builders, marine engineers, and traders. You generally need a sharp mind to be sent there, and our school in Arbor isn't particularly known to churn out geniuses.
Then there are the sea cities. They were built a long time ago to cater to the growing need for space as the world became overpopulated and underfed, and the earth grew parched and dry. Only the most important are sent there to perform the most important roles. Politicians, scientists, the wealthy and famous. Those that run the country and push it forward. Those in control. I don't know of anyone from Arbor who's been sent to a sea city before. I think the last was before my time.
We move down a passageway towards another part of the school, populated with study rooms and social chambers for the different school years. They're all separated, of course, between the boys and girls.
The smaller tester stops outside the social chamber for our year and steps to the side, before ushering us all into the room. As usual, I make my way to the back to find a place to stand.
“We're going to start by splitting you into two groups. Letters A through M will start with the physical tests and letters N through Z will begin with the mental aptitude tests. Please, split into your two groups now.”
A few confused looks are passed around before people realise she's talking about our surnames. I see a friend, Amy Appleby, move to the right and follow suit. After a bit of shuffling we've all gathered into two roughly equal sized groups on opposite sides of the room.
“OK, group A through M, please proceed down the corridor towards the main gym. You know the way. I will be taking care of the aptitude testing, but we have brought our own gym master to supervise your performance for the physical tests.”
At that she shoos us away with a light flutter of her hands until we're all out of the room.
The gym is only a short walk to the end of the corridor, where it opens out into a large room filled with various types of equipment. I don't quite know what the point of physical testing is, but am sure it's not as important as the others. I suppose it's testing more than just strength, but things like spacial awareness and coordination, although quite what use such things have are still beyond me. I guess the testing board know what they're doing.
When we reach the gym there's another tester waiting for us, this time a man. He's dressed in light grey, like the others, although his outfit is more like a boiler suit. His skin colour is, like the others, pale, and his hair dark and closely cut to his scalp. I'm beginning to get the impression that these testers don't see the sun all that much.
The first thing he does is instruct us to go to the changing room and dress in the appropriate outfits there. They're similar to his, grey and dull and with a funny smell, like they've been used several times before without a wash. When we return, he calls upon us to get into alphabetical order, before sending us back into the changing rooms to wait our turn. A quick look down the line tells me I'm in 7th position.
I can see the other girls twitching nervously as my friend, Amy Appleby, steps out. When she returns 10 minutes later, her cheeks have turned a special kind of crimson and her blonde hair is dark with sweat. She gives me an abbreviated smile before stumbling towards the shower facilities at the back.
It takes about an hour before I'm called up, at which point I happily skip to my feet. Unlike the other girls, I'm not nervous. No, this is going to be the quickest ten minutes of my life.
The test goes just as I expect. Speed drills, strength tests like clambering across bars and doing push ups. I perform spectacularly badly, of course, although even if I'd tried my best I doubt I'd have done much better. I decide half way through that this form of testing is more specifically aimed at the boys in an attempt to discover who might be fit for certain labour duties. I know that when Jackson steps up, he'll ace it. Half his life is spent at work already.
When I walk out I'm hardly even out of breath, and I get a look from the tester that says he knows what I'm up to. I'd imagine that a lot of people try to under perform during the physical stuff to avoid being sent for hard labour anywhere. For the majority of the boys, though, there will be no way to avoid it.
Next up are the mental aptitude tests, which I'm sure will be equally easy to fail at. Our group is taken to a room full of computers and odd equipment I've never seen before. It looks as though it's all been brought in just for today.
For the next two hours I carefully make sure I get just about every answer wrong. Some I get right on purpose to make things look real, and others I miss out altogether. I spend half my time glancing at the other girls, their foreheads creased with frowns, their heads shaking lightly with resignation as they encounter a puzzle they have no chance of getting right.
Logic, problem solving, strategic reasoning, the ability to assimilate information and learn new skills. Just about every corner of someone's mental capacity is being probed at here. Yet all this is pointless for these girls. All their parents are Pickers and Labourers, Breeders and Planters. That's all they're going to be as well.
I guess it's different for me. I don't dream like the rest of them. I don't hope that some test is going to alter my life. I don't even want any of that. I want to stay here, with my mother, where I can take care of her. Where I can go to work full time and save enough rations to eventually buy her some proper medication. Not the stuff that just keeps her symptoms at bay, but the real stuff. The stuff that will cure her.
At lunch I manage to catch sight of Jackson chatting with a bunch of the boys. I don't know what he's saying, but it's commanding their attention. He's always been like that. I suppose it's the fact that he seems so much older than everyone else, so they hang on his every word. I just know that every girl in school is hoping to be Paired with him. If they're going to be destined to life in Arbor, being Paired with Jackson Kane would be a great silver lining.
His eyes raise to mine across the tables and he gives me a look of 'how's it going'? All I do is nod at him and smile. All the boys look in good spirits, though, so I suspect the genetics test is just as the tall woman said – nothing to worry about.
If it's meant to be, it will be.
I hate that damn mantra. It all just seems so draconian to me. The entire point of Pairing is to put two people who are similar together. They marry and their kids will grow up learning the same trade. When those kids finish school at 16, they're assigned to what suits them best, which is almost inevitably going to be what their parents have been doing.
So, how is that fair? If it's meant to be, it will be. Right, but it's all manufactured isn't it? A huge set up to keep people where they belong. There's no way of escaping the rut that your life becomes. No way of bettering yourself or doing something you actually enjoy. Pickers
' kids become Pickers. Planters' kids become Planters. It's all like one big carousel, and around and around she goes.
My thoughts are broken by the sound of the tall, shrill woman, clapping her hands and demanding our attention. She orders the boys to follow her through towards the gym for the second round of testing, while our tester leads us off for our genetics test.
We once again arrange ourselves alphabetically before she begins reiterating what she and her stretched out doppelganger told us earlier in the hall.
“All you need to do is relax and lie back. There's nothing you can do here. You have no control over this particular test.”
She smiles a sickly smile, although I know it's meant to appear friendly, and slides her eyes over every girl in the room.
No control. That rings a bell. No one has any control over anything here.
“Now, the machine is intended to examine your inner 'blueprint', as we like to call it. It will decipher any particular abilities you may have that might set you aside from the crowd. You really never know what you might find in the most unlikely of places.”
Now she's telling us a story about a boy from Fossor, a mining region to the north. His parents were Miners, and each of their parents too. Two brothers, a sister. All worked in and around the mines. This boy, of course, was found to have some fantastic ability that no one saw coming, blossomed, and flew the nest. I begin to lose interest in her story as she tells it, and don't catch the end. Frankly, it all sounds like made up rubbish intended to give people hope.
Hope. It's meant to keep order, but I don't look at it that way. It's just another way to subjugate people, to keep them under the boot. This test, for all I know, is just another method used to distract us. Smoke and mirrors designed to appease everyone and make them think that, yes, this is precisely where they belong. They're Miners. They're Pickers. They're Labourers and Builders. That's all they are and ever will be.
All the while those folk on Eden, the central hub of power, are laughing at how stupid we are. Designing new ways to keep us down and doing the jobs they don't want to do. They pair us with each other, design a system that is meant to ensure the future of our nation, one designed to push us forward. Make sure that everyone is doing what they're best at. If it's meant to be, it will be.
Total and utter rubbish.
I tune in again just in time to see our short, stubby tester finish her tale with “so, you just never know where you might end up.”
I've half a mind to stand up and argue back to her. To tell her that, for as long as I know, nobody from this school has escaped the mainland. That the hundreds I've seen go through the Duty Call have all ended up either staying in Agricola or, if they're super super lucky, being sent down towards the coastal regions.
But I say nothing, because really, there's no point. In fact, I don't even know why I'm grinding my teeth so hard as I listen to her. As I watch her smile with this false warmth at us. All I care about is staying near my mother so I can care for her. Everything else is irrelevant to me.
We go into the testing room one by one. Our tester tells us that it will take about 5 to 10 minutes for the machine to 'read' us. The idea that any machine can know what someone's potential might be is slightly ridiculous to me, although I really have no idea what those scientists over on Eden are cooking up. As far as I've heard, there's almost an entire level dedicated to scientific research there, which is hard to believe given the city's size. All I've seen are pictures, but from the outside it looks like an enormous platform in the ocean, spanning several square miles with several levels, some of which are apparently underwater.
For me, it's like reading some science fiction book. I've never even seen the ocean, so the thought of giant platform cities being built out to sea is as odd as going to live on the moon.
The girls file in one at a time, starting with Amy Appleby. I wonder if she'll become a teacher at the school here, or maybe somewhere else in the region. She's always had this way with people, an ability to help them learn or guide them to a conclusion without giving them an answer outright. In class she's always been the brightest spark. If anyone was to leave the region, it would be her. At the least, she shouldn't be out toiling in the fields, she's too delicate for that. And her father's a teacher here, so I suppose it's in the family.
She reappears after about 10 minutes with a smile on her face. That doesn't really say much. She's always smiling, like old Madge out in the orchards. The girls start asking her how it all went, so she stands ahead of them, giving them the outline to help them stay at ease. I can tell that some, despite the tester's assurances, are still a bit worried.
“It's nothing, really,” she says in her sweet, comforting voice. “All you do is lie down on this bed and a large scanner hovers over you. That's all. You don't do anything else.”
“Does it hurt?” asks a girl.
She shakes her head. “No, no, not at all. It's quite relaxing, actually. It makes a nice humming sound."
Several girls go in before me. Their stays last differing amounts of time. Some are there only about 3 or 4 minutes, while others stay for up to 10. Before long, it's my turn to step up.
When I enter through the door, I see the bed and the hovering scanner, just as Amy described. Again, this equipment is alien to me, and must have been brought by the testers.
“Please lie down on the bed miss, er, Drayton,” says the stubby woman, glancing down at her electronic tablet to check my name.
I walk over and do as ordered. The bed's warm from the bodies before me.
“Now, this should only take a few minutes, Cyra. Just lie back with your head in the mould and relax. It won't hurt, but you may feel a warming sensation from the scanner.”
I do as I'm told once more, lying with my head facing up as the scanner glides into view. I can still see the tester, out of the corner of my eye, controlling the machine using the tablet in her hand. She glides her finger over it and the scanner continues to move until it's positioned exactly over my body.
“OK Cyra, are you ready?”
She doesn't wait for a reply. She taps a button again and immediately the screen above me starts glowing to life. I see patterns of what look like electrical currents shooting over its pale yellow surface as it starts to purr gently. Like Amy said, it is quite soothing.
I feel my eyes beginning to relax as I stare at the screen. The sparks of blue electricity are soon joined by red ones. Then purple. They dance together above me, creating a rhythmic, entrancing, show of lights. I've never seen anything quite so mesmerising.
I begin to slip, almost into a dream. Flashes appear in front of my eyes, like pictures on a wall, snapshots in time. I see the ocean, lapping against the shore. There are giant ports, huge warehouses nearby housing massive ships under construction. I see the coast again, but this time from the sea. Then a towering platform, giant waves churning against massive pylons launching it above the water. I see a wall, sprawling and cutting across a wasteland, as far as the eye can see. There are men there, men in uniform, standing atop it like silent guardians. Then I see a face, captured in a moment of pain. People surround her, holding her hand. Her eyes are lifeless. People weep.
It's the face of my dead mother.
I snap my eyes open and suddenly it's crackling lights of blue and red and purple that I see again. The outline of the screen comes into focus and the fog beyond it clears. In the corner of my eye I can still see the tester, sitting silently in her chair. I arch my head slightly and look at her. She's lost in her tablet as before, her eyes locked to it, unblinking.
As I stare at her I feel the warmth of the scanner begin to fade, the calming hum grow quiet. She shakes her head lightly from side to side before raising her eyes up to me. She seems surprised to see me staring at her, and immediately plants that rehearsed smile back on her face.
“Well, Cyra, I think we're all about finished here.” Her words are more jumpy than normal. “Please sit up and let me look at you.”
/> I feel unexpectedly drained as I pull my body up to sit on the edge of the bed. The tester moves around in front of me and puts her hand to my chin. She lifts it, gently, before leaning in and staring into my eyes.
“Um, is everything OK?” I mumble.
“Oh, yes, quite all right. It's protocol to check the eyes after the test.”
I don't ask her why. Frankly, I don't actually care.
“I saw things,” I say. She immediately leans back and her eyes focus on mine.
“Yes?” she says, nodding.
“Is that normal? I saw things I've never seen in real life before.” Right now the only thing I have seen is that expression on my mother's face. That grimace of pain. I see that almost every day. Those lifeless eyes are what I'm most afraid of seeing each morning.
“Um, yes. It does...happen.” Her tone is hardly convincing.
She steps back once more, before picking up her tablet. “OK Cyra, if you'd send the next girl in, that would be lovely.”
When I stand, my body feels heavy, so heavy I almost stumble. It feels like I've been up for days without rest, like that scanner sucked just about every ounce of energy from my body. Maybe that's what it does to 'read your blueprint' or whatever they told us. But then, none of the other girls seemed tired when they walked out.
I'm ushered to the door by the tester, who I still catch looking at me in a sort of curious way. “OK Cyra, I'll see you tomorrow at the Duty Call. You're free to go home, if you wish.”
Home. Yeah, right. I've still got a Picker shift to get through before then.
I pace sleepily down the hall and back into the waiting room to instruct the next girl to go ahead. When I enter, I encounter more odd looks and wonder if I look funny in some way. That maybe the scanner made me go red all over or that my hair's suddenly turned blue and red and purple like those lights.
They stare at me in unison as I walk in, following my footsteps. I hear whispers as the next girl in line steps up and moves past me to the door. Before I have a chance to ask anyone what's going on, I lift my eyes to the back wall. On it hangs a clock, its hands endlessly ticking round and round.