I look around and see that maybe ten girls were quicker than I was, but for the most part, most of the girls are still working on their tests. Not long after I’m done, maybe three or so minutes, Julia finishes and then Chrys shortly after. We all wait in silence, half glad this test is over and half nervous for the verbal part. I again hope it has nothing to do with the boys’ packet. Regardless what it will be over, the verbal portion seems a bit more intimidating.
After the time is up and the tests are gathered, we are informed by Elle that we will be called individually to go for a one-on-one verbal which will last 5-10 minutes. There will be two testers so two of us will go at a time. Unfortunately, we are going in alphabetical order of last names, so I will be waiting a very long time. The first two girls are called out and I look at my watch seeing how long it will take them. One is done in just under eight minutes, the other takes only six minutes.
This would be a great time to sit and talk to some of the other girls, but since no one told us whether we could talk or not, we all assume that means we can’t and don’t. We just sit there. Some girls I notice are getting more nervous the longer we sit in awkward silence. I keep track of the girls and how long it takes so it gives me something to do. I drink my water slowly. It would be embarrassing to have to excuse myself to pee while taking the verbal.
I start to quiz myself on both first and last names of the girls remaining as I continue to time them. I’m afraid if I don’t keep my mind moving, I will fall asleep. I can hear my comfy new bed calling my name.
Halfway through and over an hour and a half of silence in, only one girl has almost taken the full ten minutes and that was Elizabeth. Not surprising. Her beauty was probably distracting.
I find Agnes a few rows over and up and smile at her understanding that we both have waited a while and have a while more to wait, her more so than me since her last name begins with a “W”.
I then look around the room and realize the Culling has all different types of girls. There are skinny and pretty girls like Elizabeth. There are short, curvier girls like me. There are tall and bigger boned girls. There are tall and skinny girls like Vanessa. There are short and bigger girls. There are girls with black, blonde, red, and brunette hair. Some of us have light colored skin, some of us have dark colored skin, and every shade of color in-between. There seems to be every combination possible present. So far, the Culling is apparently just judging us on our intelligence level. I like that. I want the next Madam President to be smart enough to handle the country, even if it isn’t me. Looks aren’t everything and it is comforting to know that up to this point they are more concerned with our minds than our looks.
Before I know it, we are to the “R” last names and I’m close to going. I look at my watch and realize it is almost 8 pm and I’m also starving. Since arriving in Denver, I have been constantly ravenous. Those darn chocolatey fountains are getting the best of me.
“Ms. Reagan Scott,” Elle calls my name and I stand and walk over to her.
She leads me out of the room a short distance to another room. Sarge follows behind us and waits outside the door. Elle opens the door for me and I walk into the other room, which is much smaller than the one we were just taking the exam in. There is just an older looking man, if I had to guess probably in his sixties, with a clipboard sitting in a chair with an empty chair across from him. He wears a suit and tie, and glasses, which I assume are for reading with the way they are perched on his nose. Elle leaves me at the door, closes the door, and leaves. Although I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to sit down, I wait to be told to do so. He hasn’t said a word but he doesn’t look happy to be here. His eyes match his hair and are gray colored and cold looking, just like his demeanor seems to be.
“Good evening, Ms. Scott. Have a seat.” He gestures and I do as he says. “This will be relatively harmless. I am going to ask you a series of questions and you are to answer. Some are yes and no, and some will take a sentence or so of explaining. Please don’t over elaborate as we only have 10 minutes. We will start out easy and work our way to the hard questions,” he recites this beginning part as I am sure he has said it over and over again this evening.
“Thank you,” I smile politely. I place my bottle of water on the floor, put my jacket across my lap and cross my ankles, all the while thinking that I am not thankful at all for his vague directions and don’t have any idea what I am going to be asked. The verbal tests we had in Omaha were over our classes. What will this verbal entail?
“Is your name Reagan Scott?” he starts.
“Yes,” I smile amused. By easy he meant real easy.
“Are you from Omaha?”
“Yes.”
“What is your job there?”
“Nutritional supply specializing in irrigational engineering.” I give the textbook answer. I don’t think he was looking for me to say, “I water plants.”
“How old are you?” He keeps quickly asking me question after question with no hesitation between them.
“18.”
“Does that worry you?”
Oh crap. Here comes the subjective nonsense.
“Yes,” I answer honestly and he smirks showing the first hair of emotion I’ve seen since I entered the room.
“Do you miss your family?”
“Yes.”
He asks me what has to be close to a hundred more questions that really have no purpose or meaning. At six minutes in, I am somewhat confused on what the point of this even really is. Why ask a bunch of dumb questions? To what purpose will that serve? No test questions? No academic content whatsoever?
“Did you have a boyfriend before coming to the Culling?”
“No.”
“Do you have anyone in mind for the required age to marry?”
“No.” I almost have to laugh at that one.
“Do you find any of the male Culling candidates attractive?”
Crap!
“Umm…probably. So yes?” I answer uncertain, thinking that I’m sure I will, but I haven’t looked at the packet so how would I really know? Was I supposed to lie and say yes?
“You aren’t sure?” he asks, looking at me over the glasses on his nose.
“Correct. I am not sure.”
Crap. Totally should have just lied. I’m sure I’ll be attracted to at least one of the fifty, right?
“Why aren’t you sure?” he asks, paying more attention to me than the list of questions for once. His gray eyes look like they are drilling into my soul, just waiting for me to trip up and make a mistake.
“Because I haven’t looked at the boys’ packet yet?” I admit embarrassed. I’m sure I’m also blushing.
“Why?” he asks, looking straight at me, maintaining eye contact with those evil gray eyes.
I think it was easier when he was just looking at the dumb paper. Plus his hair is oddly the same color as those eyes. Maybe if he would smile for once it wouldn’t be so obvious.
“I didn’t want to be distracted and I wanted to make sure I knew the girls’ names and information first,” I say honestly along with a sigh knowing that I probably messed that up. I should have just lied. Or I should have just looked at the stupid boys’ pictures and stopped avoiding it.
“Interesting. Why do you think that is important?” he is still watching me intently.
“Knowing the girls?” I ask for clarification.
“Yes.”
“Because I was sure I would be spending a lot of time with them. They are my competition. So that’s half of it. Even as my competition, they are still people though, and I believe you should treat people right even if you might secretively want them to lose. So, I need to know at least their names and where they are from.” I stop, then nervously add, “I’m sorry. That was much longer than a sentence.”
Why can’t I shut up? I’m sure I’m failing this stupid thing. That was not at all a short answer like I was instructed to give. I went way off in the rhubarb patch, as we say in Omaha.
I think of Marisol and her whispering and snobbery. “No.”
“Could you?”
“I believe so, yes. Or at least I’m hoping,” I smile shyly.
“Last question, which you may use more than a sentence for if needed, how are you different from the other 49 girls here? What makes you specifically different?” With this question, he sets the clipboard in his lap and waits for my answer.
I think for a moment or two before answering. “I have the will to succeed above everything else. I don’t do things halfway. If I am going to do it, I will do it right and it will get done, and I will treat people right in the process too. I do things wholeheartedly or not at all,” I say, looking him in his creepy eyes while I do. “I’m not afraid to work hard either, it’s kind of just how I roll.”
No smile. Nothing. Why can’t he be nicer for Pete’s sake? We sit there a moment, and I refuse to look away from his eyes though all I want to do is look down as fast as possible.
Finally, after what feels like five minutes of an awkward staredown, he says, “Thank you. This concludes the verbal part of the exams tonight. You are dismissed.”
He then goes back to looking at the clipboard, thank goodness. The gray eyes are majorly freaking me out.
I check the time to see my verbal exam was right at ten minutes, probably because of my long answers. I quickly leave meeting up with Sarge in the hallway, hoping I answered the questions like I was supposed to.
Everything is a test, after all.
****
Down at supper, it’s already quiet and winding down. Over half of the girls seem to have already gone back to their rooms as it is after 8:15 pm, or 2015 hours as Sarge would say. I spot Marcia Sanchez, the girl that I learned is working with water purification from Seattle. The one that I thought I might actually have something in common with.
I go to the huge heated containers of food in the back of the room and fill my plate with some of the pasta with a white creamy sauce and two fresh bread rolls. Making my way, I wave at Renae but choose to sit by Marcia and introduce myself.
“Oh hey. How are ya? Not a good night to have a last name towards the bottom, huh?” she says, striking up a conversation and immediately being less reserved than most of the girls I’ve met.
“Nope. This food smells delicious though.” I stop to smile. “It may make up for all the waiting.”
“Oh, I know, girl. I am going to go home fat and happy with the way they feed us. And that bed? Oh. I would rather go home with that than the clothes,” she laughs.
I laugh too. “I don’t even know how to use all of the stuff in the makeup kit.”
“Ah. Well, I don’t think it matters too much yet. Besides, my mama always says that you can’t hide ugly. Inside. Outside. It doesn’t matter. Eventually ugly always rears its face.” She uses a thick Spanish accent and gestures when imitating her mom and it makes me laugh again. “Not that you are ugly, hun. You will do just fine,” she adds.
“I can see someone must have passed their verbal exam. You are too funny.” I give her an honest smile, still somewhat laughing.
“Oh, please no. I got that stuck up man with the gray hair and matching devil gray eyes. These fancy heels I’m wearing have more feelings than he does.” I find myself giggling a little too much as she gestures, “Girl, eat that before it gets cold.”
“Well while I do, will you please tell me about your project? I’ve been working on a few irrigation projects myself in Omaha and would love to hear what you are doing in water purification.”
Her very brown eyes light up with my interest in her. I get the impression that she makes it a point to be interested in everyone around her but the feeling isn’t always reciprocated.
She takes a deep breath and begins, “Oh, girl. It’s nothing really. I’m from Seattle, obviously. Since Trident, water purification of the rivers and lakes has been the main priority. Obviously, we need water to drink first to survive, and then to grow crops and use for everyday living. I have been doing tests on portions of the ocean and figuring out a simpler means of purifying the water in areas where the toxins aren’t as dense. The salt in the ocean water is providing a shortcut in the normally lengthy process of water purification because of the chemical makeup of the salt and the oxygen already present in the water.
“We have to go about 50 miles out into the ocean to get away from the toxic shore, to where there are just traces of any toxins, but even considering all that and getting the water and transporting it, it’s still quicker and more effective in the end. Purifying is such a chore, not because of the viral contamination itself, but because of the contamination of everything else imploding because of Trident. No one will go near water that isn’t completely purified. None of the water we drink hasn’t been completely purified at least twice. Which is silly, but that’s just the way it is.”
I drop my fork when she is done. “Marcia, that isn’t just a big deal for irrigation, it’s a big deal for all water, for the entire country. This is huge. Call me ignorant, but I didn’t realize we could even drink water that was once ocean water.”
She nods. “We can. They did it a little before Trident but it was expensive. Now that money isn’t an issue and we have more technology and all the time in the world, no biggie! Ha. I would like to think it could be huge too, but many do not agree with me. We could use our method for drinking water and irrigation water both, but everyone is just too scared. Since Trident mutated and spread across the ocean, people don’t like to trust the water, and especially not ocean water. I mean I understand that since the initial contamination was through a water source how everyone would be skeptical, but still. Our waters have been clear of any remnants of Trident for decades now.
“People just don’t understand the basic components of ocean water and how we can use them to our advantage. The team I’m working with is having a hard time getting the people with the power to listen or learn. It’s literally safer for us to drink purified ocean water than water from the rivers and lakes. Since Trident, the same water purification techniques have been used on all water and that is the only thing the officials trust. Our process is essentially the same process, we just incorporate the metallic components of the salt into it. But because it looks different and isn’t the traditional way, no one will listen, especially any bio-medics,” she pauses to groan in frustration. “The best part of all though is the batch size we can make. How many trucks of water do you get delivered to Omaha at a time?”
“In my subdivision, four big tankers. Two for rationed drinking water and household use and two for agriculture. Which takes care of our crops for like two days but has to last us a week. So if we don’t get rain, the crops suffer.” That is why I have been working on designing hoses that let out droplets every so often instead of all at once and specialized for each crop.
“One batch size for this process we created can fill all the tanks on a train. So you would be able to get at least what, ten tankers to just your subdivision? We would literally have to double if not triple the trains just to haul all the water,” she explains proudly but not boastful.
“Ho-ly crap. Omaha as a whole only gets twenty tankers. I’m glad I asked. This is so amazing. If we had that much water, we could almost double our yields or expand the orchards,” I say excitedly. I also feel a little pang of jealousy that she is so darn intelligent to have created such a thing or even be a part of a team making such impactful changes.
This could fix a lot of issues. No one is really starving, but since there is always a push for a population increase, more mouths mean more food. And despite all our technologies, our yields are staying steady. This concept could be huge. Monumental!
In almost a whisper she says, “Just between you and me, I could care less if I become the next Madam President. What is most important to me about being here is to find someo
ne who will listen to me. The team I work with can help make all of our lives easier. We found an easier way to fix something broken because of Trident, but no one will listen because they are still scared of it. When will we stop cowering to Trident? We have everything to gain and nothing to lose from this.”
“Wouldn’t someone in engineering agree with you though?” I ask, trying to think of a way she could get more support.
“Yes, but as we all know, the townships don’t mix much. No one from engineering ever comes, just the deliverers. If they did, I’m sure they would agree,” she shrugs.
“You need to tell someone like October and see she what she thinks. I know I am sold,” I suggest.
“Ahhh, Reagan girl. I already thought of speaking to her. You and I will be best of friends here,” she winks at me.
“Thank you. I feel the same,” I smile back.
We talk about anything and everything until almost 9:30 and find that Marisol is the only other girl in the cafeteria by the time we are getting ready to leave.
As we stand up to go, she storms by us annoyed and says haughtily, “It’s about time.”
Since when does she have to be the last person to leave? Is it a rule or something? Come to think of it, she’s always the first, or one of the first ones in a room, and the last to leave.
Marcia whispers to me, “Who peed on her pillow?”
I let out a loud laugh in surprise and try to stifle it with a cough. Seeing right through me, Marisol whips around and glares at us both.
“Excuse me?” she says glaring at us, “Do you have something to say?”
“Yeah. I said I can’t wait to sleep on my pillow. No need to get your panties in a bunch, girl,” Marcia says fearlessly while playing with a strand of her chin-length hair.
I stand with my mouth open in disbelief. Though it’s the first day, everyone knows Marisol is the mean girl. She looks the part and acts the part, except around Elle of course. Marcia just doesn’t care that Marisol is a jerk. She’s got a backbone and she doesn’t let anyone push her around. And I love her for it.
The Culling: Book 1 (The Culling Series) Page 6