They were back where it had started, two hundred kids in a hangar. Friesta Bauer was up front, but now Rosa was sitting next to Eddie. She was sorry he wouldn’t be staying—there was something comfortingly solid about him.
“So, we come to today’s cuts,” Ms. Bauer said.
“Wow,” Rosa whispered. “She doesn’t go in for small talk.” Eddie nodded.
“You all scored in the top tenth of the top percentile on the math test, compared to a national average. Seventy-nine of you failed to complete the physics exam. You didn’t make good use of your time.” The extra five questions. That didn’t really seem fair.
“Those were just general screening tests. We expected these results. Failure to finish the physics exam only hurt you if you got a questionable result on another test. Which brings us,” she said, glancing at her clipboard, “to the Christmas lights. She stared out at them. “People, there was no need to untangle the lights. Were you asked to untangle them?”
She waited, as though anyone was going to answer.
“No, you weren’t. It was a waste of your time. This was about priorities and decision making.” Fourteen people finished with negative scores. Another twenty people who didn’t notice the scroll bar on the physics test finished with scores under two hundred. Those people will be cut.” She glanced back at her clipboard. “Now, the scorpion results were very interesting.”
Everyone squirmed except Eddie, who slumped fractionally. Rosa felt bad for him, but after what he did, she was surprised they hadn’t cut him loose right then. Or arrested him.
“You were told to put a hand in a box with a scorpion—its tail was clipped, by the way.” Nervous laughter from the contestants. “If you froze under pressure and put in your dominant hand—well, we’re not the right place for you. We cut another seventeen people based on the scorpion test. Thank you for participating today. Your parents have been called and are waiting for you.” She motioned to the door and read the names of all the people who’d been cut so far. Rosa hoped Ellis would be one of them, but no such luck. No one moved for a moment, then a girl got up and moved to the door without looking at anyone, and the others who were cut followed her out. The room was quiet.
“We got an unusual result from an eighteenth person,” Ms. Bauer went on. Eddie slumped farther, and his shoulder bumped Rosa’s. “One contestant, Eddie Toivonen, chose the attendant’s hand, and put it in the box.” There was an audible gasp from the crowd. “Eddie, stand up, please.” He took a breath and rose. “Well done.” He stood there for a moment, looking confused.
“Which brings us to the helicopter test,” she said. Eddie slowly sank back onto his chair.
“Am I supposed to leave?” he whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Rosa said, and gave him a big smile.
“Sixty-seven people never did get the block in the canister. Eight of those wrecked their helicopters because they never figured out which one they were controlling. The other fifty-nine kept mashing the block into the lid of the canister, even though it didn’t have an opening.”
Rosa turned and looked at Eddie, eyes wide. “I thought it was off-center,” she whispered.
He nodded.
“The opening was in the back of the canister,” Ms. Bauer said. “Five of those sixty-seven people were eliminated by the scorpion test. The remaining sixty-two may leave now: Amy Stone, Maryanne Billings, Donald Jeffrey Tardall …” People started filing out. There were suddenly a lot more empty seats.
“The net was simply designed to frustrate you, to set you up for the next tests. However, one person was completely unable to negotiate it, became stuck, and didn’t try to extricate herself. Britney Peterson, you’ve been cut.”
Rosa slunk a little lower in her seat. Britney Peterson had to be a top-notch student. All she’d done was get stuck in a rope and cry about it. This was humiliating. Britney seemed to think so, too, because she was in their row and was sniffling as she pushed past, rushing for the door.
“The card game gave us some interesting results. The strategy was obvious—you had to take chances to reclaim the hostages. There was no other option. But once you realized they were real people, and saw graphic evidence of what happened if you didn’t win their release, twenty-nine of you refused to play, or became so cautious that you didn’t get a chance to play for all the hostages. How did that help them?”
“Like anybody’s going to answer,” Rosa whispered.
The woman looked over. Had her voice carried that much? There weren’t as many people in the hangar now—less ambient sound to cover the whisper. She gripped her purse tighter.
“The point is, fifteen of you were so clouded by emotion that you failed to do the logical thing, even when your course of action was obvious. Those fifteen people are dismissed.”
Again the names, the hesitation, then the shuffling for the exit.
“Which brings us to the elevator,” she said.
A general groan rose from the room.
“There were two parts to this test—the first was making some observation of free fall while under stress—that is, while in free fall. There were any number of things you could have said.” She looked up. “‘Oh, shit’ turned out to be the most common.”
The contestants laughed nervously.
“Twenty-one people became completely tongue-tied and said nothing whatsoever. We had to stop their elevators. Two people recited the alphabet …”
Eddie snorted.
“… which, while accurate, was not relevant. One person declared his love for Jenna Lindeman …”
Rosa winced. This was just humiliating.
“… which, while interesting to whoever Jenna is, has nothing to do with us.” She read the list of people who were dismissed. When she called Eric Barger’s name, she added, “Give Jenna our best.” There was a little ripple of laughter.
“This is going to be terrible when it gets to me,” Eddie said.
“What did you say? They hadn’t put the sticky notes up on the board yet when I went past it. The guy just told me what they were doing.” Rosa didn’t say it was because she was the best. But she thought it.
“Um.”
She kept looking at him. She wasn’t letting him off that easily.
“I discussed states of matter.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound …”
“Shh,” he said.
“The rest of you referred to various natural laws that were vaguely relevant, usually interspersed with swearing,” Ms. Bauer said. “The second part of the test was to see if you would cheat. We made it easy for you to claim someone else’s thoughts as your own, and waited to see if you would do it.” She scanned our faces. “Seven of you did. You have been cut.”
Across the room Ellis rose. “That’s not fair!” He turned and pointed over rows of empty seats toward Eddie. “That guy cheated with the scorpion!”
Eddie got very still. It was a coiled kind of quiet. Ms. Bauer gave Ellis a hard stare, and he dropped his hand but kept standing.
“We asked him to choose a hand,” she said, her voice clipped, “and he chose the one of the person who’d put him in that situation. Where one hundred ninety-nine of you saw only two options—dominant or nondominant hand—Eddie saw a third way. We consider that to be excellent aggressive thinking under pressure. You, on the other hand, were standing in a hallway, looking over your shoulder, deciding whether to claim Miss Hayashi’s thoughts as your own, knowing that she risked disqualification if your words were attributed to her.” She flipped the pages on her clipboard. “Let’s see what you said. ‘Holy shit! Gravity! Gravity! There’s no gravity in free fall! No gravity! Oh god I’m going to die no gravity.’” She looked up and the laughter stopped. “The people we select will be a team. They’ll have to work together. Trust each other. She read the names of the people who cheated, and they had to get up and walk out in front of everyone.
“That would actually kill me,” Rosa whispered.
“Based on the rankings, several of you will probably be eliminated by the first test tomorrow,” she said. “But that’s it for today. There are forty of you left. Rosa Hayashi and Eddie Toivonen, please stand.”
They glanced at each other, and then stood. “These are our current leaders. Unless one of you can find a way to unseat them in tomorrow’s tests, Rosa and Eddie will be our new trainees.” She nodded to them, then turned and walked out of the hangar, her heels clicking on the floor.
Everyone was looking at them, and Rosa had the feeling she was the least popular kid in the room.
“Wow,” Eddie whispered. “She just painted a target on our backs.” They sank back down in unison, and one of the IA guys who’d been helping with the tests stepped forward.
“I’ll take you to your dorm for the night. There’s a pool table in the basement. Breakfast tomorrow is at seven thirty. You know where the cafeteria is—someone will drop by there at eight and show you where to go.” He beckoned and they all lined up, shuffling forward as he handed out keys.
“Rosa Hayashi?” She nodded. “Room 331. Girls are on the third floor, boys on the second. Your bags are already in your room.” A smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Two suitcases—you were planning to stay?”
She took the key. Of course she planned on winning—they all did. The suitcases had nothing to do with that. She just didn’t travel light.
“I had a duffel,” Eddie said quietly to the guy.
“Yeah, we got it,” he said.
Eddie nodded, relieved. It had taken longer to walk out to the IA facility than he’d expected, and he hadn’t had time to check in. He’d just dumped the duffel outside the hangar and hoped for the best. When they all had keys, the guy led them across a courtyard to a three-story cement building with a sign out front: Bohr Hall.
“Your key gets you into the building, onto your floor, and into your room. Dinner’s ready for you. You’re welcome to explore the compound, but be in your rooms by ten.” He opened the door and they filed out.
Rosa was in the lead—along with a kid who stuck somebody else’s hand into a box with a scorpion.