"This place is a goddamn freak show."

Mitch had spent most of this tedious day entertaining himself with the antics of the people around him. He couldn't help but think that when you gather everyone in the country together, some truly interesting characters come out. There were some people dressed up in their favorite superhero costumes as though this government mandated registration were Comicon or something. A few yards away from Mitch there was even a group of new-age types doing that hands-in-the-air grass-in-wind-imitation thing that some people call dancing.

"God looked at this place a little bit ago and said: 'Fuck this shit.'" In his boredome Mitch found this thought more amusing than he might have otherwise. "Then the Devil looked at it and said, 'Not even in Hell bitch.' Then whoever comes after the Devil took a glance and said: "Outofthefuckingquestion.Whatthefuckareyoupeopledoing?" Mitch snorted, more at his imagination portraying a character supposedly darker than Satan as a speed talker than at his actual thoughts.

Thousands of people of all descriptions were somehow, with the assistance of some nearby camo-decked soldiers, funneling themselves into ten testing stations. From the outside, all that could be seen was what someone who once read something about the military would call a field command tent. Each testing station was inside one of the large tents. The tents were each about fourteen feet high and about twenty feet wide. Only one person was allowed in at a time.

Mitch had been waiting in line, listening to the inane speculations of those around him, for nearly seven hours. He was finally separated from the entrance to the testing station by a mere four individuals. Each test lasted just a couple of minutes, so he was excited to finally be nearing the end of this travesty.

Most people came back out from the other end of the tent, but a few didn't appear before the next person went in. Presumably, these people were going on to take the physical test Alex had talked about the previous day. The testee from Mitch's tent emerged.

"Finally," Mitch thought. Under more normal conditions he might have berated himself for being impatient, but today he felt a universal pardon was in order.

The exit flaps of the tent next to the one Mitch was waiting in line for also whipped out as stocky man emerged with a somewhat triumphant look on his face that vanished sharply when he saw the guy who had just exited Mitch's tent.

"You asshole!" says the stocky man. Mitch marveled at the originality.

"Oh fuck." Muttered the one coming out of Mitch's tent.

"Wordsmiths, the both of them."

Loud Man stormed toward Mutter Master which caused the latter to backpedal rapidly. His movements seemed a bit faster than they should be, almost like a video that had been sped up slightly. Loud Man chased him, but he didn't appear to have gained the same benefit of speed as the other man and had trouble pinning Mutter Master down.

Loud Man started throwing wild haymakers any time he got near Mutter Master, but Mutter master managed to avoid them each time rather readily. It took a few exchanges, but after bit the soldiers finally noticed what was happening.

"You two, stop!" Shouted one of the approaching GIs.

Unfortunately, this distracted Mutter Master for a moment, and Loud Man managed to land a lucky shot across his temple.

Mutter Master's head exploded. Not figuratively. Blood, brains and bone shards sprayed out like someone filled a balloon with red Jello and then smacked it with a baseball bat as they drove by at fifty miles an hour.

The majority of this effluvia shot back into the gap between the tents. Some of it landed on the canvas, but few bits made their way onto a few of those closest to the pavilions.

Mitch had opened his mouth to exclaim some sort of thing. It got in his mouth. There was an eyeball on his shoe.

At first, he couldn't even process what had just happened. The whole area around what had formerly seemed to be just a little scuffle was now dead silent. G.I.s one-through-five had all stopped dead in their tracks.

After a moment, reluctantly, Mitch's mind began processing reality again. He threw up. Violently. Copiously.

This seemed to be the cue that broke the stunned moment. Suddenly, all around Mitch were cries, gags, retches, and screams. Various immediately identifiable splattering sounds spread about at irregular intervals; a couple of thuds as some of the surrounding civilians fainted.

G.I.s one and five managed to tackle Loud Man to the ground. Most likely because he was every bit as stunned as everyone else. Maybe a bit more, considering he was now a murderer.

They had put Mitch in a room for a few hours, alone. He had spent the time blocking out the replay of those last moments of the... fight? Debacle. Only, as soon as he had blocked it out, it would burst back into his thoughts again.

He only had to make friends with the porcelain throne thrice more.

When his time in solitary finally ended they sent in some army headshrinker who didn't know asses from Aspergers to evaluate the impact getting sprayed with another man's head parts had had on him. Mitch played along as he just spouted out some greeting card psychobabble about adjusting to a new world before he moved on to traumatee number six-hundred-sixty-seven.

And they still wanted him to take the test.

Mitch was now in a room with a black wall of server sized computers punctuated by blinking multicolored lights that would only make sense to about three people in the world.

The test administrator hadn't been in the tent at first and when she walked in she immediately launched into what had clearly become a well rehearsed explanation.

"Please grasp the handles in front of you. You should hold on firmly but not tightly. You will not feel anything as the test is administered, however, please remain still so as not to affect the results. This will only take a couple of moments."

He also smiled politely, "Sure thing."

He followed the directions and proceeded to pay no more mind to Sgt. Test Administrator. After a minute or so printer started whirring.

"How's it look?" he asked somewhat nervously.

She managed to blend politeness, professionalism, and total non-commitment into the same smile. She handed Mitch a card. He looked at the top right corner.

X0-0

"The fuck is that? That's not even a category they included on the news." He stared at the card dumbfounded.

"Excuse me, what does this code mean?" He asked pointing to the corner with the string printed on it. "I don't remember ever seeing an explanation for this one."

The administrator doesn't look up when she answers. "It means you have no discernable affinity for any of the identified categories and you overall energy capacitance is negligible, verging on unmeasurable."

"And what does that mean?"

She glances at him and sighs,"Look, I'm not supposed to tell people this but I've been dealing with assholes all day, and you have been somewhat respectful so...." She runs her hand through her hair.

"So, with that code, you are well into the bottom section of the curve. Probably somewhere below the first percentile. You will not have any gains from the changes. You will continue to be as you were before the Tolling."

"That's not so bad, right? Continue to be an average human?"

Mutter Master's head exploded again in his minds eye.

"Okay, maybe normal isn't so great anymore."

"Also, you will most likely die at the next Tolling."

"Fml"