Rosette: [LOOK AT CHARLIE. HE’S FIGURED SOMETHING OUT.]

One of the girls on their platform announced and seventeen heads swiveled in the direction mentioned. Leigh’s CHIP magnified the view, showing Charlie Delta’s controlled descent of the deadly 150m close up. Her jaw was slack with astonishment, not understanding how the guy was managing to climb down the wall so smoothly, as if there were handholds to help him. Then, Leigh saw it. His hands and feet weren’t relying on handholds at all, they were sinking into the thick metal wall as if it were made of putty. His skin shined with a silvery sheen every time his limbs dug in with a dull, heavy thud.

She’d seen the sheen on his skin before, both on the shuttle and when he was showing off to a group of girls, it was his Suit. It had to be. He must have already figured out how to use the EMs to reinforce his body somehow. It was the only explanation she could think of for how his body was harder than the ship’s surface. The fallen boy’s splattered self was proof enough that the nanites alone were not enough to account for it. Looking through the potential Initiation Procedure Guide paths they were given, Leigh tried to backtrack into the Guide Charlie chose. Her brow furrowed in irritation when she realized that it was probably the same one she had chosen: Internal EM Manipulation. It should have made her happy to have a tried and proved strategy at her disposal, but this was Charlie Delta, so it didn’t.

Leigh quickly tried to command her EMs to do the same. Not sure of how to visualize having steely, hard limbs, Leigh tried to link her EMs tightly next to each other in a layer over her skin. It seemed like a good enough idea, but she was never able to maintain the links for long. She would lose concentration, or the command of a single EMs and things would snowball from there. She tried again with nanite assistance, but had even less success. Charlie was already that far ahead of her with his IP rate, and he wasn’t the only one.

Ramesh: [LOOK AT MONIQUE.]

Leigh went through various further attempts to mimic Charlie’s procedure as she looked at the girl in question. Monique was at one of the closer pole junctions. And unlike Charlie, who was brutally smashing his way down the sides of the walls, Monique was gracefully descending with a thin rope she was manifesting out of thin air. Leigh watched with awe as the rope flowed into the palms of the girl’s hands like silvery water, before solidifying and allowing her to slide down as smoothly as a spider on her web. The technique she was using to make the rope was so different from the path Leigh had chosen for the Integration Procedure that Leigh couldn’t even begin to imagine how she was doing it. The only certainty was that Monique’s rope was completely made up of EMs as well. She must have chosen one of the External Manipulation options.

Instead of going for the first layer of black CIMs, Monique went straight for the second Colosseum step, 300 meters down. In seconds she traversed the distance and was standing right next to one of the dull, black objectives. Leigh watched with bated breath as the girl approached the hovering orb. Out of the one hundred Selects present, she was the first to reach out and touch one. The moment she did, the orb reached right back and stuck to her like taffy. Leigh could only gasp in shock when Monique was pulled into the CIM, disappearing from sight. It would have been unsettling had it not been for the notification that popped up.

[INITIAL EVALUATION TENT ASSIGNMENTS:

TENT1: 1/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT2: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT3: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT4: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT5: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT6: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT7: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT8: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT9: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

TENT10: 0/10 SLOTS FILLED

]

Seconds later Charlie reached his orb a level higher and did the same, and moments after that Leigh’s eyes searched out Nathan at one of the other platforms. She found him just in time to watch him nonchalantly jump off his cylindrical walkway. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight. She wondered if he intended to go down the hard way like the first guy and some of the others were doing, but then Nathan flawlessly flipped in the air so his feet were pointed downward as he fell. His free-fall lasted for what felt like forever, but then small zaps of blue light bolted out from his feet and he paused momentarily, mid-air. Leigh’s eyes bulged at the feat. It was like the zaps she’d seen at the tips of his fingers in the shuttle, only magnified a hundredfold. It was definitely EMs manipulation of some sort. It too had to be External in some way, or was he using EM Collection in some alternate way?

Nathan teetered a bit mid-air as he fell the last couple of meters, it was obvious he hadn’t had the chance to practice yet, but he made it to the ground safely. Like Monique, he didn’t go for the first layer of orbs, but instead for the third. Leigh didn’t watch his second or third jump as closely, instead having her CHIP monitor the rest of his descent and the exact orb he and the other Selects chose. The information might come in useful later.

While Monique, Charlie and Nathan progressed, the other Selects hadn’t been standing still either. One of the girl’s in Leigh’s group, Rosette, tried to mimic Monique, but instead of gracefully gliding down a sturdily spun rope, hers failed and she landed in a similar heap as the first bag of bones. Unlike the guy, she was ‘lucky’ enough to partially land on one of the orbs; it surprisingly absorbed part of her fall. The limbs that didn’t directly contact the CIM though, experienced the same wet crunch they’d first witnessed though. It was also accompanied by an agonized scream, but unlike the first, it was quickly suffocated the moment the orb’s tar-like substance swallowed her whole. Although in obvious pain, Rosette was amongst the first to make it to an orb.

On seeing this, dozens of others went for it, directly jumping into the orbs they could aim for from the cylindrical walkways they stood on. From the distance they looked like a bunch of ants jumping to their deaths, and close up it looked like a regular aerial deployment… without the parachutes. Most of the jumpers made the jump they aimed for, landing directly into the orb that engulfed them like a ball of gelatinous oil, but a few missed their marks by a hair and crumbled beside the CIMs in pain. Either way, those that were decisive enough were in the modules before most of the others, including Charlie and Nathan.

“Tick-Tock ya slowpokes,” Va’Letty reminded the remaining Selects of her presence in the middle of the dome. She sauntered around the central spherical platform with her hands behind her back, without a care in the world, completely unsympathetic to the dozen or so agonized screams tearing through the air. “Every second longer you take to get in the CIM, just means the other Tents will have that much of an advantage over you.”

After the first forty orbs were taken, people didn’t take chances anymore. Jumping for the second layer, 300m away was a completely different story and none of them knew if they could survive it, even with their modified bodies. Instead, they went for the other methods, trying to cooperate with each other to find a viable solution. Leigh checked the Tent slots and was shocked to see that half of them had already been filled, and the sixth one was half way there.

Ramesh: [WE SHOULD WORK TOGETHER.]

Sierra-Di: [HE’S RIGHT, THERE’S NO WAY ANY OF US WILL MAKE IT DOWN ON OUR OWN.]

Depending on where they stood around the cylindrical pole, some of the group looked at the top half of the dome, and some looked down, but the view was the same, a massive drop of at least 150 meters.

Lo’Brurn: [IN ONE PIECE YOU MEAN.]

The ongoing screams of the multiple fallen Selects still reverberated through the dome.

Micha: [ANY SUGGESTIONS? I DIDN’T BRING A LADDER OR A ROPE WITH ME. DID YOU?]

Sierra-Di: [I’M PRETTY SURE MONIQUE LAKUR DIDN’T EITHER.]

Forgetting her resolution to stay invisible, Leigh spoke up.

Leigh: [IT’S THE EMS. IT’S GOTTA BE WHAT THEY’RE USING. WE HAVE TO USE WHAT WE’VE LEARNED IN MANIPULATION SO FAR TO GET US DOWN.]

Ramesh: [LIKE CHARLIE, YOU MEAN? I DON’T THINK THOSE HANDHOLDS WILL WORK FOR EVERYONE THOUGH. THEY DISAPPEARED RIGHT AFTER HE TOOK HIS HANDS OUT OF THEM.]

Leigh: [I THINK IT DEPENDS ON THE GUIDE PATH YOU CHOSE. AND THIS IS ONLY A THEORY, BUT I THINK HE CHOSE INTERNAL MANIPULATION, SO IF YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE THAT AS WELL, YOU’LL PROBABLY HAVE TO FIND A DIFFERENT WAY TO GET DOWN. FOR THOSE OF US THAT DID THOUGH, IT DOES SEEM LIKE THE MOST STRAIGHTFORWARD WAY DOWN.]

Leigh hated to be relying on the guy’s idea, but coming up with her own out of sheer stubbornness would just eat up her time.

Lo’Brurn: [LUCKILY I DID. SO WHAT NOW? FROM THE VIDS I TOOK, IT SEEMS LIKE HE FOCUSES ALL THE EMS IN THE TIPS OF HIS FINGERS AND TOES TO MAKE THEM SINK INTO THE WALL.]

Micha: [THAT’S ALL NICE AND ALL, BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE OF US WHO DIDN’T?]

Arthur: [YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO COME UP WITH A DIFFERENT WAY TO GET DOWN… OR WAIT FOR ME. I THINK I ALMOST GOT IT.]

Leigh: [ALMOST GOT WHAT?]

Arthur didn’t answer; he was already lost in whatever it was he was working on. Leigh rolled her eyes at how helpful he was being.

Lo’Brurn: [I CAN PROBABLY MANAGE TAKING ONE PERSON DOWN WITH ME… I JUST HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW THAT DELTA-COG GOT HIS FRIGGIN NANITES SO CONCENTRATED…]

Leigh: [I THINK YOU’LL HAVE MORE CHANCES IF YOU DETACH THE NANITES FIRST. I THINK THEY HAVE LIMITED USES, I DON’T THINK YOU’RE ABLE TO CHANGE THEIR PROPERTIES WHEN ATTACHED TO THE NANITES… BUT I’M NOT SURE EITHER…]

Lo’Brurn: [SO… WHAT? I DETACH THEM AND THEN JUST FORCE THEM ALL INTO MY HAND?]

Leigh: [WELL I THINK WE HAVE TO CONTROL…]

Wait. Why did she have to control them? She was hours if not days away from having that kind of control over her EMs. She’d never get them to cooperate the way she wanted to for the skin-strengthening idea she had. Lo’Brurn was right, and if she checked Charlie’s vids, it’s what he had done as well. He’d concentrated on one limb at a time. She gave it a try and forced all the EMs she could, all finesse aside, into her right hand. A similar sheen appeared under her skin, but instead of silvery blue, it was silvery purple. Trying it out, she knelt and prepared herself mentally to punch into the ground. If it didn’t work, it was going to hurt like a mothercoger.

Breathing out and not giving herself time to think about it, she went all in, eyes closed. Instead of the hard surface she’d expected to encounter, she punched into something akin to clay. Opening her eyes slowly she looked down to see that it had worked; her hand was wrist deep into the ship’s metallic substance. She looked up jubilantly at Lo’Brurn. The big guy was excited about her success and wanted pointers from her, but it was then that she noticed a couple of others on the platform shooting her nasty looks. She hadn’t been hiding in the shadows like she should have, she’d been too preoccupied with the mission. Sighing, Leigh figured it was too late to stop now and walked Lo’Brurn through what she’d done. With a height of 2.28m he was one of the tallest guys there, but if she’d expected him to be a pure meathead she would have been proven wrong in the fifteen seconds it took him to replicate her findings. He and two others in their group were punching the ground with the same success not twenty seconds after she’d achieved it.

They quickly paired up with other Selects on the platform and started climbing down. In the end the big guy ended up taking two of the smaller Selects that were left in their group. Other than Leigh and Arthur, there were only three additional Selects left from the original eighteen. Some had taken the initial plunge, but most had waited too long like her, wanting to get more information before committing to a drop that high. That lack of decisiveness was already costing her. Leigh tried to wake Arthur from his stupor, but he was too far gone. For a moment, she almost stayed back to help him if he needed, but her time was running out, seven of the Tents were now full, and he was a Ranker; he knew what he was doing. If worse came to worst she could always climb back up to help him.

Leigh offered to take one of the remaining Selects down, but they all refused. Although some were willing to listen to her helping instructions, none of them were comfortable enough to be that associated with her. Gritting her teeth, Leigh tried not to hate Shi’estna SaTafan more than she already did. This was her fault. Leigh couldn’t blame her Rank because across the room Aru’bal was climbing down a left-behind EMs rope along with seven other Selects. None of them were shunning her.

Part of her noticed that the rope was directly above where the first Select had fallen, but she didn’t have enough time to investigate it any further, other than to notice that said Select and his screams were no longer present. Someone must have gotten around to helping him; she doubted he’d already healed up enough to make it to the nearest CIM on his own, but she didn’t have time to find out who. She had her own performance to worry about.

After leaving Arthur to his own devices, Leigh punched into the wall with all her strength and began her descent. Ten meters in she realized she was going about it the wrong way and decreased the amount of force she was using. Instead of relying on her physical body, she had to learn to rely on the EMs. Focusing on the particles instead, she imagined her arm as a piston, blowing all of the nanites in one big push at her command. The change in strategy increased her pace significantly and she was soon overtaking Lo’Brurn and the others who had the added cargo to deal with.

Around the dome there were many other Selects scaling the walls with Charlie’s brutish method. Including whoever had left the rope behind, a few others had even managed to successfully replicate Monique’s more elegant strategy, though none were kind or able enough to leave a rope behind for others to use. Many of the Selects from other platforms were now running toward the forgotten rope, but they would have to figure out their own way down after the first step. What really surprised Leigh though, were those that came up with completely new and innovative ways of descending. There was a parachute guy and a glide-suit girl, she reminded Leigh of the final SIM she’d completed just a little over a day ago. Had it really only just happened? It already felt like a lifetime ago.

Leigh made it to the first step without a hitch, but when she started going down the second step, someone slid by her, hands and feet attached to the walls like magnets slippery enough to allow for a controlled descent. She suspected that the Select had also chosen the Internal EM Manipulation guide, but Leigh didn’t have time to wonder how he’d implemented it right then. Instead, she tried to take in some of the other methods being used. One girl stuck her hand into the wall and literally cut her way down, as if her hand were a hooked blade. One guy jumped off, but instead of landing in a heap at the bottom, his body expanded like a puffer-fish, taking all of the impact. Leigh couldn’t even begin to imagine how he had pulled that off, or what Guide Path he’d chosen. His IP rate was also private, so she couldn’t compare herself to him. A lot of the other techniques were similar in nature, just implemented slightly differently.

One of the Selects for example must have been trying to do replicate Nathan’s technique, but instead of a controlled blast, it ended with a massive reverberating boom that threw him completely off course and slammed him into the side of the wall. On on hand, he made it down to the third level safely, but on the other, he wasn’t nearly as ‘in-one-piece’ as he’d probably hoped for.

By the time Leigh made it to the second level, all the capsules on her side were already full. Running to the three available capsules on the other side of the dome would have been a waste of time, the damn rope was helping everyone down quickly and they would be full before she got there. Sighing, she surrendered herself to one final descent. She was halfway down, when Arthur messaged her in private.

“Hey, you didn’t wait for me. I told you I had it.”

“Yeah, that was over a minute ago.”

“Barely. Only sixty four seconds.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look if you need help getting down…”

Leigh looked up at the walkway. Over three hundred meters away it looked like a tiny little band. As much as the guy was growing on her, she really didn’t want to have to climb it all again.

“Actually,” he said as a corridor suddenly appeared in the wall next to her, “I was going to offer you that.”

Leigh’s eyes bulged when she saw the same type of corridor she’d seen Va’Letty come in through, though slightly narrower.

“I was trying to hack the whole program,” he began, standing half a meter from where she was hanging on the wall, “but then I realized it would take too long. So instead I used the readings I got from when the Supervisor came in, to reverse engineer—”

“Okay, okay,” Leigh said, jumping into the narrow metallic corridor with him, “tell me about it later when there aren’t only four slots available in the ninth Tent.”

Arthur’s expression was almost petulant, but he sighed and agreed. Leigh wasn’t surprised to find that none of the other Selects had waited on the platform for him. His single sentence announcement wasn’t what you would call confidence-inspiring. It was just him and her in the dimly-lit corridor and he quickly configured the corridor to bend around the exterior of the main ship sphere and bring them back in a level lower.

“When I have more time to tinker with this later,” Arthur explained, as they ran down the winding corridor, still not being able to contain himself, “I’m going to be able to change the ship’s structure in the same way we’ve always been able to program energy-matter. The only difference is the properties that this substance possesses. It will allow us to do so much more than just physically alter—”

“Arthur!” Leigh reminded him when the corridor re-opened at the third level, exactly in line with the next row of orbs, “only two more CIM slots let’s go! If we don’t get in now, we’ll have to wait for all the stragglers of the last Tent. Do you really want to have to, one: wait on them and two: have your first Skill evaluation depend on them?”

Arthur blinked, as if finally coming back to his senses.

“Oh…” he said blankly, “right.”

It was like he’d momentarily forgotten why they were there or why he’d even hacked into the ship in the first place. Not that it wasn’t impressive as Cog, but… there’s a time and place for everything. Leigh pushed him toward the nearest CIM and headed for another.

“Look, there she goes, riding on other people’s coattails again.”

“It’s the first exercise and she’s already taking the easy way out.”

Social was suddenly pinging her all over the place again. Leigh rolled her eyes and sprinted for the black orb, not twenty meters away. How did they find time to trash-talk her when they were among the very last to make it into a CIM. Didn’t they have more important things to worry about?

“Cog, I really hope I don’t end up in the same group CIM as her.”

“Then you should have reached a CIM earlier,” someone said dryly, completely cutting off the conversation.

Leigh didn’t have time to find out who’d stood up for her as she ran straight into the globby orb. She only had a moment to hope that it was as gelatinous as the other Selects had made it look.

It was.

The orb surrounded her like cool gelatin and everything went black.

[YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED TO TENT10.]

Cog.

The wait for the final nine Selects was only thirty nine seconds, but it felt like a life-time. Each second stretched endlessly in the CIM’s black nothingness. It was a second lost to her that the other nine Tents had. Leigh tapped her finger anxiously, relieved she didn’t need to control the gesture in the private darkness of her orb. The cool, fresh-smelling comfort did nothing to assuage her anxiety. Had Arthur made it into Tent9? Who else was going to be in the Tent with her.

Leigh didn’t have to wonder long.

[YOUR INITIAL EVALUATION HAS BEGUN.]

The sensory void she’d been experiencing was immediately replaced by the hard seat of another shuttle as she found herself in the familiar five-on-five seating arrangement. She was surprised to find Jade Unita directly opposite of her, but more relieved to see that Shi’estna wasn’t next to the Space-girl this time. Heaving a sigh of relief that she’d at least been spared that much, she took a look around to catalog the rest of her Tent. Arthur wasn’t in it.

Silence reigned in the shuttle as the other nine Selects did the same, taking inventory of their surrounding. There were no viewports this time, instead there were only two massive screens showcasing one of the overplayed UEF adverts. Heroic music, clashing colors and orderly comportment were supposed to advertise all that was good about the United Earth Force. Leigh’d seen similar adverts a thousand times.

[MISSION PARAMETERS:

LOCATION: SECTOR 42271, SOLAR SYSTEM 65, MAJOR PLANET 6, MAJOR MOON 2

TENT OBJECTIVE: SECURE SECTOR A2 IN QUADRANT 137. SET UP COMMUNICATION ARRAY BEFORE THE LUNAR DAY IS OVER.

TIME TO LUNAR NIGHT: 79 HOURS: 55 MINUTES : 23 SECONDS

]

[WARNING: IF YOU DIE IN-CIM YOU WILL BE EXPELLED FROM THE INITIAL EVALUATION AND FORCED TO WATCH UNTIL YOUR TENT COMPLETES OR FAILS ITS MISSION. INTERACTION WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE.]

The mission sounded simple enough, but Leigh was sure there would be some kind of catch, there always was. She looked around carefully while the uplifting advert tune deafened the shuttle for what felt like minutes, but was only ten seconds. Then, the shuttle suddenly started rattling. Leigh’s stomach clenched in revolt, she hadn’t wanted to be right about this one. She had a bad feeling about this, but just as suddenly as it had began, the turbulence stopped. The Selects looked at each other, but before someone could voice the communal thought aloud, the turbulence was back, and worse. It kept picking up in strength, until Leigh knew with unfortunate certainty where it was headed. She clenched all the muscles in her body, tightened the harness around her, and advised her Tent-mates to do the same. Everyone, but Jade, shuffled to get ready for what they also suspected was coming. The girl simply glanced around calmly, already secure in her own harness.

Jade: [TORREN, YOUR BOTTOM STRAP IS LOOSE.]

The girl’s voice was stoic, but clear, in Tent chat. The turbulence had picked up to a teeth-jittering shake until a sudden boom banged them around with a vehemence. That hadn’t felt right. A second hadn’t gone by before the merry tune was replaced with urgent alarms blaring for attention, flashing lights vying for action and warning notifications popping up left and right.

[NAVIGATION SYSTEMS OFFLINE.]

[MANUAL FLIGHT SYSTEMS ENGAGING… ]

Dialu: [DOES ANYONE KNOW MANUAL!?]

[…NOT LOCATED.]

Everything inside Leigh screamed for her to panic, but she knew it for what it was, a gimmick; the Academy had added the overbearing sensory stimuli on purpose to get them out of sorts. This was not the time to freak out. They were probably about to crash land and there was nothing they could do about it.

Jade: [LOOKS LIKE IT WON’T MATTER.]

Jade said calmly, as if reading Leigh’s thoughts. How the girl could maintain her cool composure at a time like this, she didn’t know. Thoughts raced through Leigh’s mind as she tried to account for every possibility. She didn’t have the luxury of failing, or dieing for that matter. She had to do all that was in her power to stay alive. The CIM had barely started, if she died now her baseline Skills would all be zero, Shi’estna would win and she would never be able to undo the negative impression the girl and Charlie had forced upon her.

A loud crash broke into her thoughts like a premonition-come-true and suddenly she was sailing through the air.

Alone.

And falling.

Had she banged her head and passed out?

[EMERGENCY CAPSULE 8 RELEASED.]

[EMERGENCY PARACHUTE DISABLED.]

[TIME UNTIL IMPACT: 11 SECONDS.]

Leigh glanced around, rattled. Not even sure what to process first. She was in a synthetic glass emergency capsule, falling through the air at terminal velocity. The gravity on this moon was 1.8 times that of Earth and the atmosphere was less dense; Leigh was falling a lot faster than she wanted to.

She didn’t want to be falling at all, but not having a choice in the matter, she tried to catch her bearings. Her head was throbbing, she really must have hit it somewhere. Her hand went up of its own accord and came back with streaks of blood. Not good.

[7 SECONDS.]

Why did it feel like her life was always on a countdown?

Leigh looked down at where she was expected to land. Water. As far as she could see, there was only water. Her head flared with pain and Leigh cringed, breathing rapidly to take a deep breath, readying for impact. She might need to put Va’Letty’s lessons to use sooner than she’d expected, or wanted, to.