Leo

The cacophonous ringing of a hundred meuses ought to have chilled Leo, but in actuality it was pure catharsis. He was right, and after so many things had gone wrong for him it was good to have a victory. The four students and one Prospect in his makeshift circle stared at him in disbelief, and he couldn’t resist the urge to say something.

“Do you believe me now?”

They didn’t respond.

The noise died out slower than it had burst to life. Some students answered their meuses immediately, others shouted their disbelief, but most laughed off the whole spectacle as a joke. Morgan stared at her meus with her mouth twisted with frustration. Eventually she answered, and so too did their group, followed lastly by Leo.

It was a video call, and everyone held their meuses in front of them with their speakers set to blaring highs. The video greeted Leo with the fractalled leaf of King’s College wreathed with the words, Aeternitātem per Scientia. For a while there was just the emblem, as present as any student. Then once the last meus had been answered and the room was plunged into breathless silence, the image shifted.

An older woman stared at Leo, stared at every student at once. Her nose was crooked, her mouth was twisted up on one side in mockery of a smile, her eyes rested deeply as though engraved into her skull, and her jowls hung low, weighed down by time. Grey streaks ran through her dull coppery hair, marking her as every student’s superior. When she spoke, her voice echoed from every device such that her words seemed to be coming from everywhere and anywhere at once.

“Good morning students, and welcome to King’s College. I am the Principal.”

She paused and let the title hang in the air. It rumbled like thunder, deep and heavy, and faded ever so slowly.

Leo’s attention was jolted by Lumia, who was fumbling with her meus. When Alan caught sight of her fiddling, he offered to share his screen with her. Lumia pocketed her meus and mouthed, thank you.

“Before we begin,” the Principal continued, “I want to make it perfectly clear that the class of semester one, year 311, officially begins tomorrow. Until you are given your uniform, none of you will be considered tenth year students of King’s College.”

Panicked whispers raced through the hall. Leo glared Morgan’s way and found her staring back at him, her eyes wide and face pale. His expression hardened as if to say, Do you believe me now?

“At 11:45 you will be present in the following room.”

The Principal’s harsh glare was replaced with the image of a room filled with over a hundred students—this room. It was angled from on high, giving full view of every student, and their panic-stricken eyes. Superimposed onto the image was an arrow that pointed to a door at the far end of the hall.

A gasp ran through the room as the students realised they were under surveillance. Leo looked up to where he estimated the image originated from. He expected to find a camera dangling from a rafter or pinned to the ceiling. What he saw was a clear glass roof, allowing an unobstructed view of the skydome that shielded Plato from the harshness of the upper troposphere. Beyond the dome lay the hazy blue of the sky.

Leo held his meus up so that the image on the screen showed him staring directly at himself. He closed one eye and looked over the meus’ edge. Where his gaze fell there was only sky.

Of course they’re using secret surveillance, he thought sourly. Secret surveillance wasn’t technically illegal, but it was so heavily frowned upon that nobody would risk being caught using it. Especially on students. But when have these people ever cared about doing what’s right?

“Huh? What’s this?” Alan cried suddenly.

“Quiet!” snapped Morgan.

Leo gave an exasperated sigh. Get used to it.

The Principal’s booming voice stilled the crowd. “You will enter the room indicated on your personal terminal. Once inside, you will find your allocated seat and place your personal terminal in a dock, located next to the provided testing terminal. Once you are all docked, the test will begin at 12:00. However, all students take note.”

Deathly silence fell across the room. Leo could hear each students’ breath, ragged and quickened. He had already prepared himself for the worst, but it didn’t stop him from grinding his teeth.

“King’s College only takes the finest. A class where too many students fail is unacceptable. Therefore, the following rule shall be implemented: if more than half of the students fail, then all students will fail.”

If the chatter had been unruly before, now the hall was in a state of irrationality. Panic was sinking its teeth in and refusing to let its prey go. Even Leo hadn’t been prepared for that!

This is completely different from what Milli went through. What are they playing at?

Someone shouted from the crowd, “But what’s on the test?”

“Idiot! It’s a recording,” someone yelled back.

Leo raised himself onto the balls of his feet. “Shut up and pay attention!”

Students looked at him stunned, then a second later buried their heads into their devices. The room was quiet again—a modicum of rationality winning out.

The Principal continued. “Further instructions will be provided once your meus is docked.” The image shifted and the Principal’s gaze set upon them once more. “You are probably nervous. That’s understandable. Fear in these uncertain times is both rational and unnecessary. But should uncertainty take you, then remember that it may be best to retrace one’s steps.”

Leo blinked at his screen. What? Is that supposed to be encouragement? It can’t be. Maybe it’s a hint. No, it’s definitely a hint.

“And remember, students,” the Principal said, her tone firm and resolute. “Burn bright.”

The screen went black. There was no closing image, no slogans or emblems, just blackness. And buried under the surface of that blackness, Leo’s own face scowled back at him. A few seconds passed where there was nothing—no sound, no words, no meaning—but Leo’s own reflection. Then the room erupted into anarchy.

“That’s so irrational!” Tock spat. “They can’t just fail everyone because a few people bugged up.”

“Well, they can,” said Alan. “It’s their test. They can do whatever they want. But why, though? It doesn’t make sense.”

Lumia turned to Raphael. “Is this what usually happens on tests?”

Raphael shook his head, his expression grim.

“Of course they would have told us,” Morgan muttered to herself. “Surely I missed their mail, or perhaps there was an issue that prevented it from reaching my inbox.”

From the corner of his eye, Leo saw Morgan peek up at him, her expression one of resignation. “How did you know about this?” she asked meekly.

Leo met her gaze briefly, then stared back at his meus, into the black void of his screen. His hands were shaking; he couldn’t stop them.

What do I do? What do I do? If there’s a condition where everyone can fail, then it’s not an individual test. What does that mean? Hints? There were hints. She gave us one. There was the message on the notice board. What else was there? Didn’t Morgan say something earlier about a personal message? It must have something to do with those. But what do they mean?

“I think there’s no need to worry,” Lumia chimed. “It is, after all, but another test.”

“Yeah, you don’t get it, do you?” Alan said. “It’s not like I can be happy just being above the disaster on the surface. This is basically my life. If I fail this I have nothing else.”

Like a short circuit, Tock exploded at Alan. She pressed her face close to his and bared her fangs. “Apologise. Now!” Tock thrust a hand in Lumia’s direction.

Alan threw his hands up. “For what? It’s true. I have to get into this school otherwise I’ll be—”

“You’ll what? Huh? Go to a different school? Attend a slightly worse university?”

“What if I get Descended? I don’t know how to live down there, but she does.” Alan threw a hand in Lumia’s direction.

Tock’s whole body was trembling and her breaths were coming in short and fast. Oblivious to the danger, Alan met her snarl with a stubborn grimace. Raphael inched closer and closer until he was in arm’s reach of the fighting duo, in position to interfere.

Then everything fell quiet as heavy footsteps pounded along the tiled floor. Leo’s head shot up from his meus. A girl in an emerald jacket broke from the crowd and sprinted full tilt down the hall. Her cheeks were flecked with tears and her breath came in panicked rasps. She reached the entrance and, rather than waiting for the double doors to open automatically, crashed through them shoulder-first. With a yelp, she tumbled onto the stone path, scraped herself off the floor, and bolted. Nobody ever saw her again.

Before anyone could react, Lumia was gliding towards the entrance. Leo gawked at her ghostly procession: her footsteps made hardly any sound and her head remained perfectly level. It was as though she defied physics, all save for the blue cloth in her hair that fluttered in her wake. When she reached the entrance, Lumia grabbed each of the double doors by their handles and pulled them closed with a heavy thud.

She spun around and offered a smile to the mass of gaping students. “I know that I am new here,” she said, her voice echoing through the hall like a choir, “but I believe the test is that way.” She pointed a slender finger towards the testing room.

The whole thing was absurd: an unfair test, a girl running away in terror, a teenage Prospect in tabula rasa closing doors manually when she could have waited for them to shut by themselves. It was no wonder that nervous laughter began to break out across the hall. Even Tock and Raphael and Morgan and Alan laughed. Leo, however, narrowed his eyes. That was exactly what Lumia had intended, wasn’t it?

She returned to the cluster of students with a smile on her face. “Now. I know that I know so little about the ways in which your testing works, but it seems to me like we have little control over this situation. Therefore, it would do us no good to fret.”

“I agree,” said Morgan. She raised her chin. “We can only complete our own test and nothing more. Whatever happens, we will just have to deal with it.”

“Maybe they don’t want us to pass,” said Leo.

Raphael frowned at him. “So you have nothing of value to add?”

Leo had gone back to staring into space. Like what? Even if we did our best and passed, half the idiots here will probably fail because they can’t keep their poles to the north.

But the greatest consequence of this whole screwed up situation was that if Leo couldn’t pass the entrance test, then he would have no means of learning the truth about Milli. This was his best chance, now left entirely to chance.

“Just leave him, Raphael,” Morgan said. “If he has already given up then there is no hope for him. As the Principal said, King’s College only takes the best.”

With a huff, Morgan marched towards the testing room, her head held high and her hands squeezed too tightly behind her back. Raphael nodded and followed close behind. Tock bounced over to Lumia with a toothy grin.

“That was so funny!” the frizzy-haired girl cried.

“Thank you,” Lumia said, smiling courteously. “After you.”

“Okay,” Tock turned and followed Morgan. As she passed Alan, she shot him one last death stare.

Lumia watched Alan with an expectant smile. The dark-eyed boy glanced up at her then his gaze shifted away. His expression set into a forlorn frown.

“Sorry,” he muttered, then scampered off, trailing a distance behind Tock.

Preparing an appropriate retort, Leo braced for a similar subtle invitation, but he was given no such thing. Instead, Lumia positioned herself besides Leo and cast her gaze towards the students that funnelled into the testing room. For a while neither of them spoke, just watched as all those various coloured uniforms mingled together and were sucked into their certain doom. Once the hall had almost emptied, Lumia addressed him.

“Rats are intelligent creatures. They can find their way into any container once they sniff out food, they can memorise thousands of unique smells—food and poisons alike—and they can adapt to a human’s living cycles so that they can feast off our hard work while we sleep. But most importantly, they know when their time is up. When they’re captured, and every avenue of escape is exhausted and all that remains is the bitter end of the knife; when the lid is taken off their oubliette and they can see their captors eyeing them hungrily.”

She leaned closer so that her bright blue eyes were level with Leo’s, and that was when he saw it for the first time: the eyes of a predator, savouring him, weighing him up like a slab of meat. His breath caught in his throat, his legs felt hot and prickly, and before Leo realised he’d taken a step back.

“That look,” Lumia growled. “That’s the same look as the rat.” Closer she drew so that her eyes obscured his vision, her teeth were near his neck, and the scent of perspiration stung Leo’s nostrils. “Are you a rat, Leo?”

Her gaze lingered for a few endless seconds before Lumia straightened up, set her face back into a smile, and wandered into the crowd. Once she was far away, Leo finally exhaled. Now that Lumia was away from him, realisation struck him. He’d grown nervous over some stupid story!

He shook his head and muttered aloud, “All this over a test.”

And that was it, wasn’t it? This was just another test.

Why even worry? If there’s nothing I can do then there’s no point being miserable about it. I mean, this whole thing is pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?

The general panic surrounding Leo, the impossibility of it all, the weird clues and the sheer arrogance of the Principal, the fleeing girl and Lumia saving the day with her witty comment—the more he lingered on it, the more ridiculous it all seemed to him. Little by little, a smile grew on his lips and fits of laughter rose from chest. Before he knew it, he was cackling hysterically. Tears fell freely down his cheeks. He clutched his meus to his stomach and collapsed onto the floor in a babbling heap.

I tried to persuade everyone else, only to be persuaded myself. What an idiot I am!

His five acquaintances stopped shuffling towards the testing room and watched him incredulously. Most of them wore expressions of utter bafflement, except for Tock who had a look of complete disgust, and Lumia who donned her usual smile.

“Is everything alright, Leo?” said Morgan.

The last fits passed, and Leo let out a long sigh. He picked himself up off the floor and wiped away his tears. “Perfectly. Everything is perfect. I mean, it’s not—everything is choked up, but that’s why it’s perfect.”

“I see,” said Morgan.

“Alright, we have a test to take.” Leo hopped past his acquaintances and dove into the whirlpool of students. He looked back over his shoulder. “Come on, we don’t want to fail a test before the semester even starts, right?”

They all shared a look, save for Lumia who’s smile never faded, then caught up with him.

“It is good to see that you have come back to your senses,” Morgan intoned.

Yep, back to my senses, he told himself. I am in control. I am in control.