8:02am, Friday

“Nine months, Kirosh. Just nine months.” My growling stomach seemed to echo Nathan’s urgent whisper from last night making both my stomach and Nathan’s words impossible to ignore. I made a beeline to the buffet of food directly across from the door I had just entered.

“Nine months, Kirosh…” My stomach growled again as I picked up an empty plate to fill and got in line behind Tash and Dryden.

Nine months till what? Nine months from when? From three days ago when the Tournament ended? From yesterday? From now? Why nine months? What will happen after nine months?

I fished out my HOL and quickly pull up the tentative schedule for the training program as I waited for Dryden to get his food from the buffet:

Year Sector Training 1 Government Sector 2 Food Sector 3 Art Sector 4 Tech Sector 5 Health Sector

…It’s very tentative. However, in nine months, we won’t even be done with first training sector after nine months. Is the Akademy is going to change its policy about the Top Six Program in nine months to let Nathan join as a seventh member? I put my HOL back into my pocket and shuffled forward a step…There wouldn’t even need to be a “nine months” if Arina had been kicked out of the Akademy like she should have been four years ago.

“Are you going to get food or just stand there gawking all day?”

“Uh, sorry—” I froze when I saw who had spoken. Behind me was a middle-aged man. He was short and stocky and very muscular. On his left armband was the symbol of the three nations of Qui—the symbol of a Jackal, a Bracket-less Duty that was just as powerful as a General.

I saw the letter J embroidered over the top of the symbol, and I could feel my jaw drop slightly. There’s only on Jackal with the letter J: Jack Hurg of Yamara, the best Jackal of the three nations. A free mover…A free man. I backed away a step to allow him to pass in front of me, and give a small bow of respect, but he just snorted.

“Do not bow to me.” He barked out. “I am not a King, nor am I God.”

“But—” I started.

“I don’t want your respect just because I am older than you.” By this time the others had also turned. Their shock no doubt reflected my own. However, his face looked almost bored. “I suggest that you sit down and eat as much as you can or else later you won’t have any energy.”

I looked at the selection of food. Eggs, ham, bread, bacon, fish, rice, quinoa, lentils…what in all of Qui is that?

On the very edge of the selection was a bowl with a less than appetizing pile of mush. Actually, if I were to be completely honest, it looked like a three year old made breakfast with anything he could find, and then sneezed on it for seasoning.

Great Qui…why…?

Jack ignored all the other food and headed straight for the snotty bowl. He picked up the serving spoon from the plate just beside the bowl and started to scoop large spoonfuls onto his plate; with each scoop, the mush made a loud suction noise as if it too were protesting that anyone would be sane enough to eat it.

I swallow hard and turned back to filling my own plate, but suddenly my stomach didn’t quite feel as enthusiastic about food as it had been just moments ago.

“It would seem that I am to be your Jackal this year.” Jack kept talking. “So let’s just get this out of the way. Introductions. Now…You, in the back of the line that was gawking at the air. Start.”

I swallowed hard. “Kirosh Trivar.”

“Age and origin nation?”

“16, and Zuashi.”

“Next. You, the tall one.” He barked out. He finally put down the serving spoon for the mush and perused along the rest of the buffet.

“Dryden Ekbur.” Dryden hunched self-consciously.

“Age and origin nation?”

“…17, and Gavi Quintar.”

“Next. You, the girl.” Jack pointed with serving spoon of the eggs before turning to heap several giant portions onto his plate next. The must just next to these acquired eggs was oozing it’s liquids all over the plate.

“Tash Mirra’av.”

At that, Jack’s eyes flickered up to look at Tash. “Age and origin nation?”

“16, and Hanra.”

Jack just snorted softly as he turned and walked over to a table. “Next. You, short boy number 1.”

“R-roshcar Nishk.”

““Age and origin nation?”

“16, and Gavi Quintar.”

“Short boy number 2.”

“…Garett Dovik.”

“Age and origin nation?”

“17, and Hanra.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose with that statement. “Two Mara’ans in one group. Very rare for any of you to leave Hanra. I can remember only three who ever left. So, why are you here?”

This time it was Garett who snorted. “Very rare for anyone to choose to become a Jackal. In the history of Qui, only one has ever chosen it, so why did you?”

“Because I wanted to.” The Jackal’s eyes didn’t blink.

“Then are we not allowed to want to come to the mainland just because we are of Mara descent?”

“That would depend.”

“On what?” Garett cut in. His eyes were narrowed.

Nothing in particular.” Jack shrugged. “My turn. My name is Jack Hurg. I am 42. I am from Gavi Quintar. I am the second person to ever choose to become a Jackal instead of following my birth Duty—”

Suddenly the doors flew open and a slim woman entered like a ball of sunshine. “Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Top Six Center.” She kept speaking without pausing. “I hope you all are enjoying the selection of food we have prepared for you—”

“It’ll do.” Jack muttered.

“—Please…Ah, Jack.” The woman frowned slightly. “I see you haven’t changed your eating practices since the last time.”

“Nope.”

“Well…” The woman turned back to us with a grin once again. “Please get as much food as you want, we can always have more brought in. And once everyone sits down, I will begin the orientation. While you get food, I will take attendance.”

“I already did.” Jack said as he walked over to one of the circular tables on the right side of the room.

“Even so, rules are rules…Kirosh Trivar?”

“Here.” I said before quickly retreating to a table as well.

“Dryden Ekbur?”

“Here.”

“Tash Mira…Mira…”

“Here.” Tash rolled her eyes.

“Ah, very good, very good…If you are thinking of a career in the Government Sector, you may want to change your last name. Garet Dovik?”

“Here.” Garett’s cold voice could have chilled the room, but the woman didn’t seem to notice.

“Arina Haron?”

I looked around, surprised that I hadn’t noticed before. Arina wasn’t present.

“Arina…?” The woman looked at all of our faces as if she expected Arina to appear behind one of us out of thin air.

“I’m sure she’s just running a little late.” Jack commented as he scraped his plate.

The proctor frowned. “Unfortunately, we are on a tight schedule, so if the last member of your team doesn’t—”

“Oh give it a break.” Jack rolled his eyes. I’ll end up giving it to them later anyway, so it doesn’t matter if one of them isn’t here.”

“Doesn’t matter?” The woman asked shocked. “Now listen here, Jack. Just because—”

The door opened with a faint “whoosh,” and Arina walked in as if she had just returned from summer vacation.

“You’re late.” Jack said gruffly, pausing in shoveling the snotty food into his mouth to look at Arina.

Arina just shrugged.

“Get food.” He went back to eating.

Arina inclined her head.

“Arina Haron?” The woman asked as Arina walked by.

Arina just inclined her head in a nod again.

“Very good.” Clapped the woman. “Now that everyone is here, we can begin—”

I watched Arina as she made her way to the breakfast buffet. She paused to look at the selection of food.

“—here in the Top Six Center, you find several different Top Six groups here at different stages of their training. This building will always be your starting point before you begin training in the different Sectors—”

Great Qui. She’s taking food from the snotty bowl.

“—Today, I will be giving you a quick overview of what we expect of you during the five years of training.” The woman placed her HOL on the left wall and punched in a few keys. The nature scenes faded and several folders appeared. Each one labeled for the five Qui Society Sectors.

How will she keep her figure if she eats food like that? She has great legs…

And just like that, I’m suddenly all too aware of the curve of her legs as her tight Akademy issued pants cling to her body.

Thanks brain. Thanks a lot. Remind me to not trust your judgement if I ever get into a difficult situation. I look down as Arina turned and walked over to sit at a completely empty table.

“—Since your first year is Government Sector Training, there are some basics that we need to go over before you can be released to your assigned Jackal.” The woman pushed the folder labeled Government Sector and a document appeared. She pushed a button next to the HOL and the document appeared before all of us at our individual sections of the table. “As you may already know, the Government Sector is composed of Officials—”

I tried to focus on what the woman was saying, but my eyes darted over to Arina anyway. Just in that moment, she looked up and her eyes locked onto mine. Well, at least I thought she was looking at me. Her eyes were pointed in this direction that is all that was needed to cause my heart rate pick up. “Nine months, Kirosh…Nine months.”

My blood pounded in my ears. Then her eyes flickered away to look at the rest of the group around me.

“—These Officials are split into six categories.” The woman pointed to the list in the document. “Magistrate, Legal, Padline, General, Jackal, and President. Now, I have copied Article 2 of the Qui Establishment Agreement Act. Could I have…Tash please read Article 2 for us?”

Tash nodded and began to read. “Article 2: Qui Leadership: Each nation of Qui shall be ruled by a democracy split into the following as seen in the table below. Note this table was taken from the Qui Establishment Act, Section A: People…Do you want me to read the table as well?” Tash asked.

“Please.” The woman motioned for Tash to continue.

“Citizen: Everyone born of Qui regardless of national fealty. All citizens are placed into distinct brackets at birth. The brackets are discussed more under Article 3 Section A. Mag—”

“Actually, let’s have Dryden do the next one.”

“Magistrate: Within each nation, the lowest citizen bracket shall be split into seven voting districts. Each of these seven districts will have one Magistrate. Each Magistrate gets one vote in the Legal Score.”

“Very good. Kirosh, would you take the next one?”

“Legal: Within each nation, the middle citizen bracket shall be split into five voting districts. Each of these five districts will have one Legal. Each Legal gets one and two fifths of a vote in the Legal Score.”

“Garett, next.”

“Padline: Within each nation, the top citizen bracket shall be split into ten voting districts. Each of these ten districts will have one Padline. Each Padline gets seven tenths a vote in the Legal Score.”

“Arina?”

Arina just glared at the woman for a moment. “…General: The President of each nation. Generals take the issues discussed within the Grafter Theater to the President of Qui.”

“Jack?”

“Jackal: Each nation shall have a maximum of seven Jackals to carry out any job necessary to maintain the peace of Qui. These individuals shall be knowledgeable in all areas of Qui Society, be able to shift between any Qui Bracket, and perform any Qui Duty. These individuals are granted the same government power as the General.”

“Roshcar?”

“President of Qui: There shall be one President of Qui chosen from the existing Generals. Presidential elections will be every five years for the people of Qui will be able to pick their leader.”

“Great! Are there any questions so far? No? Good.” The woman barely paused before she continued talking. “Now, the Government Sector training is mainly focused on Jackal training. Herefore, you have been assigned a Jackal to lead your group. In this case, Jack Hurg has been selected to be your Jackal. While you are under Jack’s care, you will do Jackal jobs for three Magistrates, three Legals, and three Padlines—one for each nation of Qui. Once you complete those jobs, you will be Jackal halfway to becoming a fully-fledged Jackal. If you wish to become a full Jackal, you will then have to take a test. If you don’t, you will be given the option to intern with a Government official. Otherwise, you will cycle through the different departments of the Government Sector of your birth nation.”

Tash raised her hand again.

“Yeh, Tash?”

“So…after we complete the nine jobs, are we finished with our Government Sector training?”

“No. Let me explain this a different way: for your training, you will need to complete one job per bracket per nation per Official. So what does that mean? Well, for example, your first job will be to help the Magistrate of Edenyon. He an Official of the Lower Bracket and from Yamara. Your next job will be to help a Magistrate from Gavi Quintar; and after that you will be assigned to help a Magistrate from Zuashi. You will then cycle back around to Yamara, but this time be assigned to help a Middle Bracket Legal, and so on and so forth. After you finish those jobs, then you will be able to intern with any Official within the Government Sector. Any more questions?”

No one answered.

“Good. Now, once you have completed your first job, you will be required to take the Government Sector Test (GSE) to allow Government Sector Officials to decide if they want to extend an invitation to you to intern with them in the future. Please note that the GSE is different than the Jackal test.”

Tash raised her hand. “Excuse me?”

“Ah, yeh?”

“Isn’t that a little subjective? I mean what if we complete the jobs within a month? Won’t that put us at a disadvantage to take the test with those who have been in the Government Sector their entire lives?”

The woman smiled even more brightly, which made her smile look as if it were about to fall off. “Everyone who enters the Government Sector must complete the GSE on the seventh day of their first week here. It is mandatory for all the three nations, so this test will carry over for your Government Training for both Yamara and Zuashai. Now just for a reference point, I have included the GSE score ranges per bracket."

Data Recorder Magistrate Legal Padline General/Jackal President

GSE score 

needed

<301 301-400 401-500 501-600 601-700 675-700

“As you will notice, Generals and Jackals have the same GSE requirement. Also, after the Presidential elections, the new Presidential candidate must retake the GSE and score between a 675 and 700, where 700 is a perfect score. If the candidate fails, then he or she will be removed from their office as General for one term, allowing a new General to compete for the Presidency, and the election process will begin again.”

Since the Government sector is allied with all the other sectors, we have a building dedicated to each Sector. The green building is for everything related to the Food Sector; the Red building is for the Health Sector; the yellow building is for the Arts Sector; and the blue building is for the Science Sector. Within these buildings, anyone within the Government Sector that scored in the 150-300 range on the GSE will be designated to receiving and compiling all the data that the individual sectors send us regarding policy updates, requests for new facilities, permits, etc. Anyone who scores above a 300 on the GSE will be then reviewed for a Government Official job.

Now all the data collected from the Building Office Workers goes to one of the five officials outlined in the previous page. After the Government Officials receive the data, they then bring it to the Legal Score to discuss the issues facing Qui. Within the Legal Score, the Officials narrow down the requests by half by deciding on what needs higher authority and what can be handled by the Sector Officials themselves. The requests that they cannot handle, they to pass on to the Grafter Theater where the Generals and President come together to discuss how to keep Qui safe and keep the land healthy.

Kirosh looked at the document before him. It held a little summary table labeled “Section B: Forums.” It held the exact same information the woman had just sped talked through:

Legal Score

The body of government in which the officials of all Qui citizen brackets come together to make policy. The Legal Score shall be comprised of the seven Magistrates, five Legals, and ten Padlines.

Grafter Theater The body of government held in the Triga Lake capitol. The President and three Generals convene in the Grafter Theater to discuss issues and policy for Qui as a whole.

“Now, like I said before, your first job will be to help the small town of Edenyon—the keepers of the Lake of Hearts. Since Edenyon is near the border of Gavi Quintar and Yamara, it is frequently a disputed territory. Gavi Quintar is requesting that the Lake of Hearts be measured for their personal records and personally give it to them at the Legal Score meeting in four days. Now I know what you are all thinking.” The woman held up her hands as if to ward off impending complaints although no one had opened even had enough time to get in a word in. “You are all probably thinking that this is a Magistrate’s job. And you are completely right, it is. However, The Magistrate of Edenyon frequently asks for a Jackal to be present for two reasons. The first is so that the data will be returned immediately to the Government Sector Building here in Triga Lake, and second because of an old legend of the Lake of Hearts.”

“Legend?”

“It’s just a silly old children’s tale that tells of the Beast of Edenyon.”

“What’s the legend?”

“I don’t know and I don’t really care.” The woman shrugged. “But I’m sure someone will be happy to tell you when you reach the town. Now, there is a time limit to completing this job. You must return with the information in three days due to the upcoming Legal Score meeting.”

“But that meeting isn’t for four days.”

“Yeh, but the Data Collectors also need to record the data for our own records.” The woman said with a blank and simple face. “Now, before I release you to your Jackal, I want to remind you that this is the easiest task of all the Government levels. If you’re not back by the third day with the information, you will be dropped from the program. If you return on time, your job will be marked completed and you will be able to spend the remainder of your first week here studying for your GSE. Enjoy.” The woman said with a bright smile and left in a flurry of clothes before anyone had time to ask any more questions.

“…That was Thera.” Jack sighed.

“Thera? As in Thera Kushman…the President’s wife?”

Jack just nodded. “And before you ask, yeh, she’s always like that.”

Silence fell, but it was periodically interrupted by the sound of Jack scraping his plate. When he finished, he pushed his plate away and leaned back with a sigh. “Now that we are alone, let’s get a few things straightened out. One thing Thera didn’t mention is that for the next five years, you will be in my care as Younglings. I will more or less shuffle you around the three nations to learn from the top officials in each Elite bracket sector. All your “free time” will go into learning about my Duty even when you are not in the Government Sector, just in case one of you is dumb enough to choose it as your Qui Duty.”

“Why wouldn’t we want to choose becoming a Jackal?” Garett asked.

“Give it a few days. You’ll find out soon enough.” Jack snorted. “Since you are in my care, there are only two rules that I require you to follow. First, do what I say, when I say it. I don’t want any whining or complaining. On the road, act like men and women,” he gave Arina and Tash a small nod, “and I will treat you as such, regardless of your age. With that being said, if you act like little children, I will treat you like children—”

His manner of speaking reminds me of Arina for some reason.

“—Respect is to be earned, not to be expected. Second, I will be splitting you into pairs in the near future. These pairs are non-negotiable. As a pair, you will do everything together. If your partner fails, you fail. Your partner will be your both your family and best friend. Is that clear?”

“Yeh, sir.” We all said in perfect unison.

“Good. Your first day of training starts now.” He stood up. “We leave when the hour is up—”

“But that’s in 25 minutes!” Dryden exclaimed.

“We will meet in the front of this building. Don’t be late.” Jack waved without turning around.

I stared at the door as it closed behind Jack, but my mind wasn’t on the short amount of time we had to pack our things and get back here before the designated time. My eyes darted to Arina who was still picking at her food. “One of us will have to be paired with Arina…for five whole years…