Dr. Barnes asks us to take our seats and congratulates the Testing candidates who remain. I have to lead Will to a chair. Force him into the seat. Tomas and I sit on either side of Will as he begins to tremble. From their stories, I know Will and Gill have never been apart for more than a couple of hours. I've watched them complete each other's sentences. I wonder how one half will survive without the other.
Will holds my hand like a lifeline as we are told the second round of tests will begin tomorrow morning after breakfast — the first of a series of hands-on examinations that will allow us to demonstrate our intellect, unique skills, and problem-solving techniques. Dr. Barnes then warns, "If there is a part of the test you do not understand or do not know how to complete, please do not guess. Raise your hand and let the Testing official in your designated room know you cannot finish. Leaving a problem unsolved is better than giving an incorrect answer. Wrong answers will be penalized." He lets the words settle on us and dismisses us with one last round of congratulations.
Tomas helps me get Will up and moving. By the time we get to the dining hall, Will is telling us his brother probably failed on purpose so he could go home to his girlfriend. He tells more jokes at dinner. Every once in a while I see him glance to his left as though waiting for his brother to finish his thought before realizing he isn't there.
We go to our quarters early to get ready for whatever will come with the morning. I dream of Ryme with a makeshift noose tight around her neck, offering corncakes to Gill. She smiles at me as he takes one and falls to the floor dead.
In the morning I scrub with cold water to wash the grainy feel from my eyes and then head to breakfast. I'm the last of our table to arrive. Spirits are high. Especially Will's as he flirts mercilessly with Nicolette. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears are tinged with pink as she sips her glass of apple juice. Judging by the way she smiles back at him, I don't think his attention is unwelcome. I hope he isn't just using her as a way of coping with his brother's absence. Things are stressful enough.
The announcement is made and we all head to the elevators, back to the third-floor lecture hall. Dr. Barnes, with his smile bright against his graying beard, watches us as we take our seats. He tells us that there are eighty-seven of us left. He reminds us the second phase of Testing begins today and asks us all to remember that in this phase wrong answers are penalized.
We are called in groups of six. I am surprised when Malachi and Will are called with me, and we trail down the hall after a testing official. The Testing room holds six waist-high worktables in two rows — three in front, three in back — each with a small stool seated directly behind it. On the left-hand corner of each station is a small sign depicting a candidate symbol. In the center of every table is a large wooden box.
A silver-haired female official asks us to find the table marked with our symbol. My workstation is the back center one. Malachi's is at the front to my right. Will is next to me on my left. He catches me looking at him and winks.
The official tells us to raise our hands when we complete the test in front of us. The box will be removed. When all candidates have finished the current box, a new test will be brought out. We are to complete as many tests as we can in the allotted time. This test will not break for lunch, she warns. Then she repeats Dr. Barnes's instructions about raising our hands if we don't know how to complete the test, stressing that we are not to guess at answers we are uncertain of. She tells us to solve the puzzle of opening the box and then follow the instructions for the test we find inside.
Seems easy, which is enough to make me nervous. The Testing is not designed to be easy. I study the box while out of the corner of my eye I can see several of my fellow candidates tapping and tugging at theirs. My mother has a puzzle box at home that her grandfather created for her. It requires the opener to slide pieces of the box to the side in a specific order — otherwise, the box will not open.
Slowly, I turn the box on the table so I can view every side. The wood is rich and smooth and has a swirling etched design that makes it quite beautiful. I'm sure Zandri would be able to identify the technique used to create the pattern, but I'm not interested in admiring it. I want to open the thing.
Ah. There in the bottom corner I see a small knot in the pattern. Nowhere else on the box is there that tiny, circular shape. A button? I dig the tip of my index finger into the small spot and feel something give way. Sure enough — the side of the box is now able to slide up and off. I set that piece to the side and pull out the instruction sheet.
Test the plants inside the box for edibility. Separate those that are edible from those that are poisonous.
Again there is a warning: If you do not know an answer, do not guess. Set the unknown plant to the side.
I smile. This test was designed for me.
There are eight plants in the box. I recognize six immediately. The white flowers arranged in an umbrella-looking shape are water hemlock. My father says they were deadly even before the lakes were corrupted by biochemical warfare. The deep green leaf with the threads of red veins I believe is also poisonous. At least the rhubarb leaves that grow by us are not to be eaten. The branch of deep green oval leaves with brown nestlike shapes hanging from the branch has to be a beech nut. I'm also positive I recognize sassafras, wild onion, and nettle, which are often eaten by the bugs in our colony.
The last two species give me pause.
I sniff the first — a large, jaggedly shaped green leaf. There is a faint hint of a floral scent. I can see on the stem where a flower might have been connected recently. The leaf is soft and reminds me of a flower that my father pointed out to me a few years ago — not one he created, because it is poisonous and his work is to create things that will sustain life. Still, he thought the plant had value because of its fragrant beauty. Is this the same plant? If not, I believe it to be related. I put it in the poisonous pile and move on to the last — a dark hairy root with white flowerlike leaves attached to the top. I scrape away the outside of the root with my fingernail and sniff it. It smells sweet. Not like a beet or a carrot. Those are very different. But something about this seems familiar. I can hear Dad's voice as he talks about a variety of roots that have had luck growing in southern colonies. One called chicory that Zeen wanted a sample of to study in case it would help with the new version of potato. This is chicory or something near to it. I feel confident enough to place it in the edible pile and raise my hand.
The other candidates look at me as the official checks my work. She asks if I am confident in my answers. Wiping my palms on my pants, I look over the plants once more. Yes. I am as certain as I am going to get. She smiles and scribbles something in a notebook. Then she removes the nonedible plants and tells me to take a seat until the other candidates are finished.
Ten minutes later, everyone's work has been checked. The Testing official has removed the plants the candidates separated as not edible and has recorded those in her notebook. Back up front, she asks us one last time if we want to change our answers. She calls each of our names and waits for us to answer yes or no. None of us takes her up on her offer.
"Well, then," she says cheerfully, "you should have no problem ingesting a sample of each plant you have deemed edible."
The room goes silent. Finally, I understand.
Yes — a wrong answer will be penalized. Dizziness. Vomiting. Hallucinations. Maybe even death.
I glance around at the tables in the room and see each Testing candidate has a different sampling of plants. There is no way to compare answers. Did I make a mistake? The boy in front of me seems confident he did not. He quickly samples each of his plants. Next to me, Will samples his four. I take a deep breath and eat the beech nut, a small piece of the sugary root I hope is chicory, and the other three plants. None of the plants I deemed poisonous would be fast-acting. We will have to wait to learn whether any of us has made a mistake.
There is no time to worry about whatever might be happening inside my body as Testing officials carry in the next box. This one has a complicated sliding pattern to remove the top and all four sides. Inside is a large pulse radio and a set of small hand tools. The instructions say to restore the pulse radio to working order.
We are told that before the Seven Stages of War, the world was able to communicate through devices that bounced signals to satellites in space. I don't know what happened to those satellites. Maybe they are still floating somewhere above us or maybe they have crashed into the earth without any of us knowing. And with the earthquakes that pulled apart the earth, all underground wires for communication were severed. After the war, scientists decided to use the much higher concentration of electromagnetic radiation to restore communication. Pulse radios were born, although they can broadcast more than just voices. With the right receiver on the other side, pulse radios can broadcast images as well as sound. They record large chunks of communication and then create a pulselike signal that propels out to receivers. My father has a pulse radio to communicate with other colonies and Tosu City, so I have seen one before. My father even let me take a look inside it. Which means it is easy for me to find the wires that are mistakenly crossed, fix the solar-powered motor, and make a few tweaks to the transmitter. In between each adjustment, I pause and check my heart rate to determine whether the plants I consumed are making me sick. At any sign of illness, I plan on purging the other plants from my stomach. It won't impact the poison already in my bloodstream, but I have to try something.
While working, I notice a few wires that clearly don't belong in a pulse radio and some small metal hinged boxes that don't look familiar. If I were at home, I would poke around to see what they contained. But this isn't home. I will do only what I am certain of.
I screw the top back on the pulse radio and am about to raise my hand when I notice Malachi swaying on his feet. Fatigue or one of the plants he consumed? I think of the plants that I received and try to decide if one of them would cause this kind of reaction. Sweat pours down his face. His hands begin to shake as he starts work on an area of the radio that I ignored. One that contained an unfamiliar metal box. I know we are not supposed to help our fellow candidates, but Malachi's shoulders are twitching and I am worried the plants he ingested no longer allow him to think rationally. I open my mouth to call out — to tell him not to touch the metal box.
But he already has. A moment later a nail imbeds itself in Malachi's eye, and he drops to the floor like a stone.
CHAPTER 8
WHEN I WAS a child, I once cut my finger to the bone. My mother tells me I didn't scream or cry out. I just froze as though staying still would stop the blood from flowing. The blood pooling on the white floor next to Malachi's head has the same effect. A scream builds inside me, fights to get past my clenched throat, but I make no sound. Someone else's shouts, maybe Will's, wake me from stillness, and I race from my station to where Malachi lies twitching on the floor. A pair of purple-clad arms grab me and pull me back. In my struggle to get free I barely hear the head Testing official talking to me. Asking me if I have completed my test. If not, I must return to my station. Otherwise, there is a risk I will receive assistance from observing another candidate's work.
I want to scream that the test doesn't matter. Not when life is draining drop by drop onto the tile floor. But I choke out a yes, and I am released. The Testing officials make no move toward Malachi as I take his hand and hold tight. From their posture I can tell they will offer no aid. This is the penalty for an incorrect answer. To them he has earned whatever comes next.
The twitching is getting worse. While Malachi's uninjured eye is open, I am uncertain if he can see or if the plant he ingested has caused some kind of coma as it wages war on his body. Still, I shift my position on the cold tile just in case. If he can see, he will recognize something of home. A girl who sang songs with him on the grass and asked him for help when she struggled with her homework. A girl who is his friend. Someone who can't imagine what will happen when he is gone.
Only, I no longer need to imagine. The twitching stops. His muscles go slack as his chest stops its rise and fall. Malachi is dead.
Do I cry? I must. Because when they tell me to go back to my station, I touch my face and find my cheeks are wet. How long they let me sit next to Malachi's unmoving body is uncertain to me. A while. Long enough for two of the other candidates to finish their tests — or perhaps, after what happened to Malachi, they chose to stop instead of taking their chances.
Giving Malachi's hand one last squeeze, I brush a lock of dark curly hair from his forehead and kiss his cheek. The room swoops and spins as I stand. After a moment, I am able to walk stiffly to my station. I balance on my stool and wait for the officials to move Malachi's body, but they don't. Not yet. Not until everyone has completed this phase of the test.
I wait for the other candidates to protest. To say this is wrong. But I know why they don't. It's the same reason I don't yell out. The reason is Malachi and his too-still body. We all want to live.
Several minutes later, Will raises his hand to indicate he has finished and then closes his eyes so he won't have to see the shell of a boy he shared meals with. The girl to my right finishes. The Testing official checks our work. When she is done, she signals the other officials to remove Malachi from the floor. My fellow candidates look at the tops of their desks or up at the ceiling. I don't. Malachi deserves someone who cares to bear witness. I force myself to watch every second — picking him up, carrying him by his arms and legs across the room, out the door. Away.
There is no time to grieve as the next boxes are brought in and placed on our tables. We are given permission to start.
My hands tremble as I smell the blood still staining the floor. I force myself to take deep breaths. Push myself to continue when I only want to run screaming from the room — leave the building — find my way back home. But I know that isn't possible so I rub my hands on my pants, swallow my tears, and examine the box. I need several tries to figure out how to open it. Inside are soil samples and several capped beakers of solutions. We are to identify any soil samples that contain radiation.