The Kaizen entered, along with her four lieutenants. She shot the contestants a smug smirk. “Well, looks like you are settling in here too nicely. I think it’s time we do something about that. Line up, little babies.”
Imara gave Gemma a knowing look, and then the two of them filed behind the others like parts on a machinery line. It was a fitting imitation of what the Trials really produced: identical, insipid soldiers who did everything they were told without a second thought.
How else could the people on Oranos—and across the United Planetary Systems—be okay with what was happening on Reva? Didn’t it bother them that civilians were dying of disease and starvation?
Of course not, because the Systems’ government couldn’t care less about some miners on the farthest edge of one of their galaxies.
Gemma clenched her fists as the line began marching out the exit door and through a maze of corridors.
As long as Perileos continued to produce individuals who would simply say “yes, ma’am” or “yes, sir,” its people would never be taken seriously. They’d continue to live in poverty and fight for every piece of real meat and drop of clean water.
The Dissent would make the whole of the Planetary Systems see that the people on Reva weren’t willing to play dead anymore. Gemma just needed to focus on one trial at a time, and eventually, her moment to kickstart the revolution would come.
Compared to the streets of Perileos, the halls inside Zion were eerily silent. Unless she’d been in her own flat, Gemma had never been able to hear her own heartbeat. But right now, on their way to the next test, the quiet was punctuated by the hushed conversations of contestants getting to know one another, as loud as a spaceship touching down.
It was unnerving.
The Kaizen stopped the group in front of a set of massive double doors and waved her fibroglass ring in front of the doors’ keylock. A neon-green circle flashed several times inside the black square, and the doors opened.
Gasps and curse words echoed before Gemma even got inside the room. A wide, steel tunnel loomed on the opposite end of a metal floor. Light blue ultralights pulsated from its mouth and down the tube in perfect increments. The opening could fit fifty of them across its radius, and if she squinted, Gemma could almost see what looked like a table deep into the tunnel.
Her stomach twisted.What in the blazes is this?
“Listen up!” the Kaizen yelled. “If you want to be a soldier for the Systems, you need to prove to me that you’re not a milksop. You think you can sail the skies? You’re wrong. None of you have what it takes. At least,not yet. You make it through this test, and maybe—just maybe—I’ll consider believing you.”
Gemma ground her teeth, her palms already clammy. This was why the Dissent encouraged her to take the mining job. Right away, they were weeding out the weakest from the strongest. This was their first true trial, and they’d only slept one night in Zion. If she got kicked out now...
Gemma twirled the poison ring on her finger. If she didn’t make it to the graduation party, all she’d need was a little alcohol, and she’d drink the poison herself.
“You have twenty minutes to complete this test,” the Kaizen instructed. “And you all are going at once. So, form a line here, and when you hear the sound of my gun, trample over each other. Kill each other. I don’t care. Just make it out the other side if you want to stay in Zion.”
Gemma glanced down at where a strip of red ultralight turned on. She turned her attention to Imara, who already stared straight ahead, her face tight. Gemma nodded, took a deep breath, and placed one foot in front of the other.You can do this. She leaned slightly forward, ready to pounce the moment the Kaizen gave the signal.
Though the room was cold, sweat had formed on the back of Gemma’s neck, and her heart rate kept increasing. She needed to make it to the end, no matter what. She couldn’t let Rami get away with what he did.
Boom!
Gemma pushed off with her back leg and bolted toward the entrance of the tunnel, keeping a quick but steady pace. She wouldn’t waste all her energy at the beginning.
She didn’t know how long this tunnel was.
Most of the contestants barreled into each other as the one hundred eighty-one of them attempted to cram into a space big enough for fifty.Gemma winced when a girl in her peripheral fell, and several individuals trampled her. Her shrieks pierced Gemma’s heart, the sound of bones snapping ripping chills down her spine.
Everyone was out for themselves.
This was going to be a bloodbath.
Into the tunnel Gemma ran, her shoulders knocking into contestant after contestant as she fought for a spot through the opening. Elbows jammed into her ribs. She nearly toppled after a boot knocked her ankle, pain lacing up into her hip.
She shot her gaze across the crowd, searching for an opening. Her short height and petite build came with one advantage: She could slip through gaps between the others. After a few quick maneuvers, she broke through the horde of ferocious contestants.
Gemma dug her heels into the steel floor and increased her pace, spying the object that had looked like a table from a distance. The closer she got, however, she realized it wasn’t a table at all but a thick, white hurdle that reached her shoulders. And there were four of them a short distance apart from one another, spanning the width of the tunnel. There was no way of getting around them.
She had to jump.
Grunting, Gemma put her hands on the first one and vaulted the rest of her body over, barely avoiding colliding with her fellow contestants as she cleared the obstacle. The following three also came easily for her, despite their slick surfaces. Working in the mines had indeed benefited her upper body and core strengths.
When she landed on the other side of the final hurdle, she picked up speed, keeping an arm’s breadth between those to her sides.
