“Proceed to the peak to make camp,” the instructions said.
Titus turned to look, having memorized the landscape as they slowly traversed the deep valley. They couldn’t mean thatpeak in the distance, on the other side of the lake. It was so far away that they would never reach it before sunset.
He realized he was shaking his head when Mahs insistently nodded, pointing to the instructions, then to the peak.
Titus stared at Mahs. Why didn’t he just give up?
Mahs narrowed his eyes slightly, jerking his chin at Titus– Why don’t you?
The challenge hung between them only a few seconds, then Titus slowly grinned at Mahs, making it very clear that hewould never give up.
* * *
They were trudging up the lower slope of the peak in full darkness when a computer voice announced, “Your time is up. Thank you for participating in Communications Project #104.”
The mountainside glimmered, flattening into an obvious projection before disappearing. The familiar orange‑gridded walls rose around them.
Titus lifted up one hand wordlessly as the door slid open and two lab techs with padds entered. The instructions said there was no way to “fail” the course, but it wasn’t his fault they didn’t complete it on time. The inhibitor stifled his initial outburst.
“Cadet Titus,” one tech read off the padd. “Follow me.”
Titus glanced back down the corridor as Mahs was led in the other direction. Maybe it would be better this way. He could explain in private to the lab tech. He didn’t intend to fail this volunteer assignment. That would ruin all of his plans.
But the lab tech didn’t give him a chance to explain. The inhibitor was left intact and he was shown into a cubicle with a bed, wash facilities, and a replicator. He gestured, puzzled, but the lab tech just winked and activated the door. It slid shut between them. There was no panel on his side for him to open it.
Titus was about to override his inhibitor to protest–imprisonment wasn’t what he signed up for! But before he could speak a holo‑emitter activated, creating one of the sign posts, incongruously, next to the door, complete with an instruction card.
“Eat and get some sleep,” the instructions said. “You will complete the course tomorrow.”
Titus let out a wordless grunt of exasperation. So this was still part of the project. Well, he could play along with that.
The silence was starting to get to him. It hadn’t been so bad the night before, when he was exhausted from their last sprint to get to the peak. He had barely taken time to eat before falling into bed. When he woke, he cleaned up and ate another huge meal, all the while gingerly testing his inhibitor, looking around the cubicle and wondering when they were going to get him out of here.
The same lab tech came to fetch him. He must have been really beat the night before, because he hadn’t realized how pretty she was, especially that flip of black hair and those freckles across her nose. Or maybe he’d been shut up too long.
He was led back to a small white room, just like the one where he and Eto Mahs had started the obstacle course. This time a different guy entered along with him–Cadet Vestabo. Titus didn’t need to read the instruction post to know Vestabo was a first‑year cadet who was considered to be a mathematics whiz. He was also a regular in the Saturday morning lasertag game that Titus had joined in a few times.
As the door to the holodeck opened, Vestabo was nodding a greeting to Titus, pointing to his throat and smiling at the inhibitor. Titus ran his hand through his hair, letting out a long low whistle as the same countryside appeared, with the peak in the distance.
Not again!he wanted to exclaim.
Maybe they were giving him a second chance. Maybe they realized it wasn’t his fault that they hadn’t made it to the peak. But why pair him with another scrawny guy? Vestabo wasn’t nearly as timid and frail as Eto Mahs, he was just a wiry kid, much like Titus himself when he first came to the Academy. But Titus had bulked up by venting much of his frustration the past year working out with counter weights. Gradually, he had put on an impressive amount of muscle. On a good day, he could even beat Bobbie Ray at Parrises Squares.
His doubts about Vestabo’s ability were quickly squashed when they reached the light beam crossing the river. Vestabo read the instructions and, without hesitation, jumped up on the beam and ran across. Titus grinned at him, giving him a thumbs‑up when he reached the other side. He felt better for the first time since he realized he was going to have to go through the entire course again.
He stepped up on the light beam and immediately knew something was different. It wasn’t solid like before. It wobbled. He frowned as he inched forward, trying to keep his balance. He only got a few feet before he was shifting so wildly that he fell off.
He tried to grab the light beam as he went over, but his hands passed through it as if it was an illusion–which it was.
The stunning cold choked the air from his lungs. He was spitting water and gasping, swimming instinctively against the current. With no time for thought, he was back on the bank shivering, his hands tucked between his legs.
Vestabo’s mouth was a perfect O,shocked that Titus hadn’t made it across. Titus knew the feeling, having stood on that side of the bank himself.
He tried it again, and this time he got nearly to the middle before losing his balance on the trembling light beam. He expected the extreme cold this time, which allowed him to feel what his body had known the first time–there were things in the water!
Hundreds of itching, prickling THINGS.
He was out of the water and shuddering on the bank before he could gasp out loud. His hands convulsed over his body, frantically trying to get rid of the things, but there was nothing there, just a nervous prickling that faded from his nerves.
Vestabo was hunched over, shaking, unable to hide his laughter behind his hands.
That was the last time Vestabo laughed. As Titus tried again and again to get across the flimsy light beam, Vestabo crouched on the other side, chewing the inside of his mouth anxiously. He even stood up to grab Titus’s arm when he finally got close to the other side.
Titus kept expecting contempt to rise in the younger boy’s eyes, especially after they reached the wall obstacle. The instructions told them to each hold a grip on a transport container to get it over the wall. Vestabo couldn’t tell that the vacuum on Titus’s grip handle kept breaking, just as he hadn’t been able to see that the light beam over the river wasn’t solid for Titus.
Time and again Vestabo grunted as he suddenly had the full weight of the container swinging from his grip. It kept thudding back to the ground. Titus remembered how he had been forced to carry it over single‑handedly when Eto Mahs hadn’t been able to hang on to it. Now he knew why. He cringed to think of how he had stared at Mahs, unable to understand why he couldn’t carry a nearly empty transport container.
Vestabo, on the other hand, seemed confused, but once they got over the wall, he shrugged it off and his good‑natured smile returned.
It was the same when they reached the transparent barrier. The instructions told them to go left to find the opening, and Titus remembered traipsing along hip‑deep in marsh grass forever while Eto Mahs tugged at his arm, trying to get him to go the other way. As it turned out, the instructions were wrong and the opening was about a klick in the other direction.
Titus knew he probably had the same pained expression as Eto Mahs as he tried to get Vestabo to stop and go right instead of left. It was excruciating, knowing that he knew the fight path but he wasn’t able to tell the kid. And Vestabo didn’t exactly trust him at this point.