WE HAD A couple more days of class at the same breakneck pace. I was pretty sure our instructors were intentionally ramping up the stress.
I was on my way back from breakfast with Mitsuko, mentally girding myself for another day of rapid-fire questions, when it happened.
Mitsuko hit the door first, hand trying the knob. It rattled uselessly in her palm. “Uh. Why the hell is our door locked?”
Nobody had keys. No one locked their doors.
I tried the one next to ours, which had been empty since the last cut. Nothing.
Mitsuko half groaned, half laughed. “Here we go again. What is it this time?”
All nine of us had been in the cafeteria for breakfast. As the others returned in ones and twos, they joined us in confusion. Every one of us was locked out of our rooms.
Once everyone recovered from their respective heart attacks, speculation abounded. Were we being moved, or were some of us going home? Was it another test? It had to be another test.
Ms. Krieger eventually came to get us. We followed her down the halls past the classrooms, far past any doors I’d ever had reason to enter, and through a set of double doors into a massive gymnasium, two stories tall and big enough for four basketball courts, though there were no hoops in sight. Sound seemed swallowed up in its vastness. Sunlight streamed onto the concrete floor from the high, narrow windows lining the far wall. I could see nothing but a thin strip of blue sky near the ceiling. I imagined that maybe they used this place to test drive Mars rovers or the moon buggy—set it all up with the proper environments, obstacle courses, the works—but right now it was repurposed for us.
Our fate, I surmised, had something to do with the large white pod in the middle of the room. It looked retro sci-fi, like all those digital renderings of future Mars habitats back when we thought we’d never get the money to do that. The dome was about twenty feet tall and not quite twice that around.
There was something like a submarine hatch at the end where we stood.
Ms. Krieger, the colonel, and Felix were there, along with a couple of techs in dark blue NASA flight suits.
Ms. Krieger spoke. “Welcome, everyone. This is the Simulated Living Habitat, based on actual models for use on Mars, albeit adapted for our use here. You’ll be staying here for one week. Once inside, you may not leave without also leaving the program.”
Nervous excitement fluttered in my chest.
“This is designed to simulate the actual experience you’d have living in cramped quarters with your crew members, only you’ll have the luxury of gravity. You’ll eat here, shower here, and use the toilet here for the next seven days. You’ll be constantly monitored, given a variety of tests, and we will be in communication regularly via the radio.”
Felix stepped forward, his expression carefully neutral. I could feel a tiny trickle of sweat drip down my sternum. “I don’t have to explain to you that this is meant as a stressor. But it is a valid stress, and one that you will encounter if you are chosen for this mission. Tempers will flare. Nerves will fray. We expect some of that from everyone. But out of concern for your safety, any violence will be grounds for immediate expulsion from the program. We do expect you to work through any disagreements yourselves, peacefully, as you would have to do in space. You’re all adults.”
“If, at any time, you decide this isn’t for you, simply hit the red button next to the hatch and it will open. You’ll be on the next flight home.” Colonel Pierce surveyed us coolly. “Anybody want to back out now?”
Nobody did.
The two men in navy flight suits were part of our “Mission Control.” They spent the next half hour demonstrating how to use the shower, toilets, and emergency controls. We were each given a pack that included toiletries, underwear, and identical blue flight suits, and told we’d have no laundry service for the duration of our stay.
And suddenly—all too suddenly—they had crawled out of the hatch and were closing us in.
There was a rush to claim bunks. I didn’t particularly care where I was, so I just slung my stuff onto the first free bed I saw. Emilio moved to claim the one beside mine, but Boris got to it first.
“What, you wanna sleep next to your girlfriend?” Boris grinned lewdly.
“Nah, I’m fine, dude.” He went to the next bunk over.
Boris wasn’t exactly my favorite person, but I didn’t care. It was time to show what I was made of.
The bunks were all in a row, no partitions, no privacy. The beds were small and narrow, the mattresses and pillows equally thin. We each had one drawer under the bed and a narrow shelf next to the bed with a tiny lamp, to be shared between the bunks.
A shelf and a drawer, and the two-foot radius between my bed and the beds on either side of me. That was it for personal space.
Four guys. Five girls. One bathroom.
For a tense couple of minutes we all looked at one another, wondering how we were going to change clothes in front of everyone.
Luka solved the problem for us by simply turning to face the wall, stripping to his boxers, and redressing in his navy flight suit without any attempt at modesty. The way he acted like he was the only one in the room, there wasn’t even anything sexual about it.
It was one thing to change in front of other girls. I wasn’t going to be topless in front of all these guys, especially Boris. I left my undershirt on and zipped my flight suit up over it.
Mitsuko plopped down beside me, forcing me to make room for her on the narrow bed. “Geez, I’m sitting on like half a butt cheek,” I said.
“Oh, whine.” Mitsuko pulled something silky and red from her shirtsleeve, wadded it up, and tossed it behind her to land on the bunk she’d claimed. Anton’s eyes went wide, making Mitsuko and me laugh.
We had no tasks for the evening, so a few people wandered into the living quarters to check it out. Mitsuko, Emilio, and Anton hung out with me. It felt like a sleepover—at least how I imagined one might be, never having been invited to one. A mixed-gender sleepover, which was even more interesting. I allowed myself some small measure of enjoyment, listening to Mitsuko and Emilio trade jokes and barbs.
This wasn’t going to last. The novelty of being here was still fresh—it felt a little silly, like camping in your own backyard and pretending you were in the wilderness.
This was a test to see how well we could get along with others in tight spaces. I was going to pass this one with flying colors.
The lights dimmed by half, the signal that we had five minutes left before simulated nighttime. The people on and around my bunk dissipated—too slowly. I wanted sleep. I needed time alone in my brain for a while.
I used to have problems sleeping, back before I started running. I guess because I was an only child, I never had to get used to noises and strange things going on when I was falling asleep. I got around it when I was older by exhausting myself physically. But today I hadn’t been able to run.
When the lights went out completely and I was finally alone, I lay on my back and stared at the curved darkness over my head and realized I would not be able to sleep. For a while I listened to other kids in the room toss and turn on squeaky metal beds. A few bouts of snoring. A few whispers and giggles. The sounds tapered off to a steady white noise of sleep-breathing.
My eyes adjusted to the dull yellow safety lights in the floor, barely bright enough to do anything but keep you from tripping. I closed my eyes again and imagined I was flying through orbit at that very second, but that only made me feel more awake.
Mentally I went through each of the other candidates sleeping around me, invisible in the dark. I weighed them against myself with all the scientific impartiality I could muster. Could I do better than them? Yes, I thought. Most of them, yes.
Emilio? He had better social skills than I did. He was in good shape. Mitsuko, too. But I had more drive. I was smarter, at least on paper. I had nothing holding me back to Earth like Mitsuko did, no sentimental attachment like I imagined Emilio would have; I had the ruthlessness and ability to think on my feet. Mitsuko had that, to a fault. Pratima was smart, capable, but prickly. Anton was athletic, sociable, not so good with tests. Kendra was smart, strong, and worked well with others, but didn’t shine in the EEG. Boris was just a jerk.
Everyone had a weakness. Even Luka.
Luka had consistently performed at the top of the class and acted like he was bored most of the time. Could I do better than him? Physically—maybe not. Mentally, I thought we were evenly matched.
But time would have to tell how we might match up in other ways. Maybe he panicked under pressure. Maybe I was more creative. Sociability? I had made friends, and Luka spent so much of his time alone. But how much would that matter, in the end? There were just too many variables, and too many of them unknown at this point. Luka himself was entirely an unknown, a variable unto himself. He hadn’t picked up the EEG skill quite so quickly, but I was willing to bet that was a temporary setback.
If I was making the decision—and if I was being honest—Luka seemed to be the right choice. But that didn’t mean I was going to stop trying to beat him.
In the quiet, with no one watching me anymore, my thoughts focused on home. Somehow in the dark, it didn’t hurt as much to imagine my family living their lives without me. What were they doing right now? Were they thinking about me? I could see Gauresh watching TV on the couch with his yappy little dog. Dadi tucked into the recliner, knitting. Papa reading his tablet, Mama on the phone with one of her sisters. That had been my every night at home. I’d usually be sitting beside Uncle, fighting over what to watch next, or sitting at the coffee table working on homework with his dog Saachi in my lap. It’d been oppressively, embarrassingly boring at the time. And I was happy to be here—I was. But I couldn’t deny the twinge in my heart when I thought of home.
Dadi would pray for me: to Parvati for protection and Saraswati for the pursuit of knowledge and to Ganesh for luck and the removal of obstacles. Maybe she was praying for me right now.
That thought—of home, of Dadi telling me I would make my own destiny—finally helped me close my eyes.
And then the alarms screamed.