I STEPPED INSIDE the tube.
It was actually more comfortable than it looked from the outside. The interior was lined with creamy high-density fabric, very high tech and plush, like expensive car upholstery. There was at least two feet of open space all around me, including above my head. I could only just see out of the window.
Techs strapped a mask around my head, and there was a moment of panic until I felt the oxygen kick in. I strapped the goggles over my eyes and fitted earplugs snug in their places. Secure in the fact that I could breathe, I lay back and got comfortable. This might turn out to be the easiest test yet.
The door closed with such a gentle, quiet click that I barely noticed it.
Then the gel started coming in, gurgling, thicker than water—a little like the consistency of pudding—and unnaturally blue. It slithered up my skin, a little lower than body temperature—like a warm pool. Not as comfortable as bathwater, not as bad as a cold shower. The gel reached my chest and my feet left the bottom of the capsule, my body less dense than whatever the gel was made of.
The moment when the gel reached my neck and inched up my chin, my heart rate doubled. The primitive parts of my brain didn’t understand that I wasn’t about to drown. Hurry up, I thought. The inching of the gel toward my nose was the worst part. It was simulated drowning. I had to fight the instinct to hold my breath and instead breathed deep and slow, drawing my belly button in toward my spine and back out again. I can breathe. There is plenty of air.
The gel enveloped my head, finally. And as strange as it was, as claustrophobic as it could have been, the fact that I had a sliver of window to see other human faces helped. The world outside the window was fish-eyed and tinted with the blue of the gel, but I knew there were people out there, watching me, looking out for me, judging my performance. It was both motivating and reassuring.
I felt like I was floating inside a water bed. I closed my eyes, drifting weightlessly inside the HHM. I tried not to think about the fact that I was suspended in gel inside a metal tube.
Despite my slow breathing, each passing second ratcheted up possible panic.
Like someone slowly turning up a dial, my heart rate increased.
Then, Is there enough air? I can’t get enough air. I—I can’t get out.
I found Felix’s voice in my memory. Relax your body, starting with your toes. Feel each muscle tense until you release it. Feel how easily you can breathe in. Breathe out.
Thinking of Felix reminded me of yesterday, of the EEG. I’d combated that with music. I tried tapping into that well again.
My mind raced to find something to distract me and settled on Chopin, a nocturne I’d played last year at a recital. The rhythms came to me like an old friend, giving my brain something to do. Bit by bit I forgot the anxiety and felt the calm Chopin was famous for inducing. I drifted in the insulating gel, surrounded by softness, eyes closed and sounds muted.
I didn’t even notice when the gel began to drain away, until I felt a semicircle on the crown of my head go very, very cold.
The gel drained as slowly as it had been pumped in, and every inch of skin that it left exposed was instantly chilled, as if I’d stepped from a sauna into arctic air still soaking wet. By the time the gel was gone, I was bouncing in place, teeth clacking together like key chains rattling, just barely keeping myself from banging the door open.
Finally the door released, and I stumbled out of the tube. I couldn’t control my movements—my muscles jerked spasmodically. My legs quaked so much I had to reach out and grasp the edge of the HHM for balance.
A towel was draped over my shoulder. I grabbed it and held it with iron hands so no one could take it from me. My bones were ice. I was shivering so intensely I thought I’d fly into pieces. Deftly, the techs removed the oxygen mask, the goggles, and the earplugs, because I didn’t have enough dexterity to do it on my own.
My eyes found Colonel Pierce. He held the stopwatch in his age-spotted hand and looked at me with an unreadable expression. Mr. Crane was not nearly as inscrutable; his face held a knowing smile, as though he’d bet on me and, against all odds, had won. Made me think that maybe he wasn’t just there observing his new invention in action.
The female tech hurried me off through a side door before I could even hear my time.
Three female techs toweled me off in what looked like the women’s locker room. When most of the remaining pearls of gel were gone, I began to feel a little more able to control my temperature, but my skin still tingled like I’d been doused in peppermint oil.
“What is this stuff?” I asked, but through my shivering teeth it was hard to understand me.
She wrapped a thermal blanket around me. “Hold on to this for a few minutes until you get your temp back to normal, then you can change into dry clothes.”
I stopped her with an icy hand before she left. “How did I do?”
I must have looked pretty desperate, because she relented when I suspected she wasn’t supposed to. “You were in there twenty minutes. I tried to tell the colonel you were only supposed to be inside for fifteen, tops. But he said you were fine.”
“I was fine,” I said, a little in awe. I let go of her arm.
He’d pushed me further than Anton. Did that mean I’d done better? How did they measure our performance?
Or had he just been trying to break me?
I stood alone in the locker room, looking at myself in the mirror. My long black hair dangled wild and limp. My eyes were red and watering. I still shivered uncontrollably. I looked like a half-drowned rat.
But I’d done it.
I went back into the training pool just in time to see the door of the HHM closing on Hanna.
I slid onto the bench beside Anton, who was also dressed in fresh clothes. “Did I miss Luka?”
“Yeah,” he whispered back. “They just now got him out. He did the full fifteen minutes just fine.”
“Course he did.” I watched the capsule, unable to see Hanna’s face through the window, only noticing a glint of her blond hair. “I’m a little worried about her.”
“Yeah?” He didn’t seem to fully remember her incident last time we were here. “She still not good with close spaces?”
“I don’t know what it is.” My hands balled into fists on my knees. I found myself leaning forward, tense.
Hanna’s sudden scream was muffled and terrifying. She pounded on the door. I could see only flashes of her white skin and pale hair through the window, but it was clear that she was losing it.
I gritted my teeth, hands clenched around the edge of the bench. “He has to let her out,” I muttered.
“That’s it.” Pierce slashed a hand across his throat at the tech. “Kill it. Get her out.”
“Now, Colonel, the girl’s barely begun. Give her a chance to prove herself,” Crane said.
I gaped. Pierce stared back, surprised. The tech froze, halfway between obeying Pierce and obeying Crane.
Hanna stopped screaming. She was now pressed up against the back of the HHM, maybe trying to take control of herself. But it didn’t last long. I could see the blue gel filling up to her neck, and that’s when she broke, her face pressed up against the window in agony.
That part just before the gel had swallowed me whole—the brief terror that had filled me must be magnified a hundredfold for her.
I was on my feet before I knew what I was doing. “Let her out,” I demanded. “You have to let her out!”
Pierce nodded tersely. “I agree. Do it.”
The tech looked to Crane, who gave a little shake of his head.
“Let her out!” I ran to the capsule and stopped just short of pounding on it. “Turn it off. Reverse the stupid thing.”
Hanna’s face was submerged fully in gel. Blue and ghostly and silent now, her face was contorted in pain, eyes closed, as her hands slowly and fruitlessly slapped against the glass.
“Crane,” Pierce said, his voice a hammer of authority. “You want to get sued?”
“She’s perfectly safe,” Crane said, his hands clasped behind his back. “She isn’t in danger.”
My breath was coming fast, chest heaving—as though I were the one inside the tube, the one whose mind told her she was drowning. “You said you’d let them out if they couldn’t handle it.” I pointed at the square window where we could see Hanna’s panicked face. “She is obviously not handling it. There’s no point prolonging this.”
Crane turned his eyes on me, and I trembled but stood my ground. Not until that second did it catch up to me that I might be jeopardizing my rank for this.
“Go ahead,” he said to the tech, coolly. “Take her out.”
The tech reversed the gel pump, and slowly it started to empty inside the capsule. The pounding inside slowed and stopped. I looked inside, but all I saw was Hanna’s hair hanging over her face, her entire body slumped over on the cramped floor of the HHM.
After what felt like an hour, the door released, and Hanna collapsed into me.
I caught her. Her ribs heaved against my hands as she shivered uncontrollably. My skin started to tingle where it came in contact with the remnants of the gel.
The techs quickly surrounded her, gently moving her away so they could remove her mask and goggles, vigorously toweling her. She was alive, conscious. The anger and panic in me faded.
Hanna sat on the ground, legs splayed, hunched over like she had no muscles at all.
“Hanna?”
She didn’t look at me. Two of the techs helped her up and led her out to get changed. I followed. Once we were in the locker room, Hanna stood shivering and ghostly white under the harsh lights.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Her eyes narrowed on me, glazed over with some mix of fury and defeat. The remnants of her panic stained her face: the whites of her eyes were red, watery. Her lips were grayish-purple from the cold, and I could see blue veins in her temples and hands. Her tone was venomous. “What do you think?”
I held her gaze. Felt the full weight of her rage focus on me. My hackles were still up from confronting Crane, but I fought the instinct to fire back at her. She wasn’t angry at me. She was angry at herself. Maybe at Crane. We were alike in that.
“I hope you’re happy,” she spat. “I’m definitely out now.”
No, I thought. Weirdly, I’m not happy at all.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “You were the only other one who did well on the EEG. This fear is just in your head. If you can overcome it, you might still have a chance.”
“Really, Cass? You know everything, don’t you?” A shaky breath, then, quietly: “There’s no coming back from that.” She turned her back to me, shutting me out.
I’d tried. There was nothing else I could do.
I left her with the techs.
No amount of running made me feel better this time. I went to the gym and kicked around a punching bag for a while. It got the anger out of me, but not whatever dark emotion kept biting at my heels with sharp teeth.
I didn’t want to be around anyone. I picked up dinner around four and took it back to my room to wait for this stupid day to end. I wished I had music—anything to distract me. I’d already read the one paperback I brought four times.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because the next morning Mitsuko woke me with a pillow smack to the face. “Rise and shine, sunshine! Today is a beautiful new day.” Through my bleary eyes I could see she was grinning. “Kendra just came from the cafeteria. We’re down to nine.”
Hanna.
“You slept through breakfast,” she said.
I shot up. “Why didn’t you wake me?!”
She stuck out a hip and planted her hand on it. “You were tossing and turning all night; I thought I should let you sleep.” Then I noticed the plate of food on the nightstand: a bowl of steaming oatmeal, scrambled eggs, and toast. I turned back to give Mitsuko a sheepish apology.
She smiled. “You think I’d let you starve?”
Our instructors didn’t give us much time to regroup. I had little chance to even think about Hanna. They hit us hard, all day long.
Jeong drilled us with engineering schematics and computer sims of in-flight emergencies. Dr. Copeland gave us pop quizzes on medical emergency scenarios. Even in Shaw’s class our thoughtful discussions turned into relentless tests.
There were no computer simulations or theoretical schematics with Bolshakov; in his class, we had to build, disassemble, and repair electronics by hand, without instructions. And Bolshakov just watched, silent as a ghost, as we struggled to figure it out for ourselves. He’d give us a head start and then go to complete the repair himself—but by the time he’d finished, I was standing in front of him, holding my assembled piece while everyone else was still scrambling.
The change of expression on his face, from the smug assurance he was about to school us all, to shock and grudging respect—it gave me life. I could’ve forgone food and lived off that look for a week.
The relentless pace and my triumph in Bolshakov’s class helped me forget about the day before, forget about Hanna and Mr. Crane and the whole thing.
At dinner I started eating without a word to anyone else at the table, my inner monologue a mantra of the facts I’d learned so far that day. It took me a minute to realize everyone was staring at me.
“Uh . . . Cassandra?” Anton tried to get my attention. “You may want to turn around.”
His eyes were focused high, looking up at the leaderboard. I stopped midchew and whipped around in my seat.
Cassandra Gupta . . . . . . . 2
I stared at it so long I forgot there was food in my mouth. When I swallowed, I coughed.
When I turned back, Emilio was smiling. Mitsuko looked a little aghast when she thought I wasn’t looking, but then managed to give me a smile, too.
In those few seconds I had memorized the numbers. Luka, still strong and steady at number one. His only faults so far had been at the EEG and the wilderness survival, but that must not have been important enough to dock him points. Maybe I was coming close to overtaking him, for once. Or maybe those girls were right, and this competition was somehow politically motivated, giving Luka an invisible upper hand.
I’d have to show them my edge. Convince them that choosing anyone other than me was a mistake.
After me was Kendra, then Anton, with Mitsuko and Emilio lagging behind. Giorgia, Pratima, and Boris made up the last three slots.
Hanna’s name being absent gave me a little stab of some murky emotion, which I ignored. But even seeing my name higher than it’d ever been before, I didn’t feel the way I’d thought I would. Not satisfied—okay, maybe a little. But undeserving? Embarrassed?
I should not be feeling those things.
Emilio was overall great at everything and had an attitude to match. He was creative, energetic, never complained. He could be a little annoying sometimes, but he got along with everyone, and I’d already seen how valuable a skill that was. He’d been more down than usual lately, but I was sure that was a temporary thing.
Anton could lift two of me over his head and went out of his way to help other people, to the point of absurdity. Kendra I didn’t know so well, but she was whip-smart and more than capable. Mitsuko was a born leader, not afraid of anything or anyone. Me, I might’ve had better brain waves than everyone else, but just the day before I’d had a confrontation with the guy in charge.
If the EEG testing was so important that my success had me jumping over everyone else, why was Luka still number one and why was I still only in second place? I’d even stayed in the HHM longer, too.
I didn’t understand this. I didn’t understand anything at all.
That night, Hanna’s bed was made and empty. There was no trace that she had ever been there at all.