Free Feuds by Avery Hastings

It would bring her mother back to life, if only for an instant. And that was everything.
    *   *   *
    â€œPA?” a nurse waiting in the lobby asked.
    Davis nodded.
    â€œThat way,” the nurse replied. “On the left down the corridor. They’ll give you your number.”
    Davis walked to the enormous conference room that had been dedicated to this purpose. It, too, was glass, yet somehow she couldn’t see the hallways once she was inside. Double-paned glass, she thought. Only the best. She walked to the registration table and swiped her P-card to record her arrival.
    â€œPlease press your thumb to the keypad,” an automated voice intoned from her DirecTalk. Davis did as instructed, firmly holding the pad of her thumb to the surface of a small, rectangular device glowing red and mounted to the back of a large computer at the registration desk in front of her.
    â€œAll set,” said the admin who was perched atop a stool behind the computer. She typed furiously, glancing up at the screen in front of her. “Fifty-two,” she said tersely after a few seconds had passed. “That’s your group number. Just wait over there,” she said, gesturing toward an enormous computer monitor to the left, in front of which dozens of Davis’s classmates lingered, “and it’ll pop up when they’re ready for you.”
    â€œThanks,” said Davis.
    The wait couldn’t have been long, but to Davis it felt interminable. A small part of her wished she were a little kid again, with her dad waiting at her side. She shifted uneasily in her chair, wrapping her fingers around the bottom edge and squeezing tight. Finally, her number appeared on the screen, accompanied by the boom of another monotone automated voice. Davis filed into a smaller room with about a dozen others. There, she spent the next three hours completing a test tablet filled with rigorous questions meant to test her intellectual aptitude: her interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, spatial, musical, existential, and logical-mathematical intelligences. By the time the proctor called, “Styluses down!” in a clipped tone, Davis’s brain felt like total mush.
    The intellectual aptitude test didn’t really matter, though. It was just a formality, a pass/fail system meant to verify a basic standard of brain functioning among qualified athletes. Sometimes it culled those who scored in the top 0.1 percent for recruitment programs, but that wouldn’t apply to her. The most important exam was yet to come: a bodily-kinesthetic intelligence test. Physical Aptitude. The PA test would determine whether she would qualify for the Olympiad trials—and from there, the Olympiads themselves. Davis filed out into the hall with the others, craning her neck for a glance at Emilie. But she was nowhere in sight; it was possible the proctors had planned it that way. Maybe they were deliberately mixing the testing groups. She peeled off her outer layers as instructed—the jacket, her black workout pants, and sheer blue top—until only her leotard, tights, and slippers remained.
    After a short half-hour stretch break, it was her turn.
    â€œThis way, please,” one of the proctors said, directing her toward a large white door marked with the number 4. Davis turned back as she went, watching the proctor as she nudged the other athletes from Davis’s group into other similarly marked doors according to their respective concentrations.
    The gymnasium was large and domed and made of glass. High above her, Davis saw evidence of artfully concealed observation decks. There wasn’t a stage in sight—or even a good surface to dance on—which caused Davis’s heart to swell and thud with a pressure so intense she thought it would crack a rib.
    The judges, Davis realized. The judges were up there. At least the council had made an effort to conceal them behind double-sided mirrors,