There were only three seconds left on the countdown, but when Leigh reached her hand out for the shimmering blue hologram in the middle of the platform, her vision swam and she was bombarded with memories of her early childhood. Her hand was replaced with that of a little girl’s. She was running after her older brother, her small grubby hands always reaching for a back that was no longer in sight.

On the surface they were the splitting image of each other, but in reality the little girl was always trying to catch up. Every time she thought she’d finally be able to reach him, the distance between them just grew. Leigh’s past Ranks were there as mocking proof of it. She’d been in the top 100 until she was six, but those numbers soon gave way to the 200s and then the 300s when the other kids her age started getting serious and before she knew it, she was fifteen and in the 1100s, that had been ten months ago.

She’d considered giving up then; her brother was an unattainable goal. She’d been born to follow in her brothers footsteps, but she’d always known she wasn’t like Kyle. Success came as naturally as breathing to him and failure an entirely foreign concept. The things he achieved without even trying, she had to bust her butt off. She’d worked tirelessly, giving up everything else in her life to keep her Rank, but even that hadn’t been enough. It was then, when she’d finally come to terms with her limitations, that Nathan Kies showed up.

Leigh had always been Kyle’s back-up, but Kyle had never needed one. He’d set records so high that no one even stood the chance of breaking them. They remained unchallenged for five years until Kies suddenly started breaking them left and right. He was destroying her brother’s legacy, and while Leigh had come to terms with the fact that she’d never be able to measure up to her brother herself, she couldn’t just let some rando roll in and usurp her brother like that. If anyone was going to beat her brother, it had to be her.

From then on, every Rank had been more hard-fought than the last, and gaining them back turned out to be exponentially harder than keeping them. Leigh had given all of herself to the task of being selected First. In some ways, that hurt more than if she hadn’t. If she still failed now, she’d have no excuse to fall back on. Maybe she simply wasn’t good enough.

Immediately the thought had Leigh gritting her teeth. She’d been the victim of self-doubt too many times to let it ruin her last chance at First Academy. If she really wasn’t good enough, it wouldn’t have come down to seconds. As if needing some other kind of confirmation that she deserved this, Leigh launched herself off her injured leg, shouting “Fuck that!” at the top of her lungs.

WARNING! 25 point deduction in Civilized Comportment.

Reason: [attached vid]

WARNING! 40 point deduction in Anger Management.

Reason: Accelerated heart rate, high blood pressure, elevated catecholamine levels, muscles tensed at 107% above resting standard.

Worth it.

Two seconds.

A grin tugged at the corner of Leigh’s lips giving her a pained grimace as she once more landed on her bad leg; pain shot up through her nerves like hot iron. She cringed, nearly buckling under the indescribable pain. She almost lost her footing, determination was the only thing keeping her going.

One second.

Leigh didn’t give herself time to think about the consequences, and used her entire body weight to propel herself forwards. It was the only hope she had to clear the last three meters in time. A moment later a definitive crack accompanied the worst self-inflicted pain she’d ever prompted, but her fingers touched the shining blue holographic gate that was her destination.

Point B.

You have cleared SENSORY IMMERSIVE MODULE AC513.

She couldn’t celebrate, not until she knew if she’d beaten the record or not. Leigh’s eyes skimmed the results, all pain forgotten.

Mission Completion Score: 7,422.3

Year Completion Time Bonus: 10,000.00

Overall Completion Time Bonus: 20,000.00

She’d done it. She’d broken the Best Completion Time. She’d gotten the bonus. Leigh had never associated weight with relief, but in that moment it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. The rest of the results table showed a breakdown of all the Cogs she had answered and how well she had done on each of them. She was able to score another 5,677.7 points off of that, the most she’d ever been able to during a mission.

The equipment deduction was 8050 points, but she was still able to recover that with her performance. She’d done well. A small self-congratulatory smile covered her lips until she saw her rank.

RANK 984

And the Countdown.

[00:04:18]

She’d done it, she was back in the 900s, but would she be able to stay there until the deadline? As if to cement her fears, her Rank dropped by one and Leigh felt all the fear and anxiety pile right back on again. Her heartbeat picked up and the drying sweat covering her whole body, which hadn’t bothered her a minute earlier, suddenly felt cold and clammy. Leigh opened up her overlay, splitting her vision in four quarters, each depicting a different A1 Cog. She couldn’t solve them all simultaneously, but over the years she’d found that this was the most time efficient scoring method other than SIMs.

It let her focus on one Cog while her subconscious muddled over another that she’d read until she got to it. She doubted the points she earned from answering the Cogs would be enough, but the score difference between the Ranks was so small she had to give it a try. Leigh had never been the type to sit idly by while ‘fate’ bitch-slapped her in the face. If she were doing the Cogs in a SIM they would be worth five times as much, but the score wouldn’t be totaled until the end of the SIM and there wasn’t a single SIM she knew of that could be completed in less than four minutes.

Her CHIP wanted to feed her some pain meds, but Leigh refused. They made her drowsy, and if she was drowsy, she wouldn’t be able to answer Cogs fast enough. The only option was to keep answering questions. The pain even helped sharpen her focus. She made it through the next three minutes, barely holding onto her Rank somehow, but then time was coming to an end.

[00:00:48]

Time was coming to an end, and her Rank was still dropping.

RANK 997

She just had to pull through long enough for her to stay.

RANK 996

A Solar Thermodynamics Cog.

RANK 995

[00:00:42]

Just a bit longer…

Leigh vaguely heard her friends’ voices saying something in the background, but she shut them out. She’d deal with them later. They couldn’t help her out of this no matter what they did and she didn’t want to burden them with her failures, for them it was a day of celebration. They had each made it into the Academies of their choice with room to spare. Vinnya was Rank 45,693 and was going to Second Academy, Mikah was Ranked 622,821 and was going to Third. She wasn’t going to ruin it for them. This was all on her. She was the one that wasn’t good enough, not them.

Catching herself, Leigh bit her tongue and shook her head. What was she even thinking about? She didn’t have time for self-pity.

RANK 998

[00:00:17]

Just a bit longer…

RANK 997

RANK 999

Astrophysics?

RANK 998

Hold out.

[00:00:08]

Just.

RANK 999

A bit.

RANK 998

RANK 1000

Longer…

[00:00:03]

RANK 1001

RANK 1000

[00:00:01]

RANK 1002

CONGRATULATIONS! You have been Selected for the Second Academy!

Leigh’s eyes skimmed the message, but she only read two words.

Second Academy.

She’d failed.

Second.

Feeling empty, Leigh accepted her CHIPs advice and pumped herself full of painkillers to take the edge off her injuries. She wanted to be numb, but she wasn’t. The physical pain from her hip and leg were gone almost immediately, but inside she was in emotional turmoil. Leigh was coated in sweat, she was shivering. It was cold and she was empty. Why couldn’t the pain meds take those feelings away?

Logging out of the SIM module, Leigh deactivated her grav-plate, reconfigured it into her hoverboard, took off her SIMsuit. Her friends were still trying to talk to her so she blocked them. She had to stop by the clinic. Her CHIP was telling her that her right leg was broken in three places, if she didn’t get it fixed soon, the Meds would send droids after her. Leigh could have avoided stepping on the foot, but she decided not to. The numbed pain felt good in a way. It almost managed to push the emptiness she felt aside.

Leigh was trying to focus on anything other than the obvious. Every time the thought of the Selection came into her mind, she’d shove it aside. She had the rest of her life to deal with her failure, she could ignore it for an hour or two. Five minutes later she was at the clinic. There were five people in line in front of her. A rare occurrence, but Selection day was a rare occurrence. Three of them looked to be similar to her in age. It seemed like she wasn’t the only one pushing her limits today. Why would she be? She wasn’t special. Wasn’t today proof of that?

She frowned at the thought. She had to stop rehashing the results in her head. She tried to smoothen her features. One of the people her age she’d been staring at caught her eye. They gave each other pained smiles, both knowing why they were there. Five minutes later it was her turn to get treated. She scanned herself in with her CHIP and was directed to one of the three Medics.

Leigh knew the petite woman she was assigned to. She’d been at the clinic enough times to know most people working there. The woman, Betana, was one of the most motherly and caring people Leigh had ever met; she always had kind words for everyone, so it didn’t surprise her when the woman hugged her and excitedly congratulated her.

“Congrats, Leigh!” Betana exclaimed, loud enough for everyone in the clinic to hear, “Your parents must be so proud! First your brother got selected for First and now you get selected for Second!”

Leigh’s lips contorted into a forced smile, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything in reply.

“It’s too bad Ashtov isn’t here today! He went to Berlin Center to get Certified before the Modifications tomorrow. Did you know he got chosen for a spot in the Warsaw Center?”

Leigh’s lips thinned; the Warsaw Center was the closest Center with a Space-Port. It’s where she would have wound up if she’d made it into First Academy.

“No, I didn’t,” Leigh replied, she couldn’t bring herself to be rude to the affectionate woman who was running a diagnostic on her as she pumped her full of medical nanites.

“Yes, we were all so exited for him! He’d been talking about…” Betana’s bubbly voice filled Leigh’s ears until it turned into a droning monotone.

It was all just too much.

Vinnya was messaging her, probably trying to comfort her, but Leigh didn’t want comforting. She just wanted to be left alone. Leigh closed her eyes, trying to block everyone out. She hadn’t actually expected it to work, but as if by a miracle, everything was suddenly silent. Even Betana had stopped her bubbly chatter. Leigh assumed the woman had finally understood her need for peace and sighed in relief.

Five seconds of blissful silence passed, but then she got a notification from Mikah. Then Vinnya. Then her parents. Then Vinnya and Mikah again. Then all the other notifications she’d pushed aside during her last SIM came back, reminding her she still hadn’t acknowledged them. Gritting her teeth, Leigh massaged her temple; recommended anger management seminar time slots were the last thing she wanted to be dealing with right now.

It was all just too much, she needed space.

She turned her CHIP off, as in completely off.

Blissful and somewhat disorienting silence enveloped her. There was no overlay, no stats, no Ranks, no extra information, no virtual add-ons… nothing. The emptiness in her head was not what she’d expected and her relief was soon replaced by apprehension. Her eyes slammed open when the blackness in her head became too much. Gripping the medical chair, Leigh looked around, still feeling a bit lost.

It took her a moment to realize that nothing had changed, she was still in the medical clinic, still getting an injection. The only difference was that her CHIP was no longer showing her each person’s information, nor was it altering their standard suits into the unique virtual clothing. Everything looked plain and bland. The girl she’d exchanged glances with earlier had been sporting neon purple hair, but without the CHIPs virtual overlay, Leigh saw it as a muddy brown. Frowning at how different the world looked without the CHIP, Leigh was tempted to turn it back on. The only thing that kept her from doing so was the tidal wave of notifications expecting her once she did.

Focusing on the soothing silence, Leigh laid back and watched the plain white ceiling. It was strange not to have her view cluttered with overlapping information on every subject imaginable. She mulled over how different the world was without the CHIP for what felt like ages. She kept expecting for Betana to announce the end of her injection, but more time passed and it still wasn’t over. At first, Leigh figured she wasn’t keeping track of time correctly because of the lack of her CHIP, but eventually the pricking sensation of the injection actually started to hurt. Figuring it was due to the lack of automated CHIP painkillers, Leigh bore the pain as best as she could. The last thing she wanted was to have to explain herself to Betana, so she kept silent, staring at the woman. Without her CHIP she had no way of knowing the exact percentage or time to completion, she could only hope Betana’s expression would give her an indication of some kind.

Leigh felt her muscles bunching up, spasming in pain, but she forced herself to remain still, watching the woman closely. Betana’s eyes were glazed over like everyone else’s in the room, like her own would be if her CHIP was on. For a moment Leigh thought she was seeing a pained or even shocked expression on the woman’s face, but she dismissed the thought; she was just projecting.

The pain in Leigh’s arm blossomed, tearing its way through her veins like steel thorns. She’d gotten medical nanite injections before, but they’d never hurt like this. The most she’d ever felt was a slight tingling sensation, and that’s when she’d completely shattered her arm in a SIM a couple of months ago. Leigh didn’t want to complain, but when she looked down at the injection site again, she realized that her lack of CHIP might be causing her body to reject the nanites. It wasn’t how it was supposed to work, but Leigh couldn’t think of another explanation for the angry red rash spreading across her skin. Leigh sat up. She couldn’t take it anymore. She’d tell Betana about the pain, but before that she had to turn her CHIP on. She’d be mortified to find out it was her own doing, but when she was giving the command Betana unhooked the injection and spoke up.

“Healing should be done in the next twenty minutes or so,” she recited the usual instructions, “try not to put too much strain on the leg, but other than that you are free to go.”

Leigh nearly cried with relief, and didn’t turn on her CHIP. She still wasn’t ready to face the world. Instead, she got up on unsteady legs, and looked for the exit.

“Thanks,” Leigh said, already stepping away.

“You’re welcome,” Betana replied woodenly, all bubbly friendliness gone.

Leigh was too focused on getting outside for a breath of fresh air to notice the change in Betana’s voice.