Qualify

Gordie looks down at his chest and says, “Whoa . . .” He’s somewhat stunned. He really honestly didn’t think he was going to pass even the first stage of Qualification.

  “Open your eyes, Gracie!” I exclaim. “You’re green! You made it! We all did!”

  George makes a stifled sound that resembles a woot, but he’s just too cool to exclaim. Instead, grinning for the first time in days, he pounds Gordie on the back.

  Gracie opens her eyes and squeals, and then she’s hanging around my neck.

  “We need to call Mom!” I say, smiling, while we’re all still basking in waves of unbelievable relief. Other people in the hall are staring at us, some with open hostility.

  “All right, but let’s first get out of here.” George shoulders the strap of his backpack and duffel. “We need to hurry and get outside.”

  “Yeah, we don’t want to miss the bus!” Gracie whispers loudly, while I shove her in the arm.

  “Hush! Let’s not be rude to other people, okay, let’s just go, Gracie.” I push strands of her hair behind her ears, and she jokingly wiggles away. Then I rearrange my backpack and duffel straps.

  “Oh, and keep your jackets over the tokens, at least for now.” George is ever the careful one. He knows that some people are not going to react well to seeing anyone be green right now.

  “Gotta stop by the bathroom first,” Gordie says. And we do.

  Then we start walking and finally exit the building.

  Outside the air is cold, the wind biting, and it’s early twilight. Have we been cooped up in school all day long? This is just nuts. No lunch, and now no dinner—we haven’t eaten.

  As if reading my mind, Gordie says, “I’m starving.”

  “We all are. Doesn’t matter. Let’s go!”

  In the parking lot several school buses wait for us, and they are filling up with students. They—we—are the lucky ones.

  Several teachers and security guards stand in clusters, directing us to form another line, this one much shorter, as we board the buses.

  “Your tokens, please! Make sure that we can see them,” a teacher says. She glances at each person, verifying the green color of their ID token.

  In the gathering twilight, it occurs to me that, as we stand there in this new snaking line, that we all wink with green dots of light, as our tokens illuminate the evening.

  Like weird green fireflies. . . .

  The parking lot lights come on, flaring bright and fluorescent. Then the football field lights up. It has to be past 7:00 PM.

  Finally we get on the third bus, just as it’s getting cold and true dark, and we stow away our bags under seats and under our feet. Gracie takes the window seat, and I end up in the aisle one next to her, while George and Gordie get the next bench in front of us, with George at the window. The bus seats are narrow and not particularly comfortable, so good thing we are all slim and don’t take up much room, though the guys’ longer legs are sticking out into the aisles. I notice a few of the larger kids are much less happy to be squeezed in the hard seats. As I look around I see hardly anyone from my class or even from our school on this bus.

  Our driver is a big thickset man in a union standard uniform and cap, but he’s wearing the Atlantis four-color armband. “Congratulations, you’re all Preliminary Qualified. Now, please keep the middle walkway clear. All your things should be out of the way, so that nobody trips, okay,” he tells us in a thick tired voice. “This is going to be a rather long drive, at least four, maybe five hours or even more—”

  Groans are heard throughout our bus.

  “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry,” he says. “We’ll have several short bathroom breaks at a convenience store, and you can probably grab something to eat then. First break coming up in about an hour. I know it’s late, and you’re all hungry and tired, and I am sorry about this, but we have an end-of-the-world schedule to keep—literally.”

  The driver chuckles ruefully, in a weak attempt at a morbid joke, and no one reacts. “You can sleep if you like, but the seats don’t adjust, sorry again. Also, try to keep the phone and electronic device use to a minimum, okay? Keep it quiet. If I hear you hashtagging or bothering others, I confiscate it.”

  More groans.

  “Can we get some water at least? Really dehydrated here,” a girl near the front says.

  “Sorry, dear, you should’ve had some before you got on the bus. So you’ll need to wait till the first bathroom break.”

  “Man, this just blows!”

  “Unbelievable!”

  The driver ignores us, as he is starting the bus engine, and the doors whoosh shut.

  “Where are we going anyway? Where’s this Regional Qualification Center?” a boy asks, as we start to pull out, past the football field, and the rows of trees, in the wake of another bus directly ahead of us.

  The driver makes a funny sound. “Pennsylvania!”

  Chapter 5

  As soon as we’re on the road, I pull out my tiny pocket phone and call Mom, holding my hand over my mouth to speak as quietly as possible and not disturb the others on the bus or provoke the ferocious gadget-confiscating wrath of the driver.

  “Good news! We all Preliminary-Qualified! All four of us!” I say, the moment I hear her voice. It’s important I say it first and up-front, because I know Mom’s been going insane all these daylight hours that we were taking the tests. And Dad too, though he’s off at the University today, so at least he didn’t have to think about us non-stop, only between his lectures.

  “Oh, honey! Oh, thank God! Oh, what a blessing!” Mom’s warm exhale of relief is a joy to hear. Her voice is exultant but weak, and she is speaking with effort, so I know she’s had a pain episode today—not surprising, considering she forced herself to get out of bed for us, to cook our so-called “last breakfast” at home.

  “We’re all on the bus now, headed to the Regional Qualification Center. In Pennsylvania,” I add.

  Gracie pulls the phone away from me. “Mom, we made it! Yes, love you too! Nope, no lunch, so we’re starving, but it’s okay! Here, will let you speak to George and Gordie too—”

  The phone gets passed around the Lark siblings. We whisper and chortle, tell Mom about the hoverboard test, the “eeee” nonsense, the interesting stuff of the day. Then it’s Dad’s turn.

  I notice we’re not alone in this. Everyone on the bus is calling family and friends. The first hour is full of good news being passed on to loved ones at a time when there is so little good news left.

  And then we start spacing out. Some people fall sleep. A few turn on their tablet computers, or enable their smart jewelry. A few water bottles get passed around.

  It’s a dark and boring drive to Pennsylvania.

  I doze through the endless bus ride, coming alive during the bathroom breaks. We don’t have much money on us, but enough to buy a few bags of chips and candy bars, and some bottled water and juice, which we consume hungrily in the dark.

  We’ve left Vermont a while ago. It’s late, and the buses and occasional delivery trucks and semis are the only things on the road. At some point it starts to rain lightly, a cold mixture of sleet and drizzle. The road is poorly lit and the countryside is all unrelieved darkness on both sides as we move south through Upstate New York, passing through occasional urban centers.

  Gracie has fallen asleep against the window. As I stare past Gracie through the glass, I notice that there are more buses now, merging onto the highway from other roads all along the route, so I know it’s not just from our school district. In fact, we appear to be a many-mile-long bus cavalcade, a “snake” made of bus segments, that just keeps growing.

  All of us, going to this Regional Qualification Center in PA. Or maybe some are going to some other RQC. Who knows? I try to remember and I cannot seem to recall how many RQCs there are in total, all across the country. Did they even tell us when they were building them? And even if they did mention it at some point, with all the eerie horrible things happening, who really paid attention
?

  It’s after 2:00 AM when our bus crosses the New York state line into Pennsylvania. Then it turns east, heading lord knows where in the dark.

  And then, another forty minutes later, we arrive at the gates of some kind of impossibly huge gated compound that resembles a military base. It is lit up like a holiday tree, even from a mile away, and we can see the guard towers and the barbed wire fence, and lots of concrete walls. Somewhere in the distance are the looming black shadows of the Appalachian Mountains.

  The buses start pulling up to the gates one by one, and we again end up waiting in line, like planes stuck on a runway.

  When it’s our turn, we pass the checkpoint and the driver is directed by security guards to turn right past the gates then park in the great parking lot that’s filling up with school buses and other types of buses. I have never in my life seen so many frigging buses in one place, not even at a bus depot. Seems like the whole world has converged here. . . .

  “Everyone, make sure you have your ID tokens ready,” the driver tells us. “Don’t forget to take all your bags, jackets, bottles, trash, and any other items when you exit the bus. Go directly to the large building to your left with the square Atlantis logo on the front. You will be given instructions from there on. Just follow the others. Good luck, now!”

  “Are we there yet?” Gordie turns to us and stifles a crocodile yawn.

  “Yeah, we’re there, Gee Three, wherever ‘there’ is.” George is lifting his bags from under the seat.

  Gracie is still tangled up in her jacket which she’d been using as a blanket.

  Other boys and girls around us are blinking sleepily and nervously, picking up their things, and everyone’s got the stressed look again.

  We get off the bus and cold night air hits us with a blast.

  “Oh lord, I am sooooo tired . . .” Gracie mumbles. “I just want to collapse and sleep.”

  “Me too.” I huddle in my own jacket and shoulder my bags. We start walking, and it’s one big crowd of teenagers.

  Moments later we’re at the doors of the building with the square Atlantis logo. Each corner of the square is tinted one of the four “psychological” primary colors in a fading gradation toward the center, until they blend in the middle into white. Red, green, blue, yellow—these are called “psychological primary” as opposed to the real primaries, which are red, green, and blue when mixing color lights on the computer screen, or red, yellow, and blue when mixing artist paints, not to mention there’s cyan, magenta, yellow, and black in color printing—something I remember from science class.

  Another line is waiting for us. A row of four desks is set up at each side of the double doors. Officials in charcoal grey uniforms with armbands are manning each desk. Each person approaches, gives their token, gets scanned, gets instructions.

  A friendly looking woman administrator, also wearing the grey uniform, paces the line and smiles at us gently. “Tokens ready, please!” she says. “You’re about to be assigned your permanent dormitories and Color Quadrant assignments.”

  “Our color whats?” a tall lanky boy asks with a frown.

  But the woman has already passed down the line.

  The line moves surprisingly fast, and soon I’m at one of the four desks, and my siblings at the three others, just ahead of me.

  “Name, please,” says the official, holding a tablet and a scanning device.

  “Gwenevere Lark.” I pull open the jacket to reveal my sweater and he passes the scanner over my token pin.

  The token has been lit up green all this time, and suddenly it turns bright yellow.

  “Oh no,” I say. “Sorry. . . . Did I do that? Did something happen? Should I be touching it? Did you touch it by accident and make it go yellow—”

  The official looks up at me and he is stone-faced. “No,” he says in a curt voice. “Everything’s correct. You have been assigned to the Yellow Quadrant. From now on your token will stay yellow throughout the rest of Qualification.”

  “Oh. . . .”

  He looks down again and checks the tablet. “Gwenevere Lark, Yellow Quadrant, Dormitory Eight. Please proceed inside, and look for any Dorm Leader holding a yellow placard with your number on it. They will take you to your Dorm.”

  I open my mouth, but the man has already turned to the next teen in line, a kid who looks like he is ready to fall into bed.

  I turn away and walk inside, seeing Gracie up ahead through the open doors. The hallway is wide, sterile looking, and brightly lit, and there’s George and Gordie and my sister, waiting for me, looking a bit perplexed. While other teens are bumping past them, I look at my siblings, and see the problem.

  Each one of us has a token that now shows a different color. Gordie is blue. Gracie is red. George is the only one whose token is still green. They are all staring at my own yellow.

  “Well, this is just great.” Gracie flips strands of hair from her eyes in resignation. “Whatever this color coordinated stupid stuff is, now we can’t even stay in the same Dorm! I’m in Dorm Five.”

  “They frigging separated us,” Gordie says. “I’m in Two.”

  “Dorm Eleven here,” George says.

  “I’m in Eight,” I say. “This kind of sucks.”

  Gracie looks at me sadly, but exhaustion wins over. “Hug time, then we probably should go find our beds,” she mutters and wraps her arms around me. I squeeze her briefly and pat her backpack, since I can’t reach her actual back.

  “Good deal.” George nods. “Lets go find a sack to hit and then tomorrow, whatever, we’ll deal with it. It’s been—a day. What did they say, look for Dorm Guides or Leaders or what—”

  We move forward through the hall, and there are several young people our age, wearing grey uniforms, with armbands that are, unlike the general striped Atlantis one, a solid color. The color of their armband also matches the numbered signs they are holding up. They stand near the walls, and there are small groups of teens already gathering around each one.

  Gordie stops when he sees a tall boy with a blue sign that has a number “2” on it. There are at least five teens standing with him, and all their tokens are glowing blue. He glances at us sheepishly, then steps up to the Dorm Two Leader who nods at him and says something. Gordie mumbles back, then glances at us and waves. He then stands there and breaks out in a huge mellow yawn. Typical Gordie.

  I bite my lip and keep moving, staring at the colored signs.

  “Oh, there’s mine!” Gracie points anxiously at a big and burly boy holding up a red “5.” She turns to me and George with a lost look, and I squeeze her arm.

  “Go on, girl, it’s gonna be okay! See you tomorrow!” I say. And Gracie detaches herself from us. One wistful last look, and she turns her back and starts talking to whoever’s in charge of the red group.

  A few more steps and I see a tall willowy African American girl my age, holding a yellow sign with my number on it, a big fateful “8.” Her hair is twisted and braided in cornrows and she looks either very intense or very bored, one arm folded at her chest, the other propping up the number sign. There are a few teens clustered behind her, talking softly.

  I look at George and again bite my lip nervously, hesitating. Then I smile at my brother as he makes a wiggle thing with his eyebrows and says in a mocking whine, “So, it’s just little ole me left, all alone now, while you get to go and be with your new friends. Why, Gee Two, why?”

  “Shut up!” I punch George’s arm, and he smirks.

  “See you. Okay, I think mine’s right there, down the line. Later, sis!”

  And suddenly I am all alone.

  I approach the Dorm Eight Leader and she gives me a no-nonsense look, and notes my yellow token.

  “Hi, I guess I am supposed to be here, Yellow Dorm, number Eight. Right?”

  “You’ve come to the right place,” she says. “We’re waiting for a few more people here, then we’ll proceed to the Dorm. Formal introductions will happen later. For now, I am Gina Curti
s, your DL. Wait here with us.”

  “Okay. . . .”

  I step back a little, finding myself next to a kid who looks younger, maybe a freshman, stocky and olive skinned with dark wavy hair, maybe Latino, maybe Middle Eastern. Next to him is another boy, medium-built, brown skinned and also dark, who looks like he is from India or Pakistan. Behind them are two girls, probably my age—one pale and slight, with mousy brown hair gathered in a ponytail, and the other with curves, a golden tan coloration, various piercings, long dark hair, and very sultry Latin looks.

  It occurs to me, it’s kind of cool—after the overly white ethnic concentration of Vermont—to see people of color other than shades of eggshell-white, pasty, or wintry no-tan. In California we were much more used to ethnic diversity, so this colorful people mix is immediately comforting to me, on a basic human vibe level.

  “Hi,” I say to them, shifting the straps of my heavy book-filled duffel from one shoulder to the other.

  “Hey,” says the Indian-looking boy with a sudden friendly smile that flashes bright white teeth. “Welcome to the Yellows. My name is Jaideep Bhagat. Just call me Jai.”

  “Thanks. I’m Gwen Lark.”

  “Hey, Gwen.”

  Five minutes later we sound like an AA meeting. Not that I’ve been to one, but it’s kind of like those TV crime dramas—where they go around introducing themselves in a circle and the perp is usually one of the people in the support group looking all innocent and harmless. Except we’re not alcoholics but asteroid wannabe refugees, and I kind of doubt any one of us is a serial killer in hiding. Though, anything’s possible I suppose. For example, that Jai is smiling so hard he has to be hiding some kind of freaky evil side.

  The stocky Latino boy says he’s Mateo Perez, and he’s not smiling at all. Unlike Jai, he is grim and serious, standing slouched and huddling in his black, worn looking jacket. The mousy-haired ponytail girl is Janice Quinn, and she looks dazed and very, very tired. The curvy raven-haired one is Claudia Grito, with multiple piercings and what looks like a boatload of expensive smart jewelry. She gives me an evaluating long scrutiny.

  Meanwhile other teens arrive, an endless stream of people passing through the hall, and quite a few remain, joining our Yellow number Eight party. We give up trying to talk to everyone in our group because there’s just too many of us now to remember who’s who. Gina Curtis, the Dorm Leader, herds us into a compact growing crowd away from other similar groupings all around the endless hall as far as the eye can see. A girl of few words, she simply stands there looking no-nonsense and telling everyone to wait. “Just a few more minutes,” she repeats every few more minutes.