Finals

1: the last/first day

6/24/3000: DAY 1

Kalista woke, as she always did, to the blaring of the fire alarm in the Central Academy dorms.

Like all of the other students, she hated the alarm system. The teachers were extremely proud of themselves to have come up with it -- a built-in wake-up-call for the entire school that forced every single person out of bed. No matter how tired they were, it was impossible to sleep through the blaring, and it wouldn't stop until every single student had checked in at the dining hall. After seven years, she no longer jumped a foot in the air at the sound, but its sheer volume always seemed to thrum against the sides of her brain, making her head hurt for at least an hour.

Her movements were robotic as she threw her blankets aside and got out of bed, the alarm still whining. Step one: brush teeth. Step two: wash up. Step three: get dressed. She was a well-oiled machine at this point, and her routine was hardly affected by the slight tremble in her hands or the twisted ball of nerves in her stomach. It was almost comforting, and she smiled at the realization that it was the last time she would go through with it.

In the hallway, the other students were leaving their rooms. Even the laziest of the Academy students were wide-awake this morning. Kalista waved at a couple of the girls as she passed. She had no friends -- there was no such thing at the Academy, only acquaintances. When you were one of the world's top fifty young prospects, you viewed everyone as an ally, an enemy, or a temporary asset, and Kalista had long ago learned how to navigate the CA's social landscape.

She made her way down the north staircase, taking a couple of seconds to gaze out at the lake below. The Academy had been built a two-hour drive away from the Collective Chambers, in a more rural area that Kalista loved. The lake was her favorite part. In the summers, it was where they took their days off, lounging by the shore or going in for a swim. It was unlike any body of water she'd ever seen -- the waters were crystal-clear, nearly see-through, with only a slight blue tint. The principal had always said that it represented the clean morals of the students and the untainted future that they would maintain.

She liked to think of it as a portion of the sky, brought down for them to experience.

When she reached the glass doors to the dining hall, a camera just above the door scanned her retina and let out a soft chime. "Chu, Kalista," came the soothing voice, and the doors clicked open.

"Morning, Karen," Kalista said with a smile, using the nickname that all Academy students learned on their first day. Apparently, it was a relic of the past -- some kind of joke that was lost on them now.

The hall was grandiose, with an impossibly high ceiling and an entire wall of windows on the side facing the lake. As the last of the Academy's fifty students trickled in behind her, the alarm shut off abruptly, leaving an unearthly silence in its wake. Any attempt to start conversation on the morning of Finals was seen as a last-ditch effort to distract the competition, and it probably was. They had been taught to use every word carefully. In their hands, words could be weapons -- no matter how trivial.

Kalista walked to her table, her back straight, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. At the Academy, she was something of a legend. Unlike many of the others, her parents weren't Collective members or prominent scholars, but two infamous rebel leaders who had once led the revolutionary movement. Her parentage had been the subject of much gossip during her first week at the Academy, but eventually, the rest of the students had realized that her past did not haunt her -- it motivated her. After her class rank projection had shot to first place, the jeers and teasing had stopped. She was a competitor. A serious one. And she was as much of a threat as anyone else.

The tables were assigned by cohort, and Kalista strode silently to her spot, with Ayesha Chari, Harley Bennett, Lex Carson, and Kaylee Canton. The cohorts were another one of the teachers' brilliant inventions: a group of five people who you ate with, studied with, and did projects with. You knew them inside out, but so did they. Kalista didn't know a single person who hadn't started a list of the strengths and weaknesses of their cohort-mates on the very first day of school.