The Sector

Chapter Four

A half hour later, he heard a muffled knock from somewhere down the hall.

Seth rose from where he lay on the bed, placed the book he was reading down on the nightstand, and walked slowly to the door.

Soft voices could be heard outside, unfamiliar to him. With his ear pressed against the wood, he tried to make out what they were saying.

"It's time for your mental examination," he heard a man's voice say.

They must be at Patrik's room, he realized. He pressed his ear more firmly against the door, doing his best to make out their words.

All he heard was a soft mumble, the shuffling of feet, and then Patrik's door swinging closed.

When he could no longer hear the muffled echoes of their feet, Seth retreated to his bed. He wondered how long it would take and when they would be back for him.

In all honesty, he wasn't sure what to think of this place. His mood seemed to jump constantly from excited to curious to cautious and back again. He thought perhaps it was because they still seemed to be hiding things from him and that made him uneasy, but a voice in the back of his mind told him that he could also just be paranoid.

He didn't know which was true.

A long while passed and he was drawing nearer to the end of his book. It was one of the only ones he hadn't already read and he wished they had supplied him with more. Perhaps he would ask one of the Officers if they could find some new ones for him. Surely they wouldn't mind.

He looked up as the sound of footsteps and quiet voices floated down the hallway again. They were bringing Patrik back. He still couldn't quite make their words out but they didn't talk much anyway. 

He heard the soft click of Patrik's door locking as they closed him in, and then—

Knock, knock, knock!

Seth jumped. He bookmarked his page and got up, running a hand through his hair and walking to the door. 

It swung open just as he reached it, and he remembered that it couldn't be opened from the inside. He supposed he wouldn't have the chance for much privacy in this place during his stay. 

Two new Officers stood at the threshold awaiting him. He wondered how many there were in this place. So far, he'd never seen the same face twice.

"Hello, Seth," the Officer on the right said with a thin smile.

"Uh, hi."

"If you'd like to come with us, it's time for your mental examination."

"Sure," he said slowly, stepping out of his room and closing the door behind him. "How did Patrik's examination go? I heard you coming to collect him earlier," he said casually as the two men escorted him down the first flight of stairs.

"We're not at liberty to discuss the results of other Occupants," the second Officer told him in a flat voice.

Seth stared at the back of his head, silent.

They reached the bottom of the second flight of stairs and walked across the courtyard and back into the main building.

The Officers navigated the maze of rooms and passageways with ease and the next thing Seth knew, he was back in the room with the curtain—only this time, the curtain was gone.

In the middle of the room stood one of the strangest contraptions Seth had ever seen. Buttons and switches and dials and screens lay scattered across the top of its cold metal frame. It looked like some sort of supercomputer prototype. The top slanted back on an angle and standing behind it, fiddling with the controls, was Frasier. Seth had no idea what the man planned to do with it.

"Ah, Seth," Frasier said, looking up from the machine with a friendly smile. "Come, come. Don't be nervous." He waved Seth forward.

"This examination is going to take a little longer than the physical one," he warned. "Essentially, what we'll be asking you to do is use this machine—we call it the Mental Examination Apparatus or M.E.A.—to carry out a series of tasks, each one testing a different aspect of your mental capabilities. So one of them, for example, might be the speed at which your mind works—how long it takes you to process things and react—another might be how accurately your mind works under pressure, and a third might be how consistent you are in the choices you make when faced with certain tasks or problems."

"That sounds simple enough..." Seth murmured, eyeing the machine.

"Good. The more relaxed and comfortable you feel, the more accurate your results will be. If you're stressed or anxious, it can alter the outcome."

Seth nodded in understanding.

Frasier shuffled to the side, gesturing for Seth to take his place at the controls of the M.E.A..

When he did, he was overwhelmed by what he saw. There was no order to the controls of the machine. No pattern to anything. Seth's eyes didn't know where to settle first.

"The M.E.A. will put you through a total of seventeen sequential tests. You won't know what you're being tested for at any given time. This screen here..." Frasier pointed, "...will give you a task and instructions on how to perform it. Do so to the best of your ability and we'll be finished in no time. I will be observing you from a room down the hall. There are cameras and scanners in place to monitor you and how you cope with the examination. The two Officers who escorted you here will stay with you in case any problems arise during the examination."

Seth wondered what that meant. What could they possibly expect to happen?

"Are you ready?" Frasier asked, placing a hand on Seth's shoulder and giving it a small squeeze.

Seth nodded.

"Good. I'll see you soon." With that, he smiled and left.

A silent moment passed and then the M.E.A. clunked, one of its screens lighting up—the one that would tell him what to do. Seth read it, absorbed the information, and began.

For what seemed like the next two hours, he followed the machine's instructions, flicking this switch, pushing that button, turning this dial, solving that problem. It went on and on until eventually, the instruction screen went blank and the lights faded. All that was left was the machine's quiet hum.

A moment passed and then his ears pricked to the distant echo of Frasier's shoes on the concrete floor. Another moment, and he saw the man walk back through the door, grinning.

"Excellent! You did wonderfully, Seth. I'm very pleased with your results," he said, clapping him on the back.

"Come, come. The Officers will escort you back to your Residence for the night. We'll bring you back for your final examination first thing in the morning."

Without missing a beat, Frasier led him out of the room, a hand still resting on his back, with the Officers trailing close behind. He walked him back down the first corridor and it was there that he stopped, letting the Officers take Seth the rest of the way.

When Seth looked back, Frasier still stood at the end of the passageway, watching them go.