2022 (7 page)

“I’ll pull together some extras for you, too.
Would you like a cold Pilsner?”

“You’re spoiling me! I must admit that would
be fantastic.”

She found a seat by the window and called
Gwen to let her know what was going on.

Mario brought her cold beer and a small tray
of appetizers; by the time she had finished speaking with Gwen, the
rest of her meal was in front of her. She could tell that nothing
but the best and freshest ingredients had been used and that Mario
was a world-class chef.

She finished her meal and thanked him, asking
if he could prepare ribs for the following evening. Then she
returned to her suite, took a bath, and slipped into the most
comfortable bed she had been in for a long time. She set her alarm
for seven, turned on the news covering political unrest around the
world and the latest threat from CURE, and was soon fast
asleep.

Only her unwavering resolve to find out who
had killed her brother kept her from jumping into her RV and
heading back to Gwen after her next day at the foundation. From the
time she had met Gordon in the morning until nearly six o’clock
that evening, she was bombarded with tests. There were a variety of
written examinations in addition to medical, psychiatric, and
fitness tests. The written topics were mostly those she never had
had much interest in, such as biology and chemistry, and she felt
certain she had failed.

“Wow, it looks like you were trampled by a
herd of wild hogs,” Mario said when she arrived at the cafeteria
that evening. “You just find a seat, and let me take care of
you.”

Finding a seat was not very hard since she
was again the only diner. She selected the same table as the
previous evening. Mario soon reappeared carrying a tray of
appetizers.

“I was wondering,” he said, “instead of
eating alone, would you mind if I ate my dinner with you? Since
most of the scientists have left, this has been a very quiet place,
and you’ll likely be my last guest for the evening.”

“That would be wonderful!” she said. “I’d
love to talk to a regular person rather than psychiatrists and
examiners.”

“Great. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve made our
dinners.”

He returned within twenty minutes with a
large platter of ribs and a few side dishes and sat down. He was
easy to talk to and she found herself telling him about her past.
She told him how she liked to live off of the grid and about how
she loved mechanics and building things. The one topic she avoided
was her brother being murdered and her real purpose for being at
the foundation.

“Have you ever heard of Virtuesh?” she
asked.

“No, what’s that?”

“I found a website a few weeks ago while I
was browsing the Internet. It was actually that site that led me to
find out about everything here.”

“Interesting,” he said. “You’re quite late
coming through for the tests. You should’ve been here a few months
ago when there were hundreds of people through here every
week.”

When she finished her meal, she was surprised
by how much better she felt. The frustrations of the day seemed
like a distant memory. She thanked him for both the meal and his
company, and then returned to her suite. She turned on the
television to see if there was anything interesting on the news but
soon turned it off. Several countries remained in disagreement on
how to handle the CURE threat, resulting in more sanctions and
trade embargoes.

The first day at the foundation turned out to
be the routine pattern for the rest of the week: a grueling day of
testing followed by a recuperative dinner and conversation with
Mario.

She knew she had done well on some of the
tests, including the repairing of a wheat thresher with a broken
attachment. The machine was situated in a well-equipped workshop,
and she was given no detail other than it was broken and she had
four hours to fix it. The first challenge was figuring out how the
machine was supposed to work and then to identify the broken piece.
She had never seen anything like this before, but after a brief
period of trial and error had most of it figured out and also
identified the attachment that needed to be fixed.

The simple answer would have been to put a
clamp around the broken part, but she went the extra mile and used
several tools as well as the kiln from the machine shop to cast a
brand new one. When the examiners came to inspect her work, she
overheard them say that no one had performed as good a job before
and they wondered how she could have done it so quickly.

There were also tests that held little or no
purpose for her. During one, she sat across a table from the
examiner while he held up a card only the back of which she could
see. From this image, she was required to state the first symbol
that came to mind—square, circle, or squiggly lines.

At the end of the final day, Gordon informed
her they would have her results by the next morning. She pressed
him to find out if he knew more, or if he at least had an idea, but
he stayed tight-lipped and insisted she would have to wait until
morning.

Convinced that she had failed overall, she
still allowed herself a glimmer of hope and headed to the cafeteria
to enjoy what might well be her last meal there.

Mario greeted her encouragingly. “You made
it—congratulations!”

“Well . . . we’ll have to see about that,”
she said. “Only around five percent of the people who apply
actually make it.”

“I’m sure that you
did
pass.”

“Only In some areas,” she said. “But in most,
like the written tests, I did horribly, and I don’t even want to
think about my psychology scores or the paranormal trials.”

“Hold on. Maybe it’s time that I come clean
with you.”

“What?”

He slowly removed his chef’s hat and
double-breasted apron, pulled out a chair, and sat down opposite
her at the table. “I haven’t been very truthful with you throughout
the last week,” he said. “The first thing—I’m not a real chef and
wasn’t responsible for the meals you’ve enjoyed so much. I’m
actually one of the elders at Percipience; in fact, the lead elder
of the village. I was here this week on other business when I
happened to hear about one last person taking the tests.”

She stared him incredulously. “But why would
you lie?”

“You see, the results from the last five days
are taken into account for resident positions, but all residents
must also be cleared by an elder.” He sat back, watching her
reaction. “When the main group came through, we did it more like a
scheduled interview, but I wasn’t happy with the results. For the
most part, people came in prepared and answered with what they
thought I wanted to hear. After a few weeks with them in
Percipience, the other elders and I have already rejected several
people because they don’t fit the type of person we’re looking
for.”

“So you decided to pose as a chef this week
and check me out,” she said tersely.

“I’m sorry for the deception,” he said, his
voice softening, “but I’m very happy with the results. I’ve
reviewed all of your testing, and I’d be thrilled if you would join
my clan as a Percipience resident. Don’t worry about the biology
and chemistry stuff; there will be people around who can train you
to do routine tasks in the research lab. What I really like about
you is your integrity. Your natural abilities in operating,
designing and repairing mechanical equipment is a bonus and you may
be surprised to find out that you did remarkably well in the
paranormal testing.”

“I don’t know what to say.” She shook her
head slowly and looked at Mario as though seeing him for the first
time. “I was so sure I’d failed, and I hadn’t really thought about
what I’d do if I passed.”

“Understood,” he said. Think it over this
evening and let Gordon know your decision in the morning. I do hope
you’ll decide to join.”

********************

“Mikhail never told me any of this.” Olivia
fumed to herself. She had procrastinated all week on getting ready
for her trip to Percipience and had just started to read through
the sheet of paper that Gordon had given to her at the beginning of
the week. It listed the restrictions for what she was allowed to
take along and what she could expect for living conditions.

“This is barbaric!” she thought as she read
over the clause indicating that overalls and coats would be
provided so other than undergarments, no other personal clothes
were permitted. She sat down on the edge of the bed in a state of
disbelief and went through the pages in detail, thinking that not
being able to take clothes along would be as bad as it would get,
but she was wrong.

“No makeup! That does it.” She picked up her
cell phone and called the number on the bottom of the page and was
not too surprised when Gordon answered.

“Olivia, it is after six; whatever it is, can
it not wait until morning?”

“It certainly cannot.” Olivia stated. “Is
this Percipience travel restriction list a joke or something? It
says here that I cannot even take makeup along. I cannot go a day
without makeup let alone for a full year.”

There was a groan from the other end of the
phone. “You called me about that?”

“Well, other restrictions too. No personal
clothes. No foods. No money.”

“Right, they provide you with great looking
pale orange overalls so you won’t need any clothes.”

“For heaven’s sake, why?”

“They want the residents to start
acclimatizing right away to their new way of life. It just wouldn’t
be fair if the builders were allowed these things and the residents
were not. And they don’t want a black market up there, so there is
no money allowed at all on site. If you are caught with any on you,
your contract is terminated.”

Olivia sighed. “I guess. . .”

“The cafeteria up there is pretty different
from the one at the foundation too. In fact, it is different than
any cafeteria in the world as it will only serve up foods that the
residents would normally eat once the experiment has begun. I know
how you love your custom made coffee. If I were you, I would go out
and have three of them tonight since you won’t be tasting them
again for a year.”

“I can live without my specialty coffee,”
Olivia conceded.

‘No, I meant no coffee at all. They’ll be
serving a substitute up there. Made out of dandelion roots and
ginseng or something like that.”

“Sounds ghastly.”

“Now if you are over your panic attack, can I
get back to my dinner?”

“Yes, of course. Sorry to have called you, I
just thought that this was a practical joke or something.”

After she hung up, Olivia took about ten
minutes to pack what she was allowed to bring and then spent the
rest of the evening working on a plan.

********************

Leafing through the results of Diane’s test
scores, Mikhail found himself surprised. He was going to allow her
to proceed regardless of how she did, but not only did she pass,
she gained Mario’s approval as well. He started to realize the
potential benefits of being able to keep an eye on her in
Percipience and how she might help him find out if Olivia was the
source of the information leak on Virtuesh. Maybe he wouldn’t have
this girl eliminated right away.

He typed an encrypted message to Hope to call
off the kill and changed her mission to monitoring Diane.
Once I
find the source or the leak, then I’ll have both of them
eliminated.

Not knowing what to expect, Spencer got off
the light-rail transit at the stop marked
Colony
. He had
flown into San Francisco the previous evening to get an early start
on the task Sue had given him. This location was one of two in the
country that had been set up as prototypes, the other being in New
York. He had read on the foundation’s website that after a few
years of operation, the foundation would be taking lessons learned
from these two colonies and would be building more across the
country.

He had expected the crowd on the platform
waiting to board the next transit car heading downtown but was
surprised at the number of people that disembarked with him. As he
joined the flow down the ramp, he guessed that most of them worked
night shifts.

The path curved behind the platform and
within a few hundred yards he and the others came upon a series of
turnstiles and a few manned booths. A sign was above one of the
booths,
New to the Colony? Start here
. He walked over to a
booth and was greeted by an elderly man.

“Welcome to the Colony. You look a little
lost, so this must be your first time here.”

“Uh, yes,” he said. His plan was to stay a
few days, and he had tried to dress the part by wearing worn-out
jeans, an old shirt, and old shoes. He carried a small backpack
that contained one change of clothes.

“Okay—we need to get you orientated. How long
do you think you’ll be staying?”

“Just a few days.”

“That’s fine—here are the rules you’re to
agree to,” the man said, passing Spencer a form page. “There’s a
lot of reading there, but I’ll give you the short version. While
you’re within the colony, don’t do anything illegal, keep things
clean, and don’t be rude. There are people walking around with
bright yellow vests; these are the building leaders. Do whatever
they say. If they think you’ve been misbehaving, they can banish
you, and you’ll never be allowed to come back here, or any other
colony. Their word is final, there’s no appeal process, so just
don’t mess up.”

“Sounds kind of harsh.”

The man nodded and spoke with an earnest
authority. “We run a low-cost operation here and want people to
feel safe. There’s no room for troublemakers. When we first opened
a year ago, there were quite a few people expelled, but things have
settled down and it happens rarely now. There are security cameras
with smart software all over the place, so don’t even think about
doing anything sneaky.