As Sasha voiced her grievances about the sores on her body from her morning run with Bohdan and the previous day’s activities, they made their way into the meeting room. The redheaded woman continued to whine even after Bohdan arrived, all the while Kylara was consoling her. Bohdan had to agree to let Sasha off the hook for the duration of the test to get her to shimmer down.
In a similar fashion to the day before, Ivarsson made them quiet down, then made way for Synapse, who observed the group with a calculating gaze before uttering a few short words.
“Change into the appropriate attire.”
And so all thirty superhumans stood up and filed into the prep room to don their gray and white, form-fitting training suits before rendezvousing in the large room where the speed and strength tests took place. All the equipment used for the strength test had been removed and replaced by six round sumo wrestling-style rings spread out throughout the room. In each ring, a large white robot stood motionless. Significant cushioned padding covered the robots completely, while their arms ended with large, soft balls. Their bodies featured bright yellow circles, with a particularly large one prominently placed on their foreheads, above a single red lens.
Synapse, her trusty ape robot, Ivarsson, and a contingent of guards were waiting for them.
“The agenda for today is the agility test,” Synapse stated, her tone clinical and precise. “Afterward, you are free to go to replenish your strength for the obstacle race tomorrow.”
“Oh thank god,” Sasha murmured.
“Behind me is what we call the Pressure Point Training Dummy Sparring, worth fifty percent of the agility test score. Your primary objective is to remain within the ring for a duration of five minutes. Exiting the ring during the session before the allocated time constitutes an automatic failure. Making contact with the red boundary line of the ring constitutes an automatic failure.” Her eyes emitted a bright stream of blue light, which dispersed into a holographic image of a robot similar to the ones standing in the rings. On the showcased robot hologram, the yellow circles were highlighted. “Your second goal is to land non-lethal strikes on the yellow pressure points while evading the dummy’s attacks until five minutes have elapsed. This test measures your reflexes, combat awareness, and precision. The evaluation algorithm takes into account how well you handle every rule.” She retracted the hologram, adding. “I wish you all favorable probability distributions in your endeavors. And do well to remember the rule prohibiting the use of non-physical abilities is still in effect.”
Then Synapse retreated into the confines of her giant robot and made way for Ivarsson to handle the rest. Parsing through a list, Ivarsson called the first six superhumans to enter the ring. Raquel Vincente was among the first batch, strolling up to her designated ring with long, confident strides.
The rest of the superhumans were encouraged to observe any sparring session they preferred, provided they kept their noise levels to a minimum. So it came as no surprise when most people, including Ella, Bohdan, Kylara, Jamal, and Sasha, gravitated towards Raquel Vincente’s ring.
“Sorry for the way I acted yesterday,” Bohdan said in a meek tone, totally alien to his usual self. “I got so heated seeing you give up… there is no justification for screaming in your face.”
She craned her head up to regard him, offering a fist bump. “It’s all good.” When his fist met hers, she said. “Besides, I only let go because I didn’t want to crush your ego further, you know? Imagine the scenes if I lifted five times your limit.”
He froze, then bellowed a deep laugh.
However, his reply never came because an agent chastised them for making noise. So they could only stifle their laughs into chuckles and watch as the training dummy before Raquel Vincente came to life, and with heavy steps, threaded toward the speedster. The dummy moved slowly and cumbersome, and then like a switch had been hit, it threw a wind-biting punch at Vicente. Perhaps that strategy worked on other superhumans, evident from the pained cries traveling around the room, but Vicente casually sidestepped the punch and delivered a tap to the pressure point on the dummy’s outstretched arm.
Afterward, the two combatants studied each other while planning their next move. The dummy swung its other arm and missed. By the time it reared the arm back, Vicente had already unleashed an onslaught of lightning-fast attacks on its many pressure points.
“Jesus,” Sasha remarked. “I didn’t even see shit.”
Ella, too, could barely follow the speedster, her ears only registering machine gun sounds after the impacts. Once Vincente became confident that the dummy posed no threat, her features blurred as she continued to punish the dummy while never even being close to getting touched. A horn blew to signify the end of the sparring session and the dummy walked back to the ring’s center and powered down. To Ella, it seemed that the unfortunate dummy had been locked in a cage with something it had no chance of contending with, not the other way around. Taking into account the mountain of points Vicente won for the ranking index from this component, what chance did she have in keeping up with the speedster? In hindsight, not pushing the hydraulic press to the limit was a costly mistake. Now the only option was to put in herculean effort if she hoped to stick close to Vicente.
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“Good one,” she said, impressively nodding.
Vicente, who passed by, smiled softly and waved a hand, replying with a heavy Spanish accent. “Gracias. You were very impressive yesterday with the press. So strong.”
Luc Moreau, Bohdan, and Sasha were among the next batch. Unexpectedly, Bohdan had to nudge Sasha forward before the defeated woman agreed to trudge to her ring as if hindered by a few feet of quicksand. Despite summoning the courage to face the imposing dummy, Sasha remained on the periphery of the ring. The dummy awoke, its scanning red eye focusing on her. Sasha gulped and kept her distance. Anytime the dummy moved, she would canter around the ring, maintaining a sizable distance. That tactic, destined to garner a poor evaluation according to the rules, ceased working when the dummy sped up its movements. Inside one minute, Sasha laid on her back outside the ring, the result of her efforts dawning on her.
“It’s no fair!” Sasha cried. “If I could use my powers, that giant tin can would be nothing more than mincemeat.”
As Kylara and Ella went to retrieve the wailing woman, she kept her eyes peeled on the other sparring sessions. Bohdan managed fine, dodging most of the dummy’s attacks and blocking the rest with a high guard while delivering jabs to its undefended pressure points.
However, the real draw was Moreau, the monkey man, who performed elaborate maneuver after maneuver, leaving his dummy visibly confused. The dummy launched a jab, followed closely by a sweeping hook. Yet Moreau spun in one quick motion that evaded both attacks, then used his momentum to land on his hands, which propelled him into the air as he rained blows on the dummy’s exposed pressure points. He even landed six consecutive hits on the large pressure point on its head, while the dummy wailed and hit clean air helplessly.
Damn, now that’s fucking impressive.
The fourth batch included Kylara and Jamal. Soon after announcing the names, Ivarsson shuffled closer to her.
“Stick around after the agility test,” Ivarsson said.
“Why?” she inquired. “Did I do anything wrong?”
“No, just make sure to wait.”
Then, as soon as Ivarsson came, the agent peeled off, leaving her confused. What would they want with her? Her eyes widened, remembering that she essentially bypassed the security checkpoint by coming onto the island as a bird. In her attempt to get here on time, she had unintentionally committed a serious offense.
While Kylara survived in the ring two minutes longer than Sasha before getting thrown out, Jamal aced the sparring session. At last, her name was called in the next batch, which gave her some reprieve from Sasha’s constant complaining. As she stepped into the ring, her mind clear and muscles loose, she awaited the activation of the dummy. The whine of hydraulics permeated the air as the dummy jolted awake and leveled its sole red lens at her. Unlike the tactic employed by every other superhuman who waited for the dummy to dictate the session, her extensive study of its movements during prior sessions awarded her the confidence to charge full steam ahead.
The dummy paused in light of her aggression, rearing its cushioned hand back. Once she came within range, it threw an overhand strike at full speed. A simple hop to the side let her evade the punch while she delivered her counterattack to a yellow circle on the dummy’s chest, which pushed it back a few feet. The dummy darted its legs about to prevent itself from toppling over.
“Whoops.” She let out a nervous gasp, then redoubled her focus. A key criterion for this session was to only deliver non-lethal attacks. Nearly felling a 500-pound robot from an open palm strike exceeded the required force by multiple magnitudes.
She charged again, this time using only her forefingers to strike the pressure point while she dodged and evaded all the incoming blows. Her style differed from the graceful acrobatics of Moreau, more akin to a slightly tipsy average cage fighter duking it out with an elderly woman two steps removed from a wheelchair. Yes, she comfortably dodged all the dummy’s attacks. However, that was more to do with the dummy’s inherent lack of speed than any expertise on her part.
After her session, she watched the last round of fighting before turning her attention to the jumbotron.
As expected from the speedster’s incredible display earlier, Vicente blasted off into the lead with a daunting score of 153. Ella slipped to second place with 130 points, while Moreau climbed to third place with 104. Bohdan, unfortunately, dropped to fourth place with 91 points.
After lunch, rather than heading back to the sub-building they had spent the entire assessment in, Ivarsson directed them down the main building into the basement. Past a few bright corridors and unmanned metal detectors and scanners, they emerged in a square room. To her right, the top half of the wall was glass, providing an uninterrupted view for a team of agents in the adjacent room, seated behind a long console that spanned the entire wall. The agents were tapping at the console while conversing with each other, the exact details of their conversation blocked audibly by the wall.
A droning whine that ramped up with intensity drew her attention to the wall ahead where a massive, metal circular structure resided. Across its frame, a myriad of fluorescent light bulbs flared alive. Then, as if many pebbles had been dropped into a calm pond, the bare wall inside the circular structure started rippling. Soon after, the ripples transitioned from the wall to the warped image of another room mixed in with swirling lights.
“Destination coordinate B-243 is secure.” A voice echoed across the room. “The portal gate is ready for use.”
Upon hearing the confirmation, Synapse, standing a few feet from Ella, proceeded toward the portal, with her giant robot following close behind. They slipped into the swirling portal gate and disappeared. Ivarsson and the rest of the agents also stepped in, leaving the apprehensive superhumans alone.
“Screw it,” Sasha said and pushed forward. “Anyone who comes in after me is a bitch.”
Immediately after Sasha spoke, Vicente blurred past her and vanished into the portal. Not wanting to be designated as a bitch, most people bolted, Ella included, and rushed by Sasha before plunging into the portal.
There was a brief moment of discomfort upon entering the portal, which swirled like a fluid tunnel with distorted images of the prior room rippling along the pulsating walls. A moment later, she found herself in a slightly larger room on the other side, harboring more metallic decor than the previous.