◆Rank 5◆
“I’ve sent a marker to all your phones, that’s where you have to deliver one of these packages.” There was a small pile of cubes at Nachi’s feet. “However, you won’t find them so easy to deliver intact.” She picked one up to show it off. It had a glowing green light at the top. When she turned the cube upside down, the light turned red, and it let out a loud irritating beep until it was turned back the right way.
Though the noise stopped, the red light remained. “If the light goes red before you reach the destination, you’ve failed. You have to bring it back to this sensor to make it green again.” Nachi craned her neck in the direction of a stand with what looked like a card reader on top. She pushed the cube next to it and the light reset back to green.
“These cubes are to simulate an extremely fragile package. Even in this world of modern shipping, the Fiends For Hire still get quite a few courier requests: things people don’t want shipped through the mediocre-at-best postal service. Maybe that duck delivery idea will actually take off. Would probably be better. Anyways, the slightest erratic motion will set these things off; flipping it over, dropping it, too big of a jostle.”
“There’s a similar sensor at the end. Press the cube to it while it’s still illuminated green, and you pass. You can also have the little prize inside if you want, or give it to me. I’ll like you more if you give it to me. Oh, and you can also have a bath when you’re done.”
“I’m gonna go ahead and wait at the end for you all. I may not be there all day, though. Until I get bored, I suppose. I really don’t know how long this will take most of you. Our test-subject, Rusa, beat this in no time at all, but I suspect her Curse did most of the heavy lifting.”
“I won’t be personally failing any of you. This test is another designed for you all to be able to attempt without guidance. Similar to how Common Cards work, the cubes will recognize your DNA signature as you touch them, so there will be no cheating.”
“Feel free to attempt it as many times as you like, whenever you like, until you pass. Can do it in the middle of the night for all I care as long as you show up to training. On the off-chance most of you pass really quickly, we’ll move on to Rank 6. Otherwise, we’ll do it tomorrow.”
“On another note, you may have noticed Roque isn’t here. His Curse would make it so he passes instantly, so there was no point in even bothering. You may deem that unfair, but I don’t care. I’ve got him running errands for me in the meantime. Now, good luck everyone. If you pass this, you’ll be halfway to being a decent member.”
Almost everyone grabbed their cubes and rushed off right away. However, they didn’t make it far as a harmony of failure-beeps sent them running right back. Jaid took this time to study the cube’s temperament. She took a few standard steps and it had no reaction, but a skip made it beep.
Next, Jaid tried rotating it to see what it took to set it off that way. About 10-20° in any direction made the beep trigger, so really it needed to stay as flat as possible for the entire journey. Jumping made it beep. Lowering or raising her hand too fast made it beep. A light jog made it beep. This thing was going to be a headache, but it seemed doable. Thankfully for her testing purposes, it still beeped even with a red light, so she didn’t need to reset it for each test.
Now confident she knew how to handle it, Jaid headed out in a decent stride. Most of the others were much farther than her down the road. The one exception was Itsy. Poor Itsy. Jaid’s cube testing took way longer than needed because she kept focusing on the troubled girl. Every regular step she took set off the cube. Not just that, anything that was basically a standard movement or part of her gait was too much for it. The cube practically beeped nonstop for her unless she stood perfectly still.
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The camaraderie side of Jaid wanted to help her, but this was undeniably a solo test. While Nachi would allow a lot of flexibility with rules, if Itsy couldn’t pass this on her own, it’d certainly disqualify her from this line of work. That and Jaid had spent too much of the past few days helping Fiends. She needed to distance herself from them, not become someone they relied on, even if her superiors recommended they become buddy buddies.
The first bit of walking for the test was easy. It was a flat road headed straight North from the compound. They even passed the route to veer off to the site for the third ranking test. Overall, it really wasn’t a far distance, not even half a lage. It was still a pain if they were going to be constantly running back and forth to reset.
Jaid could see now why it was a more difficult test the moment her phone told her to start heading up the nearby mountain. There was no proper trail, just footprints of those that had come before. It was decently well-walked, meaning others had traversed it for reasons besides this test.
One step onto the mountain and Jaid’s shoe caught a ledge, *beep*. She made it back and well past that point but slipped slightly on loose rocks, *beep*. There was a part where she had to take a large step up, *beep*. That same step but slightly slower, *beep*. Again, that same Cosdamned step. She made it this time but then stupidly wiped her forehead with the hand holding the cube in relief, *beep*.
Jaid made it past that loathsome spot and didn’t have any more issues for a while. It was pretty obvious the route they were supposed to take, and most of it was just a slight incline. On another day, it’d just be a nice hiking trail that just about anyone could manage. However, she eventually reached the true trial of the test.
The path ended at what was almost a sheer rock-wall. It wasn’t that high, and the clear way ahead was just above it. Jaid couldn’t really see any other ways around it that didn’t involve a lot of backtracking and going off the faux trail. That could possibly lead to endless beeps while she tried to find her way and didn’t want to risk it.
Man-made handholds were dug into the rock for them to use. It really wouldn’t be a hard climb, but doing it without setting off the cube proved difficult as Jaid failed her first try. The next few tries didn’t fare better, as she was getting more annoyed with each one. However, she was taking each failure far better than most.
Jaid had seen a whole slew of reactions to those incessantly annoying beeps along the way. Some would just break down and cry. Others would try to smash the cube. It remained durable, though, so they didn’t even get that relief. She’d even seen Tize in a moment of weakness as he pelted the cube as far as he could throw it, only to have to go and retrieve it afterwards.
“Alright, cube. If you don’t beep this time, I shall adorn you with the finest polish the Foilepe house can acquire.” Gatrim in particular really struggled. His reliance on his family’s skill was becoming apparent. He’d tried to use it several times in the beginning, but had never been able to do it successfully a single time without the cube beeping. In her own latest failure, Jaid found him going through the bargaining stage of grief when she passed him.
The other members were also proving to be obstacles—far more annoying since they were inconsistent. Jaid accidentally bumped into Niloy at one point, *double beep*. On top of having to reset, she also got one of the most betrayed looks from Nini that she’d ever seen. Another time, she almost bumped into Kaizu too, *single beep*, but purposefully took her own loss, not wanting to see what the blood-painted woman’s reaction would be.
Back at her new nemesis, the wall, Jaid realized she’d been stupid. How many failures—not just counting this challenge—would it take before she finally stopped thinking like a human? Her Curse made the answer obvious, but it was sad and unfortunate that it’d taken her this long to realize.
Two clones were made: one standing above the wall and another leaning on it to connect them. Jaid got rid of the bottom two clones and became the top one with that one’s cube still happily beep free. The walk to the end from there was short and easy. Finally, it all made sense why they’d been banned from bathing.