“The last person is here,” a tall black woman said after glancing at Raine. “So now what?”

“Now we wait,” Marco said. He glanced at his phone. “We still have a few minutes.”

“How far are you all into Introductory Ephrian?” a small green-eyed girl asked. She wore a Harvard cap over her black bob-cut hair.

Marco narrowed his eyes. “How far are you into it?”

“Three-fourths,” she said with a proud smile.

“About halfway for me.”

They all revealed their progress. To Raine’s surprise, most of them were only halfway through it.

“How about you?” Marco asked Raine.

“Halfway as well.” He’d finished the book before he’d stepped foot on the island.

The Harvard girl grinned. “Number one.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ava came over from the hallway ahead. “You’re about to get knocked down a peg or two. Follow me.”

She led them up a flight of stairs and down a corridor to a door labeled, ‘Examination Hall II.’

“Are you guys ready to take the SAT again?” Raine said jokingly to the other nine. He took a deep breath. “This is my last chance to improve my 1480.”

“I’m ready for that sweet 1600, man,” Marco said.

“The one last retake I always dreamed of,” a Chinese woman said with a grin.

The joke fell flat with the Harvard girl. “Ha,” she said with unamused eyes.

Ava left, and the ten of them walked into the examination hall.

A broad middle-aged man stood inside. One of his hands was missing a few fingers, and the other held a copy of Introductory Ephrian.

“Hello,” he said to them. In Ephrian. “My name is Hugh. No English here, please. Take your seats.”

“What did he just say?” Marco asked with a frown.

Raine repeated the middle-aged man’s words.

“Damn, you got it word-for-word,” the Chinese woman said.

“No English,” Hugh said with a frown.

The ten of them took their seats.

“You will be tested on your knowledge of basic Ephrian. Keep your answers to one or two sentences,” Hugh said. Giving them no time to prepare, he began immediately. Basic math problems were first. The Harvard girl correctly answered all of them.

Then he moved on to greetings. Again, the Harvard girl answered every question. She occasionally got one wrong, but she didn’t seem to care. Raine frowned. She’s taking everything.

“How are you doing?” High asked in Ephrian.

“Fine, thank you,” Raine said before the Harvard girl could utter a syllable.

“Good. Did you eat yet?”

“As it turns out, no. I’d love to have lunch after this test.” He had to say a few words slowly to avoid mispronouncing them.

Hugh’s brows rose. “Great. Do you eat meat?”

“I’ve had it all my life. I have no plans to stop. Do you eat it?”

“Jesus Christ, they’re having a conversation,” someone mumbled.

Hugh smiled. “Yes, I do,” he said to Raine. “I go vegetarian on one or two months when I start putting on the pounds.”

Raine didn’t know the word for ‘pounds,’ but context helped him figure it out.

Hugh asked more questions, and Raine kept giving rapid-fire answers. The Harvard girl got one or two more responses in before he shut her out completely.

“How many roommates do you have?”

“Seven,” Raine said a heartbeat after ‘have.’

“What’s your team name?”

“5-1.”

That continued for ten minutes. Then Hugh gave them an odd question.

“I have ten soldiers,” he said in Ephrian. “We pass through a jungle. Two die from dengue,” he said. In Russian. Raine heard a quiet groan from one of the others. “At the next town, I hire one more,” Hugh said in Spanish. Then he said a line in Chinese, which Raine didn’t know. “Lastly, I hire three more on the road,” Hugh said in German. Then he spoke in English. “Collaborate. But the more people in your group, the fewer points each individual gets. You can use English now. How many men do I have now?”

“Goddammit, I don’t even remember all of that,” Marco said.

Ten to start. Two dead. Hire one. Something in Chinese. Hire three. Raine and eight others immediately looked to the Chinese woman. She looked back at Raine and smiled.

“Want to work together?” she asked, getting up from her seat to approach him.

“Of course,” he said. They shook hands.

“Five died from a battle,” she said quietly.

“Seven,” Raine said loudly. Hugh nodded.

“Goddammit,” the Harvard girl said. “This is bullshit.”

“That’s the end of the test,” Hugh said. “Raine Williams is the top scorer. Followed by Cecily Caraway, then Julia Yang. The rest are equal.”

The Harvard girl, Cecily, complained: “This is supposed to be an Ephrian test. How come the last question involved other languages?”

“German, Russian, and Spanish are extremely valuable languages to know in learning Ephrian,” Hugh said. He smiled wryly. “Chinese was just something fun I added, thinking the competition would be closer.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“What do we get for scoring highly?” Raine asked.

“The three highest scorers can change their last training session tomorrow to something else.”

“Like?” Cecily asked.

“Like a boxing lesson, an archery lesson, et cetera. You’ll be contacted later by phone.”

“What do the rest get?”

“Nothing. But the company will use your results and tailor lessons to your needs.” He glanced at his watch. “Over the next twenty minutes, we’ll cover the basic content that the questions included. Williams and Caraway, you two can leave now if you want. You already know the material.”

Cecily got up and frowned at Raine before striding out. Raine followed her out.

“Caraway, hold on,” Raine said.

She looked at him over her shoulder with a scowl. “What?”

“Please try to tone down the competitiveness next time. You didn’t have to be so aggressive at the start of the test.”

“Screw off.” She strode away.

Raine watched her go and shook his head. What a kid. She’s like an Ava with her ego turned up to eleven.

. . . .

Edgar slowed. He couldn’t keep going. Everything hurt. Everything. He fell forward onto his hands and knees.

“Roberts, get the fuck up!” Steele shouted.

Fuck. I can’t. Fuck. His arms failed him, and he fell flat onto the ground. He rolled onto his back. His hair and his clothes were soaked with sweat. He closed his eyes, even as Steele screamed for him to get back onto his feet.

“Get up, Roberts! Get the fuck up!”

She sounds so much like him right now. Fuck. Shut up. He wanted to cry.

Then Steele stopped shouting at him.

“He’s out of steam already,” she said. He heard someone snicker. “And he was strutting about yesterday like he was some king. Dumbass.”

Fuck you. Edgar laid one arm over his eyes to hide the tears streaming down his face. ‘Get the fuck up and run, bitch!’ Even while Steele had stopped shouting at him, he could hear his father screaming at him still.

‘Get onto your goddamn feet.’

I can’t get up. Everything hurts.

‘Get the fuck up.’

I can’t.

‘You’ve been a worthless piece of shit all your life. This job is the one fucking chance you have to prove you’re worth something. Prove you can be a champion. Fucking prove it!’

Edgar lay there for a moment. He gritted his teeth. Fuck.

‘Do it. Prove you’re worth something! Prove it to me and prove it to yourself!’

Fuck. He rolled onto his stomach. Inch by inch, he got onto his hands and knees. Just that was tiring enough to make him want to quit. He wanted to fall back onto the ground and lie there.

‘Do it! Get up and run!’

Fuck. He put one foot on the ground. His leg trembled. Balancing with his hands still on the ground, he put the other foot up. He stood up. He wiped away his tears with the back of his hand. Then he started putting one foot in front of the other.

I can do this. I can fucking do this. I’m going to be fucking number one. Edgar clenched his fists. He picked up his pace. All he could get was a jog. Any faster and he would stumble.

He heard Steele laugh. “Shit, he actually got onto his feet.”

. . . .

The rest of their training that day was exhausting. Once Raine’s roommates returned, they all went to the Costas Hall and attended an hour-long lesson on first aid. Then at 2:00 PM, everyone except Reo went to learn how to ride a horse. Reo already knew how to do it because he’d apparently worked on a farm before.

“Back then, I took whatever jobs I could,” Reo said.

The riding lesson itself was surprisingly tame. Each team got an instructor who made sure they understood what and what not to do before they even saw a horse. Arnett managed to piss off his horse anyway and fell off it. He wasn’t hurt, but his ego was bruised when he saw everyone else, including the injured Raine, slowly getting the hang of it without much trouble.

Then they had the strangest lesson of all, learning how to cook without any modern tools.

“Guys, what if Hopkins is trying to make us into spec ops supersoldiers?” Vick whispered.

“That would be awesome!” Max whispered back.

“Damn right.”

They all had plenty of questions on their minds, but they did as they were told and cooked themselves an early dinner with a campfire they built together. Raine enjoyed the process, even if it made him feel more than ever that Hopkins might be run by crazy people.

“Max,” Grant said calmly.

“Yeah?” Max replied.

“You put too much salt in the soup.”

“Oh shit, really?” He tasted the soup. He blinked. “Well, it wasn’t supposed to turn out like that.”

To compensate, they under-seasoned the chicken. So they had over-salted cabbage soup and bland grilled chicken for dinner.

By the time they returned to the Gilman Tower, it was 5:30 PM.

Raine sat on a beanbag in the living room with a glass of water in his hand. He was staring out the window, looking at the clear sky. Today was insane.

He drank from his glass without thinking. For a moment, he had that bizarre feeling from tasting something completely different from what he expected. He shook his head. I already quit. No beer.

“What are we supposed to do now?” Max asked. “There isn’t even a TV here, and I didn’t bring my laptop because the recruiter’s assistant told me ‘No metal.’”

“What’s even up with the no-metal thing?” Vick wondered aloud.

“Who knows,” Reo said. “You can add it to the list of the many mysteries of the Hopkins Company.”

“Does anyone actually have a list like that? If not, I’ll do it,” Max said. “It sounds fun.”

“Don’t bother,” Arnett said. He crashed on the couch. “We’re supposed to learn more about the company over time anyway.”

Kayden came out of the second room with his blazer on. “I’m headed out to see if I can meet any girls here. See you all.”

“Woah, woah, hold on there,” Vick said. “Where are you going exactly?”

“The Ocean Bar. I saw it when I was cycling here from the runway.”

“Dude, wait a minute. I’m in.”

“See you guys,” Grant said with little interest. He poured himself a glass of juice.

Vick went into the first room and changed into jeans and his Johns Hopkins shirt. Then he and Kayden left for the bar.

Arnett yawned. “Anyone know if the books on the shelf are any good?”

“How about getting up and taking a look for yourself?” Grant asked.

“I’ll do that in...okay, nevermind. I’m too tired.”

“Wow, you guys really have no interest in going to the bar?” Max asked.

“The kind of women you meet at a bar are mostly meh, kid,” Arnett said. “And we’re on this island to work, not to fool around and date girls.”

“Exactly,” Reo said.

“Some of us happen to be engaged,” Lukas said. Grant nodded.

“Oh,” Max said. “Well, what about you, Raine?”

“Same reason as Arnett.” Raine finished his glass of water. “And I find it hard to focus 100-percent on work with a relationship.”

“Shit, you sound like a workaholic,” Arnett said.

“I clocked 100-hour workweeks every week for almost a year at Allison Flynn. There was no time to date with that schedule. I kept up the no-dating momentum even after I was fired.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Isn’t that, I don’t know...boring?” Max asked.

“I thought so too when I was in high school. Then I went to college and found that dating wasn’t as fun as I’d expected. My exes sucked away my time from studies and work.”

“So it’s confirmed,” Arnett said. “Raine is a workaholic.”

Raine smiled wryly. I rarely worked over two hours a day after I got fired from Allison. I’m hardly a workaholic.

To pass time, most of them picked up a book from the shelf and read. Arnett took a nap, and Max listened to music on his phone.

Aside from a few classics and two nonfiction works, the only books there were obscure novels. Raine had in his hands a story about four college students who were transported to another world and had to fight for survival. It seemed like a typical fantasy novel.

He flipped it open. The publisher was C.W. Rialis, which he’d never heard of before.

He turned the page and started reading.

It wasn’t a terrific book, but it at least helped him kill time until he went to sleep.