The written test was pretty easy for Reed. He already nearly topped the charts of his school with his grades, even without studying. He finished pretty quickly.
“Grrrr… Dangit.” Reed heard someone to his left say. Looking over, he saw a girl with long brown hair and glasses. She seemed to be struggling a bit.
‘Surprising.’ Reed thought. ‘She even has glasses. I would’ve thought she’d be pretty good at the written test.’ The stereotype continues. Looking to his right he could see the red-haired guy from earlier. He was already done. He looked over, gave a nod toward Reed, and looked back to the front of the room.
“Time’s up!” The military woman said. “Time for the physical test. Please exit the room using the door on your right. It will take you to the test area.”
The area for the physical test was fairly large, about a couple football fields in size. Looking around, there were ten separate areas cordoned off. In each of these areas there appeared to be three separate pieces of equipment. The military woman directed Reed and the others into one of these areas.
“Alright! First we are going to judge your physical strength. If you look around you will see something that looks a bit like a 20 foot tall tower. You are going to stand under that, and it is going to press down on you. Over time the weight will increase, and when a part of your body other than your feet touches the ground the test ends. Do your best to stay up as long as possible.”
“Well… I’ll try.” Reed mumbled to himself, positioning himself under the tower.
“Alright, now that you’re all positioned we start in 3, 2, 1, now!”
The tower quickly grew heavier over Reed’s shoulders. ‘This is only… 20 pounds I think? Not very much.’ As he finished thinking that, the tower grew even more heavy. ‘It seems like it will gradually increase.’
10 minutes later.
There were only three people left standing. Reed, and two others. Reed was reaching his limit. His body was under pressure of almost 200 pounds. His legs were tired and shaky from standing with extra weight for ten minutes. But it was fun. So much fun. He steeled himself to continue until his body broke. Losing is not an option.
5 minutes later.
Reed was reaching the limit of his stamina and strength. He was under the weight of 300 pounds. His body couldn’t keep up with his mind. He wanted to keep standing. He tried to keep standing, but slowly, very slowly, his legs began to fall. At 17 minutes 35 seconds, holding up a total of 350 pounds, reed gave in.
*beep*
Looking up from the ground, Reed saw a scoreboard displayed for the strength test.
1. Reed Chambers: 350 pounds.
2. Ema Blume: 342 pounds.
3. Jacob Hurst: 321 pounds.
He did it. He got first. ‘Thank god it was worth it.’ He silently thought to himself. ‘There’s still another physical test.’
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“Alright! 30 minute break before continuing with the second physical test, the reaction speed test,” the military woman shouted.
Reed decided to stretch his body to make sure he wasn’t terribly sore when the speed test started. While stretching, the girl with glasses he saw during the written test came up to him.
“Yo, are you Reed?” She asked, waving at him slightly.
“Yeah that’s me. What’s up?”
“Dammit so you’re the one that beat me. I was confident I could get first too!” She stuck out her hand.
“Ah so you’re Ema then? Nice to meet you.” Reed shook her outstretched hand. “You’re pretty good. Let’s see who wins in the speed test.”
“I’m not going to go easy on you, man! This one was just a fluke. I’ll beat you in the next two!” She responded, huffing and putting her hands on her hips.
“Only if I let you win. Good luck Ema.” Reed said, smirking.
Unknown to Ema, Reed’s strength was the weakest thing about his body. He was confident in his extremely fast reaction speed.
“Alright everyone, for the speed test I need you to step into that box looking room in your area. Inside you will have thirty seconds before the speed test will start, upon which tennis balls will be shot at you from any and every direction you can imagine. The less balls that hit you, the higher your score.”
‘Great. Let’s ace this’ Reed thought to himself, ‘I won’t get hit by a single ball.’ Upon walking into the room Reed quickly analyzed the walls to find where the balls can come from.
“Great. 36 holes per wall, and 12 feet from each wall if I stand in the center. Plenty of time to move out of the way.”
*Biff* Biff* *Biff*
The balls began shooting one after another towards Reed. Unfazed, he simply side stepped them. They grazed by him, inches away from hitting his body. ‘This is pretty boring. How many more balls are left?’ He wondered. After a while of dodging the balls, they stopped shooting out.
“Alright everyone! Speed test has been concluded. You can exit the rooms now.”
“Finally.” Reed commented. “Let's check my score.”
1. Reed Chambers: 0 hits.
2. Ema Blume: 4 hits.
3. Davey Bernard: 17 hits.
“Great. I was worried it was too easy and someone would tie with me.”
“Reed! What the hell!” Reed heard a voice coming from behind.
“Oh, Ema it’s you. You did pretty good. You got second.”
“You don’t have to rub it in! Why haven’t I heard of you? If you’re this good at sports why don’t I know your name?”
“Ah, well, I didn’t actually do any sports. I just worked out from time to time,” Reed shrugged.
“Then how the fuck are you so good though?!” Ema asked, absolutely bewildered.
“I was just born this way, what can I say,” smirked Reed. “Looks like they’re about to announce what’s next though, so be quiet.”
“Alright everyone,” said the military woman, “this concludes the physical test. Some of you have done better than expected, I’m surprised.” She glanced over and Reed. “I expect you all to show good results on the mental test as well. Follow me this way and we’ll start the mental test.”
Leaving the massive area provided for the physical test, the group entered a hallway taking them to a much smaller room.
“Because of the massive cost of making the equipment required for the mental test, you guys are going to have to take turns with this one.” She looked out over all ten of them. “Let’s see just how much pain you guys can take.”
Reed was itching to go.
"Okay, Ema, you're up first. Go stand in the middle of the room," the military woman said.
"Understood, ma'am." Surprisingly, Ema was quite polite.
Ema stepped up into the middle room. You could see the nervousness on her face. No one knew how much it was going to hurt, and how long it was going to hurt for.
"So, ma'am, when does the test start?" Ema fiddled with her hands nervously.
"Right now." The woman turned around and pressed a couple buttons on a control panel.
*bzzap*
"Geh," Ema made a sound like she touched something gross. "Wait, this isn't that bad!" She added with a surprised expression, "it only feels about as bad as a stubbed toe!"
"For now," the military woman ominously laughed, "that's all it feels like for now."
A few minutes later Ema's complexion had noticeably paled. She was starting to hyperventilate and shake uncontrollably.
"Okay OKAY! Stop it now! I can't do it anymore!" She shouted, tearing up. She stumbled out of the middle of the room and fell on her knees.
*blergh*
She threw up on the ground immediately after getting out of center of the room. Reed walked over and offered a hand to help her up.
"Thanks Reed. That ended up being a lot worse than I thought it was at first. Pain is a lot scarier than I thought." She shook slightly.
"Hey, good job. I can tell that you really pushed yourself hard. There's a bench over there, go sit down and rest." Reed felt a bit bad for being snarky to her earlier after how she reacted to the mental test.
"Okay, next up is Davey!" The military woman didn't wait at all, unfazed by Ema's reaction.
None of the others could match Ema's time in the center of the room. Eventually the only one who hadn't taken the test was Reed.
"Reed. It's your turn." The military woman said, glancing over at him. She seemed to be focusing on him more than she had the others.
"Understood miss. Um, quick question. What is the record amount of time someone endured the mental test?" Reed asked an absurd question.