Poor Man's Fight (3 page)

“No,” Tanner blinked. He didn’t even have his holocom. He thought of pointing that out, but at this point, she was just an obstacle on his way to a bigger obstacle. There was nothing to be gained in drawing this out.

“Please enter and find your testing cube on the first floor. Follow the yellow track lighting. Your name will be displayed on your cube.”

Wasting no more time, Tanner stepped inside. He immediately heard another suspicious beep and looked at the plastic framework of the entryway. Obviously he had been scanned. He knew something like that had to be coming, but it didn’t make him feel any more welcome or relaxed.

Before him stretched out a wide, open floor filled with two-meter wide, two-meter tall opaque black “testing cubes.” Each cube was nothing more than a trick of projected light and sound mufflers. One could walk right through any of the cube walls, though that would be detected and recorded, leading to harsh consequences. Most of the cubes had “Testing” posted in red letters on each side. Others bore the Union Academic Investment Evaluation seal and the name of its intended occupant.

Tanner found his cube and stared at the seal while other examinees filed past him.
Some wished one another luck. A few sniffled nervously. Most laughed and chattered, either to calm nerves or because they didn’t really give a second thought to the gravity of the situation.

He looked around, wanting just one more moment with a friendly face but finding no one he knew. He knew that most of his friends were already present, sequestered in their black cubes as their scheduled appointments required. Tanner was very late for his. Every minute hurt his score.

A scowling adult stomped up to the cube on Tanner’s right and placed his palm on the seal. The cube vanished, revealing a pale, expensively-dressed young man sitting on a minimally endowed chair. For a split second, Tanner thought he saw a small holographic screen projected from the youth’s left hand, but it vanished almost as quickly as the cube.

“Give it to me,” demanded the adult.

“What?”

“The holocom you snuck in here. Where did you hide it? In your ear? Up your nose?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the youth protested. He held his hands up, turning away from the adult as if to express his aggravation. The adult promptly grabbed his left arm. “Hey! Get your hands off me!” A small fleck of plastic fell from the youth’s sleeve and onto the floor. He stepped on it, but he was too late.

“Get your foot off that.”

“Off what? You’re crazy! Leave me alone!”

The adult noticed Tanner watching. “Don’t you have a test to get started on?”

Instinctively seeking to avoid the man’s wrath, Tanner stepped into the cube. Instantly the sounds of the argument not more than a meter away from him were muffled. Some invisible sensor kept up with the escalating voices, increasing the sound dampening effect until Tanner heard nothing. It was just him, his chair, and the screen set within the opaque holographic wall.

“Please be seated,” the screen read. A friendly, female voice read it aloud. Tanner obeyed. “Please confirm your name.”

“T-Tanner Malone,” he stammered.

“Please
look straight ahead and place your palm on the screen.” Tanner obeyed and waited for the scans. “Please hold your hand steady,” it said. Tanner took a deep breath to stop his trembling.

“Good morning, Tanner,” the cube read to him aloud off the screen. “Welcome to the
Union Academic Investment Evaluation. Your academic records have already been processed. Please verify proper record matching by answering the following questions.

The first few questions were identical to the ones he answered at the entrance. Tanner tried to control his irritation.

“Are you rated by your counselors as highly gifted, gifted, above average, average, below average, well below average, handicapped or non-performing?”

“Gifted,
” he sighed.

“Are you a member of NorthStar Education’s Society of Scholars?”

“Well, they didn’t rate me as ‘highly gifted’ and I’m not rich, so…” He bit back the rest of his response. Being bitter at the computer would make no difference.

“Please answer the question with yes or no.”

“No.”

“Thank you,” the computer said. The screen shifted to a sequence of corporate and government seals.

“NorthStar Corporation provides a full twelve years of educational services fulfilling the compulsory education requirements of the Union and your home system of Archangel. You have fulfilled the basic average of seven hours per day through the course of your education. Congratulations on your excellent attendance record! Three additional, optional hours per day in a variety of subjects have been made available to you as required by law, which you may or may not have pursued by your own choice. At this time, you should be eligible for graduation.”

Tanner rolled his eyes. He wasn’t listening; kids knew all of this from roughly the same time they learned the awful truth about Santa Claus. The countdown clock in one corner of the screen made the whole
monologue all the more galling. This rote explanation of common knowledge ate up time on the Test, but he had no option to skip it.

“Your education comes at significant expense. The costs of your compulsory education have been 1
5,000 credits per year at 3% annual interest. As you are now a legal adult, you are liable for this debt regardless of whether you graduate.

“NorthStar Corporation, in compliance with the
Union Educational Equality Act, has developed the Union Academic Investment Evaluation, or UAIE, to assess your mastery of academic skills and content knowledge. NorthStar, the Union, and Archangel believe that an educated individual is an inherent benefit to society at large throughout the course of his or her life. Thus, your performance today on the UAIE may lead to forgiveness of some or potentially all of your educational debts.

“Now Tanner,” the cube said in a deceptively realistic voice, “are you ready to begin the evaluation?”

“Uh… no? No, I’m not!” Tanner told the screen.

“Please choose one of the following causes for exemption,” the voice said. For a moment, hope grew in Tanner’s heart. Could there be a way out of this after all?

“Are you bereaved, meaning that you have suffered a death in your immediate family within the last 24 hours?”

“No.”

“Are you physically ill or in need of immediate medical attention?”

“I… I don’t know?” Tanner ventured. “I don’t feel well.”

“Please stand while I check your vital signs,” the cube instructed. Tanner stood and waited through the soft electronic hum. A picture of him appeared on the screen, along with a display of his vitals.

“Your vital signs are all within acceptable parameters,” the cube said with a mildly scolding tone. “You are likely experiencing hunger, fatigue or nausea as a result of poor preparation for the test. Emotional fitness is the responsibility of the student and his or her family, and is therefore not included as an exempting condition. If you have another cause for exemption other than those listed, please state.”

“My parents are basket cases and they’ve screwed up my whole life,” answered Tanner.

There was a moment’s pause. “That does not qualify for an exemption. If you have a cause for exemption other than those listed, please state.”

Tanner sank into his chair, and hope sank with him. “Well, fuck.”

“That does not qualify for an exemption. If you have a cause for exemption other than those listed, please state.”

***

Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Tanner felt confident about the Test. It was just one more hoop to jump through. He placed in the top 5% of students regionally, planet-wide and even across the system. His course load reached well beyond The Test’s targets. Tanner
’s senior year saw him with perfect standings to enter the biology & ecology studies departments of a dozen major universities.

He conscientiously saved money over the last two years to cover any shortfalls. Even a single flubbed algebra problem could end up costing him hundreds of credits. Most students took a grav train home from school, unless they had their own vehicles or could hitch a ride from a friend. Whenever Tanner could not manage the latter, he walked. It saved money, and Geronimo hardly ever got past 48 degrees Celsius anyway. His residential district had a community pool to help beat the heat when he got home.

Walking home the evening before The Test, Tanner thought more about that pool than about what faced him in the morning. He had run out of decent practice test materials weeks ago anyway; the only worthwhile form of studying he could find at this point was in tutoring others. There just wasn’t any point in stressing about it anymore.

Then Tanner
walked into his small, humble home to find his stepmother packing up her art, her books and other belongings.

She hardly even noticed him when the door opened, focused as she was on wrapping up her prized sculpture
. It looked to Tanner like a three-dimensional inkblot. For a moment, his heart jumped—was she actually leaving his father? They didn’t seem like they were having any marital problems.

“What’s… Sharon? What’s going on?” Tanner asked.

“Hm? Oh, hi, sweetie! You know, I wish you wouldn’t call me Sharon,” she said in that gentle but slightly distant “teacher voice” she always used with him. She talked often of how she wanted him to think of her as family, but she still felt more like an extension of his school environment inserted into his home life.

Her voice bore no distress, thoug
h, so that settled the worry of divorce. He felt relieved for Dad’s sake, at least, but that meant Tanner still had to live with her. Sharon was a blight on his life. The wedding of Mr. Stephen Malone to Ms. Sharon Hayden, teacher of modern literature and art at NorthStar Educational #722, was the (comedic) social event of Tanner’s sophomore year. Half the school attended. Tanner stood as a reluctant, wide-eyed groomsman in his father’s second wedding in front of dozens of gawking classmates. Most of his peers had mustered the decency not to giggle at him. Most.

Tanner looked back at her awkwardly and repeated, as non-confrontationally as he could, “What’s going on, Sharon?”

She sighed. “Your father and I are doing some preliminary packing.”

“Preliminary packing for what?”

Her face glowed. She looked like she was about to burst. “He got the promotion and we’re moving to Arcadia in a week!”

“Dad!” Tanner shouted. He didn’t mirror Sharon’s excitement.

His father hustled down the stairs to meet him. Like Sharon, he still bore the youth and vitality of a man half his actual age thanks to gene therapy treatments. Though not an athletic man, he was trim enough, with his hair cut short and his clothing just the sort of casual chic that Sharon preferred.

“Hey, Tanner, I… oh… I can see your mother already told you,” Stephen’s voice trailed off.

Tanner gritted his teeth. “She’s not my mom.”

Sharon stiffened, took in a sharp breath, and walked into the next room.

Stephen’s pained expression was lost upon her as she left. “Tanner, you know how much it would mean to her if—“

“Moving off-planet in a week? A whole ‘nother system
?”

“Yeah,” Stephen sighed. “Yeah, I wanted to tell you myself. I guess Sharon just… couldn’t contain the excitement.”

“Jesus, Dad! I’m happy for you, too, but you know where I am right now! I’ve got graduation before the end of the week and I’ve got my lab internship coming up,” Tanner said. “Did you remember that? The reason I put off university applications?”

“Yes! Of course I remembered your graduation, Tanner. And the internship. We already knew you didn’t want to come to Arcadia when this came up on the horizon, though, didn’t we?”

Tanner rolled his eyes, reading the worst implications into the question. Arcadia was the sort of planet where the wealthy went on vacation. Promotion or not, it was an expensive place to live. Moreso when one had dependents. Stephen’s raise would likely put him in a position to only barely afford the cost of living there until and unless Sharon could land a job of her own, and there were no guarantees even then. “So what’s the plan?” he asked. “Can I stay here for awhile after you’re gone? I can’t, can I?”

“Well, no, we had to notify the residence manager so we wouldn’t end up paying for another full month. But I’m sure we could make some sort of arrangements. Maybe you could stay with one of your friends?”

“My friends who are all going away to universities over the next month?”

Stephen sighed again. “All of them? Right, right, sorry.” He took a deep breath and straightened up. “Well, Tanner, it’s just something we’ll have to figure out right away.”

Tanner blinked. “Dad, do you even know what tomorrow is?”

“Sure,” Stephen said, “and that’s tomorrow’s problem. Deal with that, get through that test—do good—and then worry about living arrangements. In the worst case, I’m sure your internship can qualify you for some sort of student loan program.

“Look,” he added, somewhat lamely, “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”