QUALIFY: The Atlantis Grail (Book One)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE (draft)

“Hmm, let’s see. . . .” Gracie looks around for a wall clock. “It’s close to eight PM now, so it makes it a day plus three hours.”

“A day?” I say. “Wait—”

“The Semi-Finals were yesterday.” George grins.

“I was out for that long?”

“Yeah, well, you needed the rest, so all good.”

I stir some more, and try to sit up weakly, and feel a sudden stabbing head-rush. Immediately the Atlantean medic who is not too far away, returns. “You need to lie back down,” he says calmly. “Just an hour more, and I take out the IV. Then you’re free to move around or sleep it off—your choice.”

“Wow,” I mutter, and sink back on the pillow. And then I stare at my brother and sister. “So, what happened? Tell me everything.”

* * *

In the next half an hour, I listen to George and Gracie speak, laboring to keep my eyelids open, even though my mind is clear and hungry for news.

It turns out we’re somewhere in the Eastern Plains of Colorado, or at least we think that’s where the huge National Qualification Center is located. They don’t tell us for sure, and they don’t tell the public, in order to keep all of us precious Finalists safe from any possible terrorist actions or other threats from the turbulent world outside. . . .

The NQC, George tells me, is the size of a goodly city, self-sustaining and completely enclosed from all sides with seventy-five-foot tall impenetrable steel and concrete walls like a fortress. It is supposed to keep us safe for another month until we train and get ready for the Final phase that will determine our Qualification status.

“Right now we’re in the medical building, their hospital, I guess,” George says. “Yesterday as soon as our respective shuttles brought us here, we got sorted into sick and not-so-sick and then assigned to our final dorms. There are only four dorms here, based on the Four Quadrants, and they are huge—I am talking, each one the size of a mall.”

“Oh,” Gracie puts in. “And we also get to have three days off, to rest and heal and whatever, until the new training sessions begin. So we are all just kind of hanging out.”

“Did you—did you have a chance to contact Mom and Dad?” I speak in a faint voice that sounds awful even to me.

George signs, frowning. “No, still not permitted to do that. They have similar firewalls set up here as they did at the RQC, e-dampers everywhere, so we can’t call out. But they tell us the global situation outside is getting rougher every day, riots, et cetera.”

“So we can just imagine the worst,” I whisper.

“No, don’t . . . just, stop!” Gracie says, putting her hand on mine, and immediately I see her eyes begin to glisten with tears.

“You’re right,” I say, immediately, to humor her. “I am sure Mom and Dad are just fine, things aren’t as bad in Vermont as in some of the other places. . . .”

As I speak, George gives me an intense meaningful look, so that I know he knows I’m speaking for Gracie’s sake. Truth is, I have no idea—none of us have any idea how bad things are, and whether our parents are even alive. . . .

We mutually change the subject, and George and Gracie tell me more things.

Apparently George chose New York for his Semi-Finals, and so did Gordie. They had different kinds of hot zones there, and most of their difficulties involved tall buildings, skyscraper high rises, and crazy vertical flying.