QUALIFY: The Atlantis Grail (Book One)

CHAPTER FIFTY (draft)

After that meeting, no one was in the mood to do anything, including sleep, even though it was near curfew. I remember running over to briefly see Gracie and my brothers, just to give them final squeezes and hugs, and possibly to be in the same room with them for the last time. I remember asking them about their points and then repeating their numbers in my head like a mantra, all evening. Gracie has over 70 points at this moment, which is good and hopeful. . . .

At some point, yes, there was Logan. I know we kissed, hard and desperate, in the shadow of a doorway, just before I went upstairs to my sleeping floor. Logan has decent points, 204 as of last tally, so I tell myself I needn't be worried about him.

And now-now it's Finals morning.

My head is spinning with queasiness and lack of sleep after an almost sleepless night, as I get dressed, adjust my Yellow Quadrant armband over my uniform sleeve, and then come down to the ground floor to get scanned and learn part of my fate.

I see Laronda and Dawn and Hasmik running down the stairs, and we all go together.

On the ground floor "airport terminal" lobby, the crowds are thick. Sections are getting processed simultaneously, as far as the eye can see in both directions, for the next two miles of floor space. Our Section Leaders stand grimly, scanning everyone and announcing our status and rank.

When it's my turn, Section leader Shontae Smith passes the handheld over my token and tells me I have 185 Final Points, and I am assigned to Team USA Fourteen-C.

I stand aside to let Dawn get her turn, and meanwhile there's Laronda who apparently has 189 points and is on my team, Fourteen-C.

"What does that mean, I wonder?" I mutter. "What's Fourteen-C?"

"I got Fourteen-D," Hasmik says. "And I have 106 points."

We all turn to Dawn. "Okay, girlfriend, what did you get?" Laronda says, poking her arm. "And no hiding your numbers this time!"

Dawn shrugs. "You asked for it. 201 points, Team USA Fourteen-A."

"Okay," I say. "Sounds like A is the highest points scorers. Then probably come the B's, which none of us are, then the C's, that's two of us, and finally D."

"I am the lousy D, I know, I not too good," Hasmik mutters, as we all hurry to get food in the cafeteria.

"Hey, you guys all better chow down," a Candidate we don't even know says in the food line to everyone in general. "This could very well be our last meal, like ever."

"Great," Dawn says.

But hey, he's right and we all eat, because it makes good sense to do that, and really, we never know.

Fifteen minutes later, after scarfing down breakfast eggs, orange juice, and who knows what other stuff-and mostly gagging on the food since no one is really hungry-we rush outside. There, in the dawn light we jog in the direction of the distant airfield two miles away.

"Wow, chicas, look up!" Dawn says, as we move quickly down the street. We look at the sky and it's full of Atlantean shuttles. They are like dark floating marbles, balloons and circles, polka-dotting the sky in the direction of the airfield. I know that up-close many of them are huge, and that these are oversized freight transport shuttles, not the small passenger personal flyers like the ones the VIPs use. But it still looks surreal to see them like that, all gathered here in the same general five-mile radius in the skies above the NQC.

"So, any ideas where we might be getting shipped out?" Laronda says, breathing quickly as we run.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Dawn replies.