Gifted

Chapter 1

Rita Young stood in line, in one hand she held a pen and in the other, a large stack of papers. She didn't think that it was possible to be this anxious at one time.
All her life, the past fourteen years, had led up to this moment, she should feel glad that it was finally here, but instead, she felt terrified. All around her was white, white walls, white floors, and white clothes.
In front of her there was a small group of fourteen year olds who insisted on making as much noise as possible, Rita felt queasy at all of the sound.
The sounds seemed to bounce off the walls and the jokes that were supposed to ease her nerves only make her feel sick. All of the teenagers held the same stack of papers in their hand, all of them had the same questions.
Age, height, build, weight, skin tone, hair color, etc. Rita had answered all of these questions along with the others, now she was left alone to her thoughts while she waited. Rita had been raised for this day, literally, it was the one thing her parents had been in charge of. Raising her until she knew the standards she had to meet to reach the second stage.
She had been secretly adopted by the government and raised by their workers. Her "Parents" had only raised her because it was their job, they were being paid own a child. It might seem crazy to some people, but all of the hard work was going towards a worthy cause, the Gifted Project.
Rita had been raised being told that she was going to be a part of the future, and that she would go down in history. They would enhance her and then train her to be a soldier, one of America's most elite. Her parents had told her that she should be proud of what she was going to do, make a difference, make the world better. Rita hadn't been able to tell anyone though, it was a top secret project.
This caused them to move around a lot, the way her parents saw it, if she always had to make new friends then she would never feel comfortable enough to share her secret with them. It had been lonely, but necessary, the project must be hidden from the public at all costs.

"I said, may I have your papers please?"

Rita's train of thought was broken by a sharp voice. She looked up at the woman on front of her, her hair had been pulled into a too tight bun and her face looked strict. The room was suddenly all too quiet, Rita's stomach clenched as she realized that she had been day dreaming.
She looked away sheepishly and nodded, she could feel the eyes of everyone else in the room on her. She suddenly felt queasy, she hated being the center of attention.

"I'm sorry, I was just-"

"Look, I don't have time for this, just hand me the papers and go through the door"

Rita nodded and held up the papers with a shaky hand. The woman snatched them from Rita's hand, her cold grey eyes fixed on her. Rita felt her face grow warm with embarrassment, she hung her head and began to walk away. There was suddenly a bony hand gripping her shoulder, Rita turned around quickly to see the same face glaring at her.

"Take this slip of paper, everybody else has had to take, what makes you think that you don't have to?"

Rita shrank away as she heard all of the others sniggering, and waited. The lady put her papers into a machine and after a series of beeps, a small slip of paper came out. Rita took the slip of paper and dashed across the room before anything else could go wrong.
She slammed the door shut and pressed her hand hard against it. Rita took several deep breaths and slowly looked up, she was in a room full of scientists sitting at computers. They were hunched over their screens as they typed in an endless string of codes, standing behind each of them were kids like her. Standing awkwardly at the scientists' side, hoping that they would be accepted.
One of the scientists on the other side of the room motioned for her to come over. Rita walked past the rows of computers and came to a stop when she reached him. He held out his hand and Rita stared blankly for a second.

"Oh!" She said, remembering the small slip of paper, she gently placed it in his hand. He smiled at her kindly and looked at the series of numbers and codes printed on it.
He mumbled to himself as he transferred the code to the computer, after pressing enter a new code showed up. The scientist continued to work at the computer, leaving Rita to stand at his side, wondering what to do.