6/24/3000: DAY 1

Kalista woke, as she always did, to the blaring of the fire alarm in the Central Academy dorms.

Like all of the other students, she hated the alarm system. The teachers were extremely proud of themselves to have come up with it -- a built-in wake-up-call for the entire school that forced every single person out of bed. No matter how tired they were, it was impossible to sleep through the blaring, and it wouldn't stop until every single student had checked in at the dining hall. After seven years, she no longer jumped a foot in the air at the sound, but its sheer volume always seemed to thrum against the sides of her brain, making her head hurt for at least an hour.

Her movements were robotic as she threw her blankets aside and got out of bed, the alarm still whining. Step one: brush teeth. Step two: wash up. Step three: get dressed. She was a well-oiled machine at this point, and her routine was hardly affected by the slight tremble in her hands or the twisted ball of nerves in her stomach. It was almost comforting, and she smiled at the realization that it was the last time she would go through with it.

In the hallway, the other students were leaving their rooms. Even the laziest of the Academy students were wide-awake this morning. Kalista waved at a couple of the girls as she passed. She had no friends -- there was no such thing at the Academy, only acquaintances. When you were one of the world's top fifty young prospects, you viewed everyone as an ally, an enemy, or a temporary asset, and Kalista had long ago learned how to navigate the CA's social landscape.

She made her way down the north staircase, taking a couple of seconds to gaze out at the lake below. The Academy had been built a two-hour drive away from the Collective Chambers, in a more rural area that Kalista loved. The lake was her favorite part. In the summers, it was where they took their days off, lounging by the shore or going in for a swim. It was unlike any body of water she'd ever seen -- the waters were crystal-clear, nearly see-through, with only a slight blue tint. The principal had always said that it represented the clean morals of the students and the untainted future that they would maintain.

She liked to think of it as a portion of the sky, brought down for them to experience.

When she reached the glass doors to the dining hall, a camera just above the door scanned her retina and let out a soft chime. "Chu, Kalista," came the soothing voice, and the doors clicked open.

"Morning, Karen," Kalista said with a smile, using the nickname that all Academy students learned on their first day. Apparently, it was a relic of the past -- some kind of joke that was lost on them now.

The hall was grandiose, with an impossibly high ceiling and an entire wall of windows on the side facing the lake. As the last of the Academy's fifty students trickled in behind her, the alarm shut off abruptly, leaving an unearthly silence in its wake. Any attempt to start conversation on the morning of Finals was seen as a last-ditch effort to distract the competition, and it probably was. They had been taught to use every word carefully. In their hands, words could be weapons -- no matter how trivial.

Kalista walked to her table, her back straight, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. At the Academy, she was something of a legend. Unlike many of the others, her parents weren't Collective members or prominent scholars, but two infamous rebel leaders who had once led the revolutionary movement. Her parentage had been the subject of much gossip during her first week at the Academy, but eventually, the rest of the students had realized that her past did not haunt her -- it motivated her. After her class rank projection had shot to first place, the jeers and teasing had stopped. She was a competitor. A serious one. And she was as much of a threat as anyone else.

The tables were assigned by cohort, and Kalista strode silently to her spot, with Ayesha Chari, Harley Bennett, Lex Carson, and Kaylee Canton. The cohorts were another one of the teachers' brilliant inventions: a group of five people who you ate with, studied with, and did projects with. You knew them inside out, but so did they. Kalista didn't know a single person who hadn't started a list of the strengths and weaknesses of their cohort-mates on the very first day of school.

Ayesha smiled at her as she sat down. She was by far the nicest and the most innocent, yet even she didn't dare to break the silence. Harley and Lex spared her a single glance, and Kaylee didn't react at all.

Sending Ayesha a nod in return, Kalista tapped the table and it lit up, showing her the breakfast choices for this morning. She put in the meal that she had been working to refine over the last seven years, a meal that had come from careful experimentation and the meticulous recording of her Daily Exam grades. As it turned out, her optimal meal was a plain bowl of oatmeal. Not her favorite choice, but one she was willing to make.

The time ticked away as Kalista ate. Don't try to review, it'll just mess with your brain, Professor Edgemane had told them. Try to clear your mind. Her mind was perfectly clear now, and she had never felt more ready. All she had to do was wait.

Thirty minutes left. Fifteen minutes left. Ten minutes. Five.

At exactly eight o'clock, the Collective anthem echoed over the loudspeaker, and a face appeared on the northern wall. It was a face they all recognized, a face that was more familiar to them than that of their mother's, a face that they had worshiped over the last seven years. Principal Aeternum had uncannily symmetric features, with a sharp nose, chiseled jaw, and dark, intelligent eyes. Kalista had no doubt that any ordinary Collective teenager would have fallen in love with him by this point, but for Academy students, love was a casualty that they had all learned to eradicate. Nevertheless, they agreed that he wasn't bad to look at.

He looked more solemn than usual, however. Kalista had the sudden, foreboding feeling that something was wrong, and this, more than anything, made her palms begin to sweat.

"Good morning, Scholars," he began. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it echoed around the room. "There has been an unfortunate incident."

Even this did not break the carefully conducted silence. The students waited, holding their breath.

"The President has been assassinated."

Kalista froze.

But, instead of horror, what rushed through her veins was pure adrenaline.

The room was suddenly charged, and she knew the other students were just as exhilarated as she was. Before, the first place prize for Finals had been a job as understudy to the President, yet now... now, there was an open position at the very top of the chain. Now, they had a chance at what they had been working for all their lives.

Aeternum paused to compose himself -- whether he was hiding grief or ecstasy, she couldn't tell. Those all-knowing eyes blinked once more before he continued. "Last night, a group of rebels placed a bomb in the central lobby of the Collective Chambers. It went off at six o'clock this morning. The entire Upper Collective is dead."

This, this was enough to shake them. A roar of sound rose in the dining hall from the gasps and shouts that they could no longer hold in. Kalista managed to turn her rising emotions into a cry of dismay, yet most were not as skilled. The victory and exhilaration was plain on their faces. Fifty open positions! It was a miracle, a godsend. Now that most of the government was gone, they were the clear choices to become the new leaders. None of them would have to toil in the Lower Collective, working endlessly for the Uppers without a shred of credit. All of them were going directly into the Chambers. All of them had a guaranteed spot!

Kalista watched Aeternum carefully as the noise began to die down. Even he was having trouble masking his joy, his cheek twitching as his lips fought the urge to move upward. Maybe he killed them, she thought suddenly, and then: Maybe it was one of us! The thought didn't shock her; instead, she was grateful. All of a sudden, the light coming through the window seemed brighter. Her path had been cleared. Now, all that was left were Finals, and she knew she would come out on top.

Aeternum cleared his throat. "Until your Finals terminate, I will be the interim President," he said, his eyes glowing with victorious pride. "Furthermore..."

Kalista's stomach dropped. There was that feeling again, that horrible feeling! She willed him not to say it, she willed the feed to stop, she willed for one of her fellow students to call out in protest. But still, the words came.

"... the Lower Collective has decided to change your Finals."

The room went quiet again, and Aeternum looked almost smug as he went on.

"Now that the President is gone, our world has been left without a leader. Without a unified voice. Without control. In order to best serve our country during the dark days ahead, we have decided that this year, the Finals will be used to determine our next President."

He paused, almost as if he expected the students to react. But they were too smart for that -- they knew there was a catch, could feel it coming. And they knew the power-hungry glint in the principal's eyes all too well.

"The Collective needs a President who is strong. Who is willing to sacrifice anything, and anyone, to serve the world. We need a leader with a heart of ice and a fist of stone. There is one out of all of you who possesses these qualities, and the Finals this year will be aimed at finding that person."

He paused again, and Kalista had the sudden urge to punch that perfect face, shatter that white wall. How dare they ruin her dreams like this? She had prepared for the Finals for years. Her strategy for every section had been refined and changed and then refined again. How dare they--

Click.

The sound was deafening, like a chorus of guns being cocked. Kalista looked around for the source, frowning in confusion and hating that feeling of dread that was building in her stomach. Her eyes caught on Aeternum's face on that northern wall. He was gloating, now -- she was sure of it. She had never seen her principal so expressly happy. He looked decades younger, almost as if his dreams had come true.

Suddenly, an agitated cry rose from the other side of the room. Kalista trained her head to see the frightened face of Summer Westing, the most intelligent yet least cunning out of all of them. "It was the front doors! They just locked!"

There was a rush of noise as all the students jumped up to check, but Aeternum's voice stopped them in their tracks. "And the windows," he said pleasantly. "Every possible exit out of the building. Now, I would recommend that you listen carefully to what I say next."

Kalista stood very still where she was, halfway out of her chair.

"This year, the Finals will be a... team exercise, if you will," Aeternum said, losing his battle with that smile, which curved upward in a terrifyingly beautiful way. "You have two options. If all fifty of you can survive for thirty days, we will have an old-fashioned election for President. One of you will win, and the rest of you will go into the Lower Collective as ordinary workers."

A hum of disappointment bloomed throughout the room. "And the second?" shouted Logan Reed.

The smile was in full force now. Aeternum seemed almost mad, and even the students, who had been trained to never show fear, found themselves backing up from his huge face on the wall. "If even a single one of you dies, a game to the death will begin. There will be challenges. There will be rewards. You will remain in the Academy until only one person is left alive." He began to laugh. "That person will be our next President."

Before Kalista could absorb what he had just said, a choked cry came from beside her. She turned to see Kaylee's hands wrapped around Ayesha's throat, squeezing so tight that her knuckles turned white.

Seconds passed.

No one moved.

"Kay..." Ayesha choked, her face turning red. Her spluttering echoed horribly in the silence. "Stop... stop!"

Kalista watched, frozen in place, as the life drained out of her cohort-mate. A train of unwelcome memories flitted through her mind: Ayesha comforting her in the bathroom on her first day, pulling all-nighters with her before each midterm exam, and bringing her breakfast when she was sick. The girl who was the best of them. The girl who was too good for this world.

After several agonizing seconds, Ayesha went limp. Kaylee dropped her body like it was nothing and glanced expectantly at Aeternum's face on the screen.

He didn't look surprised at all. Rather, he seemed delighted. "It seems that you have chosen your option!"

Kalista knew what she had to do. Her hand reached out for the fork and knife on the table in front of her and clutched them tightly.

"So... let the Finals begin!"

And she ran.