"Before we proceed," Dr Hela said, "there is something you should understand."
The thirty survivors sat straighter in their seats. The screen behind her showed a plain white slide with a single line of text.
"Awakening is not only a matter of will or knowledge. There is a physical threshold. A body that cannot bear the strain of synchronization will fail, however brilliant the mind inside it." She tapped her tablet. "The Foundation has set a standard. Those who do not meet it will not be permitted near a suit."
She lowered the tablet.
"Follow the guards."
They were led out in a line through a side door and down a long concrete passage. Alex kept his eyes on the back of the man in front of him. His pulse was steady, but his palms had gone damp.
The passage ended at a steel door. A guard hauled it open, and daylight flooded in.
They stepped outside.
It was a wide, open field behind the building, ringed by the same chain link fence. The morning had turned bright,Dr Hela was already there, standing at the head of the field with her hands clasped behind her.
"Your raw strength, speed, stamina, and durability will be tested," she said. "Each one will be recorded. Each one will count."
’Durability?’ Alex thought.
He frowned. Strength was easy to measure, and so were speed and stamina. But how did you test durability?
’Don’t tell me she’s going to have us fight each other. Or at least...’ He winced. ’Or at least hit each other. That’s just sadistic.’
A sound cut through the air.
Pow!
It was distant, flat, and unmistakable. A gunshot, echoing from somewhere beyond the walls. A pause. Then it came again.
Pow!
Nobody in the line spoke. A man near the front flinched, and another dropped his eyes to the ground. The sound came a third time, then a fourth, evenly spaced, like a clock.
It was clear what it meant. The ones who had failed the written exam were being executed, one after another, out of sight.
Alex kept his face still.
’Don’t think about it,’ he told himself. ’Just focus.’
The field was not empty. Off to one side stood a long row of weights, iron blocks and plates and barbells, arranged in order from small to enormous. A wide rig of chains and harnesses hung from a steel frame at one end. In the center, a track had been marked out in white paint, an open oval with a red line drawn across it at one end. And at the far edge, near the fence, stood a tall, humanoid machine with a broad metal chest and two padded fists the size of watermelons.
’Boxing gloves,’ Alex thought. ’On a robot.’
The gloves were bolted to the machine’s arms. A thin cable ran from its back to a control unit beside it. It stood perfectly still, waiting.
"You may begin on whichever task pleases you," Dr Hela said.
She moved to stand near the robot.
"The machine will punch you. At varying levels of strength. It begins gently. With each hit its level increases. It will not stop until you yield. Only then will it decline." She let that sink in. "It measures how much you can take."
A low murmur ran through the group.
"Only ten of you will make it past this stage," she added. "Perhaps fewer."
She turned toward the track.
"For speed, you will run two hundred meters. Your time taken will be recorded and averaged. Once you have crossed the line, you will keep running. The distance you cover before you stop will be used to calculate your endurance." She pointed at the weights. "These will determine your strength. Carry the most you can. It will be also recorded."
She stepped back.
"Begin."
The thirty scattered.
Some headed for the weights at once. Others drifted toward the track, stretching and bouncing on their toes. A few hovered near the robot, staring at it. Nobody seemed eager to be the first to be hit.
Alex looked over the field, and then, to his own surprise, he smiled.
He was not the biggest man there. He had never been a bodybuilder. But he had spent three weeks in a gym, running laps and lifting until his arms shook. He had pushed his body through pain and rust and a hospital bed. And now, standing in the sun with a wide field in front of him, it felt like something he had been built to do.
’This is perfect,’ he thought.
He walked to the weights first.
They were laid out in a long row, each one marked with a number painted on its side. The smallest was fifty kilos. The next was a hundred. He took the fifty in one hand and set it on his shoulder like a bag of flour. Then he lifted the hundred with both hands, and stepped back.
The numbers climbed. Two hundred. Three hundred. He set the harness over his shoulders, cinched the straps tight, and tested the weight with a small step forward. It moved. His knees bent and his spine bowed, and he gritted his teeth and took another step.
Somewhere behind him a man whistled.
Five hundred. Seven hundred. The straps dug into his shoulders like rope. His breath came in short, hard bursts. Sweat ran down his face and into his eyes, and he blinked it away. Nine hundred. His legs shook. The whole world narrowed to the ground in front of his boots.
’One more,’ he thought. ’One more.’
The technician at the frame added the last block.
The chains creaked. The harness bit deep. Alex drew a long breath, locked his knees, and pushed.
He rose.
It was slow, and every muscle in his body screamed. But he rose, and he took one step, then another, carrying a full ton on his shoulders across the packed dirt. He held it for ten seconds. Then his legs began to fail, and the technician waved him down, and the block dropped to the ground with a thunderous crash.
Alex staggered, gasping. A ripple of murmurs went through the crowd. Someone laughed in disbelief.
"One thousand kilograms," the technician said, marking his sheet.
Alex rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms. He felt light headed and strangely happy.
’Ok. That’s strength.’
He walked to the track.
Six or seven others were lined up at the start, bouncing on their heels. A guard raised a small flag. Alex crouched, planted his fingers in the dirt, and fixed his eyes on the red line two hundred meters away.
The flag dropped.
He exploded off the line.
His body knew exactly what to do. His legs drove, his arms pumped, and the ground blurred into a smear of brown beneath him. The wind roared past his ears. He did not think.
He only ran, faster than he had ever run in his life, faster than he had ever believed he could, with his lungs on fire and his heart thundering.
He crossed the line and slowed to a jog.
A technician stared at a handheld device, then looked up.
"19.4 seconds," he called.
A few heads turned. Alex, bent over with his hands on his knees, did the math slowly in his head. 200m in 19.4s. That was just over 10.3m/s.
’The best sprinters in my old world hit ten point four,’ he thought. ’Over two hundred. And I’m just below that.’
It was the fastest time recorded that day.
He did not stop to celebrate. He kept running.
The track curved around the field, and he settled into a steady pace, breathing in for three steps, out for three. His legs burned, but he had trained for this. Lap after lap, he let the rhythm carry him. The sun rose higher. The sweat dried and returned. Around him, one runner after another dropped out and bent over gasping or lay on the grass.
Soon only two of them were left on the track.
The other was a broad, heavy man who ran with his head down and his jaw clenched. He was ahead by a few steps, and Alex could not close the gap. Every time he pushed harder, the man pulled away. Neither spoke. They only ran, side by side but apart, until Alex’s vision started to darken at the edges.
At last his legs gave out.
He staggered off the track, dropped to the grass, and lay flat with his chest heaving. The other man ran another few strides, then slowed and stopped.
A technician measured the two positions with a long tape.
"Second place," he called. "A couple of meters short of first."
Alex laughed weakly into the sky.
He lay there for a few minutes, letting his heart slow. Then he pushed himself up and turned toward the robot.
’Durability. Here goes.’
A short line had formed. Alex stepped up to the mark painted in front of the machine and set his feet.
"Level one," said the technician.
The gloves swung. The first hit was little more than a shove, a firm thump against his chest. He barely felt it.
"Level two."
The second was heavier. It knocked the air out of him, and he stumbled back half a step before catching himself.
"Level three."
The robot’s arm pulled back, and there was a whir of motors.
The glove hit him in the ribs like a truck.
His feet left the ground. The world flipped. He hit the dirt on his back and slid, and everything went white for a second. Then the sky came back, blue and far away, and a distant voice said something about a mark.
He could not get up.
’That was three,’ he thought dizzily. ’That’s my limit.’
Two guards helped him to the side and sat him down. He held his ribs and breathed in little sips, and watched the next person step up to the line.
Others took their turns. Some lasted through the first two hits and dropped at the third. A few made it to the fourth. One man, a thick necked brute who had been grinning all morning, took the fifth hit and stayed on his feet. He swayed, spat blood, and took the sixth with a grunt. When the seventh came, he finally went down.
The technician marked it. The man had lasted up to level six.
By the time the last inmate finished, the sun stood high and the field looked trampled. The thirty sat or lay around the edge of the grass, drained. Some were bleeding. Some had been sick. None of them were speaking.
Alex sat with his arms around his knees and waited.
Dr Hela had moved to the center of the field with the technicians gathered around her. They passed sheets back and forth and made quick notes. A few minutes passed. Then the doctor straightened, and the field went silent.
"I’ve tallied the results," she said. "These are the top ten."