An angular woman stepped into the hall from the registration area and blew three sharp whistle blasts. “All right, everybody, please find your seats if you haven’t, and get your pencils ready. Anyone not at their desks with eyes to the front in the next five minutes will be asked to leave the hall.”
Mathew didn’t budge, but she sensed how he badly wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out of there. He was also desperate to get to his seat.
“Mathew, don’t be ridiculous. I am not going to die during the exam. If the recruiters thought that was a possibility, I never would have been given the enrollment form.” Mathew, like everyone else who hadn’t been at camp, knew nothing about the campers’ secret pact with the counselors. “Now sit,” Gabi urged, but not before she grabbed the clipboard out of his grasp and found her assignment. Before he could offer further objection, she gave him a firm shove in the direction of the seats and wound her way toward Row F, Seat 32. She watched Mathew to make sure that he, too, made his way to his spot, which he did while keeping his eyes pinned on her until the stern lady’s roving gaze finally made him snap to attention. Once the exam had begun, recruits were not allowed to interact, even during breaks. Anyone who disregarded this rule would be immediately asked to leave.
Ignoring her brother now that he was safely in his seat, Gabi settled into her desk just a couple of rows from Jordan. It had only been ten days since they’d last seen each other, and maybe it was the lighting or the absence of his many layers in the stuffy hall, but Jordan’s body looked slightly less blurred around the edges. His face had darkened, and his nose was reddish and peeling as he gave Gabi a quick wink. Gabi nodded over to where Marnie sat in Row J, clicking her mechanical pencil. Not a word would be spoken among the three friends for the rest of the day, but knowing they were all in it together calmed Gabi’s nerves. She only hoped her brother would be able to stop worrying about her long enough to focus on the task at hand.
A half an hour in, Gabi’s sitting bones drilled painfully into the hard plastic of her chair. The mechanical pencils she’d borrowed out of a mug in her father’s study wore red patches into the pads of her fingers, and the heat in the hall seemed to have been set to encourage maximum drowsiness. The questions held few surprises, though the test designers had reserved the most challenging portion for the very end. At the beginning of hour four, the test takers were asked to write a ten-page essay describing an action plan for how they would manage a mission scenario, incorporating as many relevant theories and passages from doctrine as possible to justify their approach. Gabi had no idea if all the scenarios were the same, but with more than three hundred people taking the exam, some duplication seemed likely. She was certain, however, that using an essay format for the final part of the test was a trick.
The idea was to make the recruits think that each action plan could be different but equal in merit as long as they displayed a command of best practices. The actual aim of the assignment was to classify which team an aspiring Witness would be best suited for. If the chosen approach was community development and education, that indicated the candidate was best suited for an assignment in a more settled region, where relations with the locals were stable. If the essay reflected a command of orienteering, military tactics, and frontline diplomacy, that candidate might be groomed for one of the more challenging Apostle-led missions on the frontier, provided the recruit tested well in the physical exam. Gabi only knew this because Mathew had been getting secret help from Kenny Ames, who’d taken to eavesdropping on the private tutorials his father conducted with Bradley Fiske in their basement. Gabi, as Mathew’s study coach, profited from the espionage as well and passed it all on to Marnie. She only regretted not being able to share it with Jordan.
The three friends had already agreed that the best strategy was to get as far from the Unitas establishment as possible. This meant making sure they qualified for the tougher, Apostle-led assignments. The ration compensation for these missions was greater, which would help Jordan’s family. The team members had less oversight since they were more specialized and autonomous, which suited Marnie’s plan to escape the fellowship entirely. And—though she still hadn’t voiced it aloud to Marnie or Jordan—going farther afield made it more likely that Gabi would come across someone who could help her challenge the council. Someone who had nothing to lose. Their secret strategy made the essay fun for Gabi. At every possible turn, she chose the most daring course of action, asking herself, What would Cleo Walker do? She barely noticed when the bell rang at the end of hour five, signaling the completion of the written portion of the test.
Chapter FIFTEEN
AS GABI’S group filed into the smaller gymnasium for the physical test, she stole a furtive look at Marnie and Jordan. Marnie’s eyes were bloodshot from staring at her test paper, but when she saw Gabi, she stuck out her tongue so far it touched the underside of her chin. Jordan was flexing fingers cramped from gripping his pencil, but he gave
