The Exam

Stefan was sure this past week's anticipation was going to be far more excruciating than the Exam itself.  That didn't stop the dreams, however.  Images raced through his head when he slept of hidden doors, and locked rooms.  All he wanted to do was get out of here.  Wherever here was for that night.  Always to the badlands.  The morning of the first Exam was a little different.  He had always woken up right at the far sentry wall, made of red mud and sun aged paper of the fief he had visited 10 cycles ago.  

His memory of that day had haunted him.  Not because his Hanlier hosts had decided to choose the fief from which he apparently hailed.  Not because there was a scuffle between a drunk goods handler Hanlier with the local monarch/despot of this little fief over returning of property that was clearly his, namely Stefan himself, who looked incredibly like this crazed warlord of the badlands.  No, he was haunted by the memory of the view from southeastern wall.  The badlands and the forest were located in a small corner of one of the most powerful ancient empires.  The Citadel was founded here because of the difficulty of access and the lack of a large population center within many hundreds of kilometers.  While Stefan knew the badlands went on for hundreds more in the direction he peered, he knew there was history out there to rediscover.  Knowledge that the Order had forsaken for over a thousand cycles.

This final dream before the challenges tested both his mind and body was showing him what he truly wanted.  A way for him to fulfill the Order's “glorious purpose” without following the clans of old.  The only problem, besides surviving a trek across a sea of hidden water where no has ever returned, was the Order council.  Fifteen people, hell bent on preserving the mandate and keeping the “glorious purpose” alive and well.  So well does their work get fulfilled, that no knew knowledge has been researched for nearly the entire history of the Order.  The only “new” knowledge written to the mainframe is a list of all new badland recruits, their status with the Order, their scores on the Exam, and their Clan designation.

There of course have been many in history that have attempted to discover new concepts, but their status in the Order was put in jeopardy as a result.  Some being expelled in later years, but many with the drive to seek these heretical notions cut from the herd through the Exam.  Stefan knew he had to play the game to remain in the Order.  Best of all though, he was good at playing the game.  His skills didn't keep the dreams away though.  They just kept coming.  He was glad the Order at least valued privacy of thought.  The technology he was augmented with was capable of the most serious of breaches of privacy if used as Stefan knew it could be.  There were very few who knew the orchestra of perfect code that could crack a member's deepest thoughts wide open for all the world to see, but there were still enough to be glad the laws are immutable when it comes to those violating the privacy.  

Worse than the expulsion, those who break this highest law are removed from their connection with mainframe.  Through a funny bit of quantum physics, a particle is tethered to the vibrations of the mainframe.  The string between the mainframe and a member becomes a bond in which the mind becomes addicted.  When a member's tap particle is removed, only the brain and the local hardware is available.  The mind searches for the connection, and when it can't find it, it has a tendency to hallucinate.  These hallucinations become debilitating, and irreversible.  

Those expelled during the Exam are cut from the connection as well, but younger minds can recover.  That is why the Exam takes place at twenty five cycles.  The risk of hallucination is low enough that expulsion would not harm the youths.  After thirty cycles, the connection is irreversible.  Stefan had only heard of one person, from Clan Skrift, get the cut.  He manipulated his regent for months before he was discovered, but worked his way to be a lieutenant regent faster than anyone before him.  He was taken in by a Krinler and allowed to stay in the Citadel.  The Council likely thought he served a better warning to others when visible.

Stefan's dream ended as soon as he took his first step past the fief's walls.  His vision was blinking red in a calm fashion.  A simple and peaceful alarm straight from the mainframe.  It was time to get moving.  With a start, he opened his eyes.  The mountains to the east were still casting long shadows across the Citadel, but the Congregation hall's tall spire had caught a glimpse of the early rays.  Stefan garbed a ration bar he kept in his trunk at the end of his bed for mornings when he didn't feel like seeing people until he had to.

He also didn't want to spend more time in Congregation hall than he had to.  His first Exam was with the Skrift, Kyl.  He need to practice his technique before venturing out.  Cracking the encryptions was a dance of the mind more than it was understanding the code, at least to Stefan.  He snatched a staff he kept in the back corner of his musty and cluttered closet.  

It was a third of a meter shorter than Stefan, made of a dense carbon mesh that was as strong as fiber metals used to weave the substructure of the buildings around him, but as flexible as freshly cut branch.  It had a grip a quarter of the way down that appeared to be leather, worn smooth from handling it.  The shaft had a rich redwood finish that one could believe was made of authentic wood, if one had not been introduced.  At the top, held by a subtle taper was what appeared to be a crystal that emitted a feeble yellowish/green glow that would be hard to see on a dark night.  The shaft was was a complex weave of computer components that could be utilized as co-processors for information and information storage.  The crystal acted as an energy regulator and information fuse so to not damage organic components attached to the device.  This staff allowed Stefan to pre-process data without the aid of the mainframe.  While the connect is a powerful tool, it had only one access point for processing data per individual.  While uploading formulae and complex data and downloading the results sped the encryption cracking speeds, it did not allow more than one thread at a time, ultimately limiting the work being done.

Stefan had constructed this staff of his own design in his seventeenth cycle.  He had approached the one man he thought would be most interested in his creation, none other than Kyl himself, who had been so enraged that he would construct something so audacious and without the wishes of the Council, that he threatened him with immediate expulsion.  It was taken up by the Council directly, and after much deliberation, Stefan left without expulsion.  The council had determined that while seemingly innovative, it was not a new concept and therefore not heretical.  A simple mainframe search had resulted in two ancient records of devices used for co-processing before the fall.  Stefan knew this was a lucky break for him.  He didn't think to look for designs in the mainframe when he was constructing it, and by dumb luck prevailed.  

Kyl despised Stefan from that day.  He had been shown up by an upstart seventeen cycle and he didn't like how easy his reputation could be tarnished.  Kyl had banned the use of the staff in his class, but all of Stefan's other professors had allowed it following the Council's ruling.  Today though, Stefan knew the staff would be his friend.  Kyl could not ban its use today.  The Exam required the use of all your skills and knowledge to pass.  The staff was the culmination of Stefan's skills and knowledge.

In the center of the room, Stefan gripped the staff with both hands, one on top of each other.  His feet placed shoulder width apart, and his eyes wide open.  The room began to expand in Stefan's mind.  Every texture, color, sound and smell was expanded in his senses.  Nothing was missed.  A meditative state began to roll over his mind like a silent flood.  The experience was too overwhelming for everyone who had tried it.  Stefan had to train his mind to calm down with the increased potential and focus on a task.  In the stillness of his thoughts, Stefan reached out to the near sentient mainframe to request a series of decryption and maintenance drills.  The logical mind responded with a flood of data.  Like a hose filing a pool, the information was reconstructed after coming through the connection.

The mainframe had provided a fourteen hundred year old document that had been decrypted nearly that long ago for this first test.  Two thousand and forty eight bit encryption filled his senses.  First there was the ASCII real text of jumbled information, then it blurred into hexadecimal, then the ancient machine language, and finally, like taking a step back to see the larger picture, Stefan saw the interconnections.  A giant three dimensional knot appeared in his vision.  Without using conscious thought, he focused on section of the file that stuck out from middle of this wireframe blob.  It rolled and shifted as he pulled at the data and the blob straitened itself out a little.  With a few more tugs, translated and calculated by his staff, Stefan unraveled the document in only a minute.  Once decrypted, the document was sent back to the mainframe and verified correct.  

Binary decryption was easy for Stefan.  The three dimensions he and his staff used to visualize it made the decryption process a game to him.  Most 25ers could do the same decryption in only three times the time.  The simple decryption from two hundred years before the fall was completed before the fall itself.  Trinary language added a new dimension to decryption, but still, five hundred years after the fall, all trinary code had been cracked.  The data remaining to be decrypted, which was most of the data remaining, was quantum code.  Manipulation of quantum timestamps was like adding another three dimension onto binary.  

The art lay in tricking a terminal to into booting with a quantum timestamp without updates from the mainframe with the document in question.  Once the terminal was booted with the timestamp, the document needs to be decrypted without interim updates from the mainframe.  As no terminal is capable of doing the decryption in the life span of our sun, the hacking crew uses the direct connection from the mainframe in their own brains to recode the timestamp, before  it is reset to sync with the mainframe.  Then and only then can the terminal be reconnected to the mainframe.  At that point, the data has eight thousand ninety two bit encryption.  After that, it only takes time and knowledge to crack it.  

The hackers are the quick and dirty hotshots of the Skrift.  They work under pressure, and fear of losing the data.  Quantum time stamping prevents copying of files, and only allows the files to be moved.  Their success rate needs to be greater than ninety nine percent without a learning period, so only the best Skrift are chosen for the sub-clan.  The crackers are the artists of the Skrift.  They are given time, and are allowed the eccentric behavior needed to elegantly and efficiently navigate the decryption.  Then there are the dregs of the Skrift, the maintenance.  Only a half step above all other clans in the Skrift mind are the maintenance.  They keep the detachable terminals working, and the mainframe well greased.  While necessary, Many wish they were unnecessary.

Stefan had secretly tried a quantum hack using his staff.  He had hated it.  He convinced the data that his own brain was a terminal and hacked his own quantum timestamp.  It was a jarring and uncomfortable feeling.  He became out of sync with the mainframe for two days and all of his internal CPUs required at least twenty corollary updates to get the data to accept the mainframe timestamp.  He did it quickly, but hoped he never had to do that again.  After the timestamp was accepted though, he had a second problem.  His staff heat up so much from the processing the decryption at Stefan's usual speed that it burned deep wounds in his hands.  He had to convince people he was practicing the leap onto a rope to hide that little mistake.

A second alarm flashed in Stefan's eyes through his mediation and he knew it was time.  His brown leather satchel over his shoulder and his staff in his left hand, Stefan took a quick look around his spartan quarters.  With a sigh and a deliberate turn, he left the room methodically and locked it behind him.  There was little doubt that he would pass this Exam, but Kyl would not go easy on him.

----------

The week of the Exam was a week off for all the students and professors except for the 25ers.  Most of the students took advantage of this time by living with the clans.  It was an excellent way to relax, as life in the Clans was full of recreation.  Life of a student was the hardest most people would ever work for anything in their lives.  Stefan was going to miss that this year.  He thought that if anything, 25ers needed the recreation more than anyone.

Stefan entered Congregation hall through a seldom used door positioned toward the read of his dormitory.  He meandered up the naturally lit, east stairwell of the hall.  The stairs would only lead him to the tenth floor, as that was the top floor of both wings of the classic building.  Stefan wondered how Kyl would react to tardiness, but banished the thought from his thoughts. 

I best keep my mind in the present.  Stefan thought to himself.  Don't stray to the fear of the situation.  Live in the moment.  Stefan remembered the teachings of the Krinler ShaMok monks.

Stefan exited the stairwell on the tenth floor and walked the half distance to the lift at the tower's core.  The artificially lit hallway was adorned in artistically wood trimming, stained dark to accent the lightness of the eggshell colored plaster walls.  The warmth of the colors put him at ease.  As  Stefan rounded the slight curve in the hallway, a figure appeared inside the tower building.  Kyl was waiting at the lift for him.

Kyl was a tall gaunt figure, ironically bespectacled in a time when such weakness was shunned.  His hair as dark as Stefan had ever seen, and cropped short in the utilitarian fashion favored by the Krinler special guard, and he wore the crimson and gold tunic of a professor.  The tunic annoyed Stefan to no end.  

If there is one thing I hate more than anything, it's acting like you know more than you know.  Thought Stefan.  Wearing that shirt like a badge you didn't earn.  What a prick.

“Good evening Master Stefan.”  Kyl said in drone that could put a raging bear to sleep.  “It appears you are tardy for my Exam.  This does not bode well for your future in the Order.”

Stefan, enraged that Kyl would consider being five minutes earlier than instructed to be tardy, took an extra second to respond.  “I apologize Mister Kyl, I meant no disrespect.”

“Disrespect indeed.  For the duration of this Exam you will refer to me as 'Examiner Kyl.'  Do I make myself clear?”  Kyl said in a snakelike hiss.  Upon Stefan nodding, Kyl continued.  “I see you are still insisting on playing the magician with that staff of yours.  Let me make one thing clear Master Stefan; you are not special.  Your arrogant construction from your youth will not serve you well in this exam.  While I cannot stop you from using this toy of yours due the Council's judgement, and not mine, I have broad powers to modify the Exam to test the limits of even the most arrogant of students.”

Stefan seethed at this speech.  He nodded impressively to an average observer, but Kyl, for all his flaws, was not an average observer.  Kyl waved is arm in the direction of the lift, and Stefan followed the motion with a slump of every foot.  He did not know what Kyl had in store for him, but he was less than excited about the possibilities.

The lift, with imperceivable motion and swiftness delivered the two enemies to a small, private mainframe lab at the very top of congregation hall.  The room was off limits to all but the most senior Skrift, and during the Exam Kyl was considered the most senior of the lot.  The lift walls disappeared into the floor as it reached it's final floor and the floor of the lift and the floor of the room blended together imperceptibly.  Stefan knew the only way back would be with Kyl now. 

Stefan pivoted his head to peer around the room to acknowledge his surroundings.  There was little to take in.  There were no noticeable artificial light sources.  The only light came from four small round windows, barely as big as a person's head, at the exact center of each of the four walls.  The light they cast left deep shadows in the corners of the wall.  As Kyl walked out of the center of the room, Stefan felt a familiar jolt as a manual connection was made to his implants through the mainframe.  It was the way professors entered a room of rowdy students to gain their attention.  The walls lit with light that Stefan knew was not physically there and knew that Kyl was now in control.

Stefan did not move from the center of the lift.  His only way out was through the lift, and he did not want to forget where it was.  Kyl turned slowly when he reached halfway from Stefan to the wall.  He turned slowly on the balls of his feet, hands clasped behind his back and spoke with an heir of superiority.

“Master Stefan.  Your task for the Exam is exceptionally simple for one so advanced as you perceive yourself.  I am going to give you an encrypted file.  You will use all of your knowledge to provide me with a flawless encryption and place it back in the mainframe in it's appropriate place before the sun sets.  If you are unable to complete the task in the time allotted, you will not be eligible to join Clan Skrift.  If the data, through your interference, is made unrecoverable, you will be expelled.  If you forfeit the exam, you will be ineligible to proceed with other clan exams, and you will be expelled.  The sun sets in roughly ten hours.  Please note that your data flow is being recorded in this room at all times.  Do you understand?”

Stefan gulped.  Could Kyl really want him to crack a timestamp?  To his knowledge, no exam ever required such a feet.  He had done it before.  Did Kyl know he had?  He created the fake data logs for a team of hackers to cover his tracks.  Maybe they were flagged and Kyl bided his time to get him out of the Order.  So Stefan, backed into a corner now, responded.  “I understand the terms of the Exam.  I verbally protest, without forfeiture of the exam, the conditions of success.”

“Your protest is noted.”  Kyl said in a cold arrogance.  “Begin.”

The data rushed through the mainframe data stream.  At once, Stefan knew what it was.  It was almost like tasting metal.  The quantum timestamp lock with it's sub-encryption flooded through the hose.  His implants sorted the data and displayed it visually for Stefan.  With a long deep inhale, he noticed Kyl's sneer of satisfaction.  In his arrogance, he was sure he had beaten Stefan.

Stefan exhaled slowly, set his feet shoulder width apart, clasped his staff in front of him and the connection was made.  Time seemed to slow around him.  He was aware of Kyl standing there, his breaths appearing several minutes apart.  The data file filled the room, it's quantum timestamp appearing as a purple hue covering the code like a forcefield.

Stefan sectored off his mind like he had done in the past.  A virtual terminal appeared in his vision like a sturdy box.  The data swept swiftly into the container with room to spare.  To reset the quantum timestamp on the terminal, he would have to sever his connection to the mainframe.  He would certainly cause alarm to Kyl as he would have recording for this little trick he picked up.  Stefan knew that two days to reset the timestamp wouldn't cut it for this exam.  He had to think of a new way to do it.

Stefan severed the connection, and a moment of true brilliance, the means of his salvation occurred to him; with a little help from the look of horror that slowly crept over “Examiner” Kyl's face.  Instead of setting the virtual terminal timestamp back in line with the data, as he had done before, he would modify his brain's timestamp to the data, and destroy the terminal shell, releasing the data from the terminal through his staff's multiple CPUs.  It was a risk.  The data could be lost with the virtual terminal.  Not to mention his brain might not be able to take a timestamp update from the mainframe without corollary updates.  But Stefan had to try.  The worst that could happen is the data is lost and he gets expelled.  He can take the loss of the connection at his age, and then maybe he could go see the places he kept dreaming about.

Kyl's face had transmuted into a sneer of sheer hate while Stefan prepared his mind for the shock.  It took nearly an hour of real time to set up the program to do perform the plan autonomously incase Stefan's mind wasn't fast enough to make corrections.  But now it was ready, and there would be only one chance for it.  Stefan spun a dial he designed in the program to match the timestamp inside the terminal.  He felt his own timestamp hue change around his perception.  It was nauseating.  Somewhere in his mind, he was controlling the spin of subatomic particles in his own brain to match the frequency of the timestamp.  It was unnatural.  Intuition took hold of him as he spun the dial and perceived the hues of the two timestamps as he changed his own until he was certain they were the same.  The staff aided in his assertion of what was sure to be sheer intuition.  There was little time to waste now.  Stefan deconstructed the terminal faster than he had constructed it.  The data fluctuated and shuddered in his mind.  A instant of doubt absorbed Stefan.  Then, like a passing earthquake, a calm silence settled over him.

The data had settled into his new timestamp.  He sent a query to the mainframe for a timestamp update, knowing that it would wait in the buffer until he reconnected.  He had to make sure it was the first query out of his mind and that the update would be the first thing back through that same data link.  The query now synced up, Stefan flipped the imaginary switch to reconnect the connection, and as if the lights went out, he could see nothing for seconds.  As if a power surge had knocked out the grid the power came back on.  And to his own astonishment, the data was visible and updated to the correct timestamp.  Stefan had done in an hour what only a team of hackers could do in days.  It was messy business hacking a timestamp, and he was exhausted, but there was now there was plenty more to do and only nine hours to do it in. 

Stefan hunkered down for what he really enjoyed.  Decrypting was his forte and he took great pride in his finesse.  He visualized himself spinning and untangling the blob that was the code while Kyl looked on with arms crossed.  He had clearly had a conversation with someone while Stefan was shut down.  No doubt to request a ruling on Stefan's progress in the exam.  He was clearly displeased that Stefan had awoken, but Stefan noted a tiny smirk.  He didn't expect this exam to get past the first challenge, but was pleased in his own way to know that it had.

Fatigue was showing in Stefan's progress and he was starting to make mistakes.  He would unfold a bit of code he was certain would untangle the entire document, only to tangle it even further.  But, just as Stefan was about to lose hope that he would run out of time, one last fold caused a cascade that even he did not realize would happen.  The document unfolded and the decryption was complete.  Stefan quickly glanced at the sun through the tiny window on the west side of the room.  He estimated that he had less than ten minutes to file the document now.  He skimmed it as quickly as he could.

To his shock, it was a journal of the last caravan to deliver their databases to the Citadel.  It referenced things well beyond the badlands that Stefan had never seen in a document.  He wished he had more time to read it in detail, but time was running out.  Knowing the basics of the document, he opened the mainframe database and quickly found the document's destination and transferred it without anymore delay.  He closed the database interface and took one hand off of the staff and shut down it's processors.  His hands were blistered and red where he had been holding the staff.  He made a mental note to return to the document when he got the chance.  He also considered fixing the cooling system of his staff when he better use of his hands.

Kyl slowly approached Stefan.  He was nearly a foot taller than Stefan and peered down at him in close, uncomfortable proximity.

“You have... passed.”  Kyl said disdainfully.  “You are free to return to your dormitory, and your Exam will proceed as previously scheduled.”

Stefan said nothing and stared blankly into Kyl's chest.  He was exhausted, but he had done it.  Kyl stepped and turned to Stefan's side and the lift descended.  The walls reappeared and they were soon at the tenth floor.  When the doors opened, Stefan rushed out, without letting them fully open and disappeared from Kyl's sight as quickly as possible, toward the now dark stairwell.  He needed to be alone and recover.  Hacking the timestamp was draining, but his victory over Kyl was too overwhelming to share with everyone right now.  For an hour, Stefan sat under the first floor steps of the stairwell.  His mind turned off, it made for the one of the happiest memories he was going to have for a long time.

------

Stefan was jolted awake by someone entering the stairwell he had concealed himself in.  Their busy conversation echoed against the stone walls with such a racket he couldn't imagine the glories of the sleep he had just encountered.  Morning had arrived once again for the Citadel, and it brought with it new activity.  25ers roamed the campus heading to their Exams and the stairwell where Stefan stirred would not be peaceful again for some time.

Stefan checked the time on his heads-up-display.  There was just enough time to make it to his Gibson Exam if he left now.  He stood up with some difficulty, stretched his aching joints, peered around the stairs to make sure no one would see him emerge into the land of the living, and bolted for the door.

The early morning explosion of light reflected off of every surface.  A thick layer of dew had collected following what was likely a foggy autumn morning.  The brisk air stung Stefan's cheeks as he hustled to Bau hall, Clan Gibson studies building.  Stefan decided to go around the back side of Congregation hall to avoid the tunnel.  Anything Clan Skrift related gave him a bad taste in his mouth after his Exam with Kyl the previous day.  No matter, he knew there was very little to worry about for the remainder of the Exam.  Gibson Exam was simple mathematics and logic.  A test in the ancient style, involving complicated answers to simple questions.  Boring for all intents and purpose, but boring was what Stefan really needed right now.

Stefan entered the building through a centrally located door on the opposite side of the building from the central causeway of campus.  The building, like the other four identical buildings on this side of Congregation hall.  The short three steps up to a double, metal reinforced, ancient stained, redwood doors was majestic in its simplicity.  The carved limestone steps were worn slightly from centuries of boots trodding where generations had before.  Pools of dew collected in these age old divots, that Stefan was only too happy to slosh through.  As he opened the door to enter, he saw someone he hoped to avoid this long week across the long broad hall that split the interior of the first floor in half, Sabe.

Stefan thought of Sabe as his enemy.  Sabe had a habit of being too calm for Stefan's comfort and lacked any outward signs of emotion.  This wouldn't be the worst trait for someone to have, but Sabe felt it was his duty to confront Stefan whenever he had the chance.  A sly comment about his tone of voice from two tables over, stepping in Stefan's path when Stefan was in a rush somewhere and refusing to allow him to pass, and worst of all, if Stefan failed to notice around any corner as he walked by, Stefan was quickly introduced to the floor with a thud or crunch and a casual “You must always be aware of your surroundings.”

Stefan wondered if he could avoid any interaction with Sabe today, so he slowed his pace to the first floor lecture hall, but Sabe recalculated his own speed to match and they entered the room shoulder to shoulder.

“A quick pace is seldom necessary.  You still have not learned to modify your life instead of modifying your speed.”  Sabe said wryly.

“How could I forget.”  Said Stefan sardonically.  

And with that, Sabe slaped him on the back.  From an outside observer, it would appear jovial and friendly.  To Stefan, it was bone churning.  The ache would fill his mind for the remainder of the Exam.  Stefan made a sudden turn down an isle of desks to separate himself as quickly as possible from Sabe.  He was pleased to see that Sabe made no effort to follow him.

Stefan sat a one of the hundreds of small desks in the large lecture hall.  The plastic seat suited his backside well enough, but was not comfortable to be sure.  The tiny table connected to the side of the chair would not have been enough room for the test taking of the past, but would suit the augmented reality that waited him.  He peered around the room to see as many faces as he could before  the Viceroy appeared, and caught a glimpse of Haley.  She too noticed him, waved, and made a complicated hand gesture on the table and a message notification appeared before him.  He opened it immediately and read:

Heya, where did you go last night?  Missed you at evening meal.  I heard you really showed up that boar yesterday.  It is all most people can talk about.  I have the Skrift Exam tomorrow. It is not scheduled to be as long.  He must have really had it in for you.  Anyway, I will see you tonight.

Stefan knew no response was necessary.  He was surprised that his Skrift Exam was being talked about though.  He never expected Examiner Kyl to ever mention the matter again.  But then he thought:

He must have gone to the Council.  Tried to convince them I cheated.  Well, good luck with that.

At that moment, he felt the familiar jolt of the connection establishing itself.  Viceroy Grigsby Gibson walked down the left aisle methodically.  An older man somewhere past his seventieth cycle, with a full head of graying hair and a surprisingly distinguished chin.  He was flanked by a personal assistant who walked as if she had never stopped streaming data out of the mainframe.  She was young and blond, with far too much to think about clearly.

Grigsby reached table facing the desks in the lecture hall, walked in front of it and turned to face the students.  

“I am Viceroy Grigsby Gibson.  I am pleased to see everyone from this year's 25th cycle.  I wish you all the best of luck on today's Exam I have prepared for you.”  He said in a jovial and friendly manner.  “You will be tested not on your ability to recite facts, but the ability to solve a problem that plagues our infrastructure daily.  And for the record, each problem is directly from today's Gibson duty sheet.  I have given my Clan the morning off.  Correct answers will be implemented to the letter of your solution.  Please do have a pleasant Exam.  You have 3 hours to complete your task.”

Stefan used the little time before the problems flooded his connection to marvel at the fact that an entire Clan was taking the morning off.  If only he could have slept in.  And then the room disappeared, his desk expanded into a virtual drafting table and he sat alone in a warmly lit room.  A note fluttered in from no where and landed in front of him.  Stefan was amused by the effort Viceroy Grigsby had put into making a warm an inviting place to do this task.  Down to the noticeable fibers in the note with the instructions.  Stefan reached for the note lazily and read.

The nutrient reclamation building south exterior wall has sunk by half a centimeter.  Please design a stabilization and correction protocol.  Bonuses will be awarded for protocol simplicity.

Stefan knew structural engineering like he knew his own face, only through the dirty mirror in his quarters.  Still, if he had to wade through this mess, he could.  He hunkered down at the drafting desk and repositioned a large sheet of paper and the blueprints for the building in question materialized before him.  He studied the plans for what seemed to him like hours.  For all of his studying, Stefan could not make heads or tails of the reason for the sinking wall.  Before starting the uphill battle before him, leaned back in his chair and sighed heavily.  He squinted heavily into the warm darkness and saw the shapes of the Viceroy Grigsby's contented face looking over him, and off to the left and right of him.  Stefan wondered what other student's faces looked like now, but their images would not appear to him during the Exam.

Leaning forward again, Stefan got to work.  Numbers and calculations were spread across the blueprint of the nutrient reclamation building and scraps around him.  All of them utter nonsense.  After what seemed like a good hour, Stefan decided it was time to call it a day on this fiasco.  Gibson science was more of a hobby for him than a life goal.  Erasing all of his previous work, Stefan wrote out an explanation of the process he devised to correct the wall in his chicken scratch handwriting, that the mainframe translated into something a bit more comprehensible.  The explanation was as follows:

Remove the dirt from the base of the wall to half a meter below the footer.  Drive rails 10 centimeters by 2 meters horizontally under the offending wall leaving a meter of the shaft protruding from the wall.  Back fill hole with silica-concrete and hope for the best.  

Stefan was a little disappointed in how easy it was for him to give up in this challenge, but couldn't be bothered much more with this Exam after his previous day.  He filed the solution and waited only a minute.  The warm and calming room evaporated like a dream in the morning.  Around him sat other students furiously scribbling on pieces of paper, that were projected to onlooker's minds for visual continuity, with pens that too were figments of the mainframe's human like imagination.  He stood, collected his things and approached Viceroy Grigsby.

“Sir, I'm sorry for the brevity of my response.  This isn't my best subject and I am exhausted.”  Stefan said with his eyes slightly downcast.

“Clearly boy, this is not your best subject.  But I will say before you leave, sometimes the solution need not be complicated.  Your plan will be reviewed regardless of brevity.”  Grigsby said authoritatively.  “On a personal note, hope sometimes all we have.  Besides, I hear you caused quite a stir yesterday.  You have a future in the Order son.  That future may not be Gibson, but a future nonetheless.”

The viceroy extended his arm and provided Stefan with a handshake that rattle his core.  With a fake smile, Stefan rushed out the back door before anyone woke from their trance.  Food of any kind was needed.  He rushed toward his dormitory through the now dry, crunchy, dormant grass.  Avoiding any of the main paths, Stefan reached his quarters without noticing the campus along the way.  He grabbed a ration bar from his stash in his trunk and the bar disappeared without fanfare.

Stefan fell upon the slab of natural fibers he called his bed, and melted immediately into the same dream he had left nights before.  This time though, while looking through the gate of this musty badland town he saw something that had not been there before.  A dust cloud was rising on the horizon.  In this dream realm where logic had no place, Stefan found himself wandering the far off plains of scrubland the bordered  mountainous wastes.  Between long dead bushes and sun scorched boulders.

A kilometer or so in front of him was the same dust cloud he saw from so far away.  There were now black dots that at the focal point of the cloud.  Heatwaves obscured a clear view of the objects, but Stefan knew what they were.  A land-craft used by the old empires.  He had seen images like these in his history studies.  They were the same ones used to bring the last of the tapes after the fall.  The last technology known to have survived the final resource wars.  At least the last technology the Order knew about.

Stefan walked through the oppressive heat without notice and the vehicles were upon him more quickly than he would have thought possible over this rough terrain.  He stopped and stared with an unending curiosity.  How he wished he could read that elusive document he had recovered for his first Exam.  Access to unprocessed data was off limits, but he just had to see it.  While staring at the craft, he suddenly became aware that they were on a constant bearing in his direction.  Before he could take any action the force of the impact knocked him back into consciousness.

Stefan sat bolt upright.  He was breathing quickly and heavily.  Every sense confused by what had just happened, and how to handle being suddenly dead.  Slowly, awareness returned to Stefan and his quarters began to take on a shape of familiarity.  He allowed his implants to provide him with a journal to document the dream so he could think about it at another time.  He wrote quickly and filed the virtual journal away as he usually did.  He became aware that he was forgetting something.

S**t!  Stefan muttered to himself.  I better hurry to meet Haley.

-----

Stefan's meal with Haley was blissfully short.  He was thankful for a real meal, and thankful to have someone to talk to in this rough time, but felt like he should avoid talk to anyone about his dreams.  At least for now.

The two had separated ways after the meal.  Haley was off to a study lab for her upcoming Skrift Exam practice.  She was a good student, but only because she devoted herself to her studies much more than Stefan ever felt it necessary.  This of course meant that she was much more advanced in most of their courses over the cycles than Stefan, but Stefan enjoyed much more leisure and alone time than Haley.  In his mind, Stefan was much better off.

Stefan walked into his gloomy quarters and turned on a custom lighting system.  Instead of the accosting, overly bright lights provided in all the spartan quarters, these lights were hanging midway on the walls in all four comers of the room.  They cast a warm light that bounced off of the light colored plaster that gave Stefan the truest feeling of being home.  He sat down at his minuscule desk across from his so called bed and exhaled.  He mentally switched on his virtual room overlay and colors and clutter filled his space with immense beauty.

Stefan's virtual space was full of framed images and paintings on the wall that he had collected from the public archives.  His desk now appeared to made of wood, and his chair now appeared, and felt like a wingback leather chair with large button dimples and a wooden swivel base as he had seen from vid of a professor from an ancient empire across a vast ocean.  Virtual books lined virtual shelves flanking his desk, filled with his favorite works from all time.  The mainframe connection added a flare to Stefan's existence that he knew few people in the Citadel had taken full advantage of. 

As he leaned back in his wonderfully cushioned chair, he thought of the tasks he had yet to complete.  The following day was his Krinler Exam.  The first half of the day was observed meditation and suit control.  The second half of the day would be body control demonstration through the ShaMok teachings.  The second half of the Exam would be easy for Stefan.  He had mastered ShaMok so well that he extended those teachings to his decryption technique.  Meditation was also no worries to him either.  His emotional control of the suit would be a moderate challenge.  While he lacked the damning overwhelming emotions of those too ready to fight, he knew he had been distracted by his dreams recently.  He hoped above all that they wouldn't exclude him from suit training once in a Clan.  He imagined one day using one to fulfill the dreams that would damn him from their bodily augmentation.

The following day would be his Hanlier Exam.  No one failed the Hanlier Exam unless they couldn't make the sale.  And the fief's only refuse a sale if their dislike for someone overpowers their need to eat through the winter.  Stefan knew it happened, but he also knew he was likable enough to get by.  He just needed to avoid a hangover for the leap.

Agricultural Barhus, run by Raleph, only accepted Exams for the pre-chosen students.  Stefan hadn't been informed of his selection for this section of the Exam so had an early morning leap, and then a short hunt and back by midday meal.  He was an average hunter, but was confident Barhus tools would aid him enough to be successful.

At the thought of his Exams being downhill from here, Stefan let his mind wonder for what seemed like hours.  He searched the public archives as he usually did while thinking, looking for all of his favorite databases from ages past.  Read studies of long forgotten technologies that were only decades away, no matter the date printed on the articles.  Stefan cross referenced one concept from an article to another article, filling his brain with unusable but interesting facts and numbers.  He imagined the possibilities of everyone's dreams of their futures from the dark days right before their civilizations came to an end.  Filing away in a small place in his mind, his own image of what might still be out there, and most importantly, what he could manage to achieve and expand upon if he were to ever find decaying prototypes and half build models.

Well past midnight, Stefan finally tired, turned off his virtual world, lay in his utilitarian bed and attempted to sleep.  The dreams returned once again, and as fearless as ever, he left the familiar town for the wastes beyond.  He would find something out there...  Maybe even explore something no human had explored before.  He looked up to a dream sky and he floated amongst the stars in dreamful bliss.

-----

The following days were a bit of a blur for Stefan.  His Krinler Exam passed without notice.  His fears of being cut from future suit training were misplaced.  He had excelled in the suit.  He had stepped into tightly fitted suit for the first time and felt it hug and connected to him like an appendage he had forgotten he had lost.  The hug of the suit felt like the love of a mother he wasn't even sure he had had.  He only wished he didn't need to take it off.  But all good things must come to pass.

His daylight-only excursion into the badlands with the Hanlier had gone as expected.  He was not the best salesman, but he had what they needed.  The exchange was quick and painless.  It didn't hurt that Haley, a saleswoman like no other Stefan had met, not only traded a weeks rations for one child, but had saved the sales of at least two other 25ers.  The feet had drawn the personal attention of Jerma Hanlier herself.  Jerma had pulled Haley aside on the walk back to the nights camp, only a short walk back to the Citadel, and talked more and more loudly the rest of the way.  Stefan would later discover that Jerma and Haley were passing a hip flask back and forth during the walk and were amazingly drunk by the time they reached camp.  The night for those two never seemed to end.  For Stefan, the night was over much earlier.  The following morning, he was the first up and out of camp.

Then came the leap.

-----

When he showed up for his final Exam, Stefan was fitted for a special Barhus boot and gloves.  The boots had a selective compression heal and modifiable grip at the toe.  They allowed the Barhus to perform their seeming death defying leaps in the canopies of trees without fear of a hard landing when they would inevitably need to reach the ground.  The gloves were much like toe of the boots, but had further variable reinforcement added along the fingers to prevent damage from a miscalculated grip.  These two tools in conjunction with wrist mounted magnetic rail launcher and mainframe enhanced stabilization, made the Barhus' formidable machines.  But without proper intuition and leaps of faith, they are not true hunters.  It was the skills of silence, and perception and tracking and daring that would make someone a true Barhus.  That was the point of the days Exam.

Stefan had been told by Haley that her Barhus Exam had not gone as well as she had hoped.  After attempting to bribe Seriana Barhus, the hunter sub-clan regent, with the best bottle of rotgut the Gibson student labs had to offer, she had been pushed off the wall unceremoniously.  By sheer luck, she was able to latch onto a branch on the way down and clumsily made it to the ground.  She had caught a rabbit that had already been wounded by some larger or faster animal.  By sheer luck she had passed with dismal skill.

Stefan was hoping for better.  He had watched from any roof he could find with a view when the Barhus went off on their hunting adventures.  Stefan didn't much care for hunting himself, but he always wanted to take the leap.  It looked like such a rush to him.  One final piece of uniform was fitted to Stefan as we began walking of the preparation building atop the north western wall.  It fitted over his shoulders on his back, clasping tightly over his collar bone on his front.  Arms were then folded around his ribs under his arms.  He had never seen this from his roof top spying before, but he instantly knew its purpose.  The Barhus hunters were a quiet and secretive clan, and this was one of their tricks they didn't want to share with outsiders.  

Stefan walked down the narrow, open air corridor, atop the wall that circled the Citadel.  Ten meters ahead, he saw Seriana.  Her face was stern but not threatening.  She carried herself with confidence, and anyone looking at her would have known that she was in charge.  She was pack leader, no if ands or buts.  Seriana, nodded her head, and Stefan dropped his upper body into a bow.  Without speaking, Seriana commandingly point out over the wall.  The Exam had begun.

Stefan, with a nervous smile on his face nodded, walked to the edge of the wall where it had been cut out for the Barhus and looked down past his feet.  The twenty five meters might have been a kilometer to him, but he knew what had to be done.  With as much confidence as he could muster, Stefan lifted his weight to the balls of his feet and dove off the wall in a great arch.  Just as the arch peeked and he was preparing to choose a branch on his way down he felt the back mounted glider wings unfurl.  His suspicion as to the device attached to his back had been confirmed.  The rushing wind caught him under his arms and he soared past where he had planned to catch the upcoming trees.  He intuitively leaned to his right side and banked parallel to the wall.  He looked over his shoulder to see where he had come and caught Seriana's eyes.  She was pleased, in her own way, Stefan assumed by her appearance.  He then saw that his boots too had extended stabilizers, and her marveled at the simplicity and elegence of Barhus technology.  

Suddenly there was a crash, and a crack.  Stefan clipped a branch with his left wing and was thrown into a spin with a rotation around his left arm.  Thinking as quickly as he could, he swung his arms by his side as tightly as he could.  The wings retracted back into the harness with a snap.  He curled his body into a ball and extended his legs to make contact with an approaching branch.  The heels of the boot's response was stronger than he had anticipated.  Or the branch was stronger than he at anticipated.  He rebounded off of the branch in the opposite direction of his push.  Briefly shocked, Stefan almost pushed himself face-first into the trunk of the tree that had startled him.  He was pleased to note he was at least not spinning anymore.

Stefan reached out with his hands in front of him and slammed into the trunk with a thud.  He was happy to have the reinforced gloves at that moment.  While his hands stung, things could have been far worse without them.  The gloves, gripping tightly to the trunk caused Stefan's body to pivot around the trunk itself and before he could do anything else, the wind was knocked out of him when his stomach wrapped around the tree.

Stefan was happy to have at least survived the leap, although he noted that for the twenty five meters he from the ground to the top of the wall, he had only made a descent of about ten meters.  There was still plenty to go.  Without much elegance, he twisted his body to drape like a wet towel over the nearest branch he could reach and with a strained single motion, pulled himself up on the branch and twisted around to sit down and survey his current predicament.

The leap had gone better than Stefan had imagined the worst case scenario could have been.  He hadn't dreamt of gliding through the woods, seeing as every 25er who made the jump skipped that part of the story.  Or, as he surmised, there was an unspoken rule to let the kids find out themselves.  Regardless, here he was, and he need to think about getting down.  Well, about the hunt he supposed, but getting down was just as important to him at that point.

A flying squirrel came to mind now that Stefan thought long enough about the leap he ad just taken.  He then imagined an eagle that could only fly like a flying squirrel and how it might hunt.  Finally it came to him.  Stepped up on the branch on which he was perched, approached the trunk and rotated around it and placed his back towards a seemingly cleared path through the forest.  

Might as well go for broke.  Stefan thought to himself as he pushed the heels of his boots into the trunk of the tree as hard as he could.  The boots acted as a launch pad and he zoomed off into the clear path through the trees.  For a brief second after releasing his safe haven, he wondered if the gliding harness would be aware of this radical life decision he had just made and compensate for stupidity.  A justified question as gliding was not what happened at first, and when Stefan began to lift his arms off of his sides, the small winglets extended as before and he felt the jolt of the wind he had created catch the wings as the falling ceased. He loved this so much.  He just wished he could tell someone he loved it so much.  Barhus look down on telling stories of the hunt outside of the clan.

It was then that Stefan caught a glimpse of a herd of elk disappear behind a large conifer to his left.  They must have been grazing on the mushrooms and saplings that were poking their heads above the pine needle floor.  Paying close attention to the trees before him, Stefan attempted to turn too sharply around a tree.  The rush of air over his winglets diminished too much to maintain his normal flight and he began to tumble once again.  He had learned at least something from his last fall.  He reached out for another limp of a tree and allowed the momentum he did have to swing him around the tree and released the branch at the apex of the swing before it would have returned him back to where he had come.  He was not moving as quickly as he would have liked but the winglets re-extended and he was gliding once again, but this time his descent path was steeper.  

He had lined up with the elk, but had spooked them.  They began to scatter through the woods.  Stefan singled out a doe that was happily trotting through the forest in roughly the same direction he was traveling.  His steep descent path was beginning to speed Stefan up, and he realized right as he was a few meters above the doe that he would overshoot his target and be trampled.  He had not planned on being trampled today.  But then again, he hadn't planned on doing so well, so again, it was time to make a rash decision.  He tucked his arms against his side and flopped, hard, onto the back of the doe.  She was now a rampaging beast of an animal.  Her muscles throbbed under Stefan as he clung to her neck as hard as he could.  She bucked and tossed her back to release her from this leach, but still Stefan hung on tightly.  Feeling that she could not get free from just from a tantrum, she sprinted off as quickly as she could, changing directions every few seconds.  It was now clear to Stefan that she was no longer paying attention to her surroundings as she had a barnacle to contend with.  She changed directions one last time, and had aimed herself directly at an enormous tree.  Stefan knew she would not be changing direction before a collision that would end his life for sure, and damage herself.

Thinking quickly, Stefan raised released his right arm from his tight grip around the doe's neck and pressed his fist against her peak of her head.  With a quiet wisp, the rail projectile was released, the Doe's head dropped like a stone and Stefan was thrown off of her back and he slid on his back against the tree of doom.  The doe's body continued to slide on the loose needles into Stefan's feet pushing him into a seated position against the tree before both of their bodies came to a halt.

The fight was over.  Stefan had prevailed.  He felt horrible.  Taking lives was not a rewarding experience as it turned out for him.  As he stared into the doe's lifeless eyes, he filled with remorse and despair.  He had done well on this hunt, he assumed, and he learned about himself that he could never be a real killer.  He leaned over to giant beast, and began to stroke the course hairs of her muscular neck.

“Thank you for your sacrifice.”  Stefan spoke to the doe remorsefully.  “I'm sorry I took your life, but there is nothing I can do to take that back.  Just know, you will add to our people what we could not add to yours.”

There were three consecutive thumps beside Stefan.  Seriana and two other Barhus clansman had landed to survey the kill.  Seriana nodded to Stefan to come over to her.  Standing up slowly, he slowly stepped over the carcass towards her.  She made a complicated hand signal to her entourage and and the sped past Stefan to the doe and started their work of bringing the meat to be processed.  Seriana placed her arm around Stefan's shoulder and she maneuvered him towards the Citadel entrance, which he could see through the trees many hundreds of meters off.

“Your remorse troubles me.”  She said gruffly.  She continued more motherly:  “I heard you thank the animal for its sacrifice, for which I am pleased, remorse diminishes the sacrifice.  Rejoice that the beast died for our survival, and your soul will be rewarded.”

This was the most Stefan had ever heard anyone from Clan Barhus say at one time.  It amazed him to think that this level, of what he perceived as spirituality, existed inside the Order.  Not even the religious fiefs cared so much for the animals around them.  Most of the fiefs didn't even care for their children this much, hence the Order's population.

“Your future reluctance of the hunt will not bode well in my clan.”  Seriana continued.  “But your ability to take to our tools is encouraging.  You have passed my Exam, but I do not recommend you join Clan Barhus.  Skill alone is not enough to join my pack.  You must possess the spirit of the hunt.”

Stefan responded slowly, “I understand.  I didn't know how I would feel about the hunt until I did it.  I just don't know where I belong now.”

“You belong on your own path.  No one can tell you exactly where that might be.”  She responded to Stefan's astonishment.  “You have a right for your clan membership to be brought to a special meeting of the Council.  It was written into the Order charter at the time of the fall.  Use this time to speak with them.  But be prepare yourself.  The Council do not take the arguments of youth well.  You must prepare yourself to defend not only your beliefs but your right to remain in the Order.”

Stefan's heart dropped.  “Why hasn't anyone told me about this right before?”  He said.

“Because, in the twelve hundred years of the Order, no member has successfully petitioned for special dispensation.”  She said matter-of-factly.  “Most are expelled from the Order and stripped of the mainframe.  Few were invited to remain if their request would not harm the power of the Council.”

Stefan thought about this for some time.  He stopped on the path and Seriana stopped a few paces past him and turned to look at him.

“Thank you for telling me.  I will think about it.  I would like to go back to Citadel myself.”  He said quietly.

Seriana nodded solemnly and responded:  “I will leave you here then.  And be warned, all Examiners will be present if you choose to take this to the Council.  Together, we represent a tie braking vote.  I can only promise you that I will listen to your arguments with an open mind, nothing more.”

With that, Seriana lept straight upward into the trees, grabbed branches on the way up, clambered to the top, and soared off in a direction that Stefan did not recognize.  He paid her mysterious direction no heed.  She was Barhus, and they work in ways that most of the Order didn't understand.

Stefan's head was spinning from the news.  He began to imagine arguments with the Council in his head.  He needed to get to work.  Clan decision day was in three days and he would need to either choose a clan or request a Council meeting at the parting of ways ceremony.  He was nervous and excited and terrified and lonely all at the same time.  He felt like he needed to Vomit.

Today was a surprisingly good day.