The same lab tech came to fetch him. He must have been really beat the night before, because he hadn’t realized how pretty she was, especially that flip of black hair and those freckles across her nose. Or maybe he’d been shut up too long.

He was led back to a small white room, just like the one where he and Eto Mahs had started the obstacle course. This time a different guy entered along with him–Cadet Vestabo. Titus didn’t need to read the instruction post to know Vestabo was a first‑year cadet who was considered to be a mathematics whiz. He was also a regular in the Saturday morning lasertag game that Titus had joined in a few times.

As the door to the holodeck opened, Vestabo was nodding a greeting to Titus, pointing to his throat and smiling at the inhibitor. Titus ran his hand through his hair, letting out a long low whistle as the same countryside appeared, with the peak in the distance.

Not again!he wanted to exclaim.

Maybe they were giving him a second chance. Maybe they realized it wasn’t his fault that they hadn’t made it to the peak. But why pair him with another scrawny guy? Vestabo wasn’t nearly as timid and frail as Eto Mahs, he was just a wiry kid, much like Titus himself when he first came to the Academy. But Titus had bulked up by venting much of his frustration the past year working out with counter weights. Gradually, he had put on an impressive amount of muscle. On a good day, he could even beat Bobbie Ray at Parrises Squares.

His doubts about Vestabo’s ability were quickly squashed when they reached the light beam crossing the river. Vestabo read the instructions and, without hesitation, jumped up on the beam and ran across. Titus grinned at him, giving him a thumbs‑up when he reached the other side. He felt better for the first time since he realized he was going to have to go through the entire course again.

He stepped up on the light beam and immediately knew something was different. It wasn’t solid like before. It wobbled. He frowned as he inched forward, trying to keep his balance. He only got a few feet before he was shifting so wildly that he fell off.

He tried to grab the light beam as he went over, but his hands passed through it as if it was an illusion–which it was.

The stunning cold choked the air from his lungs. He was spitting water and gasping, swimming instinctively against the current. With no time for thought, he was back on the bank shivering, his hands tucked between his legs.

Vestabo’s mouth was a perfect O,shocked that Titus hadn’t made it across. Titus knew the feeling, having stood on that side of the bank himself.

He tried it again, and this time he got nearly to the middle before losing his balance on the trembling light beam. He expected the extreme cold this time, which allowed him to feel what his body had known the first time–there were things in the water!

Hundreds of itching, prickling THINGS.

He was out of the water and shuddering on the bank before he could gasp out loud. His hands convulsed over his body, frantically trying to get rid of the things, but there was nothing there, just a nervous prickling that faded from his nerves.

Vestabo was hunched over, shaking, unable to hide his laughter behind his hands.

That was the last time Vestabo laughed. As Titus tried again and again to get across the flimsy light beam, Vestabo crouched on the other side, chewing the inside of his mouth anxiously. He even stood up to grab Titus’s arm when he finally got close to the other side.

Titus kept expecting contempt to rise in the younger boy’s eyes, especially after they reached the wall obstacle. The instructions told them to each hold a grip on a transport container to get it over the wall. Vestabo couldn’t tell that the vacuum on Titus’s grip handle kept breaking, just as he hadn’t been able to see that the light beam over the river wasn’t solid for Titus.

Time and again Vestabo grunted as he suddenly had the full weight of the container swinging from his grip. It kept thudding back to the ground. Titus remembered how he had been forced to carry it over single‑handedly when Eto Mahs hadn’t been able to hang on to it. Now he knew why. He cringed to think of how he had stared at Mahs, unable to understand why he couldn’t carry a nearly empty transport container.

Vestabo, on the other hand, seemed confused, but once they got over the wall, he shrugged it off and his good‑natured smile returned.

It was the same when they reached the transparent barrier. The instructions told them to go left to find the opening, and Titus remembered traipsing along hip‑deep in marsh grass forever while Eto Mahs tugged at his arm, trying to get him to go the other way. As it turned out, the instructions were wrong and the opening was about a klick in the other direction.

Titus knew he probably had the same pained expression as Eto Mahs as he tried to get Vestabo to stop and go right instead of left. It was excruciating, knowing that he knew the fight path but he wasn’t able to tell the kid. And Vestabo didn’t exactly trust him at this point.

Still, Vestabo finally lifted his hands in surrender and returned to the instructions with Titus. He read them again, and pointed in the recommended direction. Titus insistently pointed the other way, and when Vestabo wavered, Titus started jogging toward the spot where he knew the break in the barrier would be.

Vestabo had to run after him. They were supposed to stay together, according to the underlined order on each set of instructions, otherwise the course would automatically end. It turned into to a race, and Titus couldn’t bear to look back at Vestabo’s concerned expression, obviously worried about his sanity.

Yet when he found the opening and showed him how they could slip through, Vestabo grinned and pounded Titus on the shoulder in congratulations. The kid was so nice about it that he couldn’t even get irritated, much as it galled him to have a first‑year cadet condescend to him.

By the fourth obstacle–the anti‑grav jump, complete with trick pad that let Vestabo sail over while Titus bobbed up and down like a puppet on a string–Titus was ready to call it quits. He’d had enough of these jokes. He hadn’t signed up for this.

Besides, every set of instructions taunted him with the fact that he could simply say “End program” and the torture would be over. He sneered at the wording: “The course will be deemed satisfactorily completed upon the command to End program.” The first time around with Eto Mahs, he had hardly paid attention to that disclaimer, believing there had to be some sort of black mark that would result from quitting such an easy obstacle course.

Now, the only thing that kept him bobbing up and down, trying vainly to get over the obstacle, was the image of Eto Mahs with his mouth set in a tight line, his dark eyes burning down at Titus as he leaped up and down, trying to get over. And his grim expression of satisfaction when he finally did make it to the other side.

A low whistle made Titus look up. Vestabo winked and held up an apple he had plucked from the tree. He was sitting on the wall overlooking the gate, in exactly the same spot Titus had taken after he had completed the task of turning the handle. Now it was Titus sweating and grunting over his unmovable handle.

Vestabo gestured with the apple, then tossed it to him. Titus caught it without thinking, then realized it was just what he needed. He sat on the ground, leaning against the gate, and sank his teeth into the plump, green apple. Sweet, tart juiciness spread across his tongue. He hadn’t eaten an apple yesterday.

Titus nodded up at Vestabo in thanks. The kid shrugged it off with nothing but sympathy in his expression. Maybe he knew there was some sort of trick going on. Titus hoped so. He hated to think of Vestabo’s disillusionment when he had to go through the course a second time. Titus had figured out that all the volunteers were made to go through twice. Little things he hadn’t noticed now stood out. The way Eto Mahs knew exactly where to go to get to each obstacle, and his anguished expression when they had first entered the course. Titus knew exactly how he felt, except he didn’t have someone subtly tormenting him with derision every step of the way.