After Sally and Alice gave reasons to leave, too, Anna turned to me with a contrite expression. “I’m sorry. I feel bad leaving you here.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll be finished soon anyway. Thanks for the dinner.”
With that, they headed out onto the street.
I glanced at the basket, realizing they’d left behind twelve cupcakes. I smiled slightly. I knew some folks who would appreciate those.
When I returned to our island, standing at my doorstep were more people than I had expected to see. Robert, Jessie, my uncle and aunt, as well as Nico and Zina all stood there with worried expressions on their faces—which quickly melted into relief as they laid eyes on me.
“What the hell happened to you?” Jessie was the first to blurt out, quickly followed by the rest of the group, firing variations of the question at me.
I staggered back, overwhelmed by the barrage of emotion.
“We were trying to call you all day!” my aunt said heatedly.
“Yeah, we were worried sick!” Zina added.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” I said, holding up my hands. “Why don’t you guys come inside? I’ll tell you everything.”
As everyone spilled into my small house, I pulled the phoneout of my backpack and swiped through it curiously. I must have set it to silent accidentally, because there was a log of twelve missed calls and ten unread messages. Oops.
I switched it back to full volume. Remembering the basket tucked inside my backpack, I headed in after them. Hopefully the surprise treat would help ease their annoyance. I understood how worried they must have been when I didn’t show up for work and then dropped completely off the radar.
I planted the basket down on the low coffee table. “First off,” I said, smiling tentatively, “these are for you.”
Their jaws dropped in surprise as they laid eyes on the cupcakes, and then their expressions turned to confusion.
“Where did you getthose?” Robert asked.
“And why are there unicorns on them?” Jessie asked, wrinkling her nose.
I chuckled. “One thing at a time. Why don’t you help yourself to the cupcakes while I tell you where I went this morning?”
I passed the basket around, then set it back on the coffee table for anybody who wanted seconds.
I leaned against the wall so that I could face everyone and then recounted what had happened. From the moment I boarded the shuttle, to the sharks, to me getting injured and flying to the hospital, to my surprise dinner with Anna.
Naturally, their faces dropped in horror as I described the shark incident, and I received much chastisement from my aunt and uncle for not warning them that I was heading off into danger. But to be fair, I hadn’t really known what I was signing up for, so it wasn’t like I could’ve told them even if I’d wanted to.
“You’d have thought they’d have included ‘no swimming’ on that rule sheet, wouldn’t you?” Jessie scoffed.
“Therearewarning signs around the edges ofthe platforms, actually,” my uncle replied. “I noticed them the other day when I went up close to the barrier.”
“So, they really weren’t mad at you for going against your officer’s advice,” Zina said.
I shook my head. “Like I said—on the contrary. They seem to be looking for the risk takers—those who display motivated qualities. Though, I’m not sure that you should go around spreading that info,” I added.
As much as I would love to spread the word to everyone, number one: I knew for a fact now that the odd jobs available to new recruits could bemuchmore dangerous and thus hold a much higher risk of serious injury, and number two: I didn’t want any of us getting into trouble—as I got the impression Fairwell wanted to keep the fact that they were testing people a secret, otherwise the effectiveness of the test would diminish. I couldn’t hold it back from my closest circle, but I didn’t think we should run the risk of broadcasting it widely.
Besides, the official recommendation was only that we stick to construction for two weeks. After that, the others would feel free to apply for the other jobs anyway, if they dared.
“From what I’ve seen every morning, there are hardly any non-construction jobs available to us anyway,” my uncle said, frowning.
“Yes,” I replied. “Gradually, I guess everyone will get a chance, but it might take a while. In the meantime, it seems like only… the fastest… the most motivated, will make it through.”
Nico gave me a thoughtful look. “You said your screen is supposed to update with a larger variety of jobs, right?” I already guessed what he was thinking.
I switched on the big screen in my living room, and, lo and behold, it had updated—there was a variety of jobs that hadn’t been there before, located all over the island. For night shift, apparently, as it was already evening. The rather generic jobtitle headings didn’t help much though… Given that the bloodfest I had attended this morning was supposed to be an “Assistant” assignment, it was hard to tell what each of these would entail.Did they keep them deliberately vague?
