Chapter One
"Today, college seniors all over the world will begin taking their Career Exams. Over the course of this week they will take the final test before moving on into the real world. Good luck to any of you who may be watching this. In other news, the World Parliament came to a decision today about the trade sanctions imposed on South America, and have decided to lift only a few of them..."
The newscaster on the television screen continued talking in his boring monotone, pointing to a map of the world projected behind him. The viewer, a middle-aged woman with sandy blonde hair and vibrant green eyes, leaned a little farther off of the dark brown couch to get a better look at the map. She sighed and brushed her long hair out of her face, listening with interest to what the newscaster had to say.
"Mom, will you turn that crap off?"
The woman sighed and picked up the remote, pausing the television.
"I'll finish it after you leave. Are you ready for your first exam?" the woman asked, turning to look back at the person who had spoken.
A young woman looked back at her with muted gray-blue eyes, stuffing a black electronic writing tablet into a hefty-looking blue backpack. She sighed and zipped the bag up, throwing it over her thin frame and putting her arms through the loops. The young woman was somewhat short and very thin, with pale skin and black hair that fell slightly past her shoulders. She wore a simple outfit, a pair of dark blue jeans, a black shirt, and a dark purple jacket. She glanced down at the watch on her left wrist, then looked back to her mother.
"As ready as I'll ever be. Where's Dad?" she asked quickly.
"Back in the art studio." her mother answered, standing up and walking over to her daughter.
"Wow, that's a surprise." the young woman muttered darkly.
"Your father works hard for this family, Raven. Now, hurry up. You don't want to be late for your exam. Good luck, dear." the woman's mother pulled her close in a soft hug, then let her go.
Raven smiled softly and nodded, then turned and started to slowly pick her way to the art studio. The ground was covered with stray paint brushes, clumps of dried paint, and examples of her father's artwork. He was a painter, and all of his paintings depicted happy scenes of children playing, or lush landscapes, or polite government meetings. Of course, that was all he was allowed to paint; if he deviated from that, he could be thrown in prison for treason.
"Father, I'm leaving for my first exam." Raven called out, turning the corner into the art studio.
The studio was even messier than the living room, with brushes, paint, art, and crumpled up papers scattered all over the room. The walls, ceiling, and floor were splattered with a rainbow of colors, making the room look terribly disorganized;which, of course, it was. Raven's father stood at the far end of the room, hovering over a half-filled canvas and holding a palette in one of his large hands.
Raven's father was a tall, thin, wiry man with tired gray eyes and wispy black hair. He wore a white smock, which by now was covered with paint, over his jeans and loose green shirt. A pair of sharp gray-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his long nose, giving him an almost librarian-like appearance. He smiled warmly at her and waved with his free hand.
"Good luck, Raven! I know you'll do well!" he said happily.
"What are you painting now, dad?" Raven asked, standing on tiptoe to get a better look at the canvas.
Half of the canvas had been painted to look like a towering waterfall, its torrents of crystal blue water tumbling down into a lush green forest. It was incredibly detailed, with lines down the visible patches of brown tree trunks and white mist rising off of the waterfall. Raven's father smiled softly to himself and set his palette down.
"It's Angel Falls. It's the tallest waterfall in the world, in an area of South America that used to be called Venezuela. I've never seen it personally, but I've always wanted to. Now, you had better get going or you'll be late for your exam!" he smiled and turned back to his work.
Raven watched him for a moment, then sighed and smiled softly.
"Alright, dad. I'll see you later." she said, then turned and left the room.
Raven picked her way carefully out of the room, then made her way to the front door. She left the house quickly and walked to the edge of the road, turning to look back at her parent's house. It was a small, one-story building, made of gray stones with a black tile roof. All of the surrounding houses looked like it, too. They lived in one of the middle-class neighborhoods, near the outer edges of the city of Tumbledown.
Tumbledown was a small city, compared to places like Atlanta and Raleigh; in fact, it was only a few minutes away from Atlanta. It was located a few hours drive from the east coast, and sat upon very flat, and admittedly very boring, land. It was located in what had been the state of Georgia before World War Three. Now, all of the states in North America had been dissolved into one big nation, simply called America, to increase the federal government's control over their people. Of course, even they had to bow to the totalitarian command of the World Parliament.
The World Parliament had formed a few weeks after the end of WW3 in 2046, thirty years ago . It was made up of one member from each country, elected by each country's federal government. They held all of the true power, and exercised complete control over the world. Their decisions effected the entire world, and there was no-one to tell them that something "wasn't fair". Due to this, they ruled with an iron fist, used cruel punishment against anyone who did anything against them, and ran everyone's lives from start to finish. It was the World Parliament that had come up with the idea of the Career Exam, and they quickly implemented it.
Raven scowled and shook her head, then began jogging up the road to the bus stop. She soon came upon the small set of steel benches, and sat down to wait for the bus. She had a hover car, but it was illegal to drive one until you had been given your career assignment a few weeks after taking your Career Exam. Once you had your career assignment, a lot of freedoms were opened up to you. You could drive, you could start dating, and you could even travel to other countries if you wanted to. Traveling abroad could be very dangerous, considering that the World Parliament had decided that if two countries were having issues that compromise couldn't solve, they would simply fight it out on a battlefield. The winner of the battle would get whatever it was that they wanted, while the other country got nothing but a burned ego. Just thinking about it made Raven shudder; she really hoped that her Career Exam didn't put her in the military.
Raven sighed and removed her backpack, setting it down on the ground by her feet. She unzipped it quickly and pulled out her P.D.A writing tablet, zipping her bag back up and turning the flat device on hastily. It came on quickly, and she immediately pulled up a file she had saved with a list of all of the careers she could be chosen for based off of her Career Exam score. The list was massive, yet she had gone through all of it and color-coded each of them. Blue was for jobs she would like, green was for jobs she would be ambivalent about, and red was for a job she would absolutely hate. The amount of red on the list was a little discouraging, especially since most of the red marks were for government jobs. She smirked and read a few of them out loud to herself.
"Agent for Healthcare Research and Quality...absolute lie. They don't care about out healthcare. Agent for International Development...humph. Another load of crap there. Animal and Plant Health Inspector...yeah, because the World Parliament cares about plants and animals. They proved their opinions of them when they proclaimed that it was open season year round on any animal in the world. Battlefield Clearer..." she paused at this one and suppressed a shudder.
Being a Battlefield Clearer was quite possibly one of the most disgusting jobs that the World Parliament could have possibly cooked up. It was a government job, so the pay was excellent, but the job itself was both pointless and sickening. After WW3, the World Parliament decreed that if two countries were going to have a battle, it had to be done on a cleared field. This meant that someone was going to have to go and get rid of any leaves, rocks, limbs, or whatever else was on the land chosen for the battle. That was where the Battlefield Clearers came in. They would travel by plane to the country where the battle was to take place and use their equipment to clean up the battlefield. Their jobs weren't done there, however; they had to clean up the field after the fight, too.
That was where the job got really rotten. Bodies of fallen soldiers were not claimed after the battles. They were left on the field for the Clearers to deal with, along with bullet casings, broken weapons, and whatever else the soldiers had with them when they died. The Clearers would pile all of the bodies up and use some sort of government-issue flamethrower to completely disintegrate the bodies, and everything else on the battlefield. It was terribly sad and cruel, especially since the poor dead soldiers had families back home waiting for them to return.
"Absolute disgrace." Raven muttered darkly, turning the tablet off and sliding it back into her backpack.
She sighed and leaned back against the back of the bench, rubbing her hands together to try and warm them up. It was mid-Winter, and the air was brittle, dry, and very cold. She wrapped her jacket around her tighter and hoped that the bus would hurry up and arrive. Within a few minutes, her wish was granted.
A large yellow hover bus pulled up in front of the bus stop. It floated a few inches off of the ground, emanating a soft blue light from underneath it. Raven could see several people her age sitting within the giant vehicle, looking out at her tensely; everyone was nervous about the Career Exams. She smiled softly and waved as she spotted one of her friends sitting near the back of the bus before standing up, grabbing her backpack, and climbing up the messy stairs of the vehicle. She wrinkled her nose at the familiar yet foul stench of the inside of the bus as she made her way past several nervous and scared looking students to sit next to her friend.
The girl was the same age as Raven, with short blonde hair and vibrant green eyes. She wore a pink shirt and a pair of tan shorts, and wore an absolutely terrified expression on her face. She clutched her P.D.A in a vice-like grip and was mouthing words to herself at a frantic pace, trying to study last minute for the Career Exam.
Raven smiled understandingly and poked her friend on the shoulder.
"Claire, are you alright?" she asked quietly.
Claire turned sharply to look at her, her eyes wide with panic.
"Am I alright? Of course not! The Career Exam starts today, and I'm nowhere near ready for them!" she cried unhappily.
"Oh, come on. You've been studying incessantly for two weeks. I'm sure you will be much more than fine. Just relax and try not to overstress." Raven replied with a sigh;Claire was known for getting herself all worked up over something she was more than prepared for.
"How can you be so calm about this? These exams decide what we'll be doing for the rest of our lives! You should be looking over your notes, too!" Claire exclaimed emphatically.
"I've already studied a lot for the exams. Studying more right before them won't help me any, it'll just make me more nervous about them. There's no use in beating a dead horse."
Claire sighed at her friend's seemingly calm mood and shook her head, and they fell into silence as the bus began its trip toward the school. They attended college at University; the formal names of all of the schools in the world had been stripped away after the war. They were all supposedly united under one name, University, so that none of the countries got competitive over the student's grades. Every school in the world ran on the same clock, used the same hologram-projected teachers, and taught the same curriculum. This was supposed to unify all students all over the world, but really it was just another way for the World Parliament to control how everyone thought. If everyone had the same knowledge, they reasoned, then everyone would have the same opinions. If they influenced and warped those opinions, then no one would ever say a word against them.
Within about twenty minutes the hover bus landed carefully in front of the large brown University building, and the anxious students filed out of the vehicle. The University building was massive, made from brown stone and with several floors. The windows were small and kept extremely clean, so they glittered in the light like clusters of little diamonds. Several staircases made of gray stone led up to the many entrances of the building, where the student's ID card was checked by a machine on the wall next to the door before they were allowed inside. Waiting for everyone in front of you to scan their card and go inside was tedious, so it was always a good idea to try to be near the front of the line. Unfortunately, Raven and Claire hardly ever achieved this goal, and today was no different.
The girls ran toward the school the moment they stepped off of the hover bus, but there was already a long line of students waiting to get inside at all of the entrances. They stopped for a moment and groaned at the sight, then jogged over to the end of the nearest line. Raven groaned audibly as Claire continued her frantic studying.
"Claire, put that away. We're already at the school, all you're doing is working yourself up. Just take a few deep breaths and relax a little." she said soothingly.
"I'll put it up when we get close to the door. I just want to make sure I remember all of the math laws and theories. I really want to be a Computer Analyst for some big company, so math is really important. I really think you should study, too, or you'll get a crappy job like a Dumpster Diver or a Farmer or something." Claire said with a concerned look on her face.
"There's nothing wrong with being a farmer. Anything would be better than a government job." Raven replied somewhat darkly.
Claire sighed and rolled her eyes at her friend's dark view of government jobs. She knew that Raven disapproved of the way the World Parliament ran things, but she didn't understand why she hated it so much. Sure, the government was abusive, but it had to be that way. If it wasn't this way, then the world would fall apart and chaos would rule. No one wanted the world to fall into the same discord that WW3 had brought, so they allowed the World Parliament to impose its strict order over them. Having a government job was considered an honor, and it payed well, too.
"Take what you can get, Raven. A job is a job, even if it is for the government." Claire said with a sigh.
"I just hope I get chosen for a job that keeps me as far from the World Parliament as possible." Raven muttered back.
The line moved slowly forward, and soon they were close to the front of the line. Claire put her P.D.A away and pulled her ID card from a pocket on the inside of her small pink handbag. Raven smiled softly and pulled hers out of her pants pocket and looked down at the picture, which had been taken at the beginning of the year. In the photo, she had longer hair. She groaned at the picture and turned it away from her; she hated how her hair had looked when that photo had been taken. Raven chuckled at her and rolled her eyes, pulling her own I.D card from her pocket. She looked almost exactly the same in her picture, and had nothing to complain about. Seeing her friend's reaction to her picture always amused her.
They soon got to the door, and Raven scanned her card first. The machine beeped loudly, then the sliding door slid open and allowed her inside. She stood next to the door and waiting for Claire to follow. Once she had entered, the two started down the hallway toward the room where they would both be taking their test. The door to the classroom was still closed, as the exams didn't start for another ten minutes. Raven and Claire walked over to the wall next to the door and sat down with their backs against the wall. Raven sighed and relaxed, closing her eyes and waiting for the classroom door to open. Claire pulled P.D.A from her backpack and began quickly looking over her notes one final time before the anxiously-awaited Career Exam.
After a few minutes, the door slid open. Raven and Claire stood up and followed the other 48 students who would be taking their tests in that room. The interior of the room was painted a simple white, with 50 desks in five rows of ten. In the front of the room was the hologram projection machine, which would project an image of their teacher. It wasn't a real person, just a computer generated image of a woman with a monotonous voice. Raven had quickly grown tired of the boring woman's sleep-inducing lectures, and had taken to using books to teach herself. She usually tuned the teacher out and doodled on her P.D.A's drawing pad. It always looked like she was taking notes, so the hologram teacher never called her out on it, leaving her to ignore the lecture in peace. When she would get home, she would print her doodles off of the P.D.A and hang them up on the walls of her room. The walls were covered with scraps of colored paper, and she had long ago forgotten what color the paper beneath the layer of drawings was.
Raven sighed and sat down at her desk, setting her backpack down and opening it. She dug around inside for a moment and pulled out a small bottle of water and her P.D.A while Claire sat down at the desk next to her. The girls sat in silence as the other students took their seats. Raven's eyes locked on a clock hanging over one of the windows, watching the hands on the clock as time for the exam approached. A soft fizzing noise caught her attention, and she tore her gaze off of the clock and looked at the front of the room, where the hologram projector was. A figure now hovered a few inches above the machine, wavering and fizzing slightly; it was Professor Hologram, their instructor.
Professor Hologram was a tall, lean woman, with very pale skin and neat gray hair tied back in a tight little bun atop her head. She had beady green eyes that watched the class behind a pair of oversized glasses. She wore a plain gray dress that went down to just below the knee and a pair of black dress shoes. She wasn't a real person, so her image went in and out of focus sometimes, and would make slight crackling noises during heavy storms.
Professor Hologram nodded stiffly at the class and smiled, and the class flinched a little as the door to the classroom slid shut with a loud snap. The holographic teacher then cleared her computer-generated throat and began to give the speech given to students all over the world who were taking Career Exams.
"Welcome, students, to your first day of the World Parliament issued Career Exams. You are preparing to embark on a journey that will lead to the rest of your lives, and the World Parliament wants nothing more than to help you achieve your goals." the hologram spoke in a boring drone.
Raven snorted derisively at this, but Professor Hologram ignored her and continued her speech.
"In order for you to begin your journey, you must first complete the Career Examinations, which will be used to place you into a career that fits your qualifications. The test will be taken on your P.D.A system, and will be held in six-hour sessions, spanning the length of this upcoming week. I will be watching for any signs of cheating, so it is ill-advised to try. If you are caught cheating you will be expelled from the exam and will not be given a chance to re-test."
Raven knew exactly what that meant. If someone was kicked out of the exam, they ended up jobless and on the streets. Businesses were not allowed to hire people who had somehow gotten booted from the Career Exams, and few people cared enough to spare them any money or food. They hung like shadows in the back alleys of the city, staring hopefully at anyone who passed by, growing bitter and cold as their silent pleas for help were ignored and brushed aside. Most of them died within the first year of becoming such a person, living off of the street like lone wolves. Those who died were the lucky ones; the survivors lived lives of constant pain, hunger, and abuse by government officials.
"Now, prepare to take the first part of your Career Exam. There should be a box on your P.D.A labeled Career Exam. When you select this box, you will be taken to the first question of today's section of the exam. There are one hundred and seventy questions on this exam, including four essays. In six hours, when the clock strikes four o'clock pm, the door will open and you will be dismissed. Now, select the Career Exam box and take the first step into the rest of your lives!"