Evaluation Day

The group thought Yuqi would stop humming at some point, but they made it through their scheduled breakfast, morning training, and Russian lessons with a consistent, catchy melody emitting from the smallest of the bunch. Even during designated quiet time, she would find a way to drum the beat with her fingers or make it through the choreography using only her shoulders.

Their right feet struck the ground at the same time as they all marched to this week’s evaluation. 

Seven gave Yuqi the side eye as she lightly clicked her tongue to a familiar beat. “Will you ever shut up?” he asked in a threatening manner.

“Seriously, the song’s starting to get stuck in my head and I don’t even know what it is,” Zuha quietly agreed from directly behind them.

Yuqi only stopped to ask, “What skill are they testing today?”

“It’s wild card week,” Joon answered.

“Send a message to your deities to give us anything but analytics and erudition,” Seven playfully advised. 

Yuqi gasped. “But that one is the most fun!”

“Given the fact that the only thing Zuha got correct in Russian today was asking to go to the bathroom, we’re not sitting very pretty,” he stated.

“I always sit pretty,” Zuha objected. 

A silky voice entered the conversation. “Zuha, your pronunciation was second to none.”

She crossed her arms and turned her nose to the sky. “Thank you, Felix.”

Yuqi reached the end of what could only be the chorus. “Do you think our newbie will be dumb as rocks?”

“Newbie?” Zuha questioned. 

The coin implanted behind their ears vibrated right before the high-pitched ringing started. The muscles in Seven’s jaw twitched, Felix’s entire face braced for impact, and Yuqi drummed her fingers against her thighs until it was over.

“Line up,” the guard ordered with his inhumanly low-level voice. Their glossy black helmets reflected a fish-eye view of the five of them, all looking like cowering children except for Seven with his shoulders rolled back.

“Wait for the door to open before making a single movement.” The moment he was done, he turned and began down the excessively bright hallway. The entire glass building could’ve collapsed from one well-trained opera singer, but the corporation likely planned for something like that.

An angelic hum started up again. When they all looked at Yuqi, her head was moving back and forth—bopping to the track that was playing in her mind.

Seven sighed. “Our guest is gonna go 6 feet under.”

Felix looked over his shoulder. “Why?”

“Annoyed to death.”

A buzz sounded along with a series of clicks and whooshes, then the door parted to reveal the control room before they entered the actual arena.

A screen ran along the back wall, while lights blinked on the side walls. Switches were flicked up and down, knobs were turned to a quarter degree, and a lot of monitors were off.

The large screen flashed on, displaying a rotating figurine. Her hair was reaching toward the middle of her back and she wore the pure white uniform they all received when they started. Her eyes sparkled with innocence and her cheeks were flecked with youthfulness. 

Lines of text appeared along the sides of the screen as another low, robotic voice sounded. “Hinata Takahashi. 20 years of age, criminal record: undisclosed.”

The five of them were lined up, observing the screen.

“Her strengths and weaknesses are restricted as well,” Felix noted. 

Zuha was on the far right, intently reading and she eventually pointed toward the upper corner. “This girl’s allergic to peanuts.”

“Zuha!” Seven scolded. 

On the left side, musical Yuqi started padding to the right—tilting her head as she passed Hinata’s rotating figure. She stopped in her tracks, gasping.

Felix stepped up and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t remember the end of the second verse,” she groused. 

A collective sigh filled the room. 

“At least tell us what song it is,” Zuha insisted.

Her eyes were squeezed shut as she clipped, “Opening Sequence.”

“How quick until the ending sequence?” Seven mumbled as Zuha chuckled. 

The part they anticipated the most finally arrived before any fights could break out. ‘Analytics and Erudition’ winked on in blue lettering.

Disappointment coated Seven’s features. “You’ve gotta be joking.”

“It’s your fault if you think about it,” Zuha sassed.

Yuqi’s eyes were positioned close to her eyebrows as she ran through the song stuck in her head—desperately recalling the missing lyric. Felix and Joon were quietly observing, saving their energy for the upcoming tasks. 

The entrance behind them reopened and Hinata stepped through, looking exactly as she did in pixelated form. The five of them stepped back, observing like a pack of baby animals.

The robotic voice started up again before any introductions could be made.

“Analytics and erudition will be the theme for today. The moment the last one steps through the doors, the timer will start. I should say it isn’t any ordinary timer, but rather a ticking time bomb. Cut an incorrect wire: detonation. Press an incorrect button: detonation. Too slow: detonation. Your fate is in your hands. Use any knowledge you hold, pull from intuition if it keeps you alive. Good luck.”

The screen split down the middle and parted, revealing an all-white room, separated into six individual stalls.

Only when a clicking sound echoed through the room, did all of their attention gravitate toward the bomb embedded in the ceiling. The lurid red number switched to 7:59 and all of them rushed into a glass stall.

The automatic door was sealed behind them, shutting out all sound as well. 

Seven tapped on the glass to get Joon’s attention, but he was staring straight forward. Zuha tried subtly observing Hinata only for her to get caught staring. Felix leaned toward the front of the box, eager to start. Yuqi began to run through her song from the beginning.  

The first test was on general knowledge. Each of them was presented with a different mode of answering—whether that be multiple choice, true or false, or short answer.

When asked if a tear falls from the right eye, what is the primary emotion present, Seven answered with joy. Joon confidently said that only 2 to 3 milligrams of Tetrodotoxin is lethal. The strongest, most impenetrable material to wear, according to Felix, was spider silk. Between a mango, celery, an apple, and a potato, Yuqi preferred to have a potato if she wanted to power a lightbulb. Hinata knew that more than 40% of blood loss in a human is fatal. Zuha believed it to be true that humans are more imaginative at night. 

The moment the last one answered, the results were computed, and relief settled within all of them at the sight of a green light.

Joon inclined his head to see a bright red 6:27 reflecting back at him. All he could do was wait for the next piece to start, and he was blissful when the number portion began.

They all had to find the sum of the numbers, but the way they were presented was different.

Two of them were seeing:

23 + 5 + 70 + 13 + 97 + 1003 + 875 + 4 + 19

Two of them heard, “twenty-three, five, seventy, thirteen…”

The last two had the numbers flashing in front of them. Twenty-three stayed on the screen for mere seconds before five showed up. 

In the end, they all quickly answered with two thousand, one hundred and nine before they were receiving a completely different method with different numbers.

They were quick with the calculations, and immediately the linguistic section started. They all had to follow a conversation in one language and verbally answer questions related to what was said in that language. By the end, they had to ask the room to release them in their designated language. 

Yuqi had German, Japanese for Joon, Felix was gifted English, Hinata tackled Morse code, Seven was dealt Spanish, and that left Zuha with—Russian. 

Seven caught the panic in Zuha’s eyes and automatically assumed she had Russian given they couldn’t see each other’s screens. That automatically planted an uneasiness in his stomach as they were only as strong as their weakest member.

Those that seamlessly made it through were dumped into a dimly lit room with cryptic symbols etched into concrete surfaces. Moss extended out of cracks, vines crawled up the walls, and shadows filled the corners. 

They weren’t given any instructions, and nothing made enough sense for them to move on. Joon, Felix, and Seven watched the others finish the linguistic challenge. Yuqi left her room singing a jingle that sounded like it should be played after a video game victory. Hinata entered the room, and her shoulders settled briefly before the attention of the others hit her. 

She quickly began looking around the dank room, leaving only Zuha to finish the last challenge. 

Zuha’s head was tilted to the right, her left eye was halfway closed, and from the shapes of her mouth, it appeared that she was testing different words until one was correct.

Meanwhile, the group couldn’t do anything to move forward except watch the timer countdown. 

Seven rocked up onto his toes and back down to his heels—hands resting behind his back. “So, um, how’s the weather?”

“There aren’t any windows in our rooms,” Joon replied.

“Right, right.”

Yuqi mumbled a familiar song while observing the new room. 

The timer blinked 4:16 and Zuha heaved a sigh as she stumbled from her glass stall. “I don’t want to see a Russian person ever again.”

“You won’t have to if we’re all dead,” Seven declared pessimistically. 

Felix approached and patted her shoulder. “You did well.”

Seven started pacing the concrete room, tapping the walls and tugging on vines. “What do we do?”

The clock ticked down and to anyone else, it would’ve been seen as normal, but they felt like they were being mocked. 

From the corner of the room, a gasp escaped Yuqi. “I got it!”

“What, what?”

She paused her triumphant fist-shaking as her eyebrows dipped together. “You want me to sing it?”

“You’re talking about your stupid lyrics?!” Zuha exclaimed.

Groans made their way through the room while Joon examined the large concrete table centered in the middle of the space and ignored them.

Zuha stood with her arms crossed. “In my opinion, Hinata should figure it out.”

Hinata’s eyebrows immediately raised as she pointed toward herself. “Me?”

Zuha rubbed her eyes and started scanning the room. “Anyone else here named Hinata?”

Yuqi moved through the room—singing her song, stopping to dance every once in a while. “Guitar solo!” she shouted as she whipped her hair and wiggled her fingers against an imaginary instrument. 

Seven shook his head while Zuha sighed, “There’s not even an instrumental break in that song.”

“Is this a common occurrence?” Hinata inquired.

“You wouldn’t believe the variation of oh’s and la la’s I’ve heard,” Zuha complained.

Felix shrugged. “I think it’s fun.”

“Not fun for our ears.”

“Seven, sing something,” Felix instructed.

“If you want to fill this room with the lovely sound of birds slamming into a window,” Joon interjected.

While Zuha chuckled, Seven turned over his shoulder. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

Joon stood near the table in the middle of the room. “All of you step up to the table and you’ll feel pressure plates--stand on one.”

The moment all the pressure plates were pushed, the lines etched into the table started to glow. They all stopped what they were doing to hear a voice echo and sink into the stone walls. 

“Only one of you may step off at a time. Bring to me six items hidden throughout the room and you shall live,” a voice boomed.

The timer was at 3:27 when Yuqi immediately hopped off of the pressure plate. 

She started tapping at the wall as naturally as she would a keyboard. “While you were all complaining, I was assessing.” The wall clicked and one of the tiles slowly extended, offering a rusty key to Yuqi.

She gently grabbed it, humming again as she approached the table and set the key on it. Her satisfactory smile was met with blank stares and slow blinks. 

Seven picked his jaw up from the floor and hastily searched the room. 

“What did you just do?” Zuha demanded.

Yuqi drummed her fingers on the table. “A word scramble.” She shrugged before continuing, “We’ve done these before. Remember that one time they set up a room to look like heaven and we had to answer stuff about the gods? It’s just silly little puzzles.”

Zuha leaned forward, shifting her weight onto her hands as she felt more relaxed. “When do you have the time to find this music?”

“I’m severely sleep-deprived.”

Seven set a book he found on the table and asked, “How’d you get access to the internet?”

“I made an arrangement with Joon,” Yuqi stated as she watched Joon run his fingers along the rough stone of the East wall. 

One side of Zuha’s mouth pursed. “How much of your allowance are you keeping this week?”

Yuqi tilted her head. “If my calculations are correct, I’m in the negatives.”

Joon was already back, carefully placing a bullet onto the table right as Felix stepped off the pressure plate and began searching for another object. The ticking time bomb in the ceiling became white noise to them. 

“You might be able to answer this,” Hinata began and they all immediately shifted their attention to her.

“What?” Yuqi asked.

She rested her hands on the table. “Why do music groups have a name with a number in it, but then don’t have that many members in their roster?”

Yuqi shrugged. “For fun. For laughter and joy, ever heard of it?”

Felix was giggling as he returned with a sheathed dagger after only fifteen seconds. 

Seven leaned in towards Hinata while Zuha scrambled around the table. “You answer a question for us.”

Hinata offered a slow blink. “Sure.”

“Why is all of your information confidential?”

She crossed her arms. “Explaining would take away the confidentiality.”

“There has to be some reason why you’re here,” Seven stated. 

“Rich family?” Zuha guessed as she dropped a compass onto the table.

They couldn’t prod any further as Hinata began feeling along the floor and pushing vines aside while the clock read 0:43.

“Now it’s up to you, newbie,” Seven jested.

Zuha rotated herself around to lean against the table. “Our lives lie in your hands.”

“You cruel humans,” Felix sighed and shook his head. 

Hinata placed a gold coin on the stone table. The glowing halted instantly as the numbers on the clock stopped with exactly thirty seconds left.

Yuqi continued to bop her head and passionately mouth lyrics as the door opened to release them back into their regularly scheduled lives.