The Testing

Cia is distraught and guilty for having snapped at Ryme earlier. She talks to Dr. Barnes, one of the higher-ups, who tells her it wasn’t her fault and that “it is better for the entire Commonwealth population to learn now that she is not capable of dealing with the kinds of pressure she would be forced to deal with in the future” and that “The Testing served its purpose” (94). Cia is chilled by this perspective. They move her to another room where Cia tells them she is fine being alone and acts like it’s a normal night so that those watching her will not see her emotional response as weakness. She spots a camera in the bedroom and realizes someone watched Ryme kill herself and did not intervene.

At breakfast, Cia tells the others what Ryme did. Will says a former Testing official at his school told them there were at least two or three suicides every year. Cia takes a sweet roll with her when she leaves the dining hall. They are told they’ll be called that afternoon to find out if they’ve passed the first round of tests. Cia’s group goes outside to enjoy the grounds while they wait. They find a small pond with a broken fountain in the center. Cia wades into the pool and starts looking at the mechanics to see if she can fix it. Tomas joins her. Cia fixes a loose connection in the motor and they re-install the fountain and turn it on. Cia figures out where her seemingly seamless bracelet opens and manages to unfasten it. She doesn’t tell the others.

Cia is told she has passed the exams. Malachi, Tomas, and Zandri have also passed, as have Will and a few of the others from their friendship group. Gill does not return, which means that Will has to carry on without his brother. For the practical exams, they are divided into groups of six and seated at their own tables with a wooden box. They are told to complete as many tests as they can in the allotted time, that they should raise their hands if they do not know how to finish the test, and that they are not to guess at answers they don’t know. They must first solve the puzzle of opening the box and then follow the instructions within.

Cia quickly opens the box and discovers eight plants and instructions to separate the edible ones from the poisonous ones. She’s familiar with six of them because of her father’s work. The other two she can relate to other plants and sort. The non-edible plants are taken away by the test official after Cia’s work is checked. When everyone has finished, they are instructed to eat part of every plant they decided was non-poisonous.

The next box contains a pulse radio and hand tools. They are instructed to restore the radio to working order. Cia monitors her health and physical condition as she works, planning to vomit if signs of poisoning or toxicity appear had she wrongly identified one of the plants. She quickly finds the crossed wires in the radio and repairs them. She notices a couple of other things that don’t look like they belong in the radio but does not look at them because that is not within the parameters of the test. Next to her, Malachi is unsteady and sweating, likely poisoned by one of the plants he ate. She sees him about to poke at one of the unfamiliar boxes in his radio, but before she can warn him, he touches it, and the box shoots a nail into Malachi’s eye.

Cia races to help Malachi but is held back by a testing official, who tells her she will be disqualified if she leaves her station before completing her test. She tells them she’s finished and they allow her to go to Malachi. He dies as she kneels over him. The officials leave Malachi’s body where it is until after every candidate’s work has been checked.

The next box contains soil samples and several vials of solutions. The candidates are tasked with identifying which soil samples contain radiation. Cia is able to determine four she is sure contain radiation and three she is sure do not, but she leaves the three she’s not sure about, unwilling to guess after seeing what happened to Malachi.

Four more boxes are brought. One contains a keypad used to enter the answers to complex equations. Those who answer wrong are electrocuted by the keypad. Another box asks them to identify slides using a microscope which Cia suspects is rigged to harm them if they get one wrong. Another box requires them to build a solar power converter; Cia builds it easily, but another candidate loses the tip of her finger when she makes an error. The final box contains six samples of water that must be purified and then ingested.

Back in the dining hall, they discover their friend Boyd collapsed and was removed from his testing room. He never returned. Will is unsteady and ill after ingesting the plants. A girl in their group, Nicolette, tells Will he should follow the testing officials to the medical attention they promise. Cia evaluates Will’s symptoms, determines that he’s improving, and tells him not to go to the medical unit. She believes he will be penalized for his weakness. Will is better at breakfast the next morning and tells her that other candidates who sought medical treatment have not returned.

The next test sees the candidates split into groups of five. They are given a booklet with five sample questions to answer. Once they’ve completed the written problems, they will discuss who demonstrated the most skill at each question. The team members will then proceed, one at a time, into a hallway where they will enter the room corresponding with their assigned question. In these rooms they will solve a problem related to the question. Once finished, each will go through the exit door in the hallway, at which point the light will turn green and the team will know to send their next member to solve the next problem. Every member of the team is given credit for all correct solutions. Once a problem has been solved, the door to the room will not open again. If a team member tries to solve a problem that has already been completed, that member will receive a penalty. They are given one hour to solve the practice problems and discuss their strategy.

Cia suspects there is more to this test than they’ve been told. Most of the group have similar answers to the practice problems, except for Roman, who answers only the first question correctly. He says this means he goes first. No one argues with him. Roman goes through the door, at which point the light turns red. It stays red a long time. A girl, Annalise, goes through next. Cia is still suspicious, so she looks at Roman’s workbook and realizes he could easily have solved every problem. She determines he sabotaged the group by going first and solving all of the problems, meaning that when the others attempt to work on their assigned problems, they will receive a penalty. She warns the last remaining group member, Brick, who isn’t sure he believes her. Cia goes through the door and exits without entering any of the problem rooms.

Cia is taken to the dining hall. She sees Roman there, laughing with his friends. He looks angry and surprised when he sees her. Annalise isn’t in the hall. Cia knows she was right about Roman. She tells her friends who tell her they’re proud of her for following her instincts, though they all know there’s a chance she was wrong. Brick arrives in the dining room and Cia worries—Brick had been determined to answer his question. If he did, then Cia was wrong and has possibly just failed this part of the exam. The candidates are told to return to their rooms, where failing candidates will be notified. No one comes to Cia’s room. She has passed.

In the morning, the candidates are told 59 of the original 108 candidates remain in The Testing. The practical exam will begin the next day. They will be taken to a “nonrevitalized” part of the country and left there (134). Their task will be to return to Tosu City: Those who do will pass the last stage will not qualify for the final examination. Cia realizes this means they will be left alone to survive dangerous mutated animals, drifters, pollution, and other potentially deadly obstacles. Each candidate will begin alone but does not have to remain that way. The choices they make on their journeys will be considered in their final examinations. Fences have been erected at varying distances from the route to keep the candidates confined within the testing area. Leaving the area means failure; failure means death.

Tomas says the starting point is Chicago; he and Cia agree to meet there and work together. The candidates are each taken to a storeroom where they are allowed 10 minutes to select three additional items for their journey. Cia finds many of the things she’d already packed: sensible clothing, food, compasses, so on and so forth. She is grateful for her practical packing and her storing away of food from the dining hall. She chooses a water decontamination kit, a handgun with two boxes of ammunition, and a medical kit. Cia changes and Michal takes her on a series of moving walkways for almost an hour.

At lunch, Cia asks if she can eat outside. Michal gets permission and accompanies her. He tells her they are not being recorded but to laugh and act like the conversation is upbeat in case someone is watching from a distance. He gives her sandwiches and tells her The Testing was designed by Dr. Barnes’s father who felt the war happened because the world leaders didn’t have the “correct combination of intelligence, ability to perform under pressure, and strength of leadership to lead us out of confrontations” (143). He tells Cia that some have questioned the penalties associated with Testing and suggested that the Tests are rigged or set up so that “those who are too smart, too strong, and too dedicated are weeded out” (144). Those who criticize The Testing are often sent far away or disappear. Michal gives Cia some water and asks if she is scared. She admits she is and Michael offers some practical advice: The order the candidates return from the upcoming Test does not matter.

Cia becomes woozy and passes out. She awakens in a 6’ x 6’ metal box and realizes the water must have been drugged. There is a countdown clock and a sign in the room that says Testing will begin in 30 minutes. Cia strips the sheet off the bed to take with her, eats some of the provided food, and packs the rest into her bag. When the clock runs out, the door opens.

Cia finds herself in a destroyed city; she sees a sign that used to say Chicago Stock Exchange Building. Chicago had been the third city destroyed in the Fourth Stage of the War. The attack was fast and left no time for evacuation, so most people in the city died. She and Tomas had agreed to meet at the tallest building; in Chicago, that building is Willis Tower. It is one mile from the Art Institute of Chicago, where Cia awakened in her box.

While she waits for Tomas to arrive, Cia explores. She finds another candidate box and realizes she could be trapped in it. When she flees, someone tries to shoot her with a crossbow. She shoots back with her gun and then leaves to head to her and Tomas’s back-up rendezvous point. Cia attempts to cross a mostly demolished bridge. She is attacked again by the person with the crossbow and must run for the other side. There is a gap of five feet between her and the other side; she jumps and only just catches herself on the edge. Her hands slip and she starts to slide down off the road. Hands grab her arms, and she screams.

The hands belong to Tomas, who pulls her to safety. They use the medical kit to treat the abrasions on Cia’s hands and arms. Tomas is surprised she brought a gun but says it was a good choice. He chose a tool kit containing matches, a map book of the United States with detailed maps of their area, and a large knife with a two-foot-long blade and a serrated edge. Cia is surprised to discover that Tomas did not arrange to meet up with any of the others. They trust only each other and cannot agree yet whether they will allow others to travel with them if they encounter them on the road. They camp for the night in a small building whose walls stand but roof has caved in. They discover they walked 18 miles that day.

The next day they use the map and the Transit Communicator to chart their course. Cia finds plants that they can eat, but they also need water. They climb a hill and see a small, green oasis nearby. Cia is convinced it is a trap but Tomas wants to risk it. Cia insists he wait until she can climb another hill. At the top, she sees a small river a bit further. She is relieved—then something explodes nearby.