Page 22 of Flickerstate

I’m in group three, Candace in group two. Dr. Ortega summons the threes to join him at the big room’s south end. As I set off, Candace and I nod to each other. Without speaking, we’ve agreed to scout prospective thirds for our team from whichever other kids pass the screening.

My group forms a circle around Dr. Ortega.

“We’ll start with a pair of duelists,” he says in his quiet, apologetic voice. “The winner will duel until they lose, at which point the new winner will take challengers. Any student with a zero-loss or a one-loss record after ninety minutes will compete in the Archive trials. Afterward, my colleagues and I will rank all qualifying students by their win-loss record, the time it took them to siphon their opponents, and their post-duel card draws. Any volunteers to go first?”

“Me,” I say.

Ever since I lost to Mirabel on the first day of class, my brainhas been whirring. When we manipulate our flickerstate concepts, we manipulate reality. In flickerstate, I’m a fire. How can I make that work for me in a siphoning duel?

I have ideas.

Dr. Ortega clears his throat. “Come stand by me. Anyone else?”

Rob Lesnik, a husky boy with a Southern accent thick as a brick, raises his hand and walks over.

This is it. The real competition. Can I beat Rob? Can I pass the screening?

Suddenly I’m standing at the free throw line, one point down, ten seconds on the clock. I’ve been here before. But in the past, the crowd noise would dim, and the opposing players would fade. The world would scope down to the pebbled orange ball in my hands and the basket in front of me. That focus—it deserts me now. I keep remembering Dad’s legs like sticks under his blankets.

“Ready?” Mr. Ortega asks.

“Yeah,” Rob says.

My mouth is full of sand. I nod.

“Three, two, one—”

I’m partway into flickerstate when Rob starts cutting away my nav. He blooms, a thicket of blades, like the goddamn Iron Throne of Westeros. And to him I must be raw, red flesh, because he’s carving me like a butcher. Metallic liquid drips down my throat, wetting my sandy tongue. I’m wounded, I’m a wound, Dad’s eyes are wounds,Dad, screaming under the swarm—

I’m losing, my fire streaming away. I’m going to lose everything. This duel, the Archive, my dad, mylife—

No. I’m not a wound. I amfire.

Rob wants my nav? Let’s see how he handles it.

I do what I planned to do before Rob’s knives panicked me. I blast him with all my nav at once, an excess, burning.

He shrieks as his blades melt.

I keep blasting until he’s a molten metal pool, formless, beyond resistance.

Then I take what I want.

Futures dance above me. Flush with siphoned power, I see them twice as clear and bright and close as I would on my own. And in every one, I draw cards.Ido.

Back in the real, Rob has fallen to his knees. He’s bitten through his lip. He pats frantically at his mouth.

I turn to Mr. Ortega. His thin, sensitive face has twisted.

“Cards?” I grit out.

He blinks. Then he hands me the deck.

I draw the ace through the queen.

***

I crush three senior transfers—Aria, Peyton, and Austin—and beat four other students I don’t know before stalemating a short, burly guy named Maddox. Dr. Ortega marks the results onto a whiteboard behind him and sends me back into line with a zero-loss record.