17
The Draft
“Son of Linus and Lexus au Andromedus, both of the House Apollo.
Would you prefer to mark yourself as requesting House Apollo
preferentiality?” a tedious Aureate administrator asks me.
Goldbrows’ rst loyalty is to Color, then family, then planet, then
House. Most Houses are dominated by one or two powerful families.
On Mars, the Family Augustus, the Family Bellona, and the Family
Arcos inuence all others.
“No,” I reply.
He shues over his datapad. “Very well. How do you believe you
performed on the slangSmarts test? That is the extrapolational test,”
he claries.
“I think my results speak for themselves.”
“You were not paying attention, Darrow. I shall mark that against
you. I’m asking for you to speak for your results.”
“I think I took a gory piss on your test, sir.”
“Ah.” He smiles. “Well, you did. You did. House Minerva for
brains might be right for you. Perhaps Pluto, for the deviousness.
Apollo for the pride. Yes. Hmm. Well, I have a test for you. Please
complete it to the best of your ability. Interviews will commence
when you have nished.”
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The test is quick and it is in the form of an immersion game.
There is a goblet on a hill that I need to acquire. Many obstacles
stand in my way. I pass them as rationally as possible, trying to hide
my anger when a little elf steals a key I acquire. But every step of
the way, there’s some damn setback, some inconvenience. And it is
always unforeseen. It is always something beyond the bound of
extrapolation. In the end, I reach the goblet, but only after killing an
annoying wizard and cruelly enslaving the race of elves by means of
said wizard’s magic wand. I could have left the elves be. But they
annoyed me.
Soon, the interviewers come in intervals. I learn they are called
Proctors. Each one of them is a Peerless Scarred. They are chosen by
the ArchGovernor to teach and represent the students of the House
within the Institute.
All said, the Proctors are impressive. There’s a huge Scarred man
with hair like a lion and a lightning bolt on his collar for Jupiter, a
matronly woman with gentle golden eyes, and a quickwitted man
with winged feet on his collar. He can’t sit still and his baby face
seems immensely fascinated by my hands. He makes me play a
game with him in which he puts out both hands at and facing up
and I put mine atop facing down. He tries slapping my hands, but
never quite manages. He leaves after clapping his hands together in
joy.
Another strange encounter comes when a beautiful man with
coiled hair interviews me. A bow marks his collar. Apollo. He asks
me how attractive I believe myself to be and is displeased when I
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undershoot his estimate. Still, I think he likes me, because he asks
me what I would like to be one day.
“An Imperator of a eet,” I say.
“You could do great things with a eet. But a lofty notion,” he
sighs, accenting every word with a feline purr. “Perhaps too lofty for
your family. Maybe if you had a benefactor of better familial origin.
Yes, maybe then.” He looks at his datapad. “But unlikely due to
your birth. Hm. Best of luck.”
I sit alone for an hour or more till a sullen man comes to join me.
His unfortunate face is pinched like a hatchet, but he has the Scar
and a razor hilt hangs on his hip. His name is Fitchner. A wad of
gum lls his mouth. The uniform he wears is black with gold, and it
nearly conceals the slight belly paunch that sticks outward despite
the faint smell of metabolizers. Like many of the others, he wears
badges about his personage. A golden wolf with two heads decorates
his collar. And a strange hand marks his cu.
“They give me the mad dogs,” he says. “They give me the killers
of our race, the ones full of piss and napalm and vinegar.” He snis
the air. “You smell full of shit.”
I say nothing. He leans against the door and frowns at it as
though it oended him in some way. Then back to me, sning
improperly.
“Problem is, we of House Mars always burn out. Kids rule the
Institute at rst. Then they nd out that napalm lasts about …” He
snaps his ngers. I have no reply. He sighs and plops down in a
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chair. After a while of watching me, he stands and punches me in
the face. “If you punch me back, you will be sent home, Pixie.”
I kick him in the shin.
He limps away, laughing like a drunk Uncle Narol.
I’m not sent home. Instead, I nd myself escorted with one
hundred others into a large room with oatChairs and a large wall
dominated by ivory gridwork. The gridwork forms a checkerboard
square on the wall, ten rows high, ten rows across. I’m taken on a
lift to the middle row, some fty feet o the ground. Ninety-nine
other students are ushered in till each box is lled. This is the prime
crop, the best of the students. I look out from my box, peering up
above me. A girl’s feet dangle out of the box above my head.
Numbers and letters appear in front of my box. My statistics.
Supposedly I am very rash and have upper-outlier characteristics in
intuition and loyalty and, most noticeably, rage.
There are twelve groups in the audience. Each group sits close
together in oatChairs around vertical golden standards. I see an
archer, a lightning bolt, an owl, a wolf with two heads, an upside-
down crown, and a trident, amongst others. One of the Proctors
accompanies each group. They alone do not have their faces
covered. The others wear ceremonial masks, featureless and golden
and slightly like the animals of their Houses. If only I had known
this was going to happen. I might have brought a nuke. These are
the Drafters, the men and women of highest prestige. Praetors and
Imperators and Tribunes and Adjudicators and Governors sit there
watching me, trying to choose the new students for their House,
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trying to nd young men and women they can test and oer
apprenticeships. With one bomb, I could have destroyed the best
and the brightest of their Golden rule. Maybe that’s the rashness
speaking.
The Draft begins when a titan of a genAlt boy is chosen rst to the
House of the lightning bolt. House Jupiter. Then go more girls and
boys of unnatural beauty and physical prowess. I can only guess
they are geniuses as well. The fth pick comes. The babyfaced
interviewer with the winged feet oats up to me on golden boots.
Several of the Drafters of House Mercury oat along with him. They
speak quietly amongst themselves before asking me questions.
“Who are your parents? What are their family’s
accomplishments?”
I tell them about my modest false family. One of them seems to
think highly of a relative of mine who has long since passed away.
But despite the Proctor’s objections, they pass me over for another
student from a family with the ownership of ninety mines and a
stake on one of Mars’s southern continents.
The Mercury Proctor curses and shoots me a quick smile.
“Hope you’re available next round,” he says.
Next goes a delicate girl with a mocking smile. I can barely pay
attention, and, at times, it is dicult to see who else is being
selected. We’re arrayed in an odd way. With the tenth pick, the
Proctor who struck me in the interviews oats my way. There is
disagreement amongst the Drafters. I have two ardent advocates:
one is as tall as Augustus, but her hair ows down to her spine in
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three golden braids. And the second is broader, not very tall. He’s
old. Can tell by the scars and wrinkles on his thick hands. Hands
that bear the signet ring of an Olympic Knight. I know him
immediately even without seeing his face. Lorn au Arcos. The Rage
Knight, the third-greatest man on Mars, who chose to serve the
Society by safeguarding the Society’s Compact, instead of reaching
for crowns in politics. When he points to me, Fitchner grins.
I am chosen tenth. Tenth out of one thousand.
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