Poor Man's Fight Read Free Page A

longer he looked at his breathless fellow senior, the more Nathan realized how out of sorts Tanner really was. “You look like shit,” he declared. “What happened?”
    Tanner didn’t answer right away, still breathing hard as he wiped the sweat from his face. He straightened up to re-tie his sweaty brown ponytail when he made another frightful discovery. “Oh God, the line’s moving. I’m fucked.”
    Indeed, gaps opened in the line as bored, distracted and nervous students noticed in small groups that the three-story building’s doors opened once more. Some dressed in body-length micro-smartweave clothes that regulated their temperature and moisture. Others embraced the blazing sun and arid breeze with little clothing and generous applications of protective skin treatments. The wealthier ones, like Nathan, underwent expensive melanin adjustments to address that problem.
    Tanner could afford no such options. Normally he dressed in loose, light clothes and used a lot of cheap but effective sunscreen. Today he didn’t even have that much. He wore track shorts that needed to be washed, the first loose shirt he could find, and an awful lot of his own sweat.
    “How the hell did you of all people wind up fifty minutes late to The Test?” asked Nathan.
    “I couldn’t sleep,” explained Tanner, “and then I kept looking at the clock thinking about how much sleep I was missing, and the more I stressed about that the harder it was to sleep, so finally I threw a pillow over the clock. When it went off I was so out of it I didn’t even recognize the alarm.” Tanner caught his reflection in a window. He had the deep tan common in the city of Geronimo, but even so he was in for a sunburn.
    “Well, you can calm down now,” shrugged Nathan. “You’ve made it. Look, you lost time, but worrying about it now won’t do you any good. Just write it off.”
    “I’m not ready for this at all,” groaned Tanner.
    “Oh bullshit. You tutored me. You tutored half the class. You haven’t gotten a bad grade on a test since Mrs. Berry when we were little kids, and that was just ‘cause she hated you for always correcting her when she was wrong.”
    “I didn’t tutor half the class.”
    “Hey!” Nathan called out to the seniors in line ahead of him. “How many of you have had Tanner help you in school?”
    Heads turned. Hands went up all along the line, which included students from more than one school. Nathan turned back to look at Tanner in triumph. “Come on. Don’t worry about this. You’re practically the valedictorian.”
    “ Heather Verde’s the valedictorian.”
    “Yeah, and poor Heather’s always a bundle of nerves like you are now. She threw up all over the podium at her senior thesis defense panel. Don’t be Heather. Settle down and let go of the stress or it’ll just get worse.”
    Tanner scowled. “How is telling me that supposed to make me feel any better?”
    The line moved steadily. Tanner’s shoulders sagged. He felt like beating his head against the nearest wall. He had hardly slept. He hadn’t eaten or showered, let alone taken any time to collect his thoughts. Before him loomed The Test, or as the illuminated window over the door read, The Union Academic Investment Evaluation.
    His stomach turned. His legs, weak though they were, carried him toward the inevitable.
    A pair of test proctors guarded the door, checking the identities of the arriving students on holographic screens projected by computers on their wrists. Tanner couldn’t hear the process until the moment was on him. Nathan turned to check in with the proctor on the right. The woman on the left looked at Tanner expectantly.
    “Name?” she said, her face set in obvious disapproval. Clearly, she knew an unprepared student when she saw one. She stood straight, her businesslike clothing and calm, mature demeanor contrasting against the sweat-drenched boy before her.
    “Tanner Malone,” he sighed. The woman’s holocom beeped. Tanner