Chapter 3: Adulthood

At exactly 3 AM the hissing stopped and I heard my bedroom door unsealing. A moment later the lock clicked and a woman entered carrying adult clothes for me. I couldn't tell what she looked like of course. She was encased in a full burqa. Purdah (the curtain law) forbids any part of a woman's body to be visible in public. I thought she might be one of the wives of the monastery's priests. It was the first female I had seen in thirteen years.

I got dressed quickly. My shirt had insignia on both arms, showing a bright green circle (the symbol for Citizen Level Two), and underneath that the insignia of the Security Guild. There was also a small card telling me where to report to my Guild's representative for my debriefing.

All males are required to display their Citizen Level when in public. There are color codes for the different levels. Blue is for children (Level One). Green is the base color for labor (Levels Two and Three), and like Level One uses a circular emblem. Yellow is the base color for management (Levels Four through Seven) and uses a triangular emblem. Red is the base color for command (Levels Eight through Fifteen) and uses a diamond shaped emblem.

At the very top is purple for both Royalty (Levels Sixteen through Twenty-Three) and Ruling Royalty (Levels Twenty-Four through Thirty-One). Royalty uses a square emblem, except for the Cunif Carifar who wears a pentagon bearing all five colors, signifying his role as the representative of all people to the Holy.

My bedroom had been my small place of refuge for the last thirteen years. I took one quick last look around and then left.

The hall was busy with the new adults heading off to their own meetings. Within the coming hours and days, we would all be traveling to the home cities of our various Guilds. Mixed with the feelings of joyful relief and excitement was an air of nostalgia. After two decades of very close living, most of us would not see each other again for years. Or never. I grimaced when I saw Afeef's door had not unsealed.

The door was open to my interview room. I saluted the superior there from my Guild, a CL-12, his diamond emblem red at the bottom half and yellow at the top. I was pleased someone of such high rank had been sent to debrief me. The man snapped a sharp salute back, and then signaled me to close the door and sit down.

He went back to reviewing his monitor while I waited. I couldn't see his screen, but I guessed he was reviewing my test scores. Finally he sighed and looked up at me. "I'm Commander Fadil. Welcome to Security! Before we begin the debriefing, is there anything you'd like to know?"

"Yes, thank you sir. The testing, how did we do?"

"You mean Anqara?"

"Well, that would be interesting too, but I meant Ghazi and Hakem." I was referring to two CL-23 Royal priests who were both taking their advancement tests this year. Both had entered Royalty through the Security Guild.

Fadil raised his eyebrows and then smiled in approval at me. "That's the right attitude Ilias! And the answer is the Guild did extremely well! As of today, we have twenty-six Royalty from Security, including two at the ruling level." He then shot me a sly grin. "Can you guess who was promoted?"

I weighed my answer before I replied, "Ghazi sir, I'm almost sure."

The Commander blinked. "Correct! Judging from your test essays, I thought you might pick Hakem."

I nodded. "With all respect sir, I had to document my essays with references to official capital news. There was nothing from Bandar Arenas to suggest Ghazi, nothing that I had access to anyway, and putting unsupportable hunches into my essays would be, well..." I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.

Fadil gave me a long, thoughtful stare. "Indeed. I'm beginning to see why the Guild is so excited about you." He finished up with his monitor and then looked at me. "Let's begin the debriefing. Your combat scores, do you think they were fair?"

"The three minors?" I paused for a moment. "Yes sir, the demerits were fair."

"In total, I think so too. Maybe not the last demerit itself, your combination roundhouse spin kick was a thing of beauty. But in your eighth match, you pulled a knife-hand strike to the throat so early the blow wasn't scored, and the judge let that one go."

I nodded. "I agree sir."

"But your third match, the one with Afeef, what was up with that?"

"Ah..." I thought for a moment and decided to be completely honest. "A friend sir, since early childhood. I suspected he was low in the rankings."

Fadil typed on his monitor for a moment. "Fourth percentile, not even close. You should have known you had no chance of pushing him above the cutoff."

I was properly chastised. "Yes sir, agreed."

Fadil looked at me. "Ilias, your defensive skills are world class. Seriously, if defense were everything, you could compete in the world competitions right now. You're that good. And nobody is ignoring the fact you were the only Anqara Initiate who did not suffer a single solid hit during the sparring. But you have to work on your aggression!"

"Yes sir!"

He shook his head in disbelief. "Your ninth opponent, Uday, you took him down in less than five seconds."

I smiled at the memory. "I had no choice. His punches are lightning! He could well have taken me in a longer fight." I have a reputation for being a careful fighter, and I had used my reputation as a weapon against a superior opponent. Uday was so surprised by my wild combination attack that I scored a quick takedown.

Fadil finally understood my strategy for the competition. "Interesting," he mumbled as he went back to reviewing the test scores. "You'll be happy to know you're the top rated Initiate from Anqara. And Anqara made their 8% again, which means you're among the top scorers in the world, out of 78,044 survivors to adulthood. You're definitely in the top 1%. Security will be very interested in your decision about booking the run."

To understand Fadil's comments, I'll have to explain how promotional gates work.

Worldwide, across the 120 townships and the capital, 90% of the Initiates survive the final childhood gate. It's a worldwide ranking, but the competition between townships is also capped by a minimum monastery culling of 8% and a maximum of 12%. Anqara has a reputation of having one of the toughest monasteries on the planet, and it is one of a handful of townships that consistently hits the lower cutoff.

Adult gates are designed differently than the childhood gates. There is no culling for failure, at least not directly. The name for Citizen Level Two is Lower Labor. Under usual circumstances, I would take my tests to advance to Level Three (Upper Labor) in two years, on the First Day of Judgment in 8237. Test success is based on ranking. The top 20% of the applicants will advance to Level Three (which has an emblem of a green lower hemisphere and an upper blue), and 80% will remain at Level Two.