M Y eyes were literally bloodshot.

The nightmares and dreams of yesterday were like actual visions. I think of my sleep as depth levels; my consciousness never goes beyond the shallows. I stir from the softest of chirps, go back to sleep, and then wake up - startled - short afterward for the same reason.

And on and on and on this spiral of a life goes...

And that particular dream. That dream of the hills and the ocean and... and Lara.

My dad drives me to the Analytic building. He looks like he's had a bad night himself. The poor guy was probably worried sick about me. I try to not dwell on the thought too much. I should be glad, not guilty, that he cares for me.

Dad parks our Ford in the parking lot. I look out at the building for the first time as I get out of the vehicle.

The place is huge. It kind of resembles the exterior of a mall, but it has a science-y vibe about it. I know that because I'm an architecture enthusiast. In each corner of the building stood tall, graceful columns that lacked the usual Greek flair of government-owned edifices. In the center of the whole structure, a semi-sphere made of translucent crystal is sectioned off the prism.

The building is a Seer's crystal ball.

We walk down the walkway that leads to the front gates. People are waiting outside. Teenagers my age are registering their names at a cabin to the side. A question pops into my head, and I turn to face my father, whose tired face is beaded with sweat.

"How do they know whether someone has shown up or not?"

My dad glances at me briefly through his half-rimmed glasses before replying. "I'm not sure. I guess they somehow have a record of who turns 16 through census and similar materials. If someone isn't stricken out of a list, specialized authorities probably dig around for them."

I ask, "And what if someone's really good at making themselves disappear?"

"Well," my father says, looking me fully in the face, "in that case, I'd say technology would be losing the battle. If the authorities are not smart enough to keep a physical, tangible copy of data, then someone skilled enough can wipe clean whatever they don't seem to like."

I shiver at the thought. We walk past the benches and stand in line for registration.

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My dad and I are lead among others as the eighth group out of twenty groups into one of the instructions rooms, where they'd give us a synopsis of the machine, how it works, and related topics.

The eighth instructions room is vast- with elegant tiles and austere decor. It holds a huge meeting table in the middle, with about 200 Georgian chairs on either sides of the table.

As soon as my feet land on the polished ceramic floor, a flash of brightness catches my eyes. Aligning the left wall of the cream-colored hall are about two dozen electronic tablets that hold a bunch of photographs with margin scribbles.

Everyone around me was already making their way toward the left wall, forming clumps around the tablets. I walk the length of the wall to discover the content of these tablets.

The first tablet has the picture of what looks like a canary cage-resembling complex apparatus with golden bars and a CT scanner in its center. To me, it resembled a torture prison for uncooperative captives. On either margins of the 3D structure, a bunch of critics graded the machine. One particular long paragraph read: 'This machine is not an epitomal conclusion fit for what our children are going to be facing. The new generation of early-matured veterans should have the highest level of knowledge and should gain as much experience as they can from the simulation encrypted in the machine. Therefore, I do not support the execution of this particular design.'

A bunch of other reviews threw harsh descriptions at the engineer, and my eyes skimmed through words of shame like 'incompatible', 'not going to work even if it was powered by the sun itself', and something as scathing as 'could only work on chimps'.

I cringe at the critics lack of clemency and move on to the next tablet.

It's a sketch of some machine as well. It, however, looks less like a torture cage and more like a spaceship. Like it might take off any second and fly to a universe far, far away. I decide to not bother with the reviews.

My eyes briefly race through the next few tablets in a haze. They're all, like the first two, sketches and virtual 3D plans of apparatuses. I then begin to conceive a pattern from all the tablets. They are all models of the Techno Seer. Rejected models, apparently: a red bulb blares atop each screen. In addition, on the bottom left of each model, the name of the designer marks the screen. Name after name. All spurned projects of dejected engineers. At least they got to be displayed in here, in appreciation to the engineers' efforts, I guess.

And then the last two tablets catch my attention, primarily because that's where most One-Sixers, as well as their parents, are, and secondarily because the second before the last tablet was crowned with a blue bulb instead of red.

I approach the blue-bulb and study the tablet below. It is the prettiest design yet, polished in muted black. it looks like a fortuneteller's crystal ball, except it wasn't glowing at all; rather, it was dark and fierce. I note the name of the engineer for research purposes: S. Mund.

But when my eyes lie on the last tablet, I stop short.

The last tablet, the one with the green bulb, the infamous Techno Seer itself, is a solid replica of the one with the blue bulb atop its head - except for its color, which was gold instead of the muted midnight black of the former plam. This one gives off a radiant glow, as though it was the sun itself. It's a little different from the former, but it's obvious that either of the engineers stole the other's. I read the Techno Seer engineer's name: B. Nard.

Questions already start formulating in my head. What's with the blue light? Why didn't the second to last model just get crowned in a red bulb instead of blue, like the rest of its fellow rejected designs? Is it semi-rejected or something? And then the question that really was bubbling to the surface: what's with the identical overall structure of the last two? I hope the instructor would start his blabber by clarifying the clutter.

As if on cue, a man in his mid-forties enters, his long white lab coat swishing in response to his propagation. The room falls silent as a group of officers in combat uniform file into the room and parallel to the walls, taking a protective stance close to the scientist-looking man.

"Everyone. Please take a seat. But first, escorts, please be seated on the second half of the room, which you'll find marked by a partition in the middle. Kindly, if there's more than one escort, one is enough to proceed with each test-taker."

Murmurs pass between everyone, and then silently, the excess members leave the room. When the door finally shuts, everyone takes a seat, I spot my father at the escorts section of the room, and he gives me a small smile when he catches me staring. I try to give him one in return. I hope my nerves hadn't shown through my plastered smile.

"Welcome. Thank you for waiting. I'm Dr. Lark, and I'll be your instructor for the third month of the Techno Seer Project. Right now, I'm going to provide you with a booklet that explains everything about the Techno Seer. I recommend you to listen carefully and then ask questions later. Alright. Let's start."

A few officers hand out the booklets on the One-sixers and the escorts. I thread through the one I receive as the instructor, Dr. Lark, carries on.

"As you all well know, we always want the best for those who'll carry our legacies to the new generations. And that's why this project was founded. At first, it was going to be obliged on all of the American states, but it was down to New York for a 6-months trial period. If the procedure yielded success by June, it'll be applied to the rest of the year, and then starting the following year, it'll be mandatory for all the states. And maybe the world will learn from us and apply this system as well.

"Let me start talking about the procedures and how we managed to make this happen. Thanks to our engineers-"

I raise my eyes to Dr. Lark at this.

"-and mechanics, we built our Techno Seer and, fortunately, the two trials before were successful. As you all probably witnessed, our machine, the one displayed at the end of the room, was the one the corporate saw suitable and most beneficial to our future and what's beyond. Our designer, who chooses to go by the name B. Nard, is to be thanked for the brilliant blueprint of our current Techno Seer. Besides, of course, our brilliant engineers and their mechanical team, Fernando Sánchez, Lena MacKenzie, Barry West,-"

I zone out. I am disappointed for not getting my questions answered. Maybe the booklet has something useful. I start rummaging through the pages when something the instructor says grabs my attention once more.

"- the wiring and the flesh inside. The test-takers are to take a written test first. It doesn't have to do with the academic level of the individual, but rather the daily routines and lifestyles of our 16-years-olds. Next, each test-taker will be taken up to the Techno Seer, where they'll get injected with an immunizer that'll let their bodies react neutrally to the machine's scans and whatnot. Simultaneously, their written tests will be scanned by the machine, which then will print out the Fate result. The Fate result will be different for each and every individual. A rumor has circulated around that everyone gets a prophecy. Actually, the verse structure of each Fate differs according to, well, what the machine wants.

"The written test will take about half an hour, and then each person will be chosen according to their last name's alphabetical order. The encounter time with the Techno Seer should take 5-15 minutes. Time doesn't indicate anything, really, so how short or how long it takes doesn't affect your result in any way.

"And finally, the test-takers will be escorted to the testing hall without their guardians. The rest of the test-takers in the other groups are being instructed as you are right now. Everyone will take their tests in the testing hall, and then individually everyone will take their actual Fate test in turn. Until then, all test-takers will be free to roam around the waiting room, until their name is called. That's all. Good luck to everyone. Now, we have 10 minutes to receive questions."

That's when the room exploded in a cacophony of discordant voices. Everyone starts talking at once, forming one massive glob of interfering words. The instructor tries silencing everyone, but he didn't go further than his droned "please, take turns asking questions".

If I didn't know better, I'd say he's deliberately not trying to make an effort to pacify the noisy crowd.

When the 10 minutes were up without anyone getting their answers, officers started piling into the room. They now usher us to the testing hall to take our written tests. My heart bursts in my chest as everyone stands and the crowd starts standing in an ordered formation, preparing to leave the room.

The testing hall is almost ten times the size of the instructions room. People from other groups were already seated in rows upon rows of double desks. I look behind me, where my father is standing in the hallway. I wave at him hurriedly before the heap of people would encase him away from my vision. I sigh and look for an empty desk. Unfortunately, in a blur, everyone has already chosen a desk beside someone they know and only a few desks were left. Whenever I try to sit beside someone, they claim that the seat is taken.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

And then I find someone I recognize from my school. The seat beside his is empty, so I race toward it. I plump on the seat before he could object with some nonsense like: "Oh, I'm sorry. That non-existent guy over there is supposed to sit here. Find yourself another desk". Unfortunately to my luck, in my rush, my fat thighs bumped into the plastic surface of the seat, producing a fart-like sound.

I close my eyes for a second in embarrassment. Oh, Lord please please please bury me deep and end my life this second.

"That wasn't me, I swear," I mumble to the guy beside me, who is smiling in amusement.

"Not having the best day, huh?" He glances at me with his green eyes, I shake my head with a sheepish smile. "I guess not." I hope I'm not blushing.

A man in a navy suit approaches us both with a smile. He hands us both a booklet: the written test.

I open the first page. It all consisted of questions about stuff like the number of siblings, weight in pounds, and the number of living parents.

And then there's this question that made me double check whether my eyes are not playing tricks on me. It went:

Please fill in the gaps below regarding your routines and characteristics as accurately as possible:

My brassiere's size is _________________

My face heats up. I glance at the guy beside me, who had a distressed look on his face. I whisper, "Hey, what does number 11 say in your sheet?"

He meets my stare with an uncertain look on his face. "Ah-eh. It's a guys thing."

"Oh, ok. Just checking." I release a breath. I hunch over and just write 36A.

When time goes up, I submit my sheets to the head of the testing hall. Before I walk out, the guy who sat beside me grabs my wrist gently to stop me.

"Hey, um, you forgot your instructions booklet." he says, handing me the booklet I took earlier in the instructions room.

"Oh," I meet his stare, smiling in gratitude. "Thanks." I take the booklet and let the crowd carry me to the waiting room.

I choose a vacant seat by the waiting room's cafeteria. My dad is probably somewhere in the room, but I didn't want him to witness me breaking down in public, so I silenced my phone and massaged by dhaking hands as I awaited my doom. I drink my homemade mallow smoothie in charged silence.

"Aaron, Lyra. Please proceed to the Techno Seer to take your Fate test." A magnified voice booms through the room, causing the whole room to bask in restless energy. Momrnts later, a girl with more piercings than I could count strolls toward the iron gates at the opposite side of the room. A guard accompanies her inside and then closes the bars, their reverberating sound shaking the room into an unnerving air.

The crowd waits in anticipation as the seconds tick by. A few minutes later, the black-haired girl comes out of the room and past the gates, shuffling slowly, shakily, clutching a piece of paper in her trembling hand. She leaves at once, and another name is immediately called.

Name after name, fate after fate coming into life, and I keep on seeing the stricken expressions of each One-sixer. Is this what the corporate wanted, letting people - no, teenagers - go through all of this? Not everyone endures such thing like the other. For all they know, someone might get a heart attack from the shock or something.

"Anderson, Moira. Please proceed to the Techno Seer to take your Fate test."

My heart leaps to my throat, and I feel the sweat on my wrist at once. Slowly, I stand, hoping beyond hope that no one would stare, that I won't find pity etched through every face I catch staring. I catch my dad's dark eyes from across the room. He raises his hand in thumbs-up. Knowing him, he could've came to my side at once. But it's probably for the best if he let me do this on my own. I saunter toward the haunting iron gates, not feeling my feet as they carry me to my doom.

I pray that I survive it all with one ounce of sanity.

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Hey guys! What do you think of the story so far? Please drop in some feedback if ya up for it ^_^

Love,
Freude and Luna ♪