Cindy Psi: Spy In Training
Chapter 3: The Aptitude and Preference Exam

Welcome Cindy Ann Parker. Please confirm your student ID number, town and planet of usual residence:

CP: 1142779318. Tenterfield, Oliver County

Thank you. Verifying …

Ready to begin. Question 1: You are in a room with a chimpanzee, and orang-utan, and a benobo ape. Which primate in the room is the smartest?

CP: Hopefully me!

Question 2: What is your favourite colour?

CP: It depends on my mood.

Question 2.1: Please select one.

CP: White.

Question 2.2: Why?

CP: It’s a blank canvas. I can fill it in my imagination with any colour I like.

Question 3: How would you finish this …

Cindy waited a few seconds.

CP: Sentence?

Question 4: What are the final three numbers in this sequence?

8, 18, 4, 14, 6, 16, 10, 12 …

Cindy thought for a moment.

CP: 20, 2, 0.

Question 4.1: Can you explain your reasoning?

CP: It’s the even numbers from zero to twenty arranged in alphabetical order by word.

Question 5: What is the longest river within GCC territories?

Cindy checked her PCD, being careful to get a clear definition of ‘River’ first.

CP: That would be Pisano’s Hydrogen River that links the Milky Way to Cygnus Galaxy.

There followed a series of similar, research based questions with built in tricks such as Ms Primp had prepared them for with her lectures on caution, reading and understanding the question, and looking for the hidden catch. Cindy answered these as best she could and thought she discovered the hidden trick in each one. Some seemed more analytical in nature, others mathematical, others a bit arty – there was a wide spread, and Cindy admired the work that must have gone into constructing it. She thought she could see what it was trying to do, and the knowledge that it had to be rebuilt every galactic year made it even more impressive.

One question, however, stood out from the rest and gave Cindy pause for thought:

Question 37: What is the furthest human-inhabited planet from Galactic Central Point?

Ok, so there were a few obvious catches here – how many people living there would constitute “human-inhabited”? What about varying orbits and things – could it be a changeable answer? But these weren’t the issue. When Cindy started researching this on her PCD there was something indefinably wrong with the results she was getting.

“Hmm,” she thought to herself, “everything seems to be pointing towards it being Hestonville. The profile certainly fits – newly terraformed, one small pioneer settlement, 45,000 light years from the centre … not many even close to that far out … but it doesn’t feel right.”

Cindy checked the time on her PCD. She still had forty minutes and only 13 questions remaining. She could spend another five minutes on it. She loaded an astronomical map of the galaxy up and drew a red circle around Hestonville and another around the Galactic Central Point. She tried drawing a radius with the line tool and traced it around in a circle from the centre. Definitely nothing further out. Searching the Omninet in another window brought back the same sort of replaceings from various encyclopaedia sites. That was it then.

But it wasn’t, and somehow Cindy knew it wasn’t. She put her stylus in between her teeth and mused. She zoomed in to the sector Hestonville was in. Then another sector. Then she took a breath, zoomed out, took in the whole map and tried to clear her mind …

… And a sector about sixty degrees clockwise from Hestonville and five light years further out drew her eye so strongly it felt like a spot of light at the end of a totally dark tunnel you’d been walking down for hours. Almost feeling like she was flying herself toward an otherwise blank space Cindy didn’t even notice she was zooming in. Still nothing, but still the compulsion was there. This made no sense though, she felt at one level; if there was even the smallest planet there it would already be spread out before her taking up half the screen. Still she zoomed.

When she got to the level where you should have been able to make out larger streets if there was a planet there, suddenly, impossibly, there was. She zoomed out one click. Empty space. She zoomed back in one click. A town, land, a planet. How was that possible? Something can’t suddenly appear out of nowhere, can it?

But it had. Staying zoomed in, Cindy started navigating the streets. Plain concrete buildings, nothing discernable. She switched to street view and started ‘walking’ down them in the map app. Again, clearing her mind, she got a sense of which way to go. Down this street, straight at the intersection, left, left again, right and straight for several blocks. Then the buildings stopped and it was just a long straight road and in the distance she saw a mesh fence. Jumping to the fence she saw a gate with a simple sign on it that read “GCCSC Training Facility, Planet Adriá. Gate 1.” But what nearly made Cindy cry out in surprise was the emblem on the sign above the writing.

It was the same crest as the one on the spacesuit that the Cindy from the vision was wearing!

Pulling herself together, Cindy checked her remaining time and found to her dismay she had spent 25 minutes on this. She was confused and intrigued but had to stay focussed – the A&P was too important. She returned to the question.

Question 37: What is the furthest human-inhabited planet from Galactic Central Point?

CP: Adriá

There was a pause and Cindy wondered what was going on. Then the next question appeared on the screen.

Question 38: How is Tess doing in her exam Cindy?

Cindy blinked.

She blinked again.

Question 38.1: Time’s getting short.

CP: I don’t know! How should I know?!?

Question 38.2: Are you sure you don’t know? Think.

Cindy was … well, she was already astounded with all the planet malarkey, and seeing her best friend’s name in an A&P exam question made her more astounded, and there is a limit to how astounded you can be, so let’s just say she continued to be astounded, but even more so. But she was a pragmatic girl, and the clock was still ticking in her mind, and this was, after all, an exam question. So she thought. She glanced over at Tess, and an answer came quickly.

CP: She’s doing well. She’s finished the questions and is reading back over them I think. She feels pretty confident.

Question 39: How are you doing in yours?

CP: Um, until twenty minutes ago I thought I was doing ok. Now everything’s gone a bit weird.

Question 50: Things are going to get weirder. Don’t worry about the result when it comes. Don’t discuss the details of this with anyone. Don’t let Jacinta get to you. Within 24 hours you will know a lot more than you do right now. About everything. Hit submit.

Barely believing she seemed to now be having a dialogue, with her test, Cindy protested:

CP: But I haven’t checked over my answers!

Question 50.1: You did fine. Exceptionally well actually. But remember, don’t worry about the result.

CP: But what’s going on?

Question 50.2: All is well. You have 14 seconds left. Hit submit.

Cindy shook her head. She hit submit. Very shortly afterwards, the room came to life as only exam rooms can when the big test is finished, and then surged again as people were either elated or dismayed as their results came through. Cindy tried to get her head together so she could join in the general hubbub. Thankfully Tess was still sitting grinning at the now blank screen in front of her and the PCD in her hand.

Applying a bit of discipline Cindy filed recent events in the part of her mind tagged “To Be Dealt With Later” and turned to Tess, saying “How was that? Not as bad as I thought, what do you reckon?”

As it turned out, this had been anything but an ordinary Tuesday. And it was far from over.