Chapter 77: The Obstacle Course

Gone was the city recreation with foam buildings, replaced by a thirty-lane downhill track that led to a cluster of towering poles, each about fifty feet tall, and covered in a thick net. The net was under constant tension, fastened to the ground away from the poles.

"Attention candidates," a loud, monotone voice sounded from hidden speakers. "This is the obstacle course, designed to test the pinnacle of your abilities. Your primary goal is to finish the race to be awarded points. The first ten to cross the line are awarded the full points worth 7%. The rest of the candidates who finish are awarded 4%. Failure to cross the line constitutes no points awarded. Please proceed to your starting lanes."

As they shuffled around, trying to find the lane with their name displayed, the voice continued to explain the course lying ahead. It was all too much information to handle. Thankfully, she found her lane early on and was able to take deep, calming breaths. Soon, the movements died down around her, murmurs tapering off into silence. To her left, Raquel Vicente jugged in place, her legs already a blur.

The speedster nodded at her when they both locked eyes. "Good race."

"Good race to you, too." She crouched into a tense form, ready to explode into action, while rolling her eyes at what was to come as soon as they were set loose. The other superhuman on the other side of Vicente covered his ears, preparing himself for the inevitable.

A loud bang roared, setting them loose. Immediately, the air cracked with a thunderous intensity as Vicente zoomed down the track.

"Jesus!" he complained, wincing at the sound.

Ella chuckled, darting down the track ahead of the pack. To her right, Kylara floated into the air, accelerating past everyone to put herself in second place. Further back, Sasha lagged behind, but she did so with a smile on her face.

As Ella drew closer to the fifty-foot net climb, she found herself racing Luc Moreau neck and neck. They both arrived at the net simultaneously, but Moreau leaped into the air, caught hold of the net, and skillfully climbed up the thick threads with remarkable speed and agility. Upon reaching the peak, she met a swarm of buzzing insect robots, each the size of a house cat. From their mosquito-like orifices, the insects discharged globs of sticky liquid at them. Moreau, bearing the initial brunt of their attacks, effortlessly slipped past their discharges and tumbled downward in a controlled manner.

As the sole target advanced, all the robots descended on her, spitting their sticky substance. Forced to act without thinking, she leaped into the air and landed on an insect. Then she used their scattered formation as stepping stones to descend.

"Holy shit!" She gasped, skipping on the insect robots. "It's actually working."

She ran out of insects to step on, but that hardly mattered as she dove back into the net below, leaving them to harass the other superhumans.

"Yahoo!" Sasha, shouting beside her, had somehow caught up, free-falling with a vibrant, pink energy arm that stretched from her own arm to the top of a pole. "That's how you fucking do it. Oh! Hi, Ella!"

"Hi!" she called back, then looked downward to focus on her landing.

As she hit the ground, Moreau already had a sizable lead, while Sasha fell behind again as she picked up the pace. If she had to guess, Vicente had already won the race. Kylara was far ahead in second, while she battled Moreau for third. As long as she finished in the top ten, she would get the full marks. But there was the ranking index to contend with and her competitive spirit burned hot.

Assuming she listened carefully to the announcer, the next segment would feature the lightning whips. The wall ahead, lined with about ten doorways with equal spacing, hid the coming obstacle. Slowing down, she inched past one doorway, which revealed a narrow room fitted with spinning pillars. Whips on every pillar crackled with twisted beams of light at various heights, accompanied by a droning crackle. The goal was straightforward—cross the room without being electrocuted.

Her eyes darted around, assessing the position of each spinning whip, as she propelled herself forward, effortlessly jumping over the first one and ducking under the second. With each passing moment, she became more confident as she realized how easy it was, her speed increasing. However, halfway through the room, that overconfidence was shocked out of her when the arm holding a whip swung downward and swiped her across the back. Failing to evade the whips stung more than the pain, but she pushed on, albeit at a slower pace.

Past the next door, she found herself in a wide room with hundreds of ropes hanging from the ceiling. A ditch, fifty feet deep, served as the floor. She just barely glimpsed the murky pool below, intended to break the fall of any unlucky superhuman who lost their grip. Up ahead, Moreau had already eclipsed the halfway point, swinging with a dexterity that astonished her.

He is using his feet for chrissake.

She leaped over the ledge and snatched a rope. It felt abrasive to her touch, counteracting her sweaty hands. As she tried to match Moreau's pace, struggling and nearly losing her grip, something occurred to her. That something was so significant that she smacked her face with a slap that cracked the air, marveling at her pure stupidity.

"So dumb, Ella," she said, swinging on a rope, stationary. "As dumb as a bag of rocks. Literally. You just had to miss the plain obvious, didn't you? Oh, I hope my children don't inherit my intellect. There are already enough dumb people in this world."

Then she let go of the rope and plummeted. Mind calm in her descent, she willed herself to be shaped into something fast and nimble. A bird came to mind, and she was excited to try it out. Her body pulled into itself, a golden glow filling her with warmth. Her arms changed into long, saber-shaped wings, her body narrowing into a barrel-like, streamlined form with predominantly gray-brown plumage and white patches. Out of the hole launched the fastest bird in the world in level flight, the white-throated needletail.

As Moreau reached the last stretch of his dexterous swinging, she whipped by him, her beating wings a blur that slapped the air with bass thumps. She flew past the exit door, then steadied her wings to glide, slowing her down as she assessed the new environment.

It was a short hallway that led into a steep vertical shaft, its walls lined with handrails, handholds of various sizes, and pockets of spaces for climbing. As the white-throated needletail, she ascended the shaft and found herself in a small room with another lone doorway. However, this one had a blue sheen to it, with a swirling mass behind. It was as if a force-field held back a large body of water.

She assumed her humanoid form once again with her fluffy afro hair and edged closer to the doorway. When she reached, she stretched out her hand to confirm the situation. The blue film, so thin, felt negligible, overpowered by the pressure of the water it somehow held behind.

She took a nervous gulp, then mentally prepared herself. If it were a year ago, she would have been scared stiff. But that had been the time when she was just human and fragile. With a confident determination, she backtracked a step, then launched herself forward into the foray.

The water's pressure pounded on her, which confirmed that the pool was deep. Thin shafts of light barely made it to where she swam. Her feet resting on the floor, she curled her legs and sprung upward. Her journey up, though fast because of her enhanced physiology, still took a minute. Needless to say, the entire experience felt relaxing due to her lack of reliance on oxygen.

Unfortunately, when she pierced through the surface of the water to find herself in a small pocket of air, a heavy hatch above still halted her advance. She cursed. Of course, simply swimming up wasn't enough to pass this stage. There was something she had to do below. An intrusive thought sprang to mind, urging her to punch through the hatch. However, she knew better than to attempt something that could negatively impact her score.

Ultimately, she dove back into the water. Clearly at an advantage compared to most other superhumans partaking in the course because of her inherent physiology, she still wanted something suitable for her current predicament. With that in mind, she shaped herself again. This time, she grew in mass, almost quadrupling. Her skin became a sleek blue, her limbs shrinking and receding into the streamlined body of a bottlenose dolphin, complete with horizontal flukes and an elongated snout lined with small inward curved teeth.

Her initial idea was to change into a shark and map her surroundings with electroreception. Then she remembered that it worked by sensing the change in electric fields animals caused by the small charges they emitted, and was woefully ineffective at sensing inanimate objects. So a dolphin became the straightforward choice.

She emitted a series of reverberating clicks that rippled through the water, bounced off all surfaces in the deep pool, and made their way back to her, bringing an explosion of new information. Soon, every nook and cranny of the pool became known to her, and she understood what to do without moving much. Halfway down a wall was a rectangular recess, the only of its kind in the pool. Further down, resting at the bottom of the pool at its corners, were loose groupings of stones.

First, she climbed again, emptying her lungs off the waste air through her blowhole after she broke the water surface. Once she inhaled a sufficient amount of air, she descended again, noting that she gained the strengths of any animal she changed into, as well as their weaknesses. After all, she had gained a need for oxygen.

Her movements swift and efficient, she descended to the floor and used her snout to sift through the stones. Soon she found what she was looking for—a flat slab of stone shaped like an irregular rectangle. Deftly grabbing it with her mouth, she ascended to the rectangular recession and placed it inside, not bothering to solve the puzzle yet. Then she made about four more trips, returning each time with a different shaped flat stone, the smallest being a perfect square dwarfed by its brethren.

Next, she changed back, preferring her fingers and opposable thumbs to the snout of a dolphin for the task ahead. Also, her ability to survive indefinitely in the water in her humanoid form was an added benefit she welcomed.

She placed the puzzle pieces as best she could, saving the small square for last. That turned out to be the wrong technique because there was no space left for the square afterward. She racked her brain. The only spaces in the puzzle left were at the edges, too small for the square. Additionally, the large pieces did not sit flush within the boundary rectangle.

Oh.

She slapped her head for the second time, then reshuffled the pieces, making sure that each was perfectly aligned with the boundary. Only when she followed this principle did she create enough space at the center of the puzzle for the small square to fit.

Hydraulics hummed and whined, a loud series of clicks reverberating. She resurfaced to find the hatch open. Relieved but mentally exhausted, she climbed out using handrails. To her elation, the sole hallway led to a wide doorway under a large glowing sign that spotted the phrase—Finish line.