Image by Masoud Mostafaei from Pixabay

Anya listened to the sound of the environmentals as she tried to fall asleep. She was too nervous. Her big interview was tomorrow and if she failed it would mean another five years at the bottom of the hierarchy in her company’s employee pool. She’d already been there a decade, having failed the last interview. She wasn’t sure if she could handle failing again.

She got up and pulled on her clothes. She was twenty five and she was already being looked at oddly because she wasn’t being showcased in the marriage pool. A woman of breeding age as she was should already be there. She should have been there five years ago. But you couldn’t join the pool if you didn’t have at least a tier two job, and she was still stuck at tier one.

Anya let herself out of her tiny apartment that she shared with her seventeen year old cousin and made her way outside. She crossed the busy street and walked over to the park. Her brown curls collected tiny petals and bits of grass as she laid down beneath a tree.

She saw she wasn’t the only one taking a moment to seek solace in nature. Several other young men and women were trying to find a moment of calm before their employment test the next day as well. Most of them looked to be twenty, and taking their first test. She knew some would pass and some would fail as she had. It happened. What mattered, as it did for her, was that they didn’t fail their second test.

Failing your second test put you on the euthanasia block. If you couldn’t pass your second test, you were considered a failure in society and as thin as resources were, failures were not tolerated. Anya felt a shiver of fear run down her spine. Very few people were given a third chance. Those who failed a second time were usually dead within a year, killed by the government to make way for more productive members of the dwindling population.

“First test or second?” a young man asked, coming over to lie down beside her. “I’m on my second.”

“Same,” Anya said.

“I only failed by one question on the first, so I think I can pass this time,” he said. “You?”

“I failed by three,” Anya said. “I’m confident I can pass this time. I just can’t sleep because of anxiety.”

“Same,” he said. “I wasn’t this scared of the first test.”

“This one is life or death for us,” Anya said. “Quite literally.”

“Too true,” the young man said. “I was reading this evening an old history book. Did you know we once went to the stars? We even sent ships out to settle on other planets. No one knows what happened to them though.”

“Really?” Anya asked. “I wonder if any of them survived.”

“Same here,” the young man said. “I’m Ryland, tier one tech support.”

“Anya, tier one clerical support,” Anya said.

“I wish you luck tomorrow, Anya,” Ryland said.

“You too, Ryland,” Anya said. He touched her hand in sympathy for the same fear they both shared, and then got up and wandered away. Anya let her mind drift to those ships that had left orbit so long ago and wondered idly if they too had adopted Earth’s strict policies. After a while, she began to feel tired. She got up and returned to her apartment. It did no good to think about long lost ships and other planets. She needed sleep, and she needed to pass the test.