Page 74 of Light Leech

The veil dissipated and the crowd pressed forward with screams and shouts. Had I not been pressed against bodies in every direction, the force from behind would have knocked me over. I felt like I was in a rally against Pavtov back in Medislavia. I thought we had it bad back then. How was it now? How was Arabasia since the Republic failed to take their Essence? The world’s powers contested on the outside, yet none of their corporate schemes mattered under the threat of the fetal god. How foolish they were to believe that lumens bought worth. They couldn’t even buy wisdom. Seeing these people around us, I knew there were many who had reached this point through manipulation and greed, nothing more.

I was no moral paragon, but I felt that I deserved to win.

But this was a competition of intellect, wisdom, and knowledge. Morals had nothing to do with it. If it was anything like the world out there, the victors would be those who were willing to deceive. I was willing to sacrifice my moral ground there, but I still lacked intellectual prowess. I was no genius. I never had been, even as a social media politician. That was the luck of the algorithm.

I hoped luck had its worth here.

“Pace yourself here just as you would in any other race.”

Even without luck, I had Zhu.

Ralia pulled my arm as space opened before us.

And I had her. She was worth more than any degree or fabricated certification any of these people had.

The shouting ceased as everyone joined the race. Focus prompted silence.

There was no panting. No sound of feet hitting ground. Only silence, and the occasional quiet word.

I felt that same fatigue from the stairs settle in. This was not as harsh as that climb, yet the onset of cognitive lethargy was creeping in. The difference between sprinting and jogging ahead made sense. All I had to do was remain steady. I didn’t need to win or come close to it. All we needed was to finish in the top seventy five.

Plenty of competitors around us seemed to have forgotten that as they sprinted by us. Ralia nodded as I glanced at her, keeping our steady pace.

I tried to access my neurospace to message her and tell her to conserve breath.

No. That didn’t work. I was in my neurospace and had no reason to breathe. Why was everyone else silent when they had no reason to conserve breath? Were they as new to the neurocore as I was?

“Slow your thoughts, bakuh.”

Zeg. He was right. Every thought exhausted my mind even more. I was wasting my cognitive stamina on ideas and worries that did not matter in the–

“Focus!”

Right. Thanks.

Run.

No breathing.

No thoughts.

Empty concentration.

“You can think, bakuh, just keep your mind on the race. Worries will exhaust you more than any other thoughts.”

You understand this race?

“I understand this world, to a degree, but cannot explain everything. Observe. Take things in passively, just as you did while learning Amerikese by watching Republic entertainment.”

How do you know I did that?

“Your mind is ever present with mine.”

I didn’t waste cognition trying to understand that.

The corridor stretched ahead of us, unchanged from the entrance. Two walls, a high ceiling, the wide floor, and a continuous tunnel ahead.

Staring down the black abyss before us, there was no end in sight.