Test Anxiety

Hey all!

We’ve got another piping hot story arc to throw at you, whilst you’re reeling between Fiber Optic Bundles of Joy and Artemis’ Bow! Introducing, The Rendering Pit! A futuristic university whose ins and outs remain a highly guarded secret. Many of the students who enter, don’t come out and those who do rarely emerge unchanged, but for those who succeed in their studies and trials a lucrative position is the very LEAST of their rewards!

Here we have Test Anxiety! Written and illustrated by Rabidbadger ! If you enjoy the artwork and story, consider giving him a watch!

The following contains chubbies and sci-fi story setting!

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Genevieve put her fingertips to the ebon sphere, and felt a lightness flow over her that left her heart fluttering, eyes closed. It was a brief thing, just a moment before her hand pulled back, but when she opened her eyes there was nothing. Blackness – inky and empty – hollow and silent.

The fox girl blinked again, rubbing her eyes – she was starting to make out hazy shapes in the black, but not much. The pedestal and sphere in front of her, and others – the same ones her classmates had been at – and weren’t at now. It seemed like she hadn’t gone anywhere, but the lights were out – and everyone else was missing. Which might just be more unnerving.

“H-hello?”

Her voice was hesitant, quiet – and despite that echoed like thunder in an empty (and acoustically powerful) chamber. The longer she sat in the dark, the more Genevieve could make out – there was faint light from somewhere above, trickling through a grating, casting hazy wide lines of lighter gray amid the gloom – but otherwise? She saw only the still sealed door behind her, and the room.

And the open door ahead, into the campus.

Swallowing hard, Genevieve began to pace forward, trying to ignore how even the lightest of her footsteps seemed to be echoing in the dark. The gate that stood before her looked drab in the dark, just a half-open vacuum seal door. One that opened up into waiting corridors, and the faint glow of emergency lights. They seemed, as she watched, to be flashing in a certain direction – maybe leading toward someplace safe – or at least someone who knew what was going on.

Genevieve kept one hand to the cool metal wall, entering the gently curved corridor and taking it slow – there were doors she passed, some cracked open even, but she saw no signs of life or light inside any. There was only one that was properly open anyway, looking quite a bit like a machine shop. Passing by, Genevieve pressed forward gradually – listening to the faint clinks and thrums of an empty station.

At least, she thought – hoped – that’s what it was. One of the clanking sounds was a trifle louder, and more regular, than the rest – and it was behind her.

Worried as she might be becoming, Genevieve saw relief ahead – a faint gray light from a door on the left. She picked up speed, making just a bit more noise as she did, but the source was too close to ignore the need for security, safety. It was hard enough to keep from whimpering in the dark, with whatever that sound was following her. She kept her hand to the wall, grasping the corner, turning…

And finding herself staring at the room she’d first left, with the pedestals, and the distinct lack of her fellow students.

It wasn’t brighter, she’d just gotten more used to the dark. Genevieve stopped her staring to look behind, where she’d come from – and then she saw light. A veritable rainbow of it, little vertical lines of light that dances across the walls from somewhere out of sight behind her – and the sound of screeching metal.

That got her whimpering.

It also prompted the plump vixen to move a great deal faster, running into the same hall she’d begun this journey on. Behind, banging sounds ensued – metal on metal – something that sounded alarmingly like screaming. She felt her heart beating harder with each heavy footfall, tempted to scream out herself – but she’d already checked this whole area for people. The light behind her meanwhile was making no effort to stay hidden, and if its brightness meant anything, was getting closer.

Genevieve didn’t so much think about it as just act when she felt her hand miss the wall, finding herself at the only genuinely open door other than the one she’d begun from. The machine shop might, if nothing else, have places to hide – or big chunks of metal to swing.

The chamber, class room rather, was huge – it seemed larger than it needed to be even. High ceilings, huge work tables, machinery hanging from the ceiling everywhere. Hiding was looking that much more appealing all the time given that. Genevieve wasn’t a small fox by any stretch of the imagination, but she saw a fairly gigantic spare parts bin on the far side of the chamber – one that looked more inviting as the kaleidoscope of lights behind her grew ever clearer. She jammed her hip on a table on the way, stumbling the last couple steps, and more falling to a heap behind it than crouching – but Genevieve had her hiding spot. Cowering among wiring, rent nano-weave, scrap metal, and old interface panels.

The clanging footsteps weren’t far behind at all, though as the myriad colors of light began filtering into the room Genevieve found herself feeling something other than fear finally. Everywhere the light touched, she saw glitters – sparks – little jolts of life in the machinery.

The lights weren’t working properly, at least not consistently – the insanity inducing hum of malfunctioning fluorescence popped in and out of her hearing above – but it was a small thing compared to the advancing footsteps. She heard the thing pace into the room, heard it loudly clamber up onto a table at the far end of the room, but she had plenty of space – and her bin of parts – between her and the thing.

Scraping, screaming metal filled the room and grew louder. Genevieve winced hard through it, opening her eyes slowly – and seeing a patch of light where there’d been naught but black before. One of the interface panels, hanging loose, was feeding off the same wireless power source the thing following her was generating – and the longer the vixen looked at it, the more she suspected she recognized the interface. It seemed to be tied to some of the lifting cranes on the ceiling, the things meant to hold up large bot hulls and the like.

The pad was precarious, nestled in just enough trash that touching it was liable to make noise, and removing it was guaranteed to. Genevieve wasn’t the world’s most coordinated vixen for that matter. She clasped it as deftly as she could with one hand, holding it steady, while she dragged a finger over one of the activation controls.

There was one loud noise, a hiss and thrum of hydraulics coming to life, and then silence in the room.

Her pursuer had stopped where it stood, though the light patterns were still dancing mad patterns all around the walls.

Genevieve looked over at the wall opposite her – it was just reflective enough, even in the insane and intermittent lighting, to guess at where the menacing shape was (its warped reflection was all harsh angles and hinges – and light, too much light). She dragged her thumb half a circle, then pinched two fingers across the screen – and heard a crash behind her, along with a much harsher flood of light bombarding the room she was in. The vixen shut her eyes as the brilliance became painful-

And opened them again to a full chamber of students, lit comfortably, all standing by their black spheres. Some were talking, some were still touching the orbs and looked more than a little vacant, but everyone seemed physically fine. Beside her, the heavyset badger was looking at the diamond shaped university badge that now sported two images engraved on it – a closed eye, and an apple, missing a bite, with a nail through it.

Genevieve’s glance at her own showed a similar closed eye, and next to that an upside-down teardrop, encased by two semi-circles. Those markings definitely hadn’t been there before she blacked out and had her little adventure with whatever the blazes had stalked her.

The badger was clutching his, running his thumb lovingly over the pale, plate badge. Around them, some of the others were emerging from their sims – mostly with startled gasps – some with haughty grins – and a couple still hadn’t finished. Despite that, the chamber’s voice system thunked into life in that moment.

Welcome, students! Congratulations on your completed assessments. Please proceed in the next door and follow the running lights to your dormitory assignments. Your schedules will be waiting on your beds.

Still holding the badge in both paws, Genevieve advanced with the crowd, sparing a glance back at the three who were still staring blankly into space with their fingertips touching those spheres – but she didn’t appear to have the luxury of staying to see how they did. There were indeed lights showing her where to go – luminous streaks that ran across the surface of her badge and formed a simple arrow – about as basic as ‘go here’ gets. The walk was just long enough to leave her wishing it was shorter when the arrow abruptly rearranged itself to the word ‘HERE’.

Genevieve turned to the side, there was indeed a door right by her – open, and showing a room sporting three beds. One was occupied, all three had a simple looking tablet placed on the pillow.

The vixen’s approach was slow, not wanting to disturb the black scaled individual at the end of the room. He was tall, muscled, bearing a frill of some kind around his neck, and there was an orange jumper folded neatly next to his basic uniform robes. She’d break that ice later, the Vixen thought. For now she grabbed the tablet with her name on it quickly and quietly made for the door, bouncing off a fluffy something into the hall when she reached the door.

Genevieve quickly apologized to the badger she kept running into – this time literally, and then started an at the moment aimless procession down the corridor while she read.

“Major, wireless systems control and nanotech manipulation. First period, signal mechanics. Instructor: Xerxsephira Griphlik.”

She then scanned a little further along – two classes, ninety minutes each, and then?

“Ah-ha! Lunch. Alright, that I know I can handle at least.”