The first wave of Commons candidates shuffled like cattle to their pods. No names were spoken, only numbers assigned. Ten entered each pod at a time, maximising efficiency.
"Batch one, positions!"
The pods dilated. Ten fourteen-year-olds disappeared inside.
Thirty seconds passed.
F-GRADE
D-GRADE
F-GRADE
F-GRADE
D-GRADE
D-GRADE
F-GRADE
F-GRADE
D-GRADE
F-GRADE
Grades appeared above each pod in holographic light. F-Grade was dull grey, D-Grade white, C-Grade light blue.
Seven F-Grades. That was typical. They came out with heads down and shoulders slumped, some wiping at their eyes. A staff member led them away. The crowd didn't react. The testing was only beginning.
"Batch two!"
Thirty Seconds passed.
B-GRADE
C-GRADE
F-GRADE
D-GRADE
F-GRADE
F-GRADE
F-GRADE
D-GRADE
D-GRADE
F-GRADE
The first pod on the left glowed green. The letter B hovered above it. The kids stepped out and looked up to see their results.
The common section erupted. Cheering, whistling, people on their feet. A roar of celebration rolled through the general seating like a wave.
"B-GRADE FROM COMMONS!" someone screamed, and the chant caught: "B-GRADE! B-GRADE!"
The kid stood stunned, his eyes wide and lips trembling. His plain uniform suddenly looked like more. His family sat in the stands—I saw them, huddled together in the middle rows of the cheapest seats, clutching each other and crying.
Holographic displays appeared around the arena, updating to show the kid's name and genetic profile. Camera drones swarmed closer. Officials approached the platform, took the kid by the arm, and guided him off with firm but congratulatory hands.
B-Grade. From nobody. One in a million odds.
"There's one," David said quietly from our waiting room. "First B-Grade of the day."
"From Commons," Maria added. "The recruiters are going to fight over him."
Ferdinand made a sound. "Lucky bastard walks in, a no one, walks out a hero."
I watched the celebration below, jaw tight. For most people, a B-Grade meant everything. For us, it was just the standard. Anything less was failure. It felt unfair, but maybe it wasn't, not with odds like theirs. I didn't know if I was happy for him or jealous.
Down below, the celebration was already fading. The next wave of ten called. The machine reset. The spectacle moved on.
But that kid's life had changed forever. B-Grade meant opportunity, it meant choice, it meant mattering. The commons section still buzzed, hopeful. If one of theirs could do it, maybe another could too.
-
By batch ten, the pattern was clear. In 100 candidates: seventy-one F-Grades, nineteen D-Grades, nine C-Grades, one B-Grade.
"That's not right," Yukiko muttered, tapping at her datapad. "F-Grade percentage should be approaching ninety per cent for Commons testing. This..."
"Seventy per cent," Ferdinand finished. "Almost twenty per cent variance."
-
Batches fifteen through thirty confirmed it wasn't a fluke. The numbers remained steady at 74% F-Grade, 19% D-Grade, 6.9% C-Grade, and 0.1% B-Grade.
Where normal years saw nine hundred F-Grades per thousand, today was producing seven hundred and fifty.
The crowd hadn't noticed yet, too focused on individual results to see the pattern. But in the premium boxes, I could see officials conferring. Screens that usually showed betting odds now displayed historical comparisons.
"Maybe the machines are calibrated wrong," David suggested.
"All of them?" Maria shot back. "Simultaneously?"
-
Batch thirty-one produced two B-Grades in a single group. The crowd actually paid attention as rapturous applause rippled through the common sections. Parents crying with relief, their children would survive their service years.
-
By batch fifty, we'd seen five hundred candidates. The statistics glowed on Yukiko's pad:
[F-Grade: 381 (76.2%)
D-Grade: 87 (17.4%)
C-Grade: 28 (5.6%)
B-Grade: 4 (0.8%)
A-Grade: 0 (0%)]
"Previous decade commons average for comparison," she showed us:
[F-Grade: 89.3%
D-Grade: 8.2%
C-Grade: 2.3%
B-Grade: 0.2%
A-Grade: 0.001%]
"Every single rank is testing higher," Ferdinand said quietly. "The entire curve has shifted."
"It's only been fifty batches. The statistics will swing the other way." Yukiko explained, sounding sure of herself.
-
Batch seventy broke the arena's composure entirely.
C-GRADE
D-GRADE
B-GRADE
F-GRADE
D-GRADE
C-GRADE
F-GRADE
B-GRADE
D-GRADE
A-GRADE
Not white text. Not green text, but Gold! Burning gold letters, ten meters tall, blazed above the tenth pod.
The arena held its breath.
Then it detonated.
Not just one section. Everyone. The Commons exploded into absolute chaos. People screamed, voices raw, tears streaking faces as they climbed recklessly over seats to get closer. Merit students were wild with excitement, shouting themselves hoarse. Even the legacy boxes—proper, controlled, dignified legacy families—half of them stood, stunned and wide-eyed, gripping the rails.
"A-GRADE! A-GRADE! A-GRADE!" The chant wasn't organised. It was primal. A hundred thousand voices.
"TOMAS REACHAAAAAAARRIIII!"
The announcer's voice cracked.
"A-GRADE! FROM DISTRICT SEEEEEEVEN!"
The kid stood frozen on the platform. Thin and wiry. His testing uniform hung loose on his frame. Probably borrowed. His knees buckled. Someone caught him before he fell.
Holographic displays erupted across every surface. His face. His name. His genetic profile scrolling past in real time. District Seven, the industrial slums. The place where people went to disappear, not emerge as heroes. And he'd just tested A-Grade.
Security barriers snapped to life as the Commons surged like a living tide. Some wept so hard they could barely breathe; a woman in the front row collapsed, keening, hands pressed to her face. The air was electric, every heart pounding wild.
Recruitment officers ran onto the testing floor. Actually running, protocol be damned. Military uniforms, corporate suits and elaborate get-ups. They pounced on pod ten like predators. The opportunity to recruit a Commons A-Grade was just too much.
I couldn't tear my eyes away.
The kid, Tomas, bawled his eyes out. Security tried to guide him off the platform, but he couldn't walk. An officer picked him up and carried him toward the private halls, where his new life waited.
The commons were still screaming. Still chanting his name. Banners appeared from seemingly nowhere. They were hand-drawn and crude. They read:
|| DISTRICT SEVEN PRIDE.|| ||COMMONS CAN RISE.|| ||REACHARRI FOR LUMINARY.||
I watched Tomas disappear through the private entrance, surrounded by officers and officials, those who would promise him everything just to get in his good books.
Yesterday, he was nobody.
Today, the Federation knew his name.
Tomorrow, he'd be a weapon.
-
It took a while for the crowd to settle. Testing started again. Ten more pods lit up, but most people kept watching the private entrance, still trying to understand what had happened.
F-GRADE
D-GRADE
C-GRADE
D-GRADE
C-GRADE
B-GRADE
A-GRADE
D-GRADE
F-GRADE
B-GRADE
The talking stopped.
Not gradually. Not a slow fade. It stopped. Like someone had cut the audio feed to a hundred thousand people at once.
For three full seconds, the Moirai Arena was silent.
Then someone laughed. A single, hysterical laugh from the commons section. Like their brain had broken trying to process what they were seeing.
Then the arena erupted again, but it felt different. Not just celebration. It was louder, more desperate, more confused.
"TWO! TWO A-GRADES! TWO!"
The chant was chaos. People didn't know how to react. This didn't happen. It couldn't happen. A-Grades were once in a decade in the Commons. Statistical miracles. And now two?! BACK-TO-BACK!?
"KEEEEEEEIKO MURAAAAAAA!"
The announcer's voice shook.
"A-GRADE! FROM... FROM DITRIIIIIICT FOURRRR!"
A girl this time, she looked slightly older, maybe pushing fifteen. She stood on the platform with her hands covering her mouth, tears streaming down her face.
The recruitment officers were already sprinting. The same ones who'd just carried off Tomas. They hadn't even reached their seats before they had to turn around and run back.
In Assembly Hall Seven, no one spoke.
We all just stared.
"That's not possible," David finally said. "Statistically, that's not possible."
"Two A-Grades in one day?" Maria's voice cracked. "In the same testing centre?"
"In consecutive batches," Ferdinand added. His face was pale. "Back to back. What are the odds?"
Yukiko didn't answer. She was doing the math in her head, and whatever number she'd arrived at, it made her go very still.
The testing resumed for the next batch. But the energy in the arena had shifted. Hope had transformed into something else. It wasn't a celebration.
It was Expectation.