BRINK: Book 1 - The Passing by Arienna Rivers Black Page B

says.
    I really wish she'd quit saying that. Suddenly, it strikes me as strange that Johanna just rigorously defended the algorithm when she herself has no intention of following its advice.
    “Hey,” I whisper casually. “Did the sim test scare you at all?”
    “No. Why would it?”
    “I...found it pretty terrifying.”
    Johanna laughs softly. “No offense, Brynn, but your list of phobias is considerably longer than most people's.”
    She does have a small point. I'm still woefully afraid of clowns, spiders, public speaking, horizontal stripes, and, to some extent, the dark. Still. “Who did you choose to save at the end?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The last scene. The lava.”
    “There wasn't any lava in my sim. My last scene was me and Harlow in a hammock.”
    I'm dumbfounded. “Oh,” I say, and stop talking.
    It never occurred to me that the sims might be different for everyone. I have no idea what that means, or how to process that information. Across the room, Aaron is watching me, as usual, a puzzled expression on his face. This pleases me far more than it should, and I am struck by the urge to completely forget our surroundings and go find out what makes that man tick. Instead, I turn back to the stage just as Selena Zaretti leaves with her closest match.
    Twenty more women walk on stage and make their choices. One of them rejects those closest to her in number, choosing instead the short, spiky-haired 23-year-old who came with her. Another, a girl with a badly scarred face, is rejected twice before her third match finally accepts her. Harlow is actually called up to the stage once, as a secondary match for Farreah Johnson, 213, but she picks a guy I know from Assembly, Mitchel Branert, instead.
    “Well, now we know Harlow's number,” Johanna comments. “197. I wonder what mine will be.”
    “Probably 198.”
    She laughs. “It could be 700 and I wouldn't care. I'd rather die with him than live fifty years without him.”
    My frown is back. For maybe the first time, I realize that I can't think of any married couples who feel this way about each other. No one with whom I work with or go to Assembly chose love over a long life. My parents certainly didn't. They let the algorithm choose their destinies for them, and got a perfectly amiable partnership out of the deal. Still, I can't help hoping that I get the chance to feel about someone the way Johanna and Harlow feel about each other.
    Suddenly, I hear my friend's name.
    “Johanna Nelson.....” calls Judge Crawler, making me catch my breath, waiting to hear her number. The judge pauses for an excruciating moment, squinting at his tablet screen as though he has lost his place. In the half-second it takes him to find it again, I am hit with the absolute, unshakable certainty that I don't want to hear what he's going to say. That none of us want to hear it.
    “Ah,” says the judge. “Pardon me. Johanna Nelson....845.”
    Johanna gasps; I stop breathing altogether. The universe slowly shudders to a halt.
    Oh, lord.
    More than six hundred points difference. The stats on a gap like that are dismal; no one has ever, in recorded history, chosen such a match and lived. Johanna knows this. We all do.
    “Miss Nelson, please come to the stage.”
    She doesn't move. Her hand is clenched so tight around mine that I can no longer feel my fingers. It's surreal to watch Johanna shut down like this. She's always been quick to respond – a girl of action, not introspection. The churning force in my stomach redoubles its efforts.
    “Miss Nelson, expulsion from this process is not beyond our powers at this moment.”
    “Go!” I hiss finally, pushing Johanna from her seat. She staggers toward the stage, her beauty as present as always, but now washed in a kind of florescent desperation, uncertainty causing her to shrink into herself. The image of the injured gazelle from the first scene of my sim springs into my mind; Johanna has the same terror etched into every