Instructor Varga looked at the score on the display for a long moment. Then she looked down at Ning as he crossed the chamber floor toward the stairs.
"Cadet," she called down. "What was your name again?"
Ning looked up at her and smiled. "Ning, Instructor."
Varga nodded slowly. Then she took a small tablet from her pocket and, for the first time that afternoon, wrote a cadet's name down.
The four cadets left the True Simulation facility as the afternoon light began to fade over the city, and the walk from the chamber to the waiting transport felt very different from the walk in.
Hale and the other cadets from the two academies left at almost the same time, gathering in their separate clusters near the exit as their own transports arrived.
Only a few hours earlier, they had made no effort to hide what they thought of Ning's academy, laughing and calling out remarks across the waiting hall.
Now they said nothing at all.
