I stood there in the hallway feeling like a puppet who had performed exactly as the puppeteer wanted, and if the puppeteer had been anyone but my future self, I’d have run screaming in the opposite direction. But I couldn’t. Not now. I was too far in. I probably would have stood there forever, trying to wrap my mind around it all, if a very nervous-looking Calvin and Ella, two cadets in my year, hadn’t bumped into me in their hurry to get to the simulation test.

“Hey,” I called, and they stopped and looked back at me. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?” Calvin looked annoyed at the request, but Ella dug around in her bag and thrust a crumpled scrap of paper and the nub of a pencil into my hand. I mumbled a thank-you and quickly sat down against the wall, propping the paper against my knee as I scribbled down the bullet points from the letter as best I could from memory.

Behind the curtain.

Something about under a deck?

Break a window?

Grab a key card. (What am I supposed to grab it off of?)

Don’t forget about a pocket.

I stared down at that list, racking my brain. I was forgetting something. I’d been almost positive that there were more than five. Two more cadets rushed by me on their way to the simulation test, and I hurried after them and into the testing room, my eyes immediately combing the room for Elliot. To my surprise, he wasn’t there yet. The other cadets stood by their respective simulation tables, pale and nervous, and I realized that, for the first time, I wasn’t nervous for this simulation at all. I wasn’t competing for an advancement point; I was here to hijack Elliot’s test. I glanced up at the clock. Elliot was always obnoxiously early to everything, so where was he?

When he finally rushed in with mere seconds to spare, I enjoyed every moment of his eye-popping surprise as he caught sight of me. He looked rough, like he’d slept even less than I had, which would be a real trick since I’d been so hyped up about my new plan that I’d only managed to grab a few hours. Maybe it was the way he stared at me, like I had no business being there, or maybe it was the memory of him walking away last night, but everything inside me solidified in cold determination. I was going to kick his arrogant butt, and not because that letter told me to either. Because I wanted to with every fiber of my being.