Pulse

were twenty core events in which men and women competed separately:
     
100–, 200–, 400–, 800–, and 1,600–meter footraces
javelin, discus, shot put, and hammer throws
high jump, long jump, triple jump, and pole vault
100 hurdles, 200 hurdles, 400 hurdles
three fighting events: wrestling, boxing, and judo.
    The twentieth event was a modernized decathlon blending all sixteen core events into a three-day competition. It was the decathlon that Wade and Clara had been training for in the gym and on the field at Old Park High. It wouldn’t have been practical, given their unusual skills, to practice within a State training center. There were cameras everywhere and thousands of athletes. And besides, competing in the Field Games was not about winning for the people who funded Clara’s and Wade’s training. It was about much more than that.
    The twins arrived with no fanfare whatsoever, virtually unseen as they crossed under the wall in an unmarked white van. Automobiles were rare inside the States, where there were very few roads for driving. Mass transportation, with thousands of miles of high-speed light-rail, carried millions of people from place to place.
    No one spoke as they drove. Wade and Clara made little attempt to take in the view of the world outside for, really, there wasn’t much of anything to see. Roads were covered by circular, white tubes; oncoming vans were infrequent. The road was flat and straight, the white tube oppressively low over their heads.
    After about twenty minutes, the van pulled off on a marked exit down a secondary tube and came to a stop. Clara and Wade gathered their things and entered a building through a set of sliding double doors. None of the usual checking in at the hotel desk took place. Instead, Wade and Clara boarded an elevator, which was glassed in on all sides.
    “Here we are,” Clara said as she pushed the button marked 300.
    “Yeah,” Wade said. “Here we are.”
    The building they had entered was 301 stories high, one of the taller buildings in the Western State. As they began their ascent, the glass elevator emerged onto the outside of the building after the first few floors, allowing them a spectacular view. At first they only saw buildings surrounding them on all sides. Modern, sleek structures of metal and glass that rose so high they couldn’t make out the tops. But soon enough, as they passed the halfway point, gaps in the buildings started to appear. There were white skywalks everywhere, spanning from one building to another. The higher they went, the more connecting spokes there were. From the sky, it began to look like the buildings were all trapped in an enormous spiderweb that went on for hundreds of miles: thousands of sleek skyscrapers connected by layer after layer of white passageways.
    “Pretty cool,” Wade blurted out as he leaned his forehead against one of the windows of the glass elevator. “Last week they surpassed four million connecting passageways. Blows the mind.”
    Tops of lower buildings started to appear, bright green and teeming with life. The giant roofs were used to grow much of the food consumed in the Western State. All the rooftop farms were managed mechanically to plant, grow, and harvest without human intervention. Distribution was handled through automated delivery systems that put fresh fruit and vegetables in every residence on a regular schedule. Advances in soil and seed management produced constant, not seasonal, new harvests.
    In the elevator, Clara pulled out her Tablet, snapped it large, and turned it on. She was hoping to send a message to someone as they rose up in the air, but she was surprised to find that her Tablet had reset while they traveled. The operating system had been updated, and she was tied into the G12 network.
    “Hey, check your Tablet,” Clara said. “We’re on the grid. Lots of channels.”
    Wade snapped his Tablet open and started scrolling through the channel guide. By the time they reached floor 250, they’d both realized how much they’d been missing. Their old network had delivered what amounted to decades-old reruns, lectures, and propaganda about everything anyone on the outside was missing. Now that they were inside, the options were endless. What they both wanted to do was curl up on a couch and watch new shows for weeks on end, but a message on Wade’s Tablet brought them back to reality before they could even begin to enjoy the idea of lazing around in their