Chapter 213: 213 | Adequate is the New Excellent
We completed the second lap.
Camille was starting to slow. Her lead had shrunk to maybe five feet and her breathing was audible from twenty feet back. Theo had closed the gap and was running just behind her left shoulder with the patient confidence of someone who knew exactly how this was going to end.
The back of the pack was spreading out now as individual fitness levels became impossible to hide. Rina had fallen behind, her steps heavy and her face flushed with effort. Percy was running beside her, his notebook somehow still in his hand, offering what looked like pacing advice that she was too winded to implement.
I pushed slightly harder, letting myself move up in the pack without being obvious about it. My body wanted to run, actually run, to use the strength and speed that the System had given me. Holding back felt like trying to breathe through a straw when you had perfectly good lungs.
But the alternative was worse. Steele was still watching. Her tablet was still recording. And somewhere in the data she was collecting, she was building a profile of each student that would inform how she treated us for the next two years.
I needed her profile of me to be useful.
Strong enough to be taken seriously. Weak enough to not be investigated. Mysterious enough to keep her guessing. Consistent enough to be believable.
It was exhausting, being strategic all the time. I understood why Caden defaulted to underperformance. It was just easier.
We rounded the corner into the third lap.
Theo made his move. He accelerated past Camille with a burst of speed that caught her off guard, opening up a gap of his own while she struggled to respond. Her earlier pace was catching up with her now and her legs weren’t answering with the same authority they had at the start.
Camille’s face twisted with frustration. She tried to respond, to dig deeper and find another gear, but her body had already given what it had to give. She was running on willpower now and willpower only got you so far when your muscles were full of lactic acid.
"She’s going to hurt herself," Felicity murmured.
She was right. Camille was pushing through the wall instead of accepting that the wall existed, and that kind of stubbornness could lead to injuries that took weeks to heal.
Theo crossed the line for the start of the fourth lap with a comfortable lead. Camille was second but fading. The middle of the pack had compressed as the stronger runners pulled away and the weaker runners fell behind.
I was in maybe seventh or eighth place, exactly where I wanted to be. Fast enough to be respectable. Slow enough to not raise questions.
Felicity had dropped back slightly, her breathing more labored now. She was in decent shape but not great shape, the kind of fitness that came from general activity rather than dedicated training.
"Go ahead," she said when she noticed me matching her pace. "You’re holding back for me."
"I’m holding back for lots of reasons."
"Flatterer." She smiled despite her obvious fatigue. "Go. Finish strong. I’ll be fine."
I hesitated. Part of me wanted to stay with her, to offer company through the final lap the way Percy was offering company to Rina. But she was right that I was holding back, and holding back too obviously was almost as bad as not holding back at all.
"See you at the finish line."
I accelerated, pushing harder and letting my stride open up into something closer to my actual capability. Not all the way, not even close, but enough that I could feel my body actually working instead of just going through the motions.
The pack fell away behind me.
I passed students whose names I didn’t know yet, their faces blurring as I moved through and beyond them. Marco looked surprised as I went by. Caden raised an eyebrow but didn’t try to match my pace. Eden shouted something encouraging that I didn’t quite catch.
Ahead of me, Theo was still in the lead but Camille had fallen to third. A tall girl with dark skin and braided hair had moved into second place, her form suggesting actual athletic training rather than just Aspect-enhanced capability.
I settled into fourth place and held there.
The final stretch opened up in front of us, two hundred meters of track between me and the finish line. My body was barely warm. My breathing was elevated but nowhere near distressed. I could have sprinted the entire remaining distance and probably beaten Theo to the line.
I didn’t.
Fourth place was perfect. Fast enough to be impressive. Slow enough to be believable. A solid performance from someone with a mid-tier Aspect who had trained hard and pushed themselves.
Theo crossed first. The tall girl crossed second. Camille held on for third through sheer force of will, her legs nearly giving out the moment she stopped running.
I crossed fourth.
Steele made a note on her tablet.
The rest of the cohort trickled in over the next few minutes. Marco fifth. Caden sixth, looking barely winded despite his casual approach. Eden seventh. The middle of the pack compressed into a group that crossed within seconds of each other.
Felicity finished somewhere in the middle, her face flushed and her ponytail disheveled but smiling despite her obvious exhaustion. She caught my eye and gave me a thumbs up that I returned.
Rina crossed last, Percy beside her with his notebook still somehow intact. Her face was the color of her wool and her breathing sounded like someone had tried to murder her with cardio, but she finished. That was what mattered.
Steele waited until everyone had crossed before speaking.
"Adequate," she said. The word landed like a verdict. "Some of you have clearly prioritized physical conditioning. Others have clearly neglected it. That will change."
She consulted her tablet.
"Top five: Park, Osei, Ortega, Belmont, Vidal. You’ve demonstrated acceptable baseline fitness. The rest of you are below where I expect Combat Operations students to be."
Camille’s face tightened at the third place mention. She’d led for most of the race and still finished behind two people and barely ahead of me. That wasn’t going to sit well with her.
"Two minute rest," Steele continued. "Then strength evaluations."
