[94 days remain]
Noah was hooked.
He'd done almost nothing but train the simulator since he'd gotten his copy working. To him there was something incredible about being the only person in the world with unlimited access to what was essentially the most advanced video game in the world.
Any fears Noah had about being discovered had quickly been replaced by aspirations, without the time limit he had clocked over 50 hours in the simulator in just a few days. That was more than many pilots had managed to do in the whole lifetime of the simulators so far, and Noah wasn't planning on slowing down either.
At the rate he was improving Noah was sure he would be able to outperform every pilot within a few weeks.
Within a day he'd managed to defeat the first stage, the second stage within two, and now less than a week later he was on the precipice of defeating the knife wielding stage three.
Noah pulled back on the flight throttle under his left hand and pressed the pedal under his right foot, imagining a twisting dodge in his head.
On his monitor the robot followed his whim and started to spin, only to have its thorax opened up by the enemy's glowing weapon. His view of the virtual world went sideways as his Eva doubled over, then faded to black as it was dealt the final blow.
Noah sighed in frustration, then smiled, then laughed a little. Every other pilot in the country would've been forced to quit for the day right there, every pilot except him.
He simply had to reset the console and he would be back in the pilot seat to do it all again, active learning at its finest.
[90 days remain]
Three months.
That figure kept rattling around in Naomi's head.
She stepped forward in line at the library, her gaze burning a hole into the green T-shirt on the boy in front of her.
Three months remained until the end of the testing period.
Just three months left with the thing that had defined her life for just as long.
Naomi stepped forward again, not using her crutches to move.
Her knee was bothering her less lately.
She peeked past the boy in the green shirt, the pilot in the simulator had just thrown the door open and stormed off.
She'd noticed the number of people in line for the simulators starting to taper off again. Many who had come back to the simulators when the scoreboard was leaked had left again, realizing that they wouldn't be able to keep up with the more dedicated crowd.
"Three months."
Muttered Naomi under her breath.
The boy in the green shirt turned around to give her a funny look, only to snap back around when he saw the death glare looking back at him.
They both stepped forward in line.