The gate closed behind Section Nineteen with enough force to shake dust from the concrete walls.
Nate turned.
Six sections stood inside a wide loading yard surrounded by rusted warehouses, broken walkways, and narrow service roads. Beyond them, the simulation grounds stretched for several kilometres, lined with abandoned industrial structures.
The academy had restored the weapons systems, reinforced the floors, and left almost everything else to rot.
An instructor waited beside six metal cylinders.
Each relay cell reached Nate’s knee and had two folding handles built into its casing. Yellow bands marked them as training equipment.
"Five people per section," the instructor said. "One cell each. Four active relay stations."
A candidate near the back raised a hand.
"There are six sections."
"The first four to transmit their assigned code pass. The remaining two return to corrective training."
A map appeared on every candidate’s wrist display. Four relay stations lit up across the district.
North.
East.
Foundry.
Drainage.
"Each station contains a fault. Your technical candidate identifies it, repairs it and connects your cell. Once the relay accepts your code, transmission takes sixty seconds."
"What happens if another section gets there first?" someone asked.
"You handle it."
The instructor lifted his training rifle.
"First Circuit hunters are operating inside the grounds. Their marking rounds register the point of impact. Arm hits disable the arm. Leg hits restrict movement. A torso hit removes you from the exercise."
"And if they take the cell?"
"Recover it."
The instructor checked the time.
"Ninety minutes. Equipment access closes in thirty seconds."
The yard erupted.
Candidates rushed toward the weapon racks and field packs positioned along the wall.
Nate stayed beside his section.
Leor was already studying the map. Iris checked the seal on a medical bag.
The other two members were strangers.
One was a broad-shouldered woman with dark hair tied behind her neck. The logistics emblem on her jacket surrounded the name YARA VOSS.
The thin candidate beside her was still fighting with the straps of a technical harness. TOMAS RELL was printed above his chest.
Yara looked between them.
"Anyone carried one of these before?"
"I’ve repaired one," Tomas said.
"So no."
Leor enlarged the map.
"East is closest."
"Which means everyone saw it first," Yara said.
"North has open ground on three sides."
"Foundry adds twelve minutes."
"More if the interior route is blocked."
Yara turned to Nate.
"You’re combat."
"That’s what they assigned me."
"See anything useful?"
Nate examined the district.
The academy map showed official roads, elevated walkways, and marked access points. Narrow grey lines ran beneath several buildings.
"Service conduits?"
Tomas leaned closer.
"Old maintenance routes."
"Can we use them?"
"If the access lifts still work."
The equipment timer dropped below fifteen seconds.
Yara pointed toward the cells.
"We’re out of time. Take one."
They reached the stack as another section pulled away.
Yara lowered both handles.
"Other side."
Nate took the weight with her.
The cell was heavier than he expected. His newly closed Circuit could have supported more, but the route beneath his shoulder remained tender. He kept his circulation thin and allowed the load to drag slightly against his arm.
Yara noticed.
"You’re injured?"
"Cleared this morning."
"That wasn’t my question."
She glanced toward Iris.
Iris continued watching Nate.
"He doesn’t like medical scans."
"I like the accurate ones."
"So none of them."
Tomas grabbed a field pack from the rack.
"Eight seconds."
Yara looked at the others.
"Touch the casing."
Leor placed two fingers against the cell. Iris used the back of her wrist. Tomas pressed his palm to the upper plate.
Energy moved from Yara’s Root Node.
The weight changed.
It remained heavy, but the load spread across five bodies. A pull settled through Nate’s shoulders, hips, and legs. When Tomas shifted his stance, part of the cylinder’s movement passed into Nate’s balance.
"Distributed Weight," Yara said. "Warn me before you move suddenly."
The equipment cabinets locked.
A horn sounded.
The sections scattered into the district.
Yara chose Foundry after the two nearest routes filled with other teams.
They crossed behind a warehouse and reached a service lift recessed into the ground. The platform rested three metres below them, surrounded by dead controls and old hydraulic lines.
Tomas knelt beside the panel.
"It still has power."
"Can you raise it?" Yara asked.
"The control link is broken."
"How long?"
"Twenty seconds if the motor answers."
Leor moved to the corner of the warehouse and checked the road behind them.
"Movement west."
"Another section?" Yara asked.
"Too far."
Tomas removed one glove and pressed his fingers into the open panel.
Energy entered the damaged controls.
The dark screen flickered.
Nate felt the activation travel through the lift frame. A thin pulse moved down the steel supports, returned through Tomas, and repeated.
Live Bypass.
Tomas was replacing the severed control link with his own circulation.
The platform groaned upward.
Yara tightened Distributed Weight.
"We move as soon as it reaches us."
The platform stopped level with the ground.
They carried the relay cell onto it. Tomas remained beside the panel, one hand locked inside the wiring.
"Get on," Yara said.
"If I let go, the connection dies."
"The platform’s already here."
"The lower controls use the same link."
Yara stared at him.
"You have to hold that all the way down?"
"Unless someone brought a cable."
Nate looked toward the service road.
A heavier vibration entered the old lift frame.
It travelled through the connected steel in slow, regular impacts. The rhythm disappeared behind one warehouse, then returned closer to them.
The pressure was too dense for an Unlinked candidate.
"Hunter," Nate said.
Leor lowered herself beside the corner.
"Direction?"
"Western building."
She watched the gap between two rusted containers.
A shadow crossed it.
"Confirmed. Moving north along our road."
Yara touched the lift control.
"Tomas, step on."
He kept one hand inside the panel and moved awkwardly onto the platform. The screen died for half a second before returning.
Yara sent the lift down.
The service road disappeared above them.
The hunter’s circulation still reached Nate through the lift structure. Each step passed into the metal as a faint pressure.
His First Circuit made the sensation clearer than it had any right to be. Energy returned to his Core instead of fading inside his pathways, carrying details he would have missed the previous day.
The lift reached the lower level.
Tomas pulled his hand free. The platform stopped with a jolt.
Yara led them toward the conduit.
"Wait," Nate said.
She looked back.
The pressure above had stopped.
Distributed Weight continued pulsing through the five candidates and their relay cell. Each activation entered the concrete through their feet and the cylinder’s casing.
The hunter had followed them to the lift.
"Drop the Skill."
Yara frowned.
"We’re carrying twenty-six kilos through a maintenance tunnel."
"He stopped above us."
Leor tilted her head.
A boot scraped against the platform overhead.
Yara released Distributed Weight.
The cell’s full mass dragged Nate’s arm down. They lowered it before the casing struck the floor.
Tomas killed the light on his harness.
Darkness filled the conduit.
Metal creaked above them.
A faint mechanical click passed through the lift frame.
Someone had taken the safety off a rifle.
Iris slowed her breathing beside Nate.
The hunter remained over the shaft.
Then Leor touched Nate’s sleeve and pointed deeper into the conduit.
The footsteps resumed above them, heading toward the northern road.
They waited until the vibration faded.
Yara restored the connection between them.
The weight spread through the section again.
"How did you know my Skill was carrying?" she asked.
"I felt it through the lift."
"You felt mine or his?"
"Both."
Leor looked at him.
"The hunter changed direction before we stopped. He may have seen the platform move."
"Maybe," Nate said. "Turning it off still kept him from confirming where we went."
Yara adjusted her grip.
She did not press him further.
The service conduit brought them beneath the Foundry station in eleven minutes.
Tomas used Live Bypass twice more to open sealed maintenance doors. By the second activation, sweat had gathered along his hairline.
They climbed a narrow stairwell and entered the relay building through a hatch in the floor.
Five candidates already occupied the main chamber.
Section Twelve.
Their relay cell rested beside the central console, but the display showed a red rejection signal.
A tall candidate wearing a combat emblem turned as Section Nineteen emerged.
"Find another station."
Yara lowered their cell.
"You aren’t transmitting."
"We reached it first."
"And the relay rejected you."
Section Twelve’s technical candidate crouched beside the connection port with both hands inside the housing.
"The handshake keeps failing."
Tomas stepped closer.
"Did the station return a fault code?"
"I know what I’m doing."
"Then what’s the code?"
The technical candidate glanced at the console.
"Nothing useful."
"Let me see."
Section Twelve’s combat candidate moved between them.
"We’re not giving you the station."
Leor checked the wall timer.
"Keep guarding it, then. You’ve already lost five minutes."
Sixty-nine minutes remained.
A burst of marking fire echoed outside.
The other section exchanged looks.
Their leader stepped aside.
"He checks the relay. Our cell stays connected."
Tomas knelt beside the port.
Nate remained with Section Nineteen’s cylinder.
Something felt wrong.
The relay station produced a weak training pulse every few seconds. Section Twelve’s cell answered with the same restrained rhythm.
The cell beside Nate carried something deeper.
Stored pressure sat beneath the casing, too dense for training equipment. He had felt Class 1 Field devices on the train. Holt’s suspension brace had possessed a similar controlled weight.
This cylinder held much more.
Nate placed a hand against the yellow band.
The paint felt thicker near the seam.
"Tomas."
The technical candidate looked over his shoulder.
"Check ours before anyone connects it."
Yara followed Nate’s hand.
"What did you notice?"
"It doesn’t answer the station like theirs."
Section Twelve’s leader checked the timer again.
"We agreed ours first."
Tomas leaned away from the relay.
"Your station isn’t broken. The cell is refusing the training handshake."
"What does that mean?"
"Either its code is damaged or the safety lock never engaged."
"The academy gave it to us."
"I know."
Tomas crossed the room and pressed his palm against Section Nineteen’s cell.
His expression changed.
Yara saw it.
"What?"
He ran his fingers along the yellow band.
"This casing was repainted."
Section Twelve’s leader gave a short, humourless laugh.
"They stacked all six together."
"That doesn’t make it safe," Tomas said.
He found a narrow inspection plate beneath one handle and scraped at the edge with his nail.
Yellow paint peeled away.
Dark metal appeared beneath it.
A load classification had been stamped into the original casing.
CLASS 2 ASSAULT
Yara released her handle.
"We don’t connect that."
The warning shots outside came closer.
A hunter crossed the road at a run, firing at another section disappearing between the buildings.
Section Twelve’s leader looked from the window to the wall timer.
"Can the port take it?"
Tomas examined the base of the cell.
"The connection fits."
"Will it transmit?"
"I don’t know. It isn’t using the academy’s training lock."
Their technical candidate stood.
"This could be part of the evaluation."
Tomas looked at him.
"Then nobody briefed us."
"They gave us six cells and four stations," Section Twelve’s leader said. "Half the exercise is figuring out what they didn’t explain."
Yara stepped in front of their cylinder.
"Use your own."
"It doesn’t work."
"Then find another relay."
Another burst of fire struck the building’s outer wall.
The leader looked toward his teammates. One had already moved to cover the entrance. Another watched the timer.
Sixty-seven minutes.
"We take the chance," he said.
Yara caught the handle before he could lift it.
"This belongs to our section."
"We’ll transmit your code after ours."
"You don’t even know whether it carries one."
"It was issued by the academy."
"So was the cell that already failed."
He pulled.
Yara held on.
The cylinder shifted between them.
Nate felt the stored pressure change inside it.
"Put it down."
Neither listened.
Two candidates from Section Twelve stepped forward. Leor moved beside Yara, blocking one of them. Iris pulled Tomas back from the struggle.
"Stop dragging it," Tomas said. "The connection fits, but I can’t tell you what the station will recognize."
Section Twelve’s leader tore the handle from Yara’s grip.
"If this is a hidden condition, standing here fails both teams."
He lifted the cylinder with another candidate and carried it toward the console.
Tomas followed.
"At least let me inspect the port first."
The leader aligned the base with the relay.
"Too late."
He drove it down.
The connection locked.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then the station accepted the cell.
Every light in the chamber turned red.
The relay doors slammed shut.
A pulse struck Nate’s Circuit hard enough to steal his breath.
Deep beneath the building, dormant machinery began to wake.
The Class 2 cell had not powered the district. It had given the old system something it had been waiting for.
Authorization.
Heavy generators turned over below the concrete. One after another, buried power lines came alive.
Outside, metal unfolded from the roofs.
The hunters stopped moving.
One of them looked up.
A turret rotated above the road.
The first shot tore through his shoulder.
There was no coloured marking powder.
Blood struck the wall behind him.
The station speakers came alive.
LIVE DEFENCE GRID ACTIVE.
UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL DETECTED.
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