I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Nate woke with three numb fingers.

He worked his hand open and closed until the feeling came back, then sat on the edge of the bed for another minute.

Field Command had given him a room barely large enough for the bed, a folding desk and his bag. Graveshare covered his right forearm. The marks along the plates had gone dark sometime during the night.

His shoulder still hurt when he lifted the arm too high.

He left his Circuit alone.

Varo had told him to report to medical in the morning. Nate went before breakfast.

Olan was awake when he arrived.

The surveyor sat beside the bed with his right arm resting on a padded support. A medic stood in front of him, touching each fingertip with the end of a metal instrument.

"Here?"

"Yeah."

She moved to the next one.

Olan frowned.

"Less."

The last two fingers barely bent when she asked him to make a fist.

Nate waited outside until the medic finished.

Olan saw him through the glass and waved with his other hand.

"You can come in."

Nate entered.

"How is it?"

Olan looked down at his hand.

"Better than yesterday."

He bent the first three fingers. The others followed halfway.

"They think it’ll come back."

"Think?"

"Apparently nerves don’t care about my schedule."

Nate pulled the chair closer but didn’t sit immediately.

"Darek said he could’ve gotten the core if I hadn’t opened my Circuit."

Olan looked up.

"He told me."

Nate sat.

"I shouldn’t have done it."

"No."

There wasn’t much accusation in the answer.

That made it harder to respond to.

Olan tried closing his hand again. One of the fingers stopped before the others.

After a few seconds he gave up.

"You didn’t make the recorder discharge."

"I know."

"You just gave Darek another person to worry about."

"Yeah."

"Don’t do that again."

Nate looked at him.

"That’s all?"

"What else do you want?"

"I don’t know."

"Neither do I."

Olan shifted against the pillow.

"If this works properly again, you owe me a recorder."

"And if it doesn’t?"

Olan studied his hand.

"A better recorder."

Nate smiled.

Olan didn’t.

Not at first.

Then one corner of his mouth moved.

"Go eat something. They’re coming back with needles."

Nate stood.

At the door, he glanced over his shoulder.

Olan was opening his hand again, watching the last two fingers lag behind the rest.

Nate left.

Varo found him in the corridor a few minutes later.

"No Colossus today."

"I figured."

"Your shoulder scan needs another day."

"When do I go back?"

"If it improves, tomorrow."

Varo handed him a narrow identification card.

"The Armament Authority wants your bearer registration completed."

Nate checked the address.

Central Varen.

"What do they need me for?"

"Confirmation that you’re attached to the thing they think you’re attached to."

Varo was already turning away.

"Walk there. Don’t circulate."

Nate put the card in his pocket.

"Varo."

The examiner looked back.

"Olan’s hand?"

"He’s awake. Ask him."

Then he went through the medical doors.

Nate ate and left Field Command.

Central Varen looked less like a military city.

The walls became glass and pale stone. Students crossed the broad streets between institutions, some carrying training bags, others wearing Academy uniforms Nate didn’t recognize.

Research staff occupied tables outside cafés despite the cold.

Military uniforms were still everywhere, but here they mixed into the crowd instead of owning it.

Two men were arguing outside a training building when Nate passed them.

He felt both Circuits before he heard the argument.

Second Circuit.

Neither seemed important enough for anyone nearby to care.

Nate kept going.

The Central Intake building covered most of one side of the next plaza.

Four entrances faced the street.

MILITARY

FOREIGN PROGRAMS

ARMAMENT AUTHORITY

TALENT SERVICES

He used the third.

The registration took twenty minutes.

The clerk read through his transfer record while Nate stood at the desk.

"Unit Attrition Armament Twelve."

"Yes."

"Authorized issue?"

"Malvern succession."

Her eyes moved down the screen.

"I see."

She scanned the plates on his forearm.

A light passed across Graveshare without any reaction.

"Current restrictions?"

"Mourning Edge only under supervision. No formal deployment until verification."

The clerk entered it.

"Attempted removal?"

"No."

Another scan.

She handed the card back.

"Finished."

Nate took it.

People were moving through an open corridor behind the desk. A sign above it pointed toward TALENT SERVICES.

"Can I use that corridor?"

The clerk took his card again.

"Public concourse and open galleries."

"Awakening galleries?"

"Some sessions are public."

Nate stayed at the desk.

"What about military candidates?"

"Depends on the session. Sponsored candidates, protected Classes and most private evaluations aren’t open."

She returned his card.

"You can see the schedule inside."

Nate thanked her and went through.

The Talent Centre was larger than the awakening hall in the capital by enough that the comparison stopped being useful.

Several floors overlooked a central atrium. Candidates waited outside numbered rooms with parents, sponsors or Academy staff.

Some looked terrified.

Others tried very hard not to.

A large board showed the day’s open sessions.

GENERAL PROVINCIAL INTAKE — 31

ACADEMY ENTRY ASSESSMENT — 18

PUBLIC SERVICE CANDIDATES — 12

The private sessions were listed below without numbers.

Nate went upstairs.

The first observation gallery held six people.

A reinforced window looked down into an awakening room.

A boy in a provincial school jacket stood inside the Array. His mother waited near the wall while an examiner prepared the controls.

Nate took a seat near the back.

The Array activated.

Light rose around the boy.

His face tightened.

Then relaxed.

"Class?" the examiner asked.

"Standard."

The boy swallowed.

"Trail Keeper."

The examiner entered it.

"Which Skill?"

"Stable Footing."

"Confirm?"

"Yes."

The Array flashed.

Nate felt Forsaken Claim react.

Two Skills appeared briefly in his awareness.

One improved balance on unstable ground.

The other reduced fatigue while carrying weight over long distances.

He read them and did nothing.

The boy left with his mother.

Another candidate came in.

Then another.

A young woman rejected a minor Skill that helped her recognize spoiled food.

Someone else abandoned a short climbing enhancement.

Nate began to understand why sixty-one public awakenings didn’t necessarily mean much.

Then the fourth candidate entered.

He was older than the others and stood differently.

Straight back. Close-cut hair. Nothing wasted when he moved.

The examiner activated the Array.

The result came quickly.

"Variant."

"What designation?"

"Breach Runner."

The examiner looked up from the terminal.

"Skill options?"

The man read them aloud.

"Impact Drive."

A pause.

"Redline."

Then:

"Slip Guard."

"Selection?"

"Impact Drive."

"Confirm?"

"Yes."

The Array flashed.

Forsaken Claim reacted harder this time.

Nate’s fingers tightened against the chair.

Slip Guard appeared first.

He barely read it.

Then the second rejected Skill settled into his awareness.

FORSAKEN SKILL WITNESSED

REDLINE

Nate read the description once.

Then again.

Redline could force the body beyond what its normal circulation could safely support.

More speed.

More strength.

Faster reactions.

The strain went into the pathways.

The next prompt appeared.

OPEN NODE AVAILABLE

CLAIM REDLINE?

Nate didn’t dismiss it.

The candidate below was already speaking to the examiner, but Nate stopped listening.

He thought about the Supervisor.

The moment he’d reached the exposed joint with a field knife and barely damaged it.

A little more speed might have changed the strike.

A little more force might have changed several fights he’d already survived.

His shoulder pulsed.

Nate shifted in the chair.

The pain wasn’t severe.

It didn’t need to be.

He read the drawback again.

Pathway strain.

Yesterday, a few seconds of careless circulation had been enough to drag his foot without him noticing.

Redline would ask those same pathways for more on purpose.

The candidate left.

The room below remained empty for a moment.

The prompt stayed with Nate.

He could take it now.

His third Node was waiting.

He imagined the Skill settling there.

Then he imagined Varo looking at another damaged pathway scan.

Nate let Redline go.

The prompt disappeared.

He sat still for a few seconds.

His Node remained empty.

He wasn’t relieved.

The next candidate entered before he had decided whether that bothered him.

Nate stayed through several more awakenings.

A defensive Class rejected a hearing Skill with a range barely larger than the room.

A courier discarded a Skill that made small objects harder to drop while running.

One candidate turned down a minor clotting Skill.

Another rejected an ability useful almost entirely for climbing wet stone.

Forsaken Claim reacted each time.

Nate stopped expecting much from it.

When the seventh candidate left, he checked the time.

He had been there for more than an hour.

Redline was still the only Skill he could remember without looking back through the descriptions in his head.

He stood.

The afternoon sessions hadn’t started yet.

On his way downstairs, Nate stopped beneath the schedule board.

Staff had updated it.

More names had appeared.

There were still dozens of open awakenings before the building closed.

He could stay.

The next candidate might reject something better than Redline.

Or the next twenty might give him nothing.

Nate looked toward the staircase leading back to the galleries.

For weeks, he had wanted another chance to use Forsaken Claim.

He had finally gotten one.

And he’d watched the Skill disappear.

His shoulder ached again when he adjusted the strap of his bag.

Nate turned toward the exit.

There would be more candidates tomorrow.

His third Node could wait one more day.

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