I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

The deployment stayed active after the gate closed.

Nate noticed because three names remained beneath Graveshare.

REN DAREK

TESSA MARR

JORIC AMES

Savin’s name was gone.

A seventh Mourning Mark had appeared beside the older six.

Beneath it, another line remained.

STORED ENERGY: 27%

Darek stood outside medical with the recovered sampler core in one hand. Dried blood marked the edge of his glove.

Nate looked at Graveshare again.

"They’re still linked."

Joric heard him.

He was sitting against the opposite wall.

"Who is?"

"You. Darek. Tessa."

Joric’s face changed.

"Right now?"

"Yes."

Tessa stopped packing her sensor equipment.

Darek came closer.

"Why?"

"The deployment is still active."

Joric stood.

"We’re outside."

"Apparently that isn’t what it checks."

Joric looked at Darek.

"Close it."

The treatment-room doors opened behind them.

Two medics came out.

Neither hurried.

Nate didn’t need to ask.

Darek handed the sampler core to a waiting technician.

"Register the recovery complete and terminate Western Four."

"We still need the route report."

"Post-action."

The technician entered the command.

A few seconds later, Graveshare cooled.

OFFICIAL DEPLOYMENT TERMINATED

ACTIVE LINK RELEASED

The three names vanished.

The seven Mourning Marks remained.

So did the reserve.

STORED ENERGY: 27%

Nate looked at Joric.

"It’s closed."

Joric watched Graveshare for another moment.

"Good."

He walked toward the debrief room.

Tessa followed.

Darek stayed behind.

"You coming?"

Nate looked through the treatment-room glass.

A sheet covered Savin from the chest upward. Someone was removing the damaged pieces of his field suit.

"I’ll be there."

Darek left.

Nate sat on the bench.

His Core felt exactly as it had that morning.

Same First Circuit.

Same pathways.

Same limits.

Graveshare was the only thing that had changed.

Eleven percent when they entered.

Twenty-seven now.

Nate looked through the glass again.

He had known Savin for less than an hour.

The numbers were still easy to remember.

That bothered him.

He stood and went to debrief.

Tessa had already connected the sampler core to the room terminal.

"Data survived."

Darek took the seat at the end of the table.

"Enough to explain the pressure rise?"

"Maybe. It’ll take time."

Joric remained standing near the wall.

"What killed Savin?"

Tessa opened the medical scan.

The puncture beneath his ribs was small.

The damage behind it wasn’t.

"The feeder got through the conductive layer."

She enlarged a bright line running from the wound toward one of his pathways.

"It created an entry path. Ambient energy followed it."

"His Circuit was closed," Nate said.

"Circulation was closed."

Tessa tapped the scan.

"The pathways were still there."

Joric studied the image.

"So closing your Circuit doesn’t stop it if something creates a route from outside."

"It helped. He would’ve gone faster otherwise."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Darek entered the finding into his report.

"Western Four stays shut until the nest is cleared."

Joric finally looked at Nate.

"What happened to your arm when Savin died?"

Nate knew this was coming.

"Graveshare took energy from him."

Joric frowned.

"What does that mean?"

"When someone linked to the deployment dies, Graveshare can take part of the energy still in their Circuit before it disperses."

Joric looked at the seventh mark.

"That’s what this is?"

"The mark records the casualty."

"And Savin is inside it?"

"No."

Nate answered before the question could become something else.

"It didn’t take his memories or his Skill. The energy went into the reserve."

Joric looked at him.

"So you got something because he died."

"Yes."

Tessa leaned back.

"Did you know that could happen?"

"Yes."

Joric’s eyes stayed on Nate.

"You knew before we entered?"

"Yes."

"Did Savin?"

Nate looked toward Darek.

Darek answered carefully.

"He knew Graveshare would link the active roster."

Joric waited.

"Did he know what happened if he died?"

Darek didn’t answer immediately.

"I thought the armament disclosure was included with the assignment."

Joric’s expression hardened.

"It wasn’t."

Darek looked at Tessa.

She shook her head.

"Nothing about energy transfer."

Darek set his terminal down.

"Then I should have checked."

Joric walked closer to the table.

"You should have."

"Yes."

There was nothing defensive in Darek’s answer.

That left Joric with fewer places to put the anger.

He pointed toward Graveshare.

"Could we have refused the link?"

"Not once the deployment started," Nate said.

"Before?"

Darek answered.

"You could have requested reassignment before activation."

Joric laughed once.

"If somebody had told us."

Darek nodded.

"Yes."

Tessa looked at him.

"Next time there needs to be a briefing before anyone reaches the gate."

"There will be."

"In writing."

"Yes."

Joric looked at Nate.

"How much?"

Nate knew exactly what he meant.

"Sixteen points."

Joric’s face went still.

"Sixteen percent."

"Yes."

"From Savin."

"Yes."

Joric looked toward the medical room.

Then back at Nate.

"You checked."

"The display appeared automatically."

"But you remember."

Nate didn’t answer.

Joric waited.

Nate remembered Savin hanging between Darek and Joric.

Tessa’s fingers against his throat.

The reserve climbing.

Eleven.

Eighteen.

Twenty-four.

Twenty-seven.

"I remember."

Joric’s jaw tightened.

Then he left.

The door closed behind him.

Tessa stayed seated.

"He’s going to request reassignment."

Darek nodded.

"Probably."

"From everything?"

"I doubt it."

Darek picked up his terminal again.

"He’ll want off Calder-linked rosters until Command fixes the disclosure."

Nate looked toward the door.

That was different.

Joric wasn’t refusing the field.

He wasn’t even refusing Nate.

He was refusing to discover another rule after someone died.

Tessa disconnected the sampler core.

"What about me?"

Darek looked at her.

"You tell me."

She thought about it.

"I’ll stay if I see the procedure first."

"Fine."

She packed the core and left.

Nate remained with Darek.

"Are they going to stop using me?"

"No."

The answer came quickly.

"Why?"

"Because Graveshare works."

Darek gathered the reports.

"The problem isn’t whether the armament works."

He looked toward the door Joric had used.

"It’s whether Field Command tells people what they’re agreeing to before their names enter it."

Nate looked at Graveshare.

"They don’t actually agree to the link."

"No."

"They agree to the deployment."

"Exactly."

That distinction mattered.

Darek stood.

"Command decides whether that’s enough."

Varo scanned Nate that afternoon.

The examination did not take long.

His Circuit gave Varo almost nothing new to look at.

Core unchanged.

Pathways unchanged.

Nodes unchanged.

First Circuit.

Graveshare was different.

Varo brought up the previous measurement.

BEFORE DEPLOYMENT: 11%

Then the current one.

CURRENT: 27%

"Sixteen points," Nate said.

"I can subtract."

Nate ignored that.

"Is that a lot?"

"We don’t know."

"Savin was First Circuit."

"So are a great many people."

Nate looked at the two numbers.

"Does development matter?"

"Probably."

"How much?"

Varo opened Savin’s personnel file.

Nine years of field service.

A developed First Circuit.

Recent conditioning records.

Varo scrolled farther.

Then stopped at the final medical data from Western Four.

"There."

Nate leaned closer.

Savin’s Circuit had been under heavy energetic load shortly before death.

More than his normal Core should have been producing.

"The Colossus."

"The feeder gave it a path."

"So Graveshare took that too."

"Possibly."

Varo enlarged the final scan.

"You are trying to turn one death into a rule."

"I’m trying to understand what happened."

"Then don’t simplify it too early."

Varo pointed at Savin’s energy reading.

"A developed Circuit can usually carry more energy than a new one. That does not mean a more developed person will always give Graveshare more."

Nate waited.

"What matters is what remains when they die."

Nate looked at the numbers again.

"Savin had already fought."

"Yes."

"He used his spear."

"Yes."

"So normally he’d have less left."

"Correct."

"But then the feeder opened him to the Colossus."

Varo nodded.

"Foreign energy was still entering shortly before his Circuit collapsed."

"And Graveshare took some of that."

"That is the most likely explanation."

Nate considered it.

A Second Circuit who had exhausted everything might leave very little.

A First Circuit killed before spending much might leave far more.

Savin had been somewhere between those examples.

He had already spent energy fighting.

Then the Colossus had forced more into him while he was dying.

There was no clean number attached to his strength.

Too many things mattered.

How developed the Circuit was.

How much had been spent.

How much remained.

Whether something external had entered before death.

Nate realized he was already arranging the variables.

He stopped.

Varo noticed.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Varo closed Savin’s file.

"Your Core output is unchanged."

"I know."

"Your pathways are unchanged from the last review."

"I know."

"You’re still First Circuit."

"I know."

Varo removed the scanner contacts.

"Field deployments are suspended until they settle the disclosure issue."

"How long?"

"Tomorrow at the earliest."

Nate pulled his sleeve down.

"What am I supposed to do until then?"

Varo shrugged.

"For once, something that doesn’t involve being scanned."

Nate ended up at Central Talent Services.

He told himself it was because there was nothing useful to do at Field Command.

That was only partly true.

The public awakening board showed another open session.

SESSION 4B

27 CANDIDATES REMAINING

Nate entered the observation gallery.

His third Node was still empty.

That was reason enough.

The first few awakenings offered nothing worth considering.

A Standard Class candidate chose a recovery Skill.

Another picked a spear technique.

Forsaken Claim reacted each time the rejected Skills disappeared, but Nate let them go.

Candidate nine awakened a Variant Class.

That got his attention.

Three Skills appeared above the chamber.

DRIVING BLOW

IRON FRAME

FALLING GUARD

The candidate spent almost three minutes reading.

Nate did the same.

IRON FRAME

Temporarily harden muscles and connective tissue against blunt impact.

Movement speed and fine control reduced while active.

High physical strain under repeated use.

Nate considered it.

It would make him harder to put down.

It would also work against the loose movement Rovan had spent months forcing into him.

Once integrated, it would own the third Node permanently.

The candidate selected DRIVING BLOW.

Forsaken Claim opened.

FORSAKEN SKILL WITNESSED

IRON FRAME

OPEN NODE AVAILABLE

Nate watched the prompt.

A month ago, an empty Node had felt like progress.

Now every rejected Skill made it a decision he couldn’t undo.

He let Iron Frame disappear.

The next candidate entered.

Someone three rows below Nate wrote something on a terminal.

Nate noticed because she hadn’t written anything when the candidate selected Driving Blow.

She had waited until the other two vanished.

He watched her during the next awakening.

Three Skills appeared.

One chosen.

Two rejected.

Her fingers moved again.

Nate looked at the terminal in her lap.

He couldn’t see the text from this angle.

Another candidate went through.

The same thing happened.

She barely looked at the Skill that was selected.

She recorded the other two.

Nate stopped watching the chamber.

The woman wore a dark green coat with no Talent Exchange crest and no visible Academy badge.

When the next rejected Skills vanished, she checked the time before entering something else.

Then she stood.

Her eyes moved across the gallery.

They passed over Nate without stopping.

She left through the lower exit.

Nate looked back at the awakening chamber.

Forsaken Claim was quiet again.

He had come looking for a Skill.

For the first time, he wondered who else cared about the ones nobody chose.

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