I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Nate expected the suspension to last longer.

Instead, Field Command gave him paperwork.

Darek was waiting outside the review room when Nate arrived. Tessa sat inside with a tablet on her knees. Joric was already gone.

"How bad?" Nate asked.

Darek opened the door.

"You still have a bed."

"Good start."

Tessa looked up.

"Joric requested reassignment."

Nate sat across from her.

"Permanent?"

"He asked not to be placed on an active Graveshare roster until Field Command has a disclosure procedure."

That was better than Nate had expected.

Tessa turned the tablet around.

Three pages of proposed rules filled the screen.

Roster notification before deployment.

Written acknowledgement.

Clear explanation of what Graveshare preserved after death.

Procedure for reassignment requests.

Nate read the first page.

"You wrote this?"

"Most of it."

"Fast."

"I had a reason."

Nate looked at her.

Tessa didn’t look angry anymore. That was almost worse.

"You should have told us," she said.

"I know."

"You knew before Savin died?"

"That the roster linked automatically? Yes."

"And that his death could stay with you?"

Nate hesitated.

"I knew it could preserve something."

"Something."

"I hadn’t seen it happen with me as bearer."

Tessa watched him for another second.

Then she took the tablet back.

"I’m not asking for an apology."

"I wasn’t giving one."

"I noticed."

Darek leaned against the wall.

"Field Command’s position is simple. Until the procedure is approved, Calder doesn’t deploy on an active roster."

Nate looked at him.

"For how long?"

"Could be two days. Could be two weeks."

The irritation came faster than he expected.

Two weeks without deployments meant no field merit, no salvage, no new linked exposure and no chance to test what Graveshare could actually do in Varen.

Darek noticed his expression.

"Try looking disappointed about the dead man instead."

Nate’s jaw tightened.

Tessa looked between them.

"Darek."

"He asked how long."

"I didn’t ask for a lecture," Nate said.

"No. You asked when you could go back."

Silence held for a moment.

Darek pushed away from the wall.

"You’re still cleared for non-roster work. Medical observation. Armament review. Talent support if they request it."

"Talent support?"

"Varo filed something."

That caught Nate’s attention.

Darek saw that too.

"Go bother him instead."

Central Talent Services had four public levels.

Nate had been allowed into two of them.

The first handled registration, records and appointments. The second contained observation galleries above several awakening rooms.

The private floors remained locked behind gold access panels.

Nate sat at a public terminal and opened the material Varo had authorized.

Most of it was useless.

Class compatibility studies.

Array calibration notes.

Statistics on awakening failure.

He searched for rejected Skills.

That produced more.

POST-SELECTION RESONANCE

Rejected Skills did not vanish at the exact instant a choice was made.

The Array could still measure fragments of their energetic pattern for a few seconds afterward.

Three seconds was common.

Five was considered a strong reading.

Some traces lasted longer.

Researchers used them to improve Array calibration and compare how Classes produced different Skill structures.

Nothing in the public material suggested anyone could do anything useful with the trace itself.

Nate read the section twice.

Someone stopped beside his terminal.

"You’re blocking the comparison table."

He looked up.

The woman from the gallery stood behind him.

Dark green coat. Same narrow case hanging from one shoulder.

Nate moved his chair slightly.

"There are six other terminals."

"That one has the better display."

"Of course it does."

She sat at the terminal beside him instead.

Her temporary badge turned when she reached for the screen.

SERIS ARVEN

Nate looked away before she caught him reading it.

Too late.

"You could have asked."

"Would you have answered?"

"Probably."

She opened a resonance database.

Nate returned to his own screen.

For almost a minute, neither spoke.

Then Seris said, "You’re Field Command."

"Sometimes."

"That doesn’t sound like a job."

"It’s complicated."

She glanced at the black band around his forearm.

Her eyes stayed there for less than a second.

"Apparently."

Nate closed the public report.

"What are you looking for?"

"Old calibration records."

"Why?"

"Because I need them."

He waited.

Seris looked at him.

"Was there another part to the question?"

"No."

She returned to the terminal.

Nate almost smiled.

At least she hadn’t tried to make herself mysterious.

Six awakenings were scheduled in Gallery Two.

Nate took a seat near the rear.

Seris sat three rows below him with her case open across her knees.

The first candidate manifested a Standard mobility Class.

Three Skills appeared.

He chose Rapid Turn.

Nate felt Forsaken Claim react to one of the rejected options.

CLOSING STEP

Accelerates the user during the final approach toward a nearby target.

Useful.

Probably very useful.

Nate dismissed it.

Rovan had spent months teaching him how to enter range without wasting movement. Closing Step would make that easier, but easier was not enough for a permanent Node.

The prompt faded.

Seris didn’t record it.

The second awakening produced nothing Nate wanted.

The third was a support Class.

The fourth candidate stepped into the Array after almost ten minutes of recalibration.

A broad-shouldered man named Elian Voss.

The light beneath him changed from white to deep amber.

His Class appeared first.

IMPACT WARDEN

The technicians exchanged approving looks.

Three Skills followed.

FORCE RETURN

STILLPOINT

LOAD BRACE

Elian stared at them.

Nate did too.

Descriptions appeared beneath each one.

Force Return stored part of an impact and added it to the user’s next physical strike.

Load Brace reduced muscular and joint strain while carrying external weight.

Stillpoint was simpler.

STILLPOINT

For a brief interval, the user’s body resists displacement caused by external force.

Energy consumption increases with the force resisted.

Nate leaned forward.

Elian chose Force Return.

The decision took less than five seconds.

People in the gallery murmured approval.

It was the obvious choice.

Hit someone after they hit you.

Easy to understand.

Easy to sell.

The other two Skills dimmed.

Forsaken Claim opened inside Nate’s awareness.

STILLPOINT

CLAIM?

He didn’t dismiss it.

A committed strike.

A charge.

Something several times his mass trying to throw him from position.

Killing Step worked best when the opponent had already committed.

Stillpoint could give Nate a way to remain exactly where that commitment became dangerous.

The cost was the interesting part.

Energy consumption scaled with force.

For most First Circuits, that could make the Skill too expensive to rely on.

Nate had more capacity than most First Circuits were supposed to hold.

His pathways still limited how much he could move at once, but Stillpoint did not need sustained output.

It needed timing.

One instant.

Maybe less.

His third Node was open.

He had refused Redline.

He had refused Iron Frame.

He had refused Closing Step minutes ago.

This was the first Skill since forming the Node that he could see fitting everything else instead of replacing something he had already learned.

The Array lights flickered.

A low vibration passed through the gallery floor.

Several people looked down.

One of the technicians checked the wall display.

"Minor Pulse. Central has it."

No alarm followed.

Nate barely heard him.

Stillpoint remained in front of him.

He made the decision.

CLAIM.

Nothing happened.

Nate frowned.

His third Node remained empty.

The prompt flickered once.

Then disappeared.

He focused again.

Nothing.

Across the gallery, Seris stood so quickly that the case slid from her knees.

A technician looked over.

"Miss Arven?"

"Bring the last rejection back."

"The candidate already selected."

"The resonance record."

The technician sighed and opened the previous result.

Two decay curves appeared on the side monitor.

Load Brace descended normally.

Stillpoint did not.

Its line fell for a little over three seconds.

Then stopped.

Not reached zero.

Stopped.

Seris stepped closer to the glass.

"Is the recording damaged?"

The technician checked another window.

"No."

"Then why does it end?"

"The Pulse probably interrupted the channel."

"The other trace continued."

"Different sensor band."

Seris pointed at the screen.

"Same Array."

The technician’s expression changed slightly.

He enlarged the record.

Nate tried Forsaken Claim again.

Still nothing.

The wall display flashed.

A new notification appeared beside the Pulse report.

FIELD RESONANCE CROSSCHECK

WESTERN ACCESS

SECTOR 3

A single spike rose from a flat graph.

The technician opened it, frowned, then closed it almost immediately.

Seris saw enough.

"Timestamp."

"I’m not giving you field telemetry."

"Was it during the rejection?"

"You don’t have clearance for that data."

"That wasn’t my question."

The technician turned the screen away.

"Submit a request."

Seris stared at him.

The next candidate’s name appeared above the Array.

The technician was already moving on.

Seris slowly returned to her seat.

Nate watched her.

She didn’t look at him.

The remaining awakenings were ordinary.

Nate barely remembered them.

Forsaken Claim reacted twice.

He rejected both prompts without reading them for long.

When the session ended, he found Seris downstairs at the service counter.

"I need the raw feed from Gallery Two," she said.

The clerk tapped her badge.

"Temporary research access doesn’t include raw resonance."

"I know."

"Then you need a supervisor."

"My supervisor is outside Varen."

"You can request remote approval."

"How long?"

"Usually forty-eight hours."

Seris exhaled through her nose.

"What about the Western Access crosscheck?"

"Field Command."

"Can I request the timestamp only?"

"No."

The clerk called the next number.

Seris stepped aside.

She saw Nate waiting near the exit.

"You spend a lot of time near service counters."

"I was leaving."

"So was I."

He glanced at the case under her arm.

"What happened upstairs?"

"Probably a bad reading."

"You don’t believe that."

"I don’t have enough information to believe anything."

Better answer than Nate expected.

He walked toward the exit.

Seris ended up beside him.

"What do you do with the resonance records?" he asked.

"Compare them."

"For what?"

"Patterns."

"What kind?"

She thought about it before answering.

"Some rejected Skills remain readable longer than expected. Some disappear too quickly."

Nate kept his face neutral.

"Does that matter?"

"I don’t know yet."

That sounded true.

They reached the main junction.

Seris turned toward the research wing.

Nate continued toward Field Command transit.

His terminal vibrated.

Ethan.

Field evaluation tomorrow.

A second message followed almost immediately.

Mara says you can come watch.

Then:

She also says I should stop pretending she invited you.

Nate smiled despite himself.

An official notice opened beneath the messages.

CONTROLLED OBSERVATION CLEARANCE

WESTERN ACCESS

TRAINING SECTOR 3

His smile disappeared.

He opened the full assignment.

ROLE: ARMAMENT OBSERVER

FIELD ROSTER: NONE

ACTIVE DEPLOYMENT STATUS: NO

Ethan Ward appeared under the Talent candidates.

Mara Venn beneath him.

Nate scrolled farther.

Research support had one temporary attachment.

SERIS ARVEN

He stopped walking.

Training Sector 3.

The same sector that had appeared on the wall monitor seconds after Stillpoint vanished.

Nate focused on his third Node.

Empty.

He had chosen the Skill.

For the first time, Forsaken Claim had failed to give him what he chose.

Tomorrow morning, he would be standing in the place that had answered when it disappeared.

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