I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Nate reached Western Access forty minutes early.

Seris was already there.

She stood at a Field Command counter with one hand flat against the glass while a clerk searched through yesterday’s records.

"I asked for the timestamp," she said. "Nothing else."

"You asked for field telemetry."

"I changed the request."

The clerk looked tired enough to resent both versions.

"You have temporary research access. Field Command approved a timestamp comparison, so that is what you’re getting."

He turned a monitor toward her.

Nate slowed.

Seris saw him but didn’t call him over.

The first record appeared.

GALLERY TWO

RESONANCE LOSS: 14:17:08.442

The clerk opened another window.

WESTERN ACCESS

SECTOR 3 FIELD EVENT: 14:17:08.391

Seris leaned toward the screen.

Nate stopped beside her.

Fifty-one milliseconds.

He had spent most of last night thinking Stillpoint had vanished first.

The records said otherwise.

Seris tapped the second timestamp.

"This starts before the gallery loss."

"By fifty-one milliseconds."

"Are the clocks synchronized?"

"Central clock."

"Margin of error?"

The clerk opened a technical panel.

"Under four milliseconds between these systems."

Seris went quiet.

Nate looked at the two times again.

Whatever happened in Sector Three had begun before Forsaken Claim failed.

"What was the field event?" he asked.

The clerk glanced at his badge.

ARMAMENT OBSERVER

"You’re cleared for today’s exercise, not yesterday’s telemetry."

"So that’s a no."

"That’s a submit-a-request."

Seris pushed away from the counter.

"I already did."

"And?"

"They denied it."

"Then somebody is doing their job."

The clerk closed the records.

Seris picked up the narrow case at her feet.

Nate followed her toward security.

"You knew I was there yesterday," she said.

"Hard not to notice."

"You were watching Voss’s awakening."

"So were thirty people."

"You were watching Stillpoint."

Nate looked at her.

She wasn’t accusing him of anything. She sounded curious.

"It was a good Skill."

"He chose Force Return."

"I know."

"You disagree?"

"For him? Maybe not."

"For you?"

Nate waited while the security gate scanned his badge.

"Stillpoint."

"Why?"

He could have invented an answer.

The truth was harmless enough.

"I already know how to move. Something that lets me choose when I don’t move is more useful."

Seris studied him for a second.

Then the gate opened.

"That makes sense."

She walked through.

Nate followed.

He wasn’t sure why that answer bothered him more than disagreement would have.

Ethan and Mara were waiting beyond the equipment station.

Ethan noticed them together.

"You’ve been in Varen for a week and you’re already making research friends."

Seris kept walking.

Nate stopped beside him.

"She doesn’t like me."

"That has never stopped you."

"Name one example."

Ethan opened his mouth.

Mara interrupted.

"Don’t."

He looked at her.

"You don’t even know what I was going to say."

"I know enough."

Nate smiled.

For a moment the three of them could have been back at the regional center.

Then Captain Dorn called the candidates toward the test floor.

The feeling passed.

Sector Three had been built around something black.

Nate saw it as soon as he entered the chamber.

A broad section of dark Colossus material rose through the center of the floor, too smooth to be bone and too dense to resemble the pale tissue around it. Human engineers had built the testing platform around the exposed mass rather than cutting through it.

Metal supports climbed toward the high ceiling.

Observation booths lined the walls.

Six Talent candidates waited near the platform.

Elian Voss stood among them.

Nate recognized him immediately.

Elian didn’t recognize Nate.

Yesterday, Nate had been another face behind gallery glass while Elian chose Force Return and abandoned the Skill Nate wanted.

Darek stood beside Dorn, checking a portable field monitor.

His eyes found Nate.

"No roster."

"I know."

"Say it anyway."

"Graveshare is inactive."

Darek nodded.

"Good."

Seris opened her case at one of the research stations.

Dorn addressed the candidates.

"Today’s evaluation measures controlled Skill output under Colossus ambient pressure. This is not a competition. If an instructor tells you to stop, you stop."

Ethan glanced at Mara.

Mara caught him.

"Don’t."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You were thinking it loudly."

Dorn looked directly at Ethan.

"Any questions, Ward?"

"No, Captain."

"Good."

The first candidate entered the platform.

A mechanical impact arm moved into position.

The candidate used a defensive Skill.

The padded plate struck his shoulder.

He slid almost a metre.

Numbers appeared above the platform.

Dorn corrected his stance and repeated the test.

The next candidate did better.

Then Mara’s name was called.

She stepped onto the platform and rolled her shoulders once.

"Unbroken Ground," Dorn said. "Low output."

Mara opened her Circuit.

The change was immediate.

Her energy settled downward through her stance.

The impact arm fired.

The strike hit hard enough to echo through the chamber.

Mara moved several centimetres.

The platform vibrated beneath her.

A researcher read the result.

"Stable. Increase?"

Dorn looked at Mara.

"Can you?"

"Yes."

The second impact was heavier.

Mara’s rear foot shifted, but she stayed upright.

Nate watched how the force spread through her body and into the surface beneath her.

She had always been good at holding ground.

Her Legacy had turned that into something else entirely.

When she stepped off, Ethan offered her a bottle.

She took it.

"Don’t look so pleased with yourself."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You were thinking it loudly."

Ethan frowned at Nate.

"She’s stealing that."

"Improve your material."

Dorn called him next.

Ethan entered the platform.

His first impact sent him back half a step.

The second didn’t.

Stand Before All filled his Circuit with a pressure Nate could feel from behind the barrier.

Ethan absorbed the hit, adjusted and stayed where he was.

The third impact shook the frame around him.

He held.

Nate felt the familiar irritation return.

Ethan’s First Circuit was still ahead of his.

Cleaner circulation.

Higher output.

More time under proper instruction.

Nate had survived things Ethan had never seen.

That hadn’t erased the difference.

Ethan stepped off the platform breathing harder than before.

He came past Nate.

"Don’t say it."

"Mara looked better."

"Her test was different."

"Sounds like an excuse."

"It is an explanation."

Mara passed behind them.

"Still looked better."

Ethan stared after her.

"I liked both of you more before awakening."

Dorn called the next name.

"Elian Voss."

Nate’s attention returned to the platform.

Seris had already stopped looking at her notes.

Elian took his place.

"Force Return," Dorn said.

"Ready."

The impact arm drew back.

Elian activated his Skill.

The plate struck his chest.

He slid backward.

Energy gathered across his shoulders and right arm.

A target rose from the floor.

Elian stepped forward and punched it.

The stored force hit with a heavy crack.

The target snapped backward on its mount.

Elian smiled.

"Again."

Dorn checked the numbers.

"Higher load."

The arm reset.

Nate looked toward Seris.

She was watching the field sensors instead of Elian.

The impact fired.

Elian’s body started to move.

Then his feet stopped.

Nate saw it before he understood it.

His upper body continued backward while both boots remained fixed in place.

Elian made a sharp sound.

The plate drove into him for another fraction of a second.

Dorn hit the emergency control.

Everything stopped.

Elian dropped to one knee.

A medic moved toward the platform.

Darek blocked the entrance with one arm.

"Wait."

The floor beneath Elian gave a faint vibration.

Nate stared at his boots.

Nothing held them.

No clamp.

No visible restraint.

Darek checked his monitor.

"Clear."

The medic entered.

Elian pulled in a shallow breath.

"My ribs."

"Don’t move."

"I couldn’t."

The medic checked his chest.

Elian shook his head.

"My legs. I tried to step back."

Dorn looked at the machine operator.

"Platform restraint?"

"There isn’t one."

"Emergency anchor?"

"Mechanical only. It never engaged."

The operator brought up the replay.

Nate moved closer to the barrier.

The recording slowed.

Impact.

Elian began sliding.

Then his feet stopped.

His knees and hips continued taking the force.

That was where the injury happened.

Ethan appeared beside Nate.

"What did that?"

"I don’t know."

Nate heard the lie in his own answer.

He knew what it looked like.

Yesterday, he had read the description several times.

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

Stillpoint.

Mara joined them.

"Did his Skill malfunction?"

"Force Return stores impact," Ethan said. "It shouldn’t pin him."

Seris called from the research station.

"Don’t reset the field sensors."

Dorn looked toward her.

"What did you find?"

"I’m checking."

That answer was better than a theory.

The medic helped Elian stand.

He could walk.

Painful, but stable.

They took him toward the medical exit.

Dorn suspended the evaluation.

No one argued.

Seris spent the next ten minutes comparing screens.

Nate stayed near Darek.

"What are you thinking?" Darek asked.

"That Voss was supposed to move."

"Very insightful."

"His feet stopped after the impact had already started."

"I saw."

"The machine didn’t do it."

"Also saw that."

Nate looked at the black material beneath the platform.

Darek followed his eyes.

"Don’t start touching things."

"I wasn’t going to."

"I’ve known you long enough to ask."

Seris raised her hand.

"Dorn."

The captain joined her.

Nate couldn’t hear the first part of the conversation.

Then Dorn looked toward the platform.

"You’re sure?"

"No."

Seris enlarged one of the sensor graphs.

"There are two responses during the impact."

Dorn leaned closer.

"Voss and the machine?"

"Voss is one. The impact system is logged separately."

"Then what’s the second?"

"I don’t know."

Nate approached.

Dorn looked at his observer badge, then allowed him to stay.

Seris pointed at the graph.

"This starts after contact and disappears almost immediately."

"Same sensor as yesterday?" Nate asked.

Seris glanced at him.

"Same network."

"Same reading?"

"No."

That surprised him.

Seris brought yesterday’s anomaly beside it.

The shapes weren’t identical.

One rose sharply and vanished.

The other was broader.

Nate couldn’t have matched them himself.

"Related?" Dorn asked.

"Possibly."

"That’s useful."

"It’s accurate."

Dorn exhaled.

"What do you need?"

"Sensor origin."

"You have the room map."

"The room map tells me which system recorded it. I want the physical source calculation."

Dorn looked at Darek.

He shrugged.

"It’s already closed for evaluation."

"Do it."

A technician began the localization process.

Nate looked at Seris.

"You don’t think it came from the platform."

"I think the platform recorded it."

"Difference?"

"A microphone records a gunshot. That doesn’t mean the microphone fired the gun."

That was the first thing she’d said all morning that stayed with him.

The technician called for silence.

A map appeared across the main wall.

Sector Three filled the display.

The system triangulated between four field sensors.

A marker formed beneath the testing platform.

Then moved.

Lower.

The technician frowned.

He recalibrated.

The marker remained below them.

"How far?" Dorn asked.

"Calculating."

Numbers changed beside the map.

Twenty metres.

Forty.

Ninety.

The marker kept descending.

One hundred and thirty.

Seris stopped typing.

The estimate settled.

SOURCE DEPTH: 184 M

Nobody spoke.

Dorn looked at the technician.

"That sensor network can read that deep?"

"Under normal field conditions, no."

"Then run it again."

He did.

The second estimate moved by less than three metres.

Darek stared at the floor.

"What’s beneath us?"

The technician opened the structural plans.

Human construction ended thirty-seven metres down.

Everything below that was Colossus.

No maintenance routes.

No research shafts.

Nothing marked.

Nate looked at the black mass built into the platform.

Yesterday, Sector Three had reacted before Stillpoint vanished.

Today, Elian had been held in place by something his chosen Skill should not have done.

Now the field system pointed almost two hundred metres below them.

Ethan came through the barrier after Dorn waved him over.

Mara followed.

"What happened?" Ethan asked.

Dorn answered before Nate could.

"We’re closing the sector."

"Because of Voss?"

"Because we don’t know what happened to Voss."

Ethan looked at the map.

"What’s the marker?"

No one answered immediately.

Seris closed yesterday’s record and left only the depth estimate on the screen.

"We picked up a response during his test."

"From down there?"

"That’s what the system says."

Mara looked toward the floor.

"Is there a lower facility?"

"No," Darek said.

Nate felt Ethan’s attention shift to him.

"You knew something was wrong before we came here."

Nate met his eyes.

"I knew yesterday’s reading came from this sector."

"Anything else?"

Stillpoint.

Forsaken Claim failing.

The empty third Node.

Nate could feel all three answers waiting.

"Nothing I can prove."

Ethan didn’t look satisfied.

For once, he didn’t push.

An alarm sounded from the platform.

Short.

Technical.

One of the researchers turned toward her station.

"The source moved."

Dorn crossed the room.

"What?"

The map updated.

The marker that had been almost directly beneath Sector Three was no longer there.

A new location appeared thirty metres east.

Then another update.

Deeper.

201 M

Seris stared at the screen.

Nate looked down.

Whatever the sensors were following, it wasn’t part of the training platform.

It wasn’t even staying beneath them.

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