Darek read the Directorate request twice.
Then he looked at Nate.
"They want an evaluation."
Nate stood across from him in one of Western Access’s smaller training rooms.
"I know."
"They want mine."
"I know that too."
Darek lowered the terminal.
"Why?"
Nate considered pretending not to understand.
"Recruitment review."
Darek’s eyes went briefly to Graveshare.
"Imperial?"
"Yes."
"Offer?"
"Not yet."
"Good."
Nate frowned.
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Maybe listen to them."
The room had been built for field crews rather than academy candidates.
Reinforced walls.
Drainage channels along the floor.
A marked training square occupied most of the centre, with racks of blunt weapons beside the entrance.
No audience.
A medical technician sat behind the control station reviewing Nate’s clearance.
Darek opened the same file.
PATHWAY STRESS: STABLE
ACTIVE CIRCULATION: LIMITED TRAINING APPROVED
SUSTAINED OUTPUT: RESTRICTED
The technician looked over.
"No sustained circulation. If you get numbness, metallic taste, sudden weakness or persistent heat around the shoulder, you stop."
Nate nodded.
Darek closed the file.
"What do you normally use?"
"Sidearm. Knife."
"Mourning Edge?"
"Only when I need it."
"Not today."
He took a padded baton from the rack and tossed Nate a blunt knife.
Nate caught it.
"No Graveshare."
"I know."
Darek stepped onto the training floor.
"Show me what you do."
"Against what?"
"Me."
Nate joined him.
The technician started the timer.
Darek moved.
Nate saw the baton leave his side.
Then it was against his ribs.
He stepped back.
Darek returned to his starting position.
"You circulated."
"A little."
Nate had barely felt it.
That bothered him more than the hit.
Darek was Second Circuit, but he hadn’t flooded the room with pressure or overwhelmed Nate with raw output.
He had used exactly enough.
They reset.
This time Nate opened his circulation before Darek approached.
The familiar current settled through his routes.
Darek came forward.
Nate watched his shoulders.
His stance.
The transfer of weight into the front leg.
The baton moved.
Nate shifted outside the line.
Darek had committed.
Killing Step.
Nate entered.
His knife almost touched Darek’s side.
Darek’s free hand caught his wrist.
A turn.
Nate’s fingers opened.
The knife hit the floor.
The baton stopped beside his throat.
Darek released him.
Nate picked up the knife.
"You committed."
"Yes."
"And I read it."
"Yes."
"Then how did you recover?"
Darek settled back into position.
"I committed to hitting you."
He lifted the baton.
"I didn’t promise to stay there afterward."
Nate stared at him.
"Again."
The next exchange lasted longer.
Darek shortened everything.
Small steps.
Short attacks.
Little weight transfer.
Nate waited for the kind of opening Killing Step needed.
It never arrived.
The baton touched his chest.
Darek stepped back.
"You waited."
"For an opening."
"For me to make one."
"Same thing."
"No."
Darek came forward again.
This time his front foot took more weight.
His shoulder followed.
There.
Nate entered.
The opening disappeared.
Darek had left enough behind to change direction.
The baton struck Nate across the upper arm.
He moved away.
Darek didn’t pursue.
"How many people have you used that on?"
Nate thought about it.
"Enough."
"How many knew what you were waiting for?"
Nate didn’t answer.
Darek tapped the baton against his leg.
"Animals don’t care what you’re reading. Constructs repeat what they’re built to finish."
His eyes stayed on Nate.
"People learn."
They reset.
Darek attacked.
Nate avoided the first strike.
Then the second.
He watched more carefully now.
Darek’s body.
His current.
The moments where one seemed to announce the other.
Then Nate noticed something he hadn’t been looking for.
His own circulation did the same thing.
Every time Nate decided to exploit an opening, energy entered his movement almost immediately.
Darek could feel it.
Maybe not perfectly.
Enough.
The baton came toward Nate’s shoulder.
Nate shifted.
Current entered his leg.
Darek changed the line before Nate finished moving.
The baton touched his ribs.
Something inside Posthumous Disciple pulled.
The room vanished.
Cold rain struck Nate’s face.
Trees flashed past him.
He was running.
No.
Rovan was.
Someone followed several metres behind.
Second Circuit.
Fast enough that Rovan couldn’t simply lose him.
Rovan stepped left.
Current entered the leg as he moved.
The pursuer changed direction immediately.
A blade opened Rovan’s forearm.
The memory shifted.
Again.
Rovan moved.
This time the energy came first.
The man reacted before Rovan’s foot had properly left the ground.
Steel passed across his shoulder.
Again.
Rovan began the step with nothing.
Ordinary movement.
The pursuer followed.
Rovan waited.
Too long.
His foot took his weight.
Then the current arrived.
Pain tore through the loaded knee.
He fell.
The memory changed.
Bandages.
The same leg.
Another attempt.
Rovan stepped.
Ordinary speed first.
The pursuer adjusted.
Current entered while the foot was still moving.
The second half of the step changed.
Rovan crossed farther than expected.
The blade passed behind him.
Again.
This time the current came too early.
The pursuer caught him.
Again.
Too late.
Pain through the ankle.
Again.
A smaller delay.
Better.
Then wrong on the next step.
Rovan kept changing it.
Fractions Nate could feel through the memory but couldn’t yet reproduce.
He wasn’t trying to become faster.
He was changing when the speed appeared.
The memory released him.
Western Access returned.
Darek had already lowered the baton.
Only a few seconds had passed.
"You stopped."
Nate looked at his legs.
"Deep Imitation."
Darek had seen the registered Kinetic Recall file and didn’t ask further.
"Useful?"
"Maybe."
Darek lifted the baton.
"Let’s find out."
They reset.
Nate moved.
He tried to delay his circulation.
It came almost immediately anyway.
Habit.
Darek read him and struck his forearm.
Nate stepped back.
Again.
This time Nate forced himself to wait.
His foot moved first.
Then he released the current.
Too late.
Most of his weight was already down.
Pain flashed through his knee.
The leg nearly folded.
Darek stopped.
The technician leaned toward the controls.
"What happened?"
"Bad timing."
"Sit."
"I’m fine."
"Nate."
He straightened carefully.
The knee held.
Darek watched him.
"What did you change?"
"When the current entered."
"Why?"
Nate looked at him.
"One more."
Darek glanced toward the technician.
The man looked annoyed.
"No high output. One exchange. If that leg goes again, we’re done."
Nate nodded.
They reset.
Rovan’s memory had felt precise because Nate had experienced years of mistakes compressed into seconds.
His own body had none of that conditioning.
Body Memory could preserve adaptation.
It couldn’t give him adaptations he hadn’t earned.
Nate lowered his stance.
He didn’t need Rovan’s finished technique.
He needed one crude version that didn’t damage him.
Darek approached.
The baton started toward Nate’s left side.
Nate stepped right.
No current.
The movement felt slower than usual.
Darek adjusted.
His baton changed line to meet Nate’s ordinary pace.
Nate waited until his foot was already moving.
Then released a narrow pulse.
Acceleration came halfway through the step.
Small.
Messy.
Enough.
Darek’s baton passed behind Nate’s shoulder.
Nate entered the inside line.
His knife touched the side of Darek’s field jacket.
For less than a second.
Darek’s elbow struck Nate’s arm.
The knife flew from his hand.
A sweep took his legs out.
Nate hit the mat.
The baton stopped beside his jaw.
Silence.
Darek looked down.
"You still lost."
"I noticed."
"But you touched me."
Nate sat up.
His knee hurt.
Less than before.
Darek lowered the baton.
"What did you do?"
"Started moving before I circulated."
"Then added it partway through."
"Yes."
Darek looked toward Nate’s leg.
"Do that badly against someone stronger and your joint takes the load before the pathway helps."
"My knee mentioned it."
"Listen to that too."
He held out a hand.
Nate took it.
The technician was already approaching with the scanner.
"Sit."
This time Nate obeyed.
The scanner passed around the knee.
Then higher along the route.
"No tear."
Nate relaxed slightly.
"Minor irritation around the pathway and tendon. Training is over."
Darek opened the Directorate evaluation.
Nate watched him type.
"What’s the verdict?"
"You’re too dependent on one answer."
Nate’s expression tightened.
Darek continued.
"Killing Step works when the other person gives you the condition you need."
"I know."
"You knew five minutes ago too."
Nate looked at him.
Darek entered another line.
"When I stopped giving it to you, you tried changing the technique instead of forcing it harder."
His terminal chimed.
Submitted.
Nate’s own terminal vibrated a few seconds later.
IMPERIAL TALENT DIRECTORATE
FIELD EVALUATION RECEIVED
REVIEW STATUS: ACTIVE
Still no offer.
The technician removed the scanner.
"No more circulation work today."
"Understood."
His terminal vibrated again.
Seris.
A file this time.
Nate opened it.
WESTERN ACCESS SECTOR THREE
THIRD CIRCUIT SURVEY EXIT: 15:42:11
LOCAL RESPONSE DETECTED: 15:42:19
ESTIMATED DEPTH: 204 M
SOURCE: UNRESOLVED
Nate read the times.
Eight seconds.
He typed:
It came back after they left.
Seris answered quickly.
Eight seconds after the survey team cleared the monitored zone.
Then another message.
That does not mean it waited for them.
Nate read that one twice.
Darek glanced over.
"Something wrong?"
"Don’t know."
Darek nodded.
Nate opened the previous Sector Three reports.
The first localization had settled near 184 metres.
Later, 201.
Then 203.
Now 204.
Different readings.
No identified source.
No route below the mapped human structures.
And the Third Circuit survey had spent hours inside Sector Three without finding anything that explained them.
Nate closed the files.
Eight seconds after they left.
That was all the data proved.
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