I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Darek read the Directorate request twice.

Then he looked across the training room at Nate.

"They want an evaluation from me."

"I know."

"Why me?"

"Recruitment review."

Darek’s eyes dropped to Graveshare.

"Imperial?"

"Yeah."

"Offer?"

"Not yet."

"Good."

Nate frowned.

"You’re the fourth person who’s said that."

"Could be a pattern."

The training room was smaller than the Academy halls Nate was used to. It had been built for field crews who needed somewhere to test equipment without breaking anything expensive.

Reinforced walls. Drainage along the edges. A square marked into the floor.

Most of the weapon rack held things that looked as though they’d been repaired more than once.

A medical technician sat behind the control station with Nate’s clearance open.

PATHWAY STRESS: STABLE

ACTIVE CIRCULATION: LIMITED TRAINING APPROVED

SUSTAINED OUTPUT: RESTRICTED

The technician looked over.

"No sustained circulation. Numbness, metallic taste, weakness, heat around the shoulder that doesn’t fade, you stop."

Nate nodded.

The man kept looking at him.

"What?"

"I’m waiting for the part where you negotiate."

"I’m not going to."

Darek gave the technician a glance.

"Write down the date."

The technician snorted and returned to his screen.

Darek closed Nate’s file.

"What do you normally fight with?"

"Sidearm. Knife."

"Mourning Edge?"

"If I need it."

"You don’t."

He took a padded baton from the rack, tested its balance, then tossed Nate a blunt training knife.

Nate caught it.

"No Graveshare."

"I heard you."

Darek stepped into the square.

"Come on."

Nate joined him.

"What’s the test?"

"You."

"That’s vague."

"So is the Directorate request."

The technician started the timer.

Darek moved.

Nate saw the baton leave his side.

Then felt it against his ribs.

He stepped away on instinct.

Darek returned to where he’d started.

"You circulated."

"A little."

"Didn’t help."

Nate rubbed his side.

He’d barely felt Darek’s current.

That bothered him.

Second Circuit should have been obvious.

Darek hadn’t filled the room with pressure. He hadn’t used enough force to impress anyone.

He’d used enough to touch Nate before Nate could stop him.

"Again," Nate said.

This time he opened his circulation before Darek came in.

Current settled through the routes in his legs and torso.

Darek approached.

Nate watched the front shoulder.

Weight moving through the stance.

The baton beginning to turn.

There.

Nate shifted outside the strike.

Darek had committed.

Killing Step.

Nate entered.

The blunt knife came within a handspan of Darek’s side.

Then Darek’s free hand caught his wrist.

Nate felt his balance go.

The knife hit the floor.

The baton stopped under his jaw.

Darek released him.

Nate picked up the knife.

"You committed."

"Did I?"

"You swung."

"Yes."

"I read it."

"Also yes."

"Then how did you change direction?"

Darek rolled one shoulder.

"I was hitting you. I wasn’t marrying the position."

Nate stared at him.

The technician coughed into his fist.

Darek looked over.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Again."

The next exchange lasted longer.

Darek stopped giving Nate large movements.

His steps became shorter.

The baton came from closer positions. Less shoulder. Less weight.

Nate waited.

Nothing.

A tap landed against his chest.

Darek backed off.

"You were waiting."

"For you to commit."

"That’s what I mean."

Nate frowned.

Darek came again before he could answer.

This time there was more weight on the front foot.

More shoulder.

Nate entered.

Too early.

Darek changed the line and the baton cracked against Nate’s upper arm.

Nate retreated.

Darek didn’t follow.

"How many people have you used Killing Step on?"

"A few."

"How many knew you had it?"

Nate thought of the Supervisor.

The feeder.

Training bouts.

"Not many."

"That’s going to change."

Darek tapped the baton against his thigh.

"Animals keep doing what animals do. Constructs are worse. They repeat whatever somebody built into them."

He pointed the baton at Nate.

"People notice things."

They reset.

Darek attacked.

Nate avoided the first strike.

The second forced him sideways.

He stopped watching only Darek’s body.

Current moved too.

There were small tells in it.

A shift before the baton accelerated.

A tightening through the shoulder route.

Nate had been watching those signals without naming them.

Then he noticed the other half.

His own.

Whenever Nate saw an opening, his current changed before he fully moved.

Not much.

Enough.

Darek could feel that too.

The baton came toward Nate’s left shoulder.

Nate shifted right.

Current entered his leg.

Darek changed the strike before Nate finished.

The padded end touched his ribs.

Something inside Posthumous Disciple pulled.

The room disappeared.

Cold rain hit Nate’s face.

Trees blurred past.

He was running.

Then the memory settled and the body stopped being his.

Rovan.

Someone followed several metres behind him.

Fast.

Second Circuit.

Rovan moved left.

Current entered his leg as the step began.

The pursuer reacted at once.

A blade opened Rovan’s forearm.

The scene jumped.

Same chase.

Rovan released current before moving.

The man behind him changed direction before Rovan’s foot had cleared the ground.

Steel crossed his shoulder.

Again.

Rovan stepped with nothing.

Ordinary movement.

The pursuer followed.

Rovan waited.

His foot took too much weight.

Then the current came.

Pain tore through the knee.

He went down.

Another fragment.

Bandages wrapped the same leg.

Rovan tried again.

Normal step first.

The pursuer adjusted.

Current entered while the foot was still travelling.

The back half of the movement changed.

Rovan crossed farther than expected.

The blade cut empty air.

Again.

The current came early.

Caught.

Again.

Late.

Pain through the ankle.

Again.

Smaller delay.

Better.

The next attempt failed anyway.

There wasn’t a clean progression.

Rovan spent days finding the timing and losing it again.

Different terrain.

Different opponents.

Different injuries.

Sometimes the current came too soon because he was afraid of being slow.

Sometimes too late because he was trying too hard to hide it.

But eventually Nate understood what Rovan had been trying to do.

Not move faster from the start.

Let the opponent read one movement.

Then change it halfway through.

The memory released him.

The training room returned.

Darek had lowered the baton.

"You went somewhere."

Nate looked at his legs.

"Deep Imitation."

Darek knew the registered Kinetic Recall file.

He didn’t ask for more.

"Get anything?"

"Maybe."

"That’s inconvenient."

"Why?"

"I was hoping we were finished."

The technician looked up.

"We can be."

Nate ignored him.

"One more."

Darek sighed.

"Fine."

They reset.

Nate tried to reproduce what he’d felt.

His first attempt failed before it started.

Current entered his leg almost immediately.

Habit.

Darek read it and hit his forearm.

"Again," Nate said.

He moved without current.

Waited.

Then waited longer.

Too long.

His weight settled.

He released the pulse.

Pain flashed through his knee and the leg dipped.

Darek stopped immediately.

The technician was already half out of his chair.

"Sit down."

"I’m fine."

"Nate."

"I’m standing."

"That wasn’t my instruction."

Nate straightened carefully.

The knee held.

Darek watched him.

"What are you changing?"

"When the current enters."

"Why?"

Nate glanced at the baton.

"Because you’re reading it."

Darek considered that.

Then nodded once.

The technician did not.

"No more experiments on that knee."

"One exchange."

"No."

Darek looked at the technician.

"Low output?"

The man stared at both of them.

"I hate this room."

"Low output?" Darek repeated.

"One. If the leg goes again, I’m ending the clearance myself."

Nate nodded.

They reset.

Rovan’s memory had made the technique feel precise.

It wasn’t.

Nate had felt years of failed attempts compressed into seconds. His body didn’t have those years.

Body Memory could preserve what he’d actually built.

It couldn’t loan him Rovan’s conditioning.

Darek approached.

Nate moved right.

No current.

It felt slow.

Darek adjusted to that speed.

Nate waited until the step was already underway.

Then released a narrow pulse.

Acceleration came halfway through.

Small.

Ugly.

His foot landed slightly too far out.

But Darek’s baton passed behind his shoulder.

Nate entered.

The blunt knife touched Darek’s field jacket.

Barely.

Then Darek’s elbow caught his arm.

The knife flew.

A sweep took Nate’s legs out.

He hit the mat hard enough to lose his breath.

The baton stopped beside his jaw.

Darek looked down at him.

"You still lost."

Nate breathed once.

"I noticed."

Darek lowered the baton.

"But that was new."

Nate sat up.

His knee hurt.

Not sharply.

"Started moving before I circulated."

"Then changed speed after I adjusted."

"That’s the idea."

Darek glanced at the knee.

"Your body disagrees."

"My body disagrees with a lot lately."

"Maybe listen to that pattern too."

He held out a hand.

Nate took it.

The medical technician arrived with the scanner before Nate was fully upright.

"Sit."

Nate sat.

"Look at that. Growth."

The scanner passed around his knee, then followed the energetic route higher.

The technician checked twice.

"No tear."

Nate relaxed.

"Minor pathway irritation. Tendon’s annoyed. You’re done."

"Fine."

"You say that like you’re allowing it."

Darek had already opened the Directorate evaluation.

Nate watched him type.

"What are you writing?"

Darek kept typing.

"That you rely too much on Killing Step."

"Accurate."

"That you kept waiting for me to give you the same opening after I stopped."

Nate leaned back against the wall.

"Less flattering."

"I’m not recruiting you."

Darek added another line.

Nate tried to read over his shoulder.

Darek angled the terminal away.

"What else?"

"You changed approach."

"Eventually."

"Yes."

That was all Darek gave him.

His terminal chimed.

Submitted.

A few seconds later, Nate’s own terminal vibrated.

IMPERIAL TALENT DIRECTORATE

FIELD EVALUATION RECEIVED

REVIEW STATUS: ACTIVE

Still no offer.

Nate wasn’t sure what he’d expected.

The technician removed the scanner.

"No circulation for the rest of today."

"Understood."

"Tomorrow depends on the knee."

"Understood."

The technician looked suspicious of the second answer.

Nate’s terminal vibrated again.

This time it was Seris.

A file.

He 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 first two times again.

Eight seconds.

He typed:

It came back after they left.

Seris answered quickly.

Eight seconds after the survey team cleared the monitored zone.

A second message followed.

That does not mean it waited for them.

Nate looked at that one longer.

Darek noticed.

"Bad news?"

"Not sure."

"Useful distinction."

Nate opened the earlier Sector Three reports.

184 metres.

Now 204.

None of the readings had produced a route.

No cavity.

No hidden station.

No source the Third Circuit team could reach or even confirm.

They had spent hours inside the sector.

Eight seconds after the last survey member left the monitored zone, the response returned.

Nate closed the files.

He sent Seris one more message.

Did it stay?

The answer didn’t come immediately.

Darek put the baton back on the rack.

The technician started shutting down the room.

Nearly a minute passed before Nate’s terminal vibrated.

No. Eleven seconds. Then nothing.

Nate read it once.

This time he didn’t try to decide what it meant.

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