I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

The first candidate chose before the adviser had finished sitting down. Nate had barely taken his place behind the observation glass when the Array produced three Skills.

KELL ORIN

CLASS: LINE WORKER

LOAD SENSE

STEADY GRIP

SHOCK WARNING

Kell read them once. "Load Sense."

The adviser looked up from the tablet she’d just opened. "You want the descriptions?"

"I know what it does."

"You know the public description." Kell hesitated. The clock above the Array kept moving. 04:41. Limited Selection gave candidates five minutes, something Nate hadn’t known until Seris pointed at the timer on the way in.

Kell looked at it. "Fine."

The adviser gave him the short version. Load Sense helped distinguish how weight and tension travelled through connected structures. Steady Grip reduced loss of fine control under sustained physical strain. Shock Warning improved recognition of dangerous force travelling through something the user was touching. Kell listened, then chose Load Sense anyway.

The other two Skills faded. Forsaken Claim appeared. Nate read both offers. Neither interested him. He refused them.

Behind the glass, Seris watched the resonance traces. Nothing sudden, no response from the West.

Kell left less than two minutes after entering. The adviser looked at the empty chair across from her. "That went well."

Seris made a note. Nate glanced at her. "Does it usually not?"

She didn’t look away from the graph. "You’ll see." The next candidate was already coming through the outer door.

The second took nearly the entire five minutes. His name was Jalen Ros, his Class ordinary enough that Nate didn’t recognize it. Route Scout. The Skills were more interesting.

QUIET STEP

DISTANCE EYE

SECOND WIND

Jalen read all three, then read them again. The adviser waited. At three minutes he asked about Distance Eye, and she explained that it improved judging distance and movement over open ground, especially when tracking multiple moving targets.

"What about cities?"

"Useful. Less so." He looked at Quiet Step. "Recon?"

"Often."

"Military?"

"Sometimes." He looked at Second Wind, and the adviser didn’t fill the silence this time. Nate found himself doing the same.

At two minutes, Jalen asked, "Which one would you take?"

"I’m not choosing."

"I know. Which one?" The adviser leaned back.

"You’re applying to municipal survey."

"Yeah."

"Distance Eye fits the work you’ve listed." Jalen looked at the Skill, and Nate expected him to choose it. He didn’t.

"What happens if I take Quiet Step?"

"Your placement options change."

"How?"

"Security programs become available. Recon programs too." Jalen’s attention shifted. That was all, no dramatic turn, nothing sudden about it, just his eyes moving and staying there. He read Quiet Step again as the timer dropped under a minute.

"Pay better?"

The adviser looked at him. "Some do." Jalen chose Quiet Step. Distance Eye and Second Wind faded, and Forsaken Claim offered both. Nate refused them. Seris didn’t react. The traces died normally, and Jalen left.

The adviser closed his file. Nate watched the door shut behind him. "He changed because of the money."

Seris was still reading the resonance graph. "Maybe."

"He was going to take Distance Eye."

"You don’t know that."

"He kept reading it."

"So?" Nate looked at her, and she finally glanced over. "People stare at things they don’t pick all the time." The technician opened the chamber to reset the Array, and Seris returned to the graph. Nate let it go.

The third candidate didn’t arrive. They waited six minutes, then eight. The adviser checked the corridor while a technician walked past carrying a coil of cable and nearly tripped over the door stop. Seris caught the cable before it dragged across her terminal.

"Thanks."

The technician looked down at what had happened. "That wasn’t there yesterday."

"The door?"

"The stop." Seris stared at him. He moved it with his foot.

Nate sat against the wall. Ten minutes passed before the adviser came back. "Medical."

Seris looked up. "Problem?"

"Candidate vomited."

"Array reaction?"

"Breakfast." The adviser sat. "Probably." Nobody seemed especially concerned. Nate had expected Talent Services to feel more controlled than Royal Field. Instead, half the building seemed to run on people remembering what room they were supposed to be in a beat before somebody else did.

The candidate arrived twelve minutes later, pale and furious, not embarrassed at all. The medical attendant behind her handed the adviser a clearance slip. "She can continue."

The girl stepped into the Array. Her name appeared.

LINA VAREL

CLASS: IMPACT WARDEN

Nate straightened slightly. He’d seen the Class before. Elian Voss. Stillpoint.

The Array brightened. Three Skills formed.

LOAD BRACE

BREAKLINE

FALLING GUARD

Nate read Breakline twice. It let a user preserve forward force through a sudden disruption in footing or balance. Not Stillpoint, not even close, but useful. Very useful.

The adviser began explaining the choices. Lina interrupted her. "Which one keeps me out of Border Field?"

The adviser stopped. Seris looked away from the resonance monitor. "What?"

"My placement form." Lina pointed toward the terminal outside the Array. "I put civilian infrastructure."

"I saw."

"They told me Impact Warden gets flagged for Border Field."

"Some do."

"I don’t want it." The timer continued. 03:26. The adviser picked up the tablet.

"Load Brace has the strongest infrastructure placement history."

Lina looked at it. "What about Breakline?"

"Mixed."

"Meaning?"

"Emergency response. Assault support. Field extraction."

"Border?"

"It can qualify." Lina’s face changed immediately, and she looked away from Breakline. Nate noticed, because he was still reading it.

"Qualify doesn’t mean assigned," the adviser added.

"I know what qualify means." Nobody corrected her tone.

Lina moved to Load Brace. The timer reached two minutes. Then she looked at Falling Guard. "What does that get used for?" The adviser explained, and Lina asked one question, then another, neither one about what the Skill actually did. Placement. Training location. How often users got sent away from their home province.

Nate stopped reading the Skills and watched her instead.

At forty-three seconds, Lina chose Load Brace. Breakline disappeared. Forsaken Claim opened.

BREAKLINE

REJECTED SKILL WITNESSED

OPEN NODE AVAILABLE

CLAIM?

Nate didn’t answer right away. The Skill fit him better than most of what he’d seen since building the third Node. It would work with Killing Step. It might work even better with the change he’d started experimenting with against Darek, a bad landing, a disrupted step, force continuing anyway.

Forsaken Claim waited. Nate looked through the glass. Lina was already asking the adviser whether infrastructure placement could keep her in Varen.

He refused it. Breakline faded normally, no response from the West. Seris marked the result, and Lina left.

The adviser stayed in the chamber a moment after the door closed, then rubbed both hands over her face. The technician came in to reset the Array. "You good?"

"Fine."

"You look terrible."

"Three more this afternoon."

"Ah." He left her alone.

Seris pulled up all three resonance curves. They looked almost identical. Nate stood behind her. "Nothing."

"Nothing."

"No Stillpoint loss."

"No."

"No Western response." Seris saved the file. That was apparently the entire scientific conclusion.

Nate looked through the glass at the empty chair, still slightly crooked from where Lina had pushed away from it. "Is that normal?"

Seris followed his eyes. "What?"

"Placement."

"What about it?"

"The adviser changed what she picked."

Seris considered that. "She told her what the Skills were used for."

"She stopped considering Breakline after Border Field."

"Yes."

"You don’t count that as changing the choice?"

Seris closed one of the graphs. "Of course it changed the choice."

Nate hadn’t expected that answer. She stood and collected her terminal. "Yesterday you watched advisers fail to change people’s minds. Today one sentence probably changed one."

"You’re okay with that?"

"Should she have hidden the placement consequences?"

"No."

"Then what do you want fixed?" Nate didn’t have an answer. Seris was already in the corridor. He followed.

Near the elevators, the technician from earlier caught up with them carrying a hard equipment case. "Arven."

Seris stopped. "Lower lab wants the old resonance head."

"Then take it to them."

"It’s heavy." Seris looked at him, then at Nate. Nate looked at Seris. "No." She pressed the elevator button. "You’re sponsored now."

"That doesn’t make me equipment staff."

The technician handed him one side of the case. "It can." Nate took it before the man dropped it. Seris stepped into the elevator without helping.

The case weighed enough to make Nate’s knee complain by the second floor. He adjusted his grip, and the technician noticed. "Medical?"

"Minor."

"Then use the other side." Nate switched, and nobody said anything more about it, no lecture, no question about his Class at all.

They carried it two floors down. The lower laboratory ran louder than Talent Services, pumps working behind one wall, half the corridor blocked by temporary cables. A researcher signed for the equipment without looking at Nate. The technician left immediately.

Nate stayed long enough to stretch his hand. His terminal vibrated. A Field Command message.

CLEARANCE UPDATED

SATURDAY

06:30

WESTERN ACCESS

LIMITED FIELD STATUS

OBSERVATION ONLY

Another message arrived beneath it. Darek. Bring boots.

Nate typed: I always bring boots.

The reply came almost immediately. Last time you brought trouble too. Leave that.

Nate put the terminal away. Across the corridor, somebody swore as one of the temporary cables came loose from the wall, and nobody moved to fix it. He stepped over it and headed for the elevator.

Breakline crossed his mind once more. He’d let it go. He still wasn’t sure whether that had been restraint or stupidity.

By the time the elevator opened, he was thinking about Western Access instead.

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