"The band does not connect you to the system. It connects you to yourself. The system merely listens." — Technical Archive: Neural Sync Primer, Vol. IV
Cadet Academy,
VFP,
New Facility.
Bale lay sprawled across his bunk, staring at the dull metal strip dangling between his fingers. His neural band — cold, quiet, and far too innocent-looking for what it could do, gleamed faintly in the low dorm light, it's smooth surface catching the hum of the ceiling's fluorescent glow. The faint glint from the dorm light made its edges look alive, and for a fleeting second, he imagined it breathing.
Every time he blinked, flashes of what happened in the assembly hall replayed in his mind. The red flicker, the whispering voice through static,
... and that impossible eye watching him from inside his own thoughts.
'Perhaps...' he thought bitterly, '... it's me. Maybe I'm the magnet for this crap.'
Bale was going to admit it. He wasn't currently capable of syncing with the damned thing. The strange events that had happened since morning felt too deliberate, too eccentric in comparison to his usual incidents, and too sequenced, as if they were being arranged by something unseen.
"Gross," he muttered to himself, turning the neural band over in his hand. Its surface reflected his frown like a warped mirror.
"Maybe I really am losing it."
As if deliberately interrupting his thoughts, the AI's voice cut through the silence, crisp and emotionless.
"Time index nineteen-hundred. Appointment protocol initiated: Diagnostics Wing."
And a series of sharp digital pulses followed.
*dee-dee, dee-dee, dee-dee, dee-dee*
Each was perfectly timed and impossible to ignore as they cut through like blade.
And just in time, groans rose from the other bunks.
"Hey Unfit! Turn that crap off!" one of the Scouts barked.
"Dunno yer place,heh?" another added, his voice thick with mockery.
"Turn that off, Unfit," the third Scout hissed from the top bunk, rolling over.
Bale shut the alarm off.
'Assholes...'
He swung his legs off the bed and grabbed his uniform jacket. The dorm... or cube, as the Academy called it, was cramped and built more like a containment pod than a room. In the first division, four cadets were usually assigned to a cube, two bunks stacked against alloy walls that always smelled faintly of sweat and solder.
He slid off his bed, threw on his jacket, and stepped into the hall in-between opposite rows of cubes.
The corridor lights were pale and unfeeling, casting sterile shadows that stretched behind him. Every few meters, holo-screens pulsed with time indexes and mission statistics. The air always smelled faintly of coolant and recycled air. That, was reminder that nothing in the Facility was ever truly clean.
Shrugging off the thought, he headed on towards the diagnostics centre.
-----
"Weird… why is your neural pulse constantly unstable?" Instructor Jet, one of the medics in the diagnostic unit, sighed as he studied Bale's neural pulse through his band.
Resting his chin on his thumb, Jet squinted at the swirling blue projections hovering above the console. Lines of code twisted like smoke, forming neural patterns that broke and reformed, out of sync with each other.
He exhaled. "Weird," he said again, this time slower, as if the word itself weighed something.
Bale sat stiffly in the diagnostics chair, crossing his arms, with his neural band still faintly glowing on his wrist. He didn't respond tho. The air in the room hummed with the quiet mechanical pulse of the scanners.
Jet straightened and turned, folding his arms. "Lad, how did you even get into the Academy here in VFP?"
"VFP? You mean Vortex Frontier Programme?" Bale asked, raising a brow, pretending he didn't hear the insult in the man's tone.
Jet blinked. Then he laughed once, so dry and short, such kind that didn't need joy. "Huh. Never heard of a cadet who doesn't even know what VFP stands for."
He leaned forward, close enough that Bale could smell the faint sting of synthetic cologne and metal dust. His eyes glinted with something unreadable. Perhaps curiosity, or quiet suspicion.
Leaning back slightly in discomfort, Bale crawled up his neck.
'Don't kiss me, you pervert!'
Jet tilted his head as his voice dropped to a murmur. "Ah… I see. Your band refuses to synchronize because…" He paused, as if enjoying the silence. "…you aren't mentally stable enough."
"Huh?"
Jet didn't flinch. "You heard me, lad. Neural instability this high? You're lucky your brain's still yours."
Bale's jaw tightened in fury. "So that's your professional opinion?"
Jet shrugged. "That's my experienced opinion, lad. Don't take it personal. You've lasted longer than most Unfits do before frying their cortex... I wonder how you haven't yet."
Saying the last few words, his gazes lingered longer that usual.
His tone was too casual and light. It sounded like someone reading a death sentence over breakfast.
'Morbid type.'
Then with a fake, good-guy smile that felt more like mockery, Jet added, "But hey, I get it. You want to help humanity, fight for New Facility, and be one of the brave ones. Cute. But sometimes, you know, courage and stupidity share a very thin border."
Bale's right hand clenched into a fist.
Well, not that he could take on his own with an Instructor, whose rank was sure to be at least Diver.
Jet went on, almost theatrically, posing with both hands on his hips. "I admire your bravery, kid. Really. But here's my advice, lad. You can simply resign duty, go home, pick up a tech trade, fix pipes and build drones. Be with your family. Leave the vortexes to those who can handle them."
His smile widened. "We'll take care of things from here."
Just then, something inside Bale snapped.
'Family?'
That word... it hit like a slap. No, a sharp blow, like a blade. To Bale, it was a hollow, cold word that didn't seem to relate in any way with him.
It was something he never had.
"Don't you dare—"
KRRRRRRRRMMM!!
Suddenly, a huge vibration travelled across the floor.
A sound like the earth itself splitting in half thundered through the Academy. Lights flickered, the walls groaned, and both of them staggered as the room shuddered violently. The sound of alarms screamed through the halls.
"Earthquake?" Jet shouted, steadying himself on the console.
Noises were heard as everyone seemed disorganized.
Bale didn't answer. The vibration wasn't natural.
... It felt alive, pulsing in patterns, like something beneath them was stirring. He felt it crawl up through his boots, into his legs, and his chest.
And then he saw it.
His neural band glowed and trembled with a flickering red.
It shimmered like liquid fire under his skin.
The light spread in thin lines, tracing up his arm in pulses that matched the rhythm of the quake. His chest tightened. The air around him buzzed, distorting like static building in his ears.
Through the noise, he could swear he heard a voice. It was a faint, layered... and impossible voice.
A whisper buried in the electric storm.
Then a cold breeze washed over him slowly and heavily, as if stepping into deep water. The scanner lights flickered, the holographic panels glitched and froze, and fractals of unreadable symbols flashed for a second before collapsing into static.
Bale stumbled to his feet. "What's happening—"
Jet didn't answer. He was staring at Bale's wrist, his eyes wide and frozen in place. "Your band… it's reacting to the tremor—no, it's syncing with it."
Bale followed his gaze. The red light was pulsing faster, as if breathing. He felt a nascent presence, but real, watching him from somewhere he couldn't see.
'Crap!'
His whole body trembled involuntarily as he felt a sense of seeing something... no, more like feeling something. It was there, but he couldn't see it.
... Like from a different dimension.
The sirens wailed louder. Outside, the corridors were filled with rushing footsteps and shouting commands.
Bale didn't wait. He bolted for the exit.
The corridor lights flickered overhead as he ran, shadows cutting across the walls like shards. The metallic floor trembled beneath him, and the cold hum of the band vibrated through his bones.
When he reached the courtyard, he stopped.
The air hit him like frost.
Every screen around the plaza was glitching, as lines of white static crawled across the displays. Above the Academy dome, the clouds had twisted into a slow-moving spiral, churning in silence.
At the center of that spiral was something which shimmered faintly. There was a crack, and within it was light bleeding through it like a wound in the sky.
And there, reflected in the crimson shimmer of his band, something blinked.