Neon Eden taught its lessons without mercy.
It did not explain them. It did not repeat them kindly. It simply demonstrated consequences again and again until the lesson carved itself into bone.
Aira learned this before she learned how to walk.
Her second level did not make her stronger in any way that could be measured by muscle or speed. Her arms were still small. Her legs still unsteady. Her lungs still burned too quickly when the air grew thick with smoke or chemical residue. But something inside her had changed—an internal calibration, a recalculation of tolerance.
Pain no longer surprised her.
That alone was dangerous.
She learned to crawl during a blackout.
Sector Thirteen lost power for eleven hours after the riot. Emergency lighting flickered inconsistently, painting the corridors in sickly red pulses. The building's internal temperature dropped sharply, and Mara—exhausted, injured from being shoved during the chaos—fell asleep sitting upright against the wall, one arm loosely around Aira's crib.
Aira waited.
She always waited.
When she was certain Mara's breathing had settled into the deep, uneven rhythm of true exhaustion, Aira moved.
She slid carefully over the crib's edge, muscles trembling with the effort. Her hands slipped once, skin scraping painfully against cheap alloy. She bit down on the sound instinctively, jaw tightening.
The pain registered.
The system observed.
[Minor Injury Logged.]
"No mitigation," Aira thought. "Just record."
[Acknowledged.]
She landed on the floor silently, knees buckling. Cold seeped through thin fabric into her bones. She steadied herself, then crawled.
The corridor beyond their unit was dark, the emergency lights failing completely every few seconds. Sounds carried differently in blackout—footsteps echoed longer, whispers traveled farther. Somewhere below, people argued. Somewhere above, something metallic crashed, followed by a scream cut short.
Aira crawled anyway.
She wasn't trying to escape. She wasn't foolish enough for that.
She was learning.
She touched walls, memorized textures. She counted steps between structural supports. She timed the flicker patterns of the emergency grid. She pressed her ear to sealed maintenance panels and listened to coolant lines pulse faintly within.
The system remained silent until she asked.
"Analyze structural integrity," Aira whispered internally.
[Structural degradation: 23%.]
[Critical failure probability within five years: 68%.]
Five years.
The war would come before that.
"Optimal survival zones?"
[Upper Sectors prioritized. Lower Sectors classified as expendable.]
Aira's fingers curled against the floor.
"So nothing changes," she said.
[Affirmative.]
She crawled back before Mara woke, slipping into the crib just as the woman stirred and groaned softly in her sleep.
That night, Aira dreamed of collapsing ceilings and systems that recorded the deaths without comment.
When she woke, she did not cry.
Level progression did not announce itself again.
It lingered.
Aira's awareness expanded in increments so small they were almost imperceptible. She noticed patterns in human behavior first—how hunger sharpened voices, how fear made people repeat themselves, how authority silenced even the angry.
She noticed system behavior next.
Public systems spoke constantly.
Every citizen in Neon Eden carried a system—embedded, bound, legally enforced. They displayed notifications openly, bright holographic overlays projecting status, tasks, warnings. People were conditioned to obey them reflexively.
Aira's system did not project.
It existed entirely within.
"Is that intentional?" she asked one afternoon, watching a neighbor berate her child for failing to meet a daily productivity quota assigned by his system.
[Projection disabled following soul separation event.]
"Can you re-enable it?"
[Possible.]
"Would it benefit us?"
The system paused.
[No.]
"Then leave it," Aira decided.
She watched the neighbor's child flinch as red warning text flared above his head.
The city did not punish rebellion.
It punished inefficiency.
At one year old, Aira spoke her first word.
She chose it carefully.
"Mama."
Mara cried when she heard it, clutching Aira tightly, sobbing apologies she didn't know she was making. Aira endured the pressure, the sudden heat of human emotion.
The system logged elevated emotional input.
[External Attachment Strengthening.]
"Is that bad?" Aira asked.
[Attachments increase vulnerability.]
"And?"
[Attachments also increase survival motivation.]
Aira absorbed that quietly.
She did not love Mara the way children were supposed to. Not yet. Love was a luxury she could not afford. But she recognized value, and Mara was valuable—emotionally, strategically, logistically.
She protected what she valued.
That was enough.
The first system audit came when Aira was fourteen months old.
It arrived unannounced, as most audits did.
Two enforcement units entered Sector Thirteen accompanied by a floating administrative drone. People froze instantly, systems flaring warnings in bright, panicked overlays.
Mara stiffened, clutching Aira instinctively.
"Don't move," she whispered. "Don't say anything."
Aira complied.
The drone scanned the corridor, projecting compliance metrics into the air. Names. Levels. Productivity indexes. Failure probabilities.
When it reached Aira, it paused.
The pause was less than a second.
But Aira felt it.
[Anomaly Detected.]
The words were not projected. They echoed internally, sharp and cold.
"Details," Aira demanded calmly.
[Cognitive metrics exceed age-based parameters.]
"Danger?"
[Potential.]
"Can you mask it?"
The system hesitated—longer this time.
[Masking possible. Risk: slowed progression.]
Aira did not hesitate.
"Do it."
The system complied.
The drone moved on.
Mara exhaled shakily, unaware she had been seconds away from losing her child to a research facility or worse.
Aira felt something new settle into her chest.
Not fear.
Anger.
Quiet. Focused. Cold.
"Every advantage costs something," she thought.
[Affirmative.]
"I'll pay," she decided. "But I choose when."
The system processed that without objection.
Level 3 did not come easily.
Aira's masking slowed her accumulation. Endurance under disadvantage still counted—but now it was endurance layered atop suppression, atop restraint.
She learned to walk in secret, practicing balance when no one was watching.
She learned to read by observing public displays upside down and backwards, committing symbols to memory without reacting.
She learned to fight—poorly, instinctively—when another child tried to steal her food ration, biting down on her own cry as she was shoved into concrete.
The system logged every bruise.
Every spike of pain.
Every choice to remain silent.
[Progress: 72.4% toward Level 3.]
"Still too slow," Aira thought.
[Current conditions optimized for concealment, not acceleration.]
"I don't need fast," she replied. "I need alive."
The system accepted that.
It always did now.
The city burned again two months later.
Not a riot this time.
A test.
Upper Sector defense grids activated without warning, flooding lower districts with suppression waves meant to simulate invasion scenarios. Systems everywhere issued mandatory compliance orders.
People collapsed, overwhelmed by neural pressure.
Aira felt it hit her like a wall.
Her vision blurred. Her muscles locked. Her heart stuttered dangerously.
The system reacted instantly.
[Emergency Stabilization Initiated.]
"No," Aira snapped internally. "Endure."
[Risk of permanent damage: 38%.]
"I said endure."
The system complied.
Pain tore through her nervous system as the suppression wave pressed harder, forcing obedience signals through every system channel.
Aira resisted.
Not by fighting the signal.
By refusing to respond.
She let it pass through her, acknowledged it, but did not obey.
The moment stretched.
Then snapped.
The wave receded.
People around her groaned, some unconscious, some sobbing. Mara collapsed to her knees, gasping, clutching Aira protectively.
Aira's ears rang.
Her vision darkened at the edges.
And then—
[Level Up Achieved.]
[Level: 3 / 10]
Aira smiled for the first time since her rebirth.
It was small.
It was sharp.
And it scared the system more than anything else had so far.
Because the city had tried to break her.
And failed.
Seven levels remained.
Three years until war.
And Neon Eden was running out of ways to teach her how to survive without teaching her how to rebel.
Soon, it would learn the difference mattered.