The unmarked van didn't have windows.
It had seams.
Thick rubber seams that swallowed light, swallowed sound, swallowed the city like it was embarrassed to be seen with what it was carrying.
Jaden sat on a metal bench bolted to the floor. Hands zip-cuffed in front of him. Ankles magnet-clasped to a rail. The cuffs weren't heavy. They didn't need to be. They were smart, the kind that bit you with a quiet pulse if your body did something it wasn't supposed to.
He tested them anyway. A tiny tug. A wrist twist. A breath through his nose.
Nothing gave.
Across from him, two other detainees stared at the floor like it might open and take them somewhere else. One was older—mid-thirties maybe—with a shaved head and a split lip. The other looked like a college kid, cheeks wet, hands shaking so hard the zip ties sawed red lines into his skin.
The kid whispered, "I didn't do anything."
Jaden didn't answer.
What was he supposed to say? Same?
He hadn't done anything either. And look how fast that stopped mattering.
A Command officer sat in the corner seat, armor on, visor down, rifle across his knees. No talking. No threats. Just presence. The kind of presence that said: Try.
Jaden leaned his head back against the cold panel and let his hair fall forward again. Hide the eyes. Hide the thoughts. Hide the fact he was counting angles and distances like a habit he couldn't turn off.
He could break out.
Probably.
Not in some dramatic movie way. In a quiet way.
He could loosen the magnet rail. Slide it. Pop the zip-cuffs by pulling the locking teeth apart with a micro-torque. He'd done it once as a kid on a cheap plastic tie just to see if he could.
These weren't cheap.
And he could feel the problem already. Not with his hands.
With his head.
There was a hum in the van.
Not the full street-level Frequency lane that made people vomit. This was low. Local. A private pressure. Like the air was tuned to the officer's comfort.
A restraint field.
He could still sense motion. Still sense the metal's weight. But whenever his focus sharpened, whenever he leaned into the vector, his teeth tingled like they were warning him.
Don't.
He glanced at the officer's gauntlet.
A small module sat on the wrist plate, light blinking steady. Green.
Jaden's stomach tightened. So the cuffs weren't the main leash.
The leash was the room.
Good.
At least Command was competent. He'd almost be offended if they weren't.
The van rolled over something uneven. Jaden's shoulder bumped the panel. The other detainee flinched like he'd been hit.
The shaved-head man laughed once. Dry. Mean.
"You new?" he asked, voice rough.
Jaden didn't move his head. "What."
The man's eyes dragged over Jaden's hoodie like it was a joke. "Adjacent, right? You look like adjacent."
Jaden exhaled. "You look like you talk too much."
The man's smile widened, showing blood-stained teeth. "Yeah. You're gonna do great."
The college kid whispered again, louder now like volume could change reality. "Where are they taking us?"
The shaved-head man leaned back, chains rattling. "CIC."
The kid's face crumpled.
Jaden's eyes narrowed under his hair. CIC. Containment Intake Center.
He'd heard the letters in the way people said them—quiet, fast, like you didn't want the sound to stay in the room.
The shaved-head man kept talking because silence made him itchy. "You ever see a Choker up close?"
The kid shook his head frantically.
Jaden didn't answer.
"White suits," the man continued, voice almost sing-song. "Neck rings. Black dog mask if you're spicy. They use 'em like disposable knives. Command loves disposable knives."
The kid started breathing too fast.
The officer in the corner didn't move. But the light on his wrist shifted.
Green to yellow.
The van's hum sharpened.
The college kid choked on a sound and froze, shoulders locking like someone had poured concrete into his joints.
Jaden watched, expression flat.
So that's how it worked. Aggression. Panic. Spike. Anything that looked like resistance.
Tri-trigger.
He didn't know the exact rules yet, but he could feel the philosophy. Command didn't punish crime. Command punished instability.
The shaved-head man's grin faded. He stared at the officer's light. "My bad," he muttered.
The wrist light slid back toward green.
The college kid's shoulders loosened like he'd been allowed to breathe again.
Jaden swallowed down a slow wave of nausea that wasn't his.
This wasn't a ride to jail.
This was intake.
Processing.
A conversion line.
The van slowed. Turned. Slowed again.
Then it stopped.
The door didn't open right away.
Jaden listened.
Outside, muffled through layers, a distant siren wailed. Not the protest sirens. Not the Breach sirens. A deeper one. Industrial. Facility-grade.
The kind you built for disasters you planned to have.
Bolts clicked. The door unlocked. Cold air spilled in.
White lights stabbed the van interior.
A Command officer stood in the doorway, helmet on, face unseen. He didn't say hello.
He said, "Eyes down. Move when told."
Two more officers appeared behind him, armor clean, rifles angled like they were bored of humans already.
Jaden shifted his feet. The ankle rail released with a soft clack as someone keyed it.
He stood when the officer nodded.
Outside, the world looked different.
Not street-level. Not protest-level.
This place was a slab of concrete and fencing and stacked watch towers, built like somebody took a military base and a hospital and decided they should hate each other.
Floodlights. Cameras. Drones. Thick walls with no art and no windows.
A sign hung above a wide gate in stark lettering.
CONTAINMENT INTAKE CENTER
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
The letters didn't look real. Like they belonged on a file, not a building.
Jaden stepped down from the van, boots hitting the ground with a hollow sound.
A line of detainees formed behind him, shuffled forward by officers who didn't touch unless they needed to. There were too many eyes here. Too many lenses.
A separate line moved along the far side of the yard.
White uniforms.
Collars.
Chokers.
They walked in a tight formation with a Command handler beside them, tablet in hand. Two of them had black masks strapped over their lower faces—Dogboxes—angular snouts jutting out like a punishment designed by someone who hated breathing.
The mask ribs were interlocked, not simple bars. Cheek plates anchored it. Thin rails ran back toward the ears like the thing was stapled into their skull.
One of the masked inmates turned his head slightly as he walked, and Jaden saw the inside shutters flex—tiny breath gates, narrowing and widening like the mask was deciding how much air the man deserved.
The inmate's eyes were glassy. Not sleepy. Not calm.
Gone.
Jaden's jaw tightened.
The shaved-head man behind him whispered, "Black-Tag."
Jaden didn't ask what that meant.
He could guess.
They were marched through the gate into a long corridor painted a sterile off-white that tried too hard to look clean. The smell hit Jaden immediately.
Disinfectant.
Bleach.
Old sweat that bleach couldn't erase.
The floor was smooth enough to reflect light. The walls were blank except for cameras and small speaker grilles. Every few steps, there were thin seams in the ceiling like panels could drop something if Command decided you needed it.
The corridor wasn't quiet.
It was engineered silence. The kind that made every footstep sound like a confession.
A woman in a gray uniform waited behind a counter cut into the wall. Not armor. Not scrubs. Administrative.
Her hair was pulled back tight. Her face was plain in a way that felt practiced. Her eyes flicked over Jaden like he was inventory.
A scanner whined as it read his cuffs.
A screen lit up behind her.
Jaden caught a glimpse of his own face on it—drone still from outside. Hoodie. Hair. Shadowed eyes.
A label beneath it.
ADJACENT DETENTION — ARMED
SUBJECT: BANKS, JADEN
GRADE: 1 (PROVISIONAL)
ABILITY: TELEKINESIS (LOW OUTPUT)
RECOMMENDATION: CIC SCREENING → CRS PATHWAY
CRS PATHWAY.
Chokers.
Jaden's throat tightened like the words had hands.
He stared at the screen a beat too long.
The woman's voice cut clean through the corridor. "Eyes forward."
Jaden looked away.
A new figure stepped out of a side door.
Male. Mid-forties. Tall. Built hard but not bulky. His uniform was darker than the admin staff, with a subtle CIC crest on the collar. No helmet. No visor. Just a man who didn't need protection because the building itself was his armor.
His eyes swept the line once and stopped on Jaden like a spotlight.
He had a face that looked like it forgot how to soften years ago. Thin scar at the edge of his mouth. Close-cut hair. Hands that flexed like they were bored of paperwork and missed violence.
"Welcome to the CIC," he said, voice calm in a way that sounded like it wasn't meant to comfort anybody.
He nodded toward Jaden's screen.
"Telekinesis," he said. "Cute."
Jaden didn't react.
The man stepped closer anyway, stopping just outside arm's reach. He leaned slightly, like he was speaking to Jaden alone even though the whole corridor could hear.
"Here's how this works," the man said. "You don't get to be special. You don't get to be loud. You don't get to be a hero."
His eyes flicked to Jaden's cuffs. "You get to be stable."
Jaden's voice came out flat. "I didn't do anything."
The man's mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something worse.
"Everybody says that," he replied. "Everybody's innocent in the corridor."
He straightened.
"Strip him," he ordered, voice turning administrative without losing its edge. "Shower. Issue. Collar fitting."
The college kid started crying again.
A handler behind the line snapped, "Shut up," and the wrist light on his tablet flashed yellow. The kid's sobs died into a choking hiccup like his body had been reminded who owned it.
Jaden watched. Stored it. Filed it.
The scar-mouthed man gestured toward the side door.
Two officers grabbed Jaden by the arms and guided him through like he weighed nothing.
Jaden didn't fight.
Not because he couldn't.
Because he was learning the map.
They led him into a changing bay with metal benches, floor drains, and a row of hooks on the wall. A camera stared straight down like a god that only cared about policy.
An officer tossed a plastic bin onto the bench.
"Everything," the officer said.
Jaden stared at the bin.
Then at the officer.
Then at the camera.
He wanted to laugh. Not because it was funny.
Because it was so clean. So routine. So practiced.
Like the city had been doing this to people forever and just waited for the day it could do it to him.
He stripped.
Hoodie first. Then shirt. Pants. Shoes.
He kept his face blank while his skin goosebumped in the cold air. Lean frame. Narrow shoulders. Old bruises that weren't new enough to explain. A body that looked like it'd never been allowed to be comfortable.
The officer scanned his clothes, bagged them without care, and shoved him toward the showers.
The water was cold for the first ten seconds, then scalding, then cold again like the system couldn't decide whether to punish him or disinfect him.
He stood under it and let it run.
The shaved-head man's laugh echoed faintly from a neighboring bay.
Someone else coughed hard. Wet. Ugly.
Jaden shut his eyes.
Not to relax.
To listen.
Two staff voices through the wall.
"…Muzzle Night is next week…"
"…Medical's behind schedule…"
"…we're short on Certified CRS…"
Jaden's eyes opened.
Muzzle Night.
He didn't know what it meant yet.
But the way they said it—like it was weather you couldn't argue with—made his stomach feel hollow.
A door hissed.
The scar-mouthed man stepped into the shower bay corridor, boots dry, like water respected his authority. He held something in his hand.
A collar.
Not the sleek kind you saw on Command propaganda posters. This one was thick. Matte. Inner surface lined with small contact nodes like teeth.
He stopped in front of Jaden's stall and held it up.
"Last chance," he said softly. "You can make this easy. You can be stable. You can earn Certified CRS if you behave."
Jaden stared at the collar dripping in the man's hand.
His voice came out quiet. "What's your name?"
The man blinked once. Then smiled, finally. Sharp and small.
"Lance Tucker," he said.
He stepped forward.
Jaden's body tensed on instinct—heart rate trying to climb, anger trying to spark, survival trying to bite.
He forced it down.
Forced calm like he was choking it.
Lance brought the collar around Jaden's throat.
Cold metal touched skin.
Jaden held still. Not compliant. Calculating.
Lance snapped it shut.
The click was soft.
The feeling wasn't.
A pressure bloomed under Jaden's jawline, inside his teeth, behind his eyes—like the world suddenly had a hand around his nervous system.
A tiny light on the collar blinked green.
Then yellow.
Just a flicker.
Like it tasted his anger.
Lance leaned close enough that Jaden could smell his breath—coffee and mint and something stale underneath.
"Welcome to the Chokers," he whispered.
And the collar pulsed once—sharp, warning-level—so Jaden's knees buckled in the water as the ceiling speaker above them crackled to life with a calm voice announcing:
"BLACK-TAG FITTING IN BAY THREE. DOGBOX READY."