The mess hall was a metallic cavern of rust and exhaustion. The same blinding yellow fluorescent lights glared overhead. The same echoing of the greenie rabble. The only thing new was the smell of bleach and boiled protein. Hell, even the Prep-academy's worst locales were in much better condition.
I grabbed an old, scratched metal tray from a pile and joined the growing line. A bored logistics officer plopped a ladle of viscous grey nutrient paste onto my plate, accompanied by a white block of condensed protein powder and a cup of recycled water.
I forced a grimace off my face as I stepped away from the serving line. Unsure of where to go next, I scanned the hall looking for those in my barracks.
It didn't take long to find them. The recruits of Barracks 7 were huddled around a long table near the back. They all looked terrible, exhausted. Some still had muck and dirt on them, probably from when they were digging the latrine pit.
A lone wolf is just a dead wolf.
Instructor Kael's words rang in my ears. I sighed to myself before heading off in their direction; may as well make the effort.
The low chatter at the table died as soon as I stepped into their peripheral vision. I ignored the sudden, tension and set my tray down directly across from Miller before taking a seat.
"Look," I started, keeping my voice low and even. "About this morning—"
I reached onto my tray, picked up my vacuum-sealed protein ration, and slid it across the metal table toward him. A peace offering. Calories to make up for the breakfast I cost them.
Miller stared at the ration block, then slowly lifted his gaze to meet mine. His eyes were flat, completely devoid of the hot anger he'd shown earlier.
Without a word, he picked up his tray. The screech of his metal chair scraping against the concrete floor sounded like a gunshot in the quiet pocket of space around us.
"Lost my appetite," Miller muttered to no one in particular. He turned his back on me and walked away.
The kid sitting next to him stood up immediately and followed. So did the girl across from me. One by one, the recruits of Barracks 7 picked up their trays and vacated the table. No insults or shouting followed their departure, just a collective, silent rejection.
I was left completely alone at a table meant for thirty.
I stared down at the grey paste on my tray. In Prep-academy, an apology or a bribe was enough to smooth over most missteps. But this wasn't just pre-pubescent politics. I couldn't just hand over a protein block and expect them to forget and become buddy-buddy all of a sudden. Building up some trust was going to be a long, miserable process.
I picked up my tray, refusing to sit alone like some sort of pariah and scanned the massive hall once more.
Near the centre of the room sat a lanky kid with deep bags under his eyes. He talked animatedly between bites, surrounded by a group of other greenies.
I walked over and tapped the metal table. "Seat taken?"
Tomás looked up, pausing mid-chew. His eyes flicked to my tray, then over to the empty table where Barracks 7 used to be. A knowing, slightly sympathetic smile tugged at his mouth.
"For one of the bravest, slash, dumbest bastards in camp?" Tomás slid his tray over to make room. "Of course. Take a seat, my man."
I sat down, the tension in my shoulders finally dropping a fraction of an inch. The other D-Grades at the table cast me a few wary glances, but seeing Tomás vouch for me, they went back to their food.
"So," Tomás said, leaning in slightly. "I saw your squad doing some manual labour outside the perimeter wire while the rest of us were doing callisthenics. Let me guess: someone finished the morning run a little too fast?"
"I broke the record," I muttered, stabbing my spoon into the grey paste. "Left them thirty minutes behind."
Tomás winced, sucking air through his teeth. "Ouch. Yeah, that'll do it."
"I figured it out. Eventually." I slid the unopened protein ration across the table toward him. "You want this? Miller didn't."
Tomás looked at it, his stomach giving an audible rumble, but he pushed it back. "Keep it. You're going to need all the energy you can get. Academics start at 1300, and that's when they really start messing with your head."
I picked up my spoon and forced the grey paste down. It tasted like chalk, but I didn't stop until the tray was clean. I really was hungry.
[ 13:00 HOURS ]
Room 4D was a windowless concrete box. The air was stagnant, smelling of floor wax and unwashed bodies. We sat at battered metal desks, staring at the front of the room.
There were no glowing 3D topographical maps here. Just a flat, cracked smart-board.
Our instructor was a grizzled Warrant Officer named Graves. He walked with a heavy limp. The left side of his face dominated by a cybernetic eye that clicked audibly every time it refocused.
"Listen up," Graves rasped. "You are D-Grades. Maybe even F-Grades. That means the Federation didn't spend money on your genetics, and they aren't going to spend money on your education."
He tapped the smart-board. A crude, two-dimensional tactical map flickered to life. A swarm of red dots descended toward a blue line. Behind the blue line sat three massive blue triangles.
"Can anyone tell me what you are looking at?" Graves asked, his synthetic eye whirring as it scanned the room.
Silence.
"Tiernan. You went to a fancy school. What is this?" Graves called on me.
I stared at the board. I knew exactly what it was. I had studied it from the perspective of the blue triangles. But I really didn't want to show off again. If I got it right, I'd get sneers; if I got it wrong, jeers. Lose, lose.
"It's a hammer and anvil, Warrant Officer." My voice was flat. "The red dots are the Bugger swarm. The blue triangles in the rear are the cavalry, B-Grade or A-Grade pilots. The hammer."
"And the blue line in the front?" Graves pressed, a grim smile pulling at his scarred cheek. "The lower grades?"
"The anvil."
"Exactly." Graves tapped the board again. The red dots crashed into the thin blue line. The line buckled, thinning out as red dots swarmed over it. "In high-strung, uppity-fuckity society, they teach you how to swing the hammer. Here, we teach you how to be a wall."
The room's temperature seemed to drop.
"Bugger swarms operate on standard tactics," Graves explained, pacing the front of the room. "Despite popular belief, they are thinking beasts. Each one is intelligent. But they have coordination unmatched by any other. If a Federation mech walks onto the field alone, the swarm will overwhelm it. A standard-issue mech costs around forty million credits to manufacture. You cost the Federation a bowl of grey paste and a uniform."
He stopped, letting his words sink in.
"Your primary operational doctrine is not to kill the enemy. You do not have the firepower, the Ether capacity, or the armour to kill them. Your directive is to act as a Screening Element. You exist to draw their primary engagement. You fix them in place."
He tapped the board a third time. The three blue triangles in the rear unleashed a massive barrage, wiping out the red dots.
"You hold the line, you make noise, and you bleed. You keep the swarm occupied long enough for the High-Yield Assets to calculate their optimal firing paths and wipe the grid clean."
Optimal paths. The phrase echoed in my head.
"If you break," Graves continued, pointing a thick finger at us, "the swarm bypasses you and scratches the paint on your forty-million-credit machine. Neither the High Command nor I will forgive such a grave failure. You do not retreat. You are ablative armour made of flesh and bone."
I looked down at my hands. 'I've signed death notices, Marcus. Thousands of them. I will not sign yours.'
He knew. He had known this whole time. When I told him I was enlisting as an F-Grade, I thought I was being brave. I thought I was proving my independence.
I wasn't. I had just volunteered to be bait.
—
[ 17:00 HOURS ]
Instructor Kael was waiting for us. He stood at the front of the room, his posture perfectly relaxed, hands clasped behind his back.
"Sit. Spines straight," Kael ordered, his voice echoing off the bare walls without him needing to raise it.
Twenty-three exhausted teenagers collapsed into the hard metal seats, wincing as bruised muscles protested. I took a spot near the back.
"Within the next six days," Kael began, his dark eyes sweeping over the room, "the residual exposure from the Moirai testing pods will force your souls to Awaken. The ambient energy of the universe—Ether, the gift of the Enlightened—will flood your senses."
He paused, letting the silence stretch.
"For most of you, it will be agonising. If you do not know how to channel it, the Ether will tear your nervous system apart from the inside out. That is why we teach you the theory before the Awakening hits." Kael's gaze drifted to the back of the room, locking onto me for a fraction of a second. "Though some of you have already crossed that threshold."
A few heads turned slightly in my direction. The resentment was still there, but now it was mixed with something else. Apprehension.
Kael tapped a control console on his desk. The cracked smart-board behind him flickered to life, displaying a glowing, anatomical schematic of the human body.
"In the dark ages of Earth, ancient myths spoke of energy centres in the stomach or the chest," Kael explained. "They were wrong. Power does not come from the gut. It comes from the mind."
He tapped his own temple.
"Ether is not a physical substance. It is a spiritual resonance. An intellectual weight. The Enlightened taught us a technique to cultivate this power, the Perfected Circuit, the only flawless method of human cultivation. When your Awakenings hit, you will not try to breathe the Ether into your lungs. You will draw it into your crown."
Kael gestured to the smart-board. The holographic brain glowed a pulsing blue.
"You pull ambient Ether into your cerebral cortex." Kael pointed to a section on the hologram with a wooden stick. "You let the pressure build in your mind, and then you force it downward. Down the brain stem, through the spinal column, and out into the peripheral nervous system. The Ether will naturally bind to your physical form. Ether reinforces bone density, accelerates muscle repair, and fortifies your organs. It is how a soldier pushes past mortal limits."
I stared at the diagram. I had heard this exact lecture a hundred times in my tutoring sessions back home. But listening to it now, with my soul already Awakened, it felt entirely different.
"Now, as you know, strength is easily gauged automatically by the System. Which you will also get to experience when you awaken." Kael paused for a moment, allowing his words to digest. "The System is how you gain strength and power. Cultivation works as a way to passively increase your experience and levels. Can anyone tell me the best way to increase your strength?"
Unlike in Graves' class, several arms rose into the air. Kael studied them for a moment, passing over me before choosing one of the girls from my bunk.
"You kill buggers!" She exclaimed, grinning.
"Crude, but yes. The primary way you gain experience is through killing other cultivators. Each kill nets you a set amount of experience. Your grade determines the amount of experience you gain. The higher your grade, the more experience, on top of the relative strength of your opponent."
A few heads dropped at that; it was the unfortunate reality of being a lower grade.
"But that doesn't mean that a lower grade can't beat a higher grade. While they may grow faster, that assumes they are working just as hard. We have perfected the means of experience growth, follow the plans and the algorithms, and you may survive yet."
The motivational speech did little to lift morale; being D-Grade or lower was rock bottom, and everyone understood.
"The Perfected Circuit is your second greatest weapon," Kael concluded, turning off the board. "Memorise the pathways tonight. When the Ether hits you, those who cannot cycle it will wash out. That is all."
—
[ 21:00 HOURS ]
The harsh overhead lights in Barracks 7 snapped off, plunging the rusted tin-can hut into absolute darkness.
Almost immediately, a chorus of exhausted groans echoed out in unison. The first day of the meat-grinder was over. The squad was physically broken from the run, mentally crushed by Graves, and terrified by the ticking clock of their impending Awakenings.
I lay on my thin, lumpy mattress, staring up at a rusted ceiling I couldn't see.
The hostility in the room had dialled back to a dull, aching simmer. The recruits were all too tired to hate me right now. The protein ration I had offered Miller hadn't fixed anything, but the conversation with Tomás proved I wasn't entirely isolated in the camp. It was a start.
I called up the only thing I had left.
The interface flickered to life behind my eyelids, cold and white.
[ QUEST: SURVIVAL PROTOCOL ] [ TIME REMAINING: 6 DAYS, 03 HOURS, 14 MINUTES ]