PART 1 - AN UNREGISTERED
PROTOCOL
The faint echo of the alarm still hung in the underground corridor, leaving a residue of tension that felt like cold air refusing to fade. Ryu walked between two Vasena supervisors who were hurriedly escorting him out of the Shadow Room, while Aki followed close behind, a moving knot of fear that refused to be left behind.
Every step sounded like a knock on the metal floor, sending out a strange echo that stretched farther than it should. It was as if the underground levels were listening back through the unseen cavities behind the iron walls. Ryu kept his eyes on the floor, but what he was really listening to was something else, a thin resonance humming at the base of his skull.
NV's voice appeared like a fine line drawn across a silent space. Not loud, not dramatic. Measured. Aki tapped Ryu's shoulder. "You can still hear… it?"
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes as in… whenever it feels like talking?"
"When the environment pattern changes."
Aki bit his lip. "Dude, that is getting scarier."
Ryu did not answer. He knew Aki was not overreacting. Those four infiltrator kids, dropped neatly into the top scoring positions, were not an accident. They had been planted there to measure him.
And not only by Vasena. By something outside Dominion Astryx.
The corridor bent back into the main route. The wall lights shifted to a warmer white, signaling that they were leaving a high-level restricted area. At the end of the passage, doors slid open to connect them to Vasena's Level 0 transit hall, a vast open space where hundreds of gifted children waited to be routed to their next evaluation.
Shouts, whispers, quick footsteps, the scrape of shoes, all tangled together in the air.
The ones who saw Ryu either looked away at once or started whispering. "He is the one who ranked first." "I heard Echo Frequency was detected." "Why is there a D protocol for a kid his age?"
Ryu walked forward with no visible reaction. Behind the empty look, his thoughts kept moving, cold and quiet like a machine still running after everyone else had gone to sleep.
If they were aiming for me at thirteen, then Father knew long before this.
Elara, Cassandra, and Arvis appeared soon after. Elara looked angrier than Ryu had ever seen her. Her face was composed, but her shoulders were tense, her jaw tight, her stride sharper than usual. Cassandra was gripping two tablets at once, her fingers flying over both, scrolling through multiple sets of records in one sweep.
Arvis simply watched Ryu. For a long moment. As if he could see something moving behind the bones of Ryu's skull.
"I am taking him to Medical Unit now," Elara said flatly. "No further sessions until I confirm his resonance stability."
Arvis nodded. "I am coming."
Cassandra hesitated. "What about the other children?" "Let the strategy module handle them," Arvis replied. "We have a bigger problem." Before they could move, NV hummed again in Ryu's mind.
Ryu turned slightly.
He saw them.
The four stood at the far edge of the crowd, but their spacing was too precise, forming a two by two formation with identical distance between each body. They still did not speak. They still did not rush. They simply watched. And waited.
In his gut, Ryu understood one thing.
Whatever had started in the Shadow Room was not finished.
PART 2 - FIRST MAP: BASIC TRAINING
The Medical Unit was once again filled with warm light, deliberately different from the threatening quiet of the underground corridors. The space seemed designed to make children feel safe, but for Ryu, safety no longer existed as a concept.
Lyra was already waiting by the examination table. Her hair was tied neatly back, her attention on the holo screen in front of her. When she saw Ryu walk in, her expression shifted, not into shock, but into a controlled worry pressed behind a professional mask.
"You are late," she said softly. "Your resonance earlier was not normal."
Aki immediately threw up his hands. "Lyra, I swear, you need to know this. Ryu almost got roasted by some huge crazy device."
Lyra shot him a sharp look. "Not roasted, Aki. It was a scanning module." Aki glared. "Feels the same to me if your head is under it."
Lyra exhaled, then turned fully toward Ryu. "Sit. I need to make sure no other signal has made it into your resonance."
Ryu sat down. Lyra placed sensors along his temples and the back of his neck. Each light touch of her fingers made Aki shift uncomfortably, as if he thought she was getting too close to something that should not be touched.
Elara checked the large screen at the back of the room. Cassandra stood at her side, adding supplemental notes into a secondary panel. Arvis moved to the other side of the table and looked directly at Ryu.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Normal."
"You need to be more specific than that."
"I know." Ryu closed his eyes. "NV's resonance is clearer. It only shows up when there is a specific threat pattern."
"A specific pattern?" Cassandra asked, fingers already moving again. Ryu opened his eyes. "Those four kids." Lyra paused. "Rank two through five?"
"Yes."
Arvis turned a fraction. "What makes them different?" "It is not what they did," Ryu answered quietly. "It is what they did not do."
Cassandra leaned in. "Explain."
"Hundreds of children reacted to the holograms. They were reading expressions. Those four did not do that. They were not reading the projections. They were reading me, not the stimulus."
The room fell silent. Even Aki, who had been about to speak, shut his mouth. After a moment, Elara spoke. "If that is true, that is not normal gifted child behavior." Arvis nodded once. "Not gifted children. Young agents."
Cassandra reorganized her data sets. "They were not selected by the state. So who placed them into Vasena?"
Arvis glanced at Ryu. "The same people who killed his father." Lyra's hands froze. Her voice dropped half a tone. "That means Ryu is not just a subject. He is a target."
The word target made Ryu's muscles tighten for a fraction of a second, but he did not let it show in his expression.
Arvis stepped closer. "You should understand this, Ryu. In Vasena, a child under D-3 protocol is never just a student."
Aki frowned. "Then what are they?"
"A weapon," Arvis said without hesitation.
Elara looked at Ryu with concern she tried to hide. "And someone out there wants to make sure that weapon never ends up in Dominion Astryx's hands."
Ryu stared at the floor. He stayed quiet, but his mind was moving faster now. The new information did not scare him. It clicked something into place. "There is one more thing," he said.
Lyra turned. "What is it?"
"Those four are not trying to threaten me. They are not trying to get close. They are not trying to kill me. They are only trying to confirm one thing." Aki swallowed. "Which is?"
Ryu looked straight at Arvis. "Whether I really am a natural anomaly, or just an experiment." Arvis' eyes widened for one brief second, enough to show that even he had not put it in that exact frame yet.
NV surged into focus again, the resonance sharper.
"Now?" Ryu thought.
Elara slammed her palm on the override panel. "Cut all external connections, now."
Red alarms lit up at once. The lights flickered. All the screens shifted into defense pathways. Lyra grabbed Ryu's arm. "We need to move. The next basic module is about to start."
Aki stared at her in disbelief. "Training? In the middle of this?" Arvis glanced at the sealing door. "Because this is the real training."
PART 3 - ENDURANCE: BASIC PHYSICAL AND STRATEGIC TRAINING
The beginner training arena sat two floors above the Medical Unit. It looked like a giant empty pool without water, curved walls, metal floor, packed with sensors and modular devices that could reconfigure into obstacles or tools with one command.
In the center stood Darian Fox, broad-shouldered, hard-faced, his eyes assessing every child as a potential operative or a potential liability.
"Welcome to the basic module," he said. His voice was deep and firm. He was not inviting them; he was announcing the rules. "Today, you will face three stages. Physical flexibility, tactical response, and mental endurance."
Aki raised an eyebrow. "Mental endurance? What does that even look like?" Darian gave him a brief look. "It looks like staying conscious while the system tries to break your mind."
Aki immediately shut up.
Darian continued. "There are hundreds of you. Operational statistics say only thirty will clear the beginner phase. The rest will be reassigned to non-operational routes."
Nervous voices rippled through the back rows.
"You are joking."
"Thirty from hundreds?"
"This is insane."
Darian scanned the group. "We are not looking for a crowd. We are looking for the ones who remain standing."
Ryu stayed expressionless. NV, however, sent a quiet note. Ryu turned his head. There they were.
The four children stood at a distance, but their positions still formed a precise formation, as if they were determined to never betray their pattern to anyone who was not paying close enough attention.
Darian tapped the panel on his wrist. "First session. Movement response."
The arena walls shifted. Panels rose from the floor, up and down like a field of metal teeth. Dozens of vertical bars shoved themselves out from the sides and began to move with high speed in seemingly random patterns.
"Get your bodies through the next thirty seconds," Darian ordered. "Do not fall. Do not get hit."
Panic spread fast. Aki looked at Ryu. "You can do this, right?"
"Not sure."
"What?"
Ryu stepped forward slowly. His eyes narrowed slightly as he listened more than watched.
Aki stared at him, halfway between admiration and anger. "Are you a person or a walking puzzle box?"
Darian blew his whistle. "Begin."
The arena turned into a mechanical storm. Metal bars whipped across the space. Panels snapped up and down. The floor shifted horizontally like a giant moving belt.
Kids screamed. Two went down in the first five seconds. Eight more were thrown off their feet in the next ten.
Aki managed to avoid most of the obstacles, but his movements were wild and sloppy. The infiltrator children moved together, efficient and cold, weaving through the chaos with minimal motion.
Ryu needed only two seconds to see the pattern. Not with his eyes alone, but through the rhythm of sound, the feel of vibration, the consistency of speed.
Left bar cycling every 1.2 seconds. Center panel rising every 0.9. Floor shifting in a zigzag algorithm.
He was not moving like an athlete. He was moving like someone who had already run this simulation a thousand times in his head.
Aki shouted as he dodged another bar. "Why are you walking like this is nothing?" Ryu tilted away from a panel that nearly smashed his face. "It is not nothing. I am following the rhythm."
"What rhythm?"
"Every machine has one," Ryu replied.
At the thirty-second mark, Ryu jumped clear of the last panel and landed lightly. Aki collapsed onto the floor, breathing hard. All four infiltrators cleared the run without a single visible scrape.
Darian checked the data streaming across his console. "Sixteen of you passed," he announced. Aki lifted his head. "Sixteen? Out of hundreds?" Darian nodded once, not impressed, not disappointed. "This is only the first of three stages."
The lighting dimmed.
Panels shifted again.
Simulations for heat, cold, pressure, sound distortion, and layered visual illusions began to boot up across the arena. Aki stared at the environment in despair. "I am done." Ryu looked forward. He was not calm and he was not afraid. He was simply focused, like a switch had been flipped.
NV resurfaced.
"Always," Ryu thought back.
Before the final test began, Darian spoke again. "The third test is mental endurance. Each of you will face your own fear." Aki swallowed so hard it hurt. "Ryu… what are you afraid of?"
Ryu was silent for a long time. A long enough pause that even Aki felt the weight of it. Then Ryu answered quietly. "Seeing someone I care about and being unable to save them."
Aki had no comeback for that.
The arena lights went out.
The simulation spun up.
Each child dropped into their own isolated world. Ryu saw white light surge up from the floor. Then NV's voice came in low.
Out of the light stepped a silhouette. Someone Ryu knew better than anyone. His father, lying still, unmoving. A second voice floated in from behind him. A woman's voice. Soft, hurting, calling from somewhere he could not reach.
"Ryu… you did not help me…"
Ryu held his breath. The temperature seemed to climb. The pressure felt like a giant invisible hand pushing down on his head. This was not a standard simulation.
It was too specific, too deep, too personal.
"I would never let you die," he said.
The voice trembled, not from weakness, but from accusation. "Then why are we not alive?" The echo of that question hit the inside of his skull like a hammer. Ryu folded slightly, arms wrapping around himself as if bracing against a thousand needles driving outward from his own mind.
NV cut in, stronger now.
"By who?"
The mental pressure kept building. Light blinked in and out like the heartbeat of a failing engine. The image of his father and the woman's voice began to merge into a single, crushing threat.
But Ryu lifted his head.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
He spoke quietly. "I already lost them."
The simulation stuttered. The digital wind blew past his face. "But I am not losing anyone else." The mental wave collapsed.
The illusion shattered. Ryu remained standing.
Across the arena, Aki fell to his knees. Some kids fainted. Some screamed. Others sobbed, their bodies shaking under the weight of fears they could not carry. Ryu stayed on his feet, breathing slower and slower until his pulse settled.
Darian stared at his console. For the first time, his expression changed. In ten years of watching prodigies, he had never seen a mental graph like this for a thirteen-year-old.
Arvis entered through a back door. Cassandra and Elara followed close behind.
Darian faced them. "He is not a normal genius." Arvis did not look at him. "He is not a genius." Cassandra watched Ryu for a long moment. "He is something else."
Lyra hurried in, eyes wide with worry. "Ryu."
She ran over and checked his pupils. "Please tell me you are alright." Ryu gave a slight nod. "I am not going to fall over from a test like this."
Darian looked at his data again and shook his head once. "You did not pass," he said. "You broke the graph." Aki, half conscious on the floor, croaked, "That… counts as passing, right?"
Darian's gaze shifted back to Ryu. The way he looked at him now had changed. There was no simple assessment in it anymore, only caution.
"Beginner test is complete," he announced. "Tomorrow morning, you enter Basic One phase."
The children stumbled out of the arena, some limping, some carried. The four infiltrator kids remained almost unchanged. They only watched Ryu. Long, steady, as if trying to push past skin and see directly into the system inside him. NV vibrated softly in Ryu's head.
"From who?"
"What instruction?"
NV's answer came flat and cold, like a recorded fact.
Ryu stood straight.
No flinch.
No retreat.
Only readiness.
Because today he understood something clearly. He was no longer just a target for an assassination attempt. He had become the line between a nation and a shadow war.