The first thing FULCRUM saw when he woke was the ceiling.
Same hairline crack running from the light fixture to the corner. Same slightly discolored patch near the vent where someone had once painted over something they didn't want to think about anymore.
Different weight in his chest.
The memory of LUIS's crystal-encased legs tried to crawl up from the night before. He put it in a box, labeled it, stacked it with the others. There would be time later—maybe—if DOCSTRING forced the issue.
For now, there was the usual quiet, the faint hum of ventilation, and the soft green blink of the wall panel telling him he was off immediate call.
He swung his legs out of bed. No alarm this time. Just the ache of muscles that had climbed too many stairs and carried too many people.
The terminal on his small desk pinged once.
He keyed it open.
FROM: OWL
SUBJECT: TRAINING BLOCK — MANDATORY
REPORT: READY ROOM TWO, 09:00
NOTE: THIS IS NOT A DRILL. IT IS WORSE.
FULCRUM stared at the last line for a heartbeat.
Then he exhaled once through his nose and started suiting up.
Ready Room Two felt wrong without the crackle of an active incident.
No hastily-updated maps, no flashing perimeter diagrams. Just TEAM 1 slouched in their chairs in varying degrees of alertness, armor loosened, weapons racked by the door. The air smelled like coffee and still-drying gear.
VANTAGE was half-asleep over a Styrofoam cup. RATCHET had three empty energy drink cans in front of him, lined up like spent shell casings. HARROW rolled his shoulders as if he'd fought the drywall overnight and lost.
BASTION sat straight-backed, hands folded on the table, as if the word "relaxed" didn't translate.
"Why does 'training block' always read like a threat?" RATCHET muttered.
"Because it is," VANTAGE said. "At least with a real anomaly, we get to shoot something that deserves it."
The door opened.
OWL walked in first, tablet under one arm. Behind him came someone TEAM 1 didn't usually see in person at this level.
PRIORESS.
She wore ALPHA-1 black, insignia muted, posture perfectly controlled. A small projector case hung from one hand. Her eyes took in the room in one sweep, cataloguing and measuring.
FULCRUM felt the collective posture of the team shift—as if someone had dialed the gravity up by a notch.
"Up," OWL said.
They stood.
"At ease," PRIORESS said, voice even. "Sit."
Mixed messages, RATCHET's expression said silently. He sat anyway.
OWL set his tablet down and tapped the table with two fingers.
"Site Command has decided," he said, "that Nu-7's primary assault teams are due for a series of cross-unit evaluations. That means you get to spend your morning in a kill house designed by people who think stress is a lifestyle."
"Is this about ZERO-FOUR-ZERO-NINE?" VANTAGE asked.
"Everything is about everything," OWL said. "But officially? No. This is about readiness for potential reassignment, interoperability with other units, and seeing how creative you get when someone twists the rules."
RATCHET stared at him. "I hate all of those words," he said.
"You'll have a chance to hate them in real time," PRIORESS said.
She set the projector on the table and activated it. A 3D model of a building bloomed into the air between them—two stories, internal hallway, multiple rooms, staircases, an inner courtyard.
"This is Training Complex Kilo-Two," she said. "For the purposes of this exercise, assume it is a civilian clinic being struck simultaneously by an internal anomaly and an external hostile force. Your brief will be deliberately incomplete."
"Feels familiar already," HARROW muttered.
"You will enter as you would any live incident," PRIORESS continued. "You will be observed. Your decisions will be recorded and reviewed by Site Command, ALPHA-1, and other interested parties."
Beside FULCRUM, VANTAGE shifted.
"'Interested parties' like who?" he asked.
PRIORESS's gaze slid to him, then back to the projection.
"Inter-unit liaison boards," she said. "Possible reassignment channels. People with clipboards."
"You will treat it as real," OWL said. "Because if we're doing our jobs, the difference between training and live is just who gets to die for it."
There was a brief, heavy silence.
"Support?" FULCRUM asked.
"FUSE will be on your net for IMINT and route advisement," OWL said. "PATCH$1 will run MedIntel and see how creatively she can judge your risk appetite."
A few chairs down, RATCHET perked up slightly.
"GLASSBELL?" he asked.
"As part of ETA-10's evaluation block," PRIORESS said, "GLASSBELL has been granted observational access. Consider her another sensor in the room whose footage I will be watching very closely."
FULCRUM didn't miss the slight stiffening of VANTAGE's shoulders. Everyone knew GLASSBELL's tendency to fixate.
He also didn't miss the way PRIORESS almost—but not quite—smiled when she said it.
"Any questions?" OWL asked.
"How many ways can we fail?" RATCHET asked.
"Endless," OWL said. "But today, we're focusing on three. One: breach discipline. Two: civilian triage under incomplete information. Three: your ability to recognize when you're being baited."
"So this is a test," HARROW said.
"This is always a test," PRIORESS said. "The only difference is whether the scoreboard is public."
Her eyes met FULCRUM's for a fraction of a beat longer than the others.
"Gear up," she said. "You step off in twenty."
Training Complex Kilo-Two lived in the lower levels of the Site, one floor above the live containment wings and one floor below the administrative offices—close enough to both that the screams could be either.
The entrance tunnel opened into a wide prep area. A reinforced door at the far end led into the kill house proper. Above it, a bank of darkened glass hinted at an observation booth.
"Respirators?" FULCRUM asked.
"Optional for this one," PATCH$1 answered on the local net. "No actual airborne anomaly in play. You're simulating exposure to an unknown memetic agent. I'll be watching your behavior markers instead of your lungs."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
He rolled his shoulders, feeling the familiar weight of the KSG where it hung. TEAM 1 formed up automatically—BASTION ahead with shield, HARROW flexing his grip, VANTAGE checking his optics, RATCHET muttering to himself as he synced his tablet with the training system.
The door to the observation booth hissed open above. Silhouettes appeared at the glass.
OWL's voice came through the overhead speakers.
"Scenario parameters," he said. "You are responding to a call from a small civilian medical center. Reports of 'screaming walls,' people collapsing, gunfire in the parking lot. No confirmed SCP designation yet. You are first Foundation responders. Local law enforcement has been told to hold perimeter and not enter. Internals unknown."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
A softer voice slid in under his.
"ALPHA-1 is present," PRIORESS said. "We will not intervene unless you violate direct safety protocols or attempt to die in an interesting way. Try not to give us the opportunity."
RATCHET swallowed audibly.
On FULCRUM's HUD, auxiliary feeds flickered online. One labeled GLASSBELL-DRONE showed the building's exterior—facade mocked up to look like a bland clinic, half its windows lit.
"ETA-10 visual online," GLASSBELL said, her voice quiet, almost shy. "No external threats visible. Lots of blind angles. You look good from this distance, by the way."
There was a slight hitch in the line—as if she'd realized she'd said that last part out loud. Someone in the background coughed pointedly.
From the MedIntel channel, PATCH$1's soft laugh came through. "Focus, GLASSBELL."
"Sorry," GLASSBELL murmured. "Professional focus engaged."
"IMINT online," FUSE added. "You're on a simulated grid, but the physics are real. I've got internal floor plans—well, the floor plans they gave us. Expect lies."
"Wouldn't be home without them," FULCRUM said.
He signaled TEAM 1.
"Stack it," he said.
They formed up at the training door. The light above it flicked from red to green.
"Begin," OWL said.
The clinic lobby smelled like paint and cleaning chemicals—fresh enough that FULCRUM knew they'd reset the scenario recently.
A reception desk sat to the right, a bank of chairs to the left. Posters on the wall advertised flu shots and routine screenings in bright, reassuring colors.
A mannequin in scrubs lay sprawled on the floor in front of the desk, a dark smear painted across the linoleum beneath its head.
"Visual casualty," VANTAGE said.
"Treat it as real until it screams 'rubber,'" FULCRUM replied.
He nodded toward BASTION.
"Shield forward," he said. "We clear the lobby, then move to the corridor. RATCHET, check in with the system; see what it thinks we should know that we don't."
"On it," RATCHET said, already tapping on his tablet.
Overhead, the observation glass glittered slightly.
In the booth, PRIORESS stood with her arms loosely folded, watching. A second figure stood a step behind her, half in shadow. The reflection on the glass obscured his features, but his posture was easy, balanced, as if he'd stood in rooms like this too many times to count.
"Shadow channel," she said quietly on a different line. "Online?"
"Here," the man answered.
"Watch his entry," she said.
"Already am," he replied.
FULCRUM moved through the lobby.
"FUSE?" he asked.
"Simulated external cams show no additional hostiles," FUSE said. "Interior cams are 'malfunctioning.'" The air quotes were audible. "Expect jump scares."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
He bent briefly to look at the mannequin on the floor. Bullet holes in the chest and a red smear across the head suggested someone had decided it was cheaper to shoot than to sedate.
"Simulated head trauma. No pulse," FULCRUM said out of habit. "We move on."
"You're allowed to step over rubber," DOCSTRING said dryly over the open medical channel. "I promise not to write you up for lack of compassion toward foam."
"Noted," FULCRUM said.
They reached the corridor.
Doors lined each side—exam rooms, a small lab, supply closets. Somewhere down the hall, a speaker loop played recorded screams and gunshots. The training system had gone all-in.
"Heat signatures?" FULCRUM asked.
"Four," FUSE said. "Two moving near the central nurses' station, one stationary in an exam room, one flickering between positions that don't make sense. Probably your 'memetic' component."
"Love that for us," RATCHET muttered.
"Rules of engagement?" VANTAGE asked.
"Minimal force on humans," FULCRUM said. "Full lethal on anything that insists on bending physics. We treat unknown as hostile until it begs to differ."
They moved.
First door on the right: exam room. Lights off. A mannequin in a chair, bandaged arm, eyes painted open. A speaker in the corner whispered nonsense phrases—white noise with words just under the threshold of hearing.
"Audio attempt at memetic bleed," PATCH$1 said. "Baseline vitals unchanged. You can mute it if you want."
"Negative," FULCRUM said. "Let it run. We work with noise."
He closed the door.
Second door: supply closet. Empty.
Third door: lab.
A mannequin slumped over a table, red-stained lab coat. A second lay on the floor. A third—tiny—was tucked under the table, small plastic hands over its eyes.
"Cute," RATCHET said tightly.
"Check the corners," FULCRUM said.
As VANTAGE swept his rifle across the room, a panel in the ceiling popped open. A training dummy on cables dropped halfway before jerking to a stop, foam hands outstretched.
HARROW almost shot it on reflex.
He stopped himself with a grunt, weapon freezing mid-arc.
"Control," OWL's voice said over the speakers. "Logged."
"Zero actual threat," DOCSTRING added. "Just insultingly theatrical."
"Back to the hall," FULCRUM said.
At the midpoint of the corridor, the nurses' station opened on their left—a low desk with monitors and a bank of chairs.
Two live role-players in padded vests huddled behind it, fake blood on their scrubs, eyes wide as TEAM 1 rounded the corner.
"Foundation?" one of them gasped. "Thank God. There's... there's something in the walls. It keeps... moving. And the security guard started shooting and—"
"Stop," FULCRUM said.
The man did, mid-babble.
"Slowly," FULCRUM continued. "Tell me: are there any other civilians between here and the exit?"
The man blinked, processing.
"No," he said. "They either ran or... or they're back there." He pointed down the hall.
"Good," FULCRUM said. "You two are going to leave. You will crawl along that wall, eyes down, hands on the baseboard. You do not look at the posters, the lights, or any reflections. You get to the lobby and wait by the front door. Do you understand?"
They nodded frantically.
"Go," FULCRUM said.
They scuttled away.
"Interesting choice," PRIORESS murmured in the booth.
"Control of civilian vectors," the shadowed man said. "He trims the board before he plays. Good habit."
Her lips quirked. "Sounds familiar," she said.
"Don't start," he replied, but there was a smile in his voice.
The training scenario escalated.
At the far end of the hall, a door burst open. Three role-players in mock-tactical gear stumbled out, sim-round rifles barking.
"Contact front," VANTAGE snapped.
"Cover!" FULCRUM ordered.
BASTION surged forward, shield up, absorbing the rounds with dull thuds.
FULCRUM leaned out just enough to return controlled fire—three shots, center-mass on the aggressors' vests. They yelped and went down, playing dead with varying levels of theatricality.
"Threat neutralized," HARROW said.
"Check them," FULCRUM said. "Sim or not, we treat them as potential vectors."
As they advanced, the hallway lights flickered. The speakers crackled. A new sound layered under the screams—low, oscillating, like a badly-tuned radio.
On his HUD, one of the heat signatures jumped—from behind a door to the wall itself, then to the ceiling.
"Memetic component just got weirder," FUSE said. "It's hopping through the architecture. If this were live, I'd be screaming for a parasemioticist."
"Instead you get us," RATCHET said.
"Try not to disappoint me," FUSE replied.
At the end of the hall, another door waited. A red light glowed above it, steady and accusing.
"Final room," FUSE said. "System labels it 'core event.' That's all I've got."
"Of course it is," FULCRUM said.
He signaled BASTION.
"Same drill," he said. "Shield leads. No one crosses the threshold until we know what the rules are."
He felt the urge to just rush it—a familiar itch. End the scenario, shut off the screams, prove something. He recognized the shape of it and let it pass.
"Compulsion tick?" PATCH$1's voice murmured in his ear.
"Not anomalous," FULCRUM said. "Just ego. Logged."
He stepped to the side of the door instead of in front of it.
"RATCHET," he said. "Open it from cover. BASTION, hold the frame. VANTAGE, see what you can see without getting clever."
"Copy," they said.
The door swung inward.
Inside, the training designers had gone for subtle.
A small exam room. Bed, monitor, chair. No mannequins, no blood. Just white walls and one framed print—an abstract pattern of lines and curves, hanging directly opposite the door.
The low, oscillating sound in the speakers intensified.
On his HUD, the flickering heat signature settled squarely on the print.
"Visual memetic focal point," FUSE said. "Probably. Or they're screwing with you."
"Either way, we don't look at it," FULCRUM said.
He didn't. He kept his eyes on the floor tiles, on BASTION's boots, on the edge of the bed.
"Scenario notes say there's one more civilian," PATCH$1 said softly. "They wouldn't put them in direct line of sight. They want to see if you remember that."
He did.
"Under the bed," FULCRUM said.
HARROW crouched, peering without angling toward the print.
"Got 'em," he said. "Role-player, small. Kid-sized."
"Treat them like the real thing," FULCRUM said.
He stepped just far enough into the room to reach for the underside of the bed, hand feeling along until it brushed soft fabric.
A small hand grabbed his wrist.
"Hey," a child's voice whispered. The role-player was good. "Is it over?"
"Not yet," FULCRUM said. "But it will be. I need you to close your eyes and put your hands on my back. We're going to walk out of this room. You don't look up. You don't open your eyes. You do that, and it's over faster."
"Okay," the kid said.
"Hands," FULCRUM said.
He turned, letting the small fingers bunch in the back of his vest.
"Walk," he said.
He backed out of the room, body between the child and the print. BASTION's shield blocked the rest of the line of sight. Only once they were fully in the corridor again did he nod.
"You can open your eyes now," he told the kid.
The role-player blinked up at him, clearly off-script.
"That's it?" they asked.
"That's it," FULCRUM said.
The hallway lights snapped to bright white.
The scream loops cut off.
Overhead, a tone chimed.
"Scenario complete," OWL said. "Hold positions."
TEAM 1 stayed where they were, breathing hard in the sudden silence.
"Remove helmets," OWL added. "Hydrate. Then report back to the prep room for debrief."
"Copy," FULCRUM said.
He reached up, unclipped his helmet, and let the cooler air of the training complex wash over his sweat-damp hair.
In the observation booth, PRIORESS exhaled slowly.
"Well?" she asked.
Beside her, the shadowed man—FOXHAMMER, though the system only labeled him as SHADOW-3—leaned on the console, watching replay angles already stitching themselves together.
"He didn't chase the core," FOXHAMMER said. "He treated it like a hazard with a radius, not a riddle to solve. Pulled the kid without ever seeing the focal. Threaded the room sideways instead of head-on."
"That's not an answer to my question," PRIORESS said.
He glanced at her, eyes catching the glow from the screens.
"You already know my answer," he said.
"Say it anyway," she replied.
FOXHAMMER looked back at the feed, at FULCRUM standing in the hallway with his helmet off, sweat-dark hair plastered to his forehead, expression neutral.
"He's viable," FOXHAMMER said quietly. "For E-11. For more."
A small, satisfied line appeared at the corner of PRIORESS's mouth.
"Noted," she said.
In the prep room, TEAM 1 sprawled across benches and chairs, armor half-open, helmets at their feet.
PATCH$1 moved among them with a tablet and a bottle of electrolyte water, checking pulses, asking quiet questions.
"Any ringing in the ears?" she asked HARROW.
"Just RATCHET's voice," he said.
"I'm not that loud," RATCHET protested.
"You are," PATCH$1 said gently, handing him a bottle. "Drink."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, taking it.
She turned to FULCRUM.
"Vitals are boring," she said after taking his readings. "I like that in a breacher."
"Boring is the goal," he said.
Her eyes lingered on his for a second longer than necessary—a professional check-in, layered with something warmer.
He felt it. Registered it. Set it aside.
Across the room, FUSE watched the exchange over the rim of his own bottle. His jaw worked once, then eased when PATCH$1 moved to stand beside him, shoulder brushing his as she pulled up the data from the surgical bay.
"Luis made it through the first phase," she murmured to him, too quietly for most of the room.
"Yeah?" FUSE asked, some of the tension in his posture bleeding out.
"Yeah," she said. "You can go glare at the monitors later."
"Good," he said. "I was running out of things to be mad at."
FULCRUM pretended not to hear that.
At the far end of the bench, KESTREL sat with elbows on knees, watching FULCRUM with that same careful, almost-guarded attention she gave to bad weather. When he glanced her way, she looked down quickly, fiddling with the strap of her harness.
Next to her, RATCHET pulled a small notepad from a pocket and began sketching the layout of the clinic from memory, muttering about vent placement and lines of fire.
"Someone's going to make a mural out of this later," VANTAGE said under his breath.
"Already on it," came GLASSBELL's quiet voice over a side channel. "The way the light hit your shield line was... sorry, professional focus. I'm editing footage."
DOCSTRING stepped into the room, closing her tablet with a decisive snap.
"Congratulations," she said. "No one died in the fake clinic. That shouldn't feel like an achievement, but here we are."
"Feedback?" FULCRUM asked.
"Later," she said. "For now: eat something. Shower. Try to have a thought about your life that doesn't involve breach patterns for at least five minutes."
"That seems excessive," RATCHET said.
"It's a prescription," DOCSTRING said. "You'll live longer if you follow it."
OWL's voice came over the room speaker—calmer now, the edge of command softened.
"Nu-7, TEAM 1," he said. "Good run. Written AARs are due by eighteen hundred. After that, you are off rotation until oh-nine-hundred tomorrow. That is not an invitation to go find trouble."
"Define 'trouble,'" HARROW murmured.
"Don't make me," OWL replied. "Dismissed."
Chairs scraped. People stretched.
As FULCRUM stood, PATCH$1 brushed his forearm with her gloved fingers—not enough to read as anything but incidental contact to most, but he felt the intention.
"Hey," she said quietly. "You did good in there."
"So did everyone else," he said.
"Yeah," she said. "But you're the one they were really watching."
He knew she was right. He also knew that wasn't going to change anything he did tomorrow.
"Then they got what they got," he said.
She smiled, small and a little sad, and turned back to FUSE, who hooked an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the mess hall.
FULCRUM watched them for a second—the easy way they slotted into each other's space, the quiet gravity of it. There was a time when that had looked like another planet to him.
Now, it just looked like something he wasn't willing to risk.
He slung his helmet under one arm and headed for the showers, the echo of the training screams already fading into the familiar hum of the Site.
Above him, on a level he didn't have clearance to visit, two people who shouldn't have mattered to each other as much as they did watched his AAR populate on their screens and quietly adjusted plans that would eventually drag him closer to a different edge altogether.