Dean woke in darkness.
Not full darkness. The emergency floor strips still glowed their dull red, enough to navigate by. But the ceiling panels remained off. He checked the time display in his peripheral vision.
04:47.
Section nine's standard wake time was 05:30. The lights shouldn't activate for another forty-three minutes.
Dean sat up slowly. Across the dormitory, the girl who counted was still asleep. Her breathing was even, undisturbed. The other two bunks were empty. They'd been empty since yesterday.
He was alone. Awake. Without explanation.
[Schedule Adjustment Applied][Effective Immediately]
The notification had no timestamp. No reason field. Just the statement and nothing else.
Dean stood and walked to the washroom. The motion-activated lights flickered on, harsh and institutional. He washed his face with cold water and stared at his reflection. Same face. Same expression. Nothing had changed visibly.
But something had shifted.
He returned to the dormitory and sat on his bunk. The girl who counted was still asleep. He didn't wake her. If her schedule had changed, she would have been woken. If it hadn't, waking her would only create problems.
Dean opened his schedule interface.
Half the blocks were marked [Pending]. Conditioning session at 09:00: pending. Afternoon evaluation: pending. Resource distribution time: pending. Only his morning movement authorization was confirmed, and even that had a different route designation than standard.
He pulled up the comparative schedule view. It showed aggregated data for section nine.
The girl who counted had a full schedule. Standard blocks. Standard timing. Nothing pending.
Dean switched to a different view and searched for Renn Halrik's identifier.
Renn's schedule was completely filled. No pending blocks. No gaps. He had conditioning, evaluation, and something new. [Leadership Aptitude Assessment — 11:00].
Dean scrolled through other names from yesterday's common area.
Two were gone entirely. Not reassigned. Not rescheduled. Just removed from the database. The smaller boy who'd taken the hydration unit was one of them. The other was someone Dean hadn't paid attention to.
He closed the interface and waited.
At 05:30, the ceiling lights activated for the girl who counted. She woke immediately, sat up, and began her routine. She didn't look at Dean. Didn't acknowledge that he'd been awake for forty-three minutes longer than her.
She dressed, left for the washroom, returned, and departed for morning distribution.
Dean stayed on his bunk until 06:15, when his movement authorization activated.
He walked into the corridor.
The hallways felt different.
Not emptier. The same number of people moved through them. But the flow had changed. Certain doors were sealed now. Entire corridor sections had been marked [Restricted — Eligibility Required].
Dean passed section seven. Through the open doorway he counted four occupants. Yesterday there had been nine.
Section twelve: three remaining.
Section four: six.
No escorts. No announcements. No explanations.
Just locked doors and erased identifiers.
Dean walked toward the commissary. His route designation took him through an unfamiliar corridor, longer than the standard path. When he arrived, the distribution line had already formed. He joined at the back.
The dispenser assigned to him was the same slow unit from two days ago. He waited the extra six seconds and collected his ration. The overseer who had redirected him before was gone. A different one stood in his place, younger, watching the line with the same blank efficiency.
Dean ate his ration in the designated time and disposed of the packaging.
As he walked toward the exit, a notification appeared.
[Route Adjustment][Proceed to Administration Wing, Section 3-C]
Dean stopped. Administration Wing wasn't part of standard initiate pathways. It was where evaluations were processed. Where decisions were made.
He changed direction and followed the new route.
Section 3-C was a narrow corridor with seven doors, all unmarked. Dean's notification directed him to the fourth one. He pressed the access panel.
The door opened.
Inside was a small office. A single desk. A terminal. A woman in administrative gray sat behind the desk, reviewing data on a tablet. She didn't look up when Dean entered.
"Identifier," she said.
Dean recited his number.
She tapped the tablet twice. "Your schedule is under review."
"I wasn't informed of a review."
"It's administrative." Her tone was perfectly neutral. Not hostile. Not apologetic. Just stating facts. "Pending classification creates scheduling conflicts. You'll receive updates as they're processed."
"What classification?"
"Pending."
Dean waited. She didn't elaborate.
"How long does processing take?" he asked.
"Variable." She tapped the tablet again. "You're scheduled for preliminary evaluation in thirty-six hours. Attendance is mandatory. Location and protocol details will be provided twelve hours in advance."
"What kind of evaluation?"
"Classification assessment." She finally looked up. Her expression was blank. "Is there anything else?"
Dean knew the answer before he asked. "What happens if I don't fit a classification?"
"That's not a standard scenario." She looked back down at her tablet. "You're dismissed."
The door behind him unlocked with a soft click.
Dean left.
He returned to the main corridors and walked without destination. His schedule was still mostly pending. He had three hours before the first confirmed block appeared.
He found a bench near one of the observation windows and sat.
Through the reinforced glass, he could see part of the Academy's central training yard. A group of initiates was running formation drills. Their movements were synchronized, efficient. At the front of the formation was an instructor Dean didn't recognize.
Near the back of the group, Dean spotted Renn Halrik.
Renn ran with the same controlled confidence he'd displayed in the common area. His posture was correct. His pace matched the group standard. He didn't stand out, but he didn't fade either.
After the formation completed a lap, the instructor called a halt. The group reformed into rows. The instructor walked along the line, stopped in front of Renn, and said something Dean couldn't hear.
Renn nodded. The instructor made a notation on his tablet.
[Access Granted] appeared above Renn's head in Dean's interface.
The formation resumed. Dean watched for another ten minutes, then pulled up the extended data view.
Renn's profile had updated.
[Preliminary Alignment: Leadership-Compatible][Behavioral Classification: Dominant-Stable][Threat Rating: 0.09%][Status: Standard Processing]
Dean switched to his own profile.
[Preliminary Alignment: Pending][Behavioral Classification: Unmodeled][Threat Rating: 0.02%][Status: Exception]
The word "Exception" was highlighted in amber. Not red. Not green. Just amber. Uncertain.
Dean closed the interface and stood. He walked back toward section nine, following the adjusted route his schedule provided. The path took him past the training hall he'd used for conditioning sessions.
The entrance was open. He looked inside.
Three stations were active. Standard endurance circuits. But the initiates using them had visible rank indicators now. Rank 1. All of them. They'd been processed. Classified. Advanced.
Dean tried to enter.
The access panel flashed red.
[Rank Requirement Not Met][Minimum: Rank 1][Current: Unranked]
He stepped back. The panel returned to neutral.
Dean walked away.
The rest of the day followed the same pattern. Redirected routes. Pending schedule blocks. Restricted access. Small frictions that added up to a wall.
At 18:00, he returned to section nine.
The girl who counted was gone.
Her bunk was stripped. Her identifier had been removed from the door panel. The only evidence she'd existed was the slight discoloration on the wall where her hand had rested every night while she counted.
Dean sat on his bunk and opened the interface one more time.
[Preliminary Classification Review Scheduled][Time Remaining: 36 Hours][Attendance: Mandatory][Location: TBD][Protocol: TBD]
Thirty-six hours until the System decided what he was.
Thirty-six hours to fit into a category that didn't account for him.
Dean lay back and stared at the ceiling. The stains were still there. The same irregular patterns. The same structural failures no one had bothered to fix.
The System wasn't punishing him for being unmodeled.
It was preparing to resolve him.
One way or another.
Outside, the corridor lights dimmed to evening mode. Somewhere in the administrative core, algorithms recalculated timelines and adjusted processing priorities.
Dean closed his eyes.
The System had given him thirty-six hours.
He would use them.