The screen flickered again, and this time I didn't pretend it was nothing.
I flinched.
The capsule hummed beneath me—low, rhythmic, insistent—like a massive animal breathing in its sleep. Not loud enough to alarm. Not quiet enough to forget. The sound crept into my bones, resonating through the metal shell and into my spine, as if the machine and I had agreed to share a pulse.
For half a heartbeat, I was sure the system would crash.
Then the display stabilized.
Black.
Not the sterile white-blue GAIA loved so much. Not the corporate orange diagnostic palette of the awakening facility. This was darker. Thicker. A black that didn't just absorb light, but seemed to observe it.
The HUD resolved slowly, as if deciding whether I deserved to see it.
Minimalist. Angular. Unapologetic.
Alive.
I felt it before I understood it—the sensation of being examined not by cameras or algorithms, but by something that anticipated me. My breathing. My heart rate. The way my thoughts curved before I finished thinking them.
The interface didn't ask permission.
It simply knew.
[Unlocked class…]
[Unlocked talent…]
My fingers clenched around the armrests of the capsule. The synthetic padding compressed under my grip, warm from prolonged contact. Somewhere beneath that, I could feel the faint vibration of power conduits cycling energy through my restraints, mapping my nervous system down to the quantum noise between synapses.
[Technomancer class (Unique): a highly specialized and versatile class that combines technological mastery with magical and scientific principles. Grants user the ability to manipulate technology, energy, and data.]
I swallowed.
The words felt heavy. Too heavy. Like something sacred being spoken too casually.
Then the next line appeared.
[Hacker talent (Unique): an ancient and near-extinct ability. Hackers are the architects of systems, guardians of information, and explorers of the digital frontier.]
My breath caught in my chest.
Not metaphorically.
Physically.
Like my lungs had forgotten how to expand.
Hacker.
The word echoed in my skull, dragging memories behind it—terminal screens glowing in dark rooms, fingers dancing over keys while the world slept, systems cracking open like poorly locked doors. The intoxicating sense of seeing the bones beneath the skin of reality.
I knew that word.
I knew it too well.
The interface didn't stop.
[Class: Technomancer (Unique)]
[Rank: EX]
[Talent: Hacker]
[DA: MAX] [EA: MAX]
[STR: 55] [INT: MAX] [WIL: MAX] [AGI: MAX] [END: MAX] [LCK: 0]
EX.
Not S. Not SS. Not some marketing-tier nonsense GAIA fed its academies.
EX wasn't even on the charts.
My pulse thundered in my ears, loud enough to drown out the capsule's hum. My mouth felt dry, tongue sticking to the roof like it was afraid to move.
Technomancer. Hacker. EX-rank.
This wasn't an awakening.
This was a confession.
Relief hit first.
Raw. Violent. Almost painful in its intensity.
For weeks—months?—I'd felt wrong in this world. Like a mislabeled file shoved into the wrong directory. GAIA decided careers, destinies, even compatibilities before you were old enough to disagree, and I'd been waiting for the moment it told me who I was allowed to be.
But this—
This was me.
Not GAIA's curated version. Not the sanitized, optimized citizen profile it tried to staple onto every soul it processed.
This was me before the system.
Me before the fences.
For one reckless second, I felt something dangerously close to home.
Then the HUD reacted.
The black interface shuddered, as if startled. The edges warped, pulling inward like a wounded animal retreating. The deep, comforting darkness peeled away, pixel by pixel, dissolving into static.
The code—beautiful, raw, honest—vanished.
And reality came crashing back.
Orange light bloomed across my vision.
Sharp angles. Clean lines. The aesthetic of authority. GAIA's capsule interface asserted itself with brutal efficiency, every icon perfectly aligned, every font designed to inspire compliance.
I could feel the system's attention now.
Not curiosity.
Assessment.
The capsule hummed louder, energy crawling beneath my skin like a thousand mechanical insects skittering through my veins. My muscles tensed involuntarily as scanning fields swept over me, penetrating tissue, bone, thought.
Progress bars appeared.
EA… DA… STR… INT…
They climbed steadily—
—and then froze.
The hum cut out.
Silence fell, thick and unnatural, pressing against my eardrums until I became acutely aware of my own breathing. My own heartbeat.
The system had stopped.
Not finished.
Stopped.
A pause that felt… uncertain.
Then the voice arrived.
Cold. Neutral. Unmistakably GAIA.
"Analysis complete. Unique class detected. Due to insufficient data, this class has been flagged for provisional monitoring."
Provisional monitoring.
The words sank into me like ice water.
GAIA didn't monitor things it understood.
It monitored threats.
My fingers twitched, nails digging into synthetic padding. The relief curdled into something acidic and sharp, pooling low in my stomach.
The HUD flickered.
The pristine white-blue interface cracked—just for an instant—like glass under stress.
And then the black fog poured back in.
Code.
Pure, unfiltered code.
It swallowed my vision, replacing the world with cascading symbols and layered architectures that made my scalp prickle with recognition. My mind sharpened, thoughts snapping into terrifying clarity as if someone had removed a limiter I didn't know existed.
And then I saw it.
A warning.
Jagged crimson text, bleeding urgency.
CLOAKING INITIALIZED. TRUE POTENTIAL MASKED.
My heart skipped.
The system—Codebreaker—was hiding me.
Every stat. Every capability. Every thread of power I hadn't even begun to touch—folded inward, wrapped in false data, buried under a shell of mediocrity.
GAIA wasn't seeing me.
It was seeing a decoy.
For the first time since waking in this world, real fear bloomed in my chest—not of GAIA, but of what I'd become.
I wasn't just an anomaly.
I was a blind spot.
A shadow in a system that didn't believe shadows could exist.
The warning blinked once more.
Then vanished.
The black HUD retreated like it had never been there.
I lay back against the capsule, lungs burning as I forced myself to breathe slowly. Deliberately. The metal was cold against my spine, grounding and unforgiving.
Then GAIA returned.
Calm. Corporate. Almost gentle.
[Verification complete.]
[Surveillance status downgraded.]
[Current risk level: minimal.]
Relief washed through me—
—and immediately soured into suspicion.
GAIA didn't downgrade risks unless it was confident.
Either it truly couldn't see me…
…or it didn't yet understand what it was seeing.
The screen shifted again.
Bureaucracy replaced mystery.
[Registering class and rank with GAIA Talent Bureau…]
Numbers blurred, rearranging themselves like sand under wind.
My real stats vanished.
Replaced by something smaller.
Weaker.
Acceptable.
Noah Adler[Class: Technomancer (Unique)][Rank: D][Talent: Technical Specialist (Combat/Support)]
[DA: 43] [EA: 60][STR: 55] [INT: 77] [WIL: 72] [AGI: 42] [END: 58] [LCK: 0]
I stared.
D-rank.
Technical Specialist.
A support tech with decent intelligence and nothing remarkable beyond that.
My Hacker talent—gone.
Hidden.
Buried so deep GAIA didn't even flag its absence.
A slow realization settled in my chest, heavy and electric.
GAIA cannot see me.
Not fully.
The question that followed was colder.
What does Codebreaker want from me?
Before I could chase the thought further, the black HUD pulsed.
[CODEBREAKER MODE ACTIVATED.]
Power surged.
Not dramatic. Not explosive.
Precise.
Reality peeled back.
The capsule's walls overlaid with glowing data frameworks. The air itself fractured into floating lattices of information. I could feel GAIA now—its infrastructure woven through the city, its control nodes pulsing like arteries.
My hand lifted on instinct.
Menus unfolded.
Not buttons.
Concepts.
I brushed one—
—and the system screamed.
[ALERT: Unsecured System Access Detected.]
[WARNING: Unauthorized User Activity. Response Imminent.]
Cold terror sliced through the exhilaration.
Too far.
Too fast.
I ripped my hand back, severing the connection. Codebreaker collapsed instantly, like it had never existed.
The world snapped back into place.
The capsule hummed innocently.
But my vision swam, static lingering at the edges, and my heartbeat refused to slow.
GAIA had noticed.
Not me.
But the disturbance.
The capsule door hissed open.
Light flooded in.
Graham leaned against the frame, grinning like he'd just won the lottery.
"Hey, Noah! So—what'd you get?"
I forced my shoulders to relax, sliding out of the capsule with deliberate slowness. My legs felt steadier than my thoughts.
"Technomancer," I said, shrugging. "D-rank. Nothing special."
Lie.
Downplay.
Survive.
Graham blinked. "D-rank? Seriously? What's a Technomancer even do?"
"Tech support with ambition," I muttered.
He laughed. "Hey, still better than nothing. I got Fighter—no magic, no tricks. Just punch harder."
"Congrats," I said, and meant it.
We merged with the other students, laughter and chatter buzzing around us like static. The shuttle ride blurred past in fluorescent hums and idle conversation.
Graham leaned against my shoulder. "We should team up sometime. My combat, your tech stuff."
I smiled carefully.
"Sure," I said. "Sounds good."
Inside, the storm hadn't settled.
GAIA watched.
Codebreaker waited.
And somewhere deep in my bones, a single line echoed—
Not advice.
Not prophecy.
A challenge.
Even gods can be hacked.
And now?
I was listening.