A wave of exhaustion slammed into me the second the door slid shut behind my back.
Not the dramatic kind. No cinematic collapse. Just a heavy, grinding fatigue that sank straight into my bones, the kind that made my shoulders sag before my brain could even process the relief of being alone.
The hum of the classroom followed me anyway.
It lingered in my skull like a mosquito you couldn't swat—sharp, irritating, omnipresent. The layered noise of fifty students breathing recycled air, the soft whine of holo-projectors cycling power states, the instructor's voice droning through its fifth register of boredom. Even now, alone, it echoed.
I rolled my neck, vertebrae popping one by one.
Hours spent sitting in rigid, posture-corrective chairs had left my muscles knotted and sore, like I'd been bracing for impact without realizing it. My head felt stuffed with cotton—dense, useless—while fragments of meaningless information floated in endless loops behind my eyes.
Talent Bureau Protocols.
I'd sat through the entire lecture, eyes forward, expression neutral, absorbing precisely nothing.
The instructor had delivered it the way GAIA liked: monotone, exhaustive, mercilessly procedural. Line after line of regulations governing awakeners—classification ethics, disclosure thresholds, penalty clauses for misreporting abilities. The holoscreen behind him flickered intermittently, throwing up charts in institutional blues and grays that blurred together into a single, oppressive smear.
Around me, my classmates had shifted and slouched, faces locked into masks of polite disengagement. Some nodded like they were learning. Others stared into nothing. A few had already learned the trick—look attentive, think elsewhere.
The hum of the display paired with the instructor's voice to form the worst kind of lullaby. One that didn't put you to sleep, just dulled everything sharp enough to matter.
If he'd asked me a single question at the end, I'd have failed spectacularly.
I didn't care.
I kicked my bag off my shoulder and let it hit the floor with a soft thud, then collapsed onto my bed. The mattress complained quietly beneath my weight, springs creaking in tired protest. The fabric scratched against my skin, coarse and cheap, and I sank into it anyway, staring up at the ceiling.
White.
Too white.
The kind of white that pretended to be neutral but somehow managed to feel judgmental. Bare except for faint shadows cast by my tablet's standby glow.
A blank canvas that offered nothing back.
What if I was more than GAIA let on?
The thought surfaced uninvited, sharp as broken glass.
My so-called stats replayed in my head, numbers flickering and mutating as doubt twisted them into something hostile.
What if the EX rank was a lie?
Or worse—
What if it wasn't?
That possibility sat heavier. A weight that pressed down on my ribs, made my breathing feel shallow. Because lies could be corrected. Truths had consequences.
What could I actually do?
Why hide it?
And how long before curiosity pushed me over a line I couldn't uncross?
I'd been killed once already for knowing too much in my last life. Assassinated cleanly, efficiently, without warning. No dramatic final words. No revelations. Just darkness.
Luck, if such a thing existed, had never been generous with me.
My gaze drifted to the corner of the room where my tablet waited on the desk.
Schoolwork.
Distraction.
I exhaled slowly, grounding myself in the steady rhythm of my heartbeat, then sat up and grabbed it. The device was slim and light, almost insubstantial for how much of my life it demanded.
The screen came alive in a wash of sterile blue.
Cold. Indifferent.
Like GAIA itself peering over my shoulder.
I scrolled through the assignment list with numb fingers. Urban population density modeling. Predictive migration algorithms. Optimization of resource distribution.
I barely saw any of it.
My mind kept circling back to one word.
Technomancer.
It wasn't just a class. It wasn't a career path GAIA assigned to keep the gears turning smoothly.
It felt like a key.
A master permission.
Technology—but twisted. Augmented by something almost… esoteric. Not magic, not science. Both, braided together into something that didn't care about definitions.
Power, yes.
But power that didn't feel safe.
Strength, I understood. You trained it. Measured it. Bled for it.
Luck?
Luck was a joke.
A stat you couldn't grind. A variable that decided whether you survived a random encounter or died choking on bad timing. Mine had always sat at zero, and the universe seemed determined to keep it there.
I snorted softly and tossed the tablet aside.
Assignments could wait.
I needed answers.
Real ones.
************
The alley behind the dorm complex smelled like ozone and wet concrete.
I leaned against the wall, sliding my hands into my pockets, letting the chill seep through my jacket. The city breathed around me—distant traffic, neon reflections shivering across puddles, the constant, subliminal thrum of GAIA's infrastructure humming beneath everything like a second atmosphere.
A faint electric buzz tickled the edge of my hearing as my HUD activated. Blue light shimmered briefly at the periphery of my vision, pulsing like a ghostly heartbeat. The sensation traveled down my arms, into my fingertips—a reminder that the system was always there, even when it pretended not to be.
I scanned the area out of habit.
No drones.
No suspicious heat signatures.
No obvious surveillance nodes.
Which meant nothing.
Appearances were lies GAIA told itself to feel secure.
"Codebreaker Mode," I whispered.
The words barely left my lips.
The shift was immediate.
Reality fractured.
Edges pixelated, colors bleeding into one another as the overlay slammed into place. Lines of code cascaded across my vision in luminous streams of green and gold, each fragment alive with intent. The physical world peeled away like old wallpaper, revealing the city's digital skeleton beneath.
I stood inside a living system.
GAIA's architecture sprawled in every direction—layered, recursive, impossibly vast. Pathways glowed like molten veins. Encrypted barriers loomed like jagged cliffs, humming with hostile logic.
The air itself felt charged, vibrating against my skin.
I reached out.
Menus unfolded—not flat interfaces, but three-dimensional constructs shaped by intent more than design. Data I didn't just see, but felt. Permissions. Access points. Weaknesses.
The rush hit hard.
Exhilarating. Familiar.
Like stepping back into a body I hadn't realized I'd been missing.
"Alright," I muttered, scrolling through layers of data. "Let's see what you're hiding."
The first firewall glowed faint red.
Basic.
Predictable.
GAIA didn't waste premium security on low-value systems. This was administrative infrastructure—traffic control, environmental monitoring, peripheral data aggregation.
I flexed my fingers.
The barrier unraveled with a satisfying ripple, code folding in on itself like it wanted to be solved.
"Still got it," I murmured, a smirk tugging at my mouth.
The second layer fought back.
The code shifted dynamically, adapting to my presence. Not just encryption—counterintelligence. Triggers nested inside triggers, anomaly flags waiting to scream.
I stilled.
Studied.
This wasn't a wall.
It was a snare.
GAIA was learning.
"Cute," I muttered, adjusting my approach. "But you're telegraphing."
I rewrote the logic mid-stream, bypassing the alert thresholds with surgical precision. Every command felt like threading a needle at speed, mind racing faster than my hands.
The layer collapsed.
Silence.
Then—
Pain.
Not immediately.
A pressure bloomed behind my eyes, subtle at first, like a tightening band. The HUD dimmed slightly, colors desaturating at the edges.
And then the warning flared.
[Warning: Unauthorized Activity Detected.][Response Time: 60 Seconds.]
My heart lurched.
I yanked myself out of the interface, severing the connection hard. The digital world shattered, snapping back into concrete and shadow.
The static didn't fade right away.
It lingered, buzzing faintly in my skull.
I staggered, bracing a hand against the wall as the pressure spiked into something sharp and nauseating. My vision blurred. The alley tilted.
"—dammit," I hissed, swallowing bile.
So that was the cost.
Not alarms.
Not instant death.
Feedback.
Codebreaker burned hot, and my nervous system wasn't built to carry that much current without consequences.
I pushed away from the wall, breathing shallow, pulse hammering.
The alley felt smaller now.
The shadows deeper.
My sanctuary had teeth.
I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets and headed toward the main street, letting the crowd swallow me. Faces blurred together. Heat signatures overlapped. GAIA would have to work harder here.
A D-rank nobody.
That's all I was supposed to be.
The thought tasted bitter.
As I merged into the flow of pedestrians, my HUD flickered—not blue this time.
Black.
Green.
Codebreaker's interface surfaced briefly, sharp and deliberate.
[GAIA System Monitoring Activating…][Detecting Active Surveillance.][ALERT: They Are Watching.]
The message vanished.
My breath caught.
Not GAIA.
Or not just GAIA.
A chill crawled down my spine as questions spiraled.
Who?
Why?
How long had they been there?
I clenched my fists, pace quickening as I disappeared into the city's pulse. Neon reflections slid across wet pavement. Data streamed overhead. Somewhere, something had noticed the disturbance I'd made.
Good.
Let them wonder.
I lifted my chin, blending in, vanishing by design.
If the system wanted a ghost—
I'd be one.
And if something else was hunting in GAIA's shadow?
Then we were already playing the same game.
I just hoped it was ready to lose.