The second testing chamber felt like walking into the maw of a technological beast.
Twenty minutes had passed since the first diagnostic failure, twenty minutes of hushed consultations and urgent data reviews while I sat in a holding area watching Bureau personnel wheel increasingly exotic equipment through reinforced corridors. Now I found myself in a space that made the previous testing room look quaint by comparison.
Where the first diagnostic chamber had been clinical and sterile, this space hummed with barely contained menace. The walls curved inward like the inside of a ribcage, lined with equipment I couldn't begin to identify. Crystalline arrays pulsed with inner light that shifted through spectrums I didn't have names for. Metallic tendrils snaked between ceiling-mounted sensor clusters, and the very air tasted of ozone and possibility.
Most unsettling of all was Sloane's presence.
She hadn't left after the first test failed. Instead, she'd positioned herself against the far wall like a statue carved from ice and authority, her gray eyes never leaving me as technicians prepared their increasingly desperate attempts to understand what I'd become. Her coat hung perfectly despite the chaos around her, and her hands remained clasped behind her back with military precision.
She was studying me the way a general might study a battlefield where the enemy had just deployed an unknown weapon.
'Nervous throat clearing.'
"Director Merritt," ventured the lead technician—a nervous man whose hands shook as he calibrated a device that looked like it belonged in a fever dream rather than a government facility. "Perhaps we should consider spacing these tests over several days. The subject has already undergone significant stress from the initial diagnostic failure, and extended exposure to multiple scanning frequencies could—"
"Continue," Sloane cut him off, her voice carrying the kind of finality that ended conversations before they could become arguments. "We have a narrow window before Academy transfer, and I want comprehensive data on what thirty-one years of dimensional exposure has produced."
'Resigned sigh.'
The technician swallowed audibly and nodded, returning to his work with the resigned efficiency of someone who'd learned not to question direct orders. Around him, three other specialists prepared equipment that seemed to exist at the intersection of cutting-edge science and impossible fantasy.
I sat in the center of it all, strapped into a chair that was somehow even more unsettling than the first one. This restraint system was purely mechanical—thick metal bands that locked around my wrists and ankles with mechanical precision. No flowing, adaptive surfaces this time. They wanted me held in place regardless of what happened to the scanning equipment.
"What exactly are you hoping to accomplish here?" I asked, surprised by how steady my voice sounded despite the fear that was making my hands tremble against the restraints.
Sloane's attention shifted to me with laser focus. "The first scan failed because our standard equipment couldn't interpret your essence signature. That suggests either a fundamental flaw in our diagnostic systems—which is highly unlikely given their thirty-year track record—or an essence manifestation unlike anything we've previously encountered."
She gestured to the technicians preparing their exotic instruments. "These devices operate on different principles. Quantum resonance mapping, dimensional phase analysis, temporal displacement detection. If you possess abilities that exist outside our standard classification system, one of these approaches should reveal them."
'Quantum resonance.' 'Dimensional phase analysis.' The terms felt heavy with implications I couldn't fully grasp. Whatever they thought I might be capable of, it was clearly something that required equipment most people wouldn't believe could exist.
"And if they all fail?" I asked.
Something flickered behind her eyes—not quite uncertainty, but perhaps the first crack in her absolute confidence. "They won't."
But even as she said it, I caught the way her fingers drummed against her crossed arms. The gesture was so subtle I almost missed it, but it was there—the only external sign that Director Sloane Merritt might be dealing with a situation that was testing the limits of her considerable composure.
'Electronic whine.'
"Beginning quantum resonance scan," announced the lead technician.
The first device descended from the ceiling on articulated arms that moved with mechanical precision. It looked like a cross between a telescope and a geometric sculpture, its crystalline lens focusing on me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. When it activated, the world around me seemed to shift sideways, as if reality had briefly forgotten which direction was up.
The sensation was indescribable. Where the previous scan had felt like invisible fingers probing my physical form, this was something else entirely—like being examined by forces that existed in spaces my mind wasn't equipped to comprehend. My vision doubled, then tripled, showing me overlapping versions of the room that differed in subtle but disturbing ways.
'Mechanical grinding.'
The machine whined. Sparked. A crack appeared in its crystalline lens, spreading outward like a spider web.
"Resonance cascade failure," the technician reported, his voice tight with professional alarm. "The quantum field is destabilizing faster than the containment protocols can compensate."
Within thirty seconds, the device was smoking. Within sixty, it was dead, its sophisticated systems reduced to expensive slag.
"Dimensional phase analyzer," Sloane ordered without missing a beat, her tone suggesting this outcome was merely an inconvenience rather than a concerning pattern.
'Mechanical hum building.'
This machine was even more exotic—a collection of rotating rings that spun around a central core of what looked like crystallized space. When it focused on me, I felt like I was being turned inside out by mathematics, examined by equations that existed in dimensions human brains weren't designed to process.
The spinning rings accelerated, their rotation creating patterns of light that hurt to follow with my eyes. For a moment, I thought this one might actually work—the readings on nearby displays showed complex waveforms and data streams that looked almost coherent.
Then the rings began to wobble.
'High-pitched whining.'
The mathematical precision of their rotation deteriorated into chaotic oscillation, and the crystallized core at the center began to develop stress fractures. The machine touched whatever I was and recoiled, its sophisticated systems failing in cascading waves of confusion and contradiction.
"Phase variance beyond operational parameters," reported another technician, her voice strained with disbelief. "The dimensional matrices are... they're inverting themselves. That shouldn't be possible."
'Crash of metal.'
The device collapsed into itself with a sound like breaking glass mixed with tearing silk, leaving nothing but a pile of expensive debris and the lingering smell of ozone.
"Temporal displacement scanner," Sloane commanded, her voice showing the first hints of strain.
Same result. The machine activated, probed, found something it couldn't understand, and died in a spectacular failure that left scorch marks on the testing chamber floor.
"Psionic resonance detector."
'Electronic squealing.'
Failure. This one didn't just break—it seemed to forget how to exist, its components phasing in and out of visibility before vanishing entirely.
"Essence tracker."
Complete systems collapse. The machine's display showed cascading errors in languages that seemed to shift and change as I watched, before finally showing the same result as everything else: [NULL].
'Heavy breathing from technicians.'
By the time the fifth device joined its predecessors in expensive ruin, the room felt like a graveyard of humanity's most advanced diagnostic technology. Each failure had been more spectacular than the last, and now the air was thick with the acrid smell of burning circuitry, ozone, and something else—something that smelled like the space between dimensions.
Sloane's composure never cracked, but I could see the calculations running behind her eyes. Each failed test was costing the Bureau significant resources, and more importantly, each failure was confirming that I represented something unprecedented in their three decades of experience with the impossible.
"Director," Lena said carefully from her position by the door, where she'd been documenting each catastrophic failure, "perhaps we should consider alternative approaches. The subject's essence pattern seems to actively resist analysis. Maybe we need to—"
"One more," Sloane interrupted, her voice carrying an edge I hadn't heard before. "Bring in the Void Scanner."
'Sharp intake of breath.'
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Every technician stopped what they were doing, and I saw several of them exchange glances that carried a weight of professional concern bordering on fear.
"Director," the lead technician said slowly, his voice carefully controlled, "the Void Scanner isn't cleared for human subjects. The dimensional radiation alone could cause permanent cellular damage, and if the containment field fails—"
"I'm aware of the risks," Sloane replied, her tone suggesting the discussion was over. "The subject has already demonstrated the ability to destroy our most sophisticated diagnostic systems simply by existing. I need to know what we're dealing with."
'Footsteps backing away.'
Lena stepped forward, her face pale but determined. "Director Merritt, I have to formally protest. Using experimental equipment on a human subject violates multiple Bureau protocols, not to mention basic ethical guidelines. The potential for—"
"Your protest is noted and overruled," Sloane said, turning to face her with an expression that could have frozen liquid helium. "This subject has already proven capable of negating our understanding of essence-based reality. Unless you have another suggestion for determining the nature and scope of his abilities before Academy transfer?"
Lena fell silent, but the way her hands clenched at her sides suggested she was fighting the urge to say something that would probably end her career.
'Mechanical rumbling.'
Twenty minutes later, they wheeled in the Void Scanner.
It was the most terrifying piece of equipment I'd ever seen. Where the other devices had looked futuristic, this one looked actively malevolent. Black metal formed impossible curves around a central core that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. The entire assembly was surrounded by multiple containment fields that created visible distortions in the air, like heat shimmer but colder, more deliberate.
Warning signs covered every surface in multiple languages, most of which seemed to hurt to read directly. Radiation warnings, dimensional hazard symbols, and others I didn't recognize but that made my instincts scream danger.
"The Void Scanner," Sloane explained with clinical detachment, "is designed to detect abilities that exist in the spaces between normal reality. Powers that manifest in dimensional gaps, or that draw their energy from sources outside conventional space-time."
She gestured to the technicians who were setting up additional containment protocols around the device, their movements careful and reverent, like they were handling a nuclear weapon. "It's experimental technology, based on research into the deepest anomalies we've encountered since the Collapse. If you possess abilities that operate outside normal dimensional parameters, this will reveal them."
"And if I don't possess those abilities?" I asked, staring at the device that seemed to bend light around itself in ways that hurt to contemplate.
"Then we'll have confirmed that you exist in a state that our current scientific understanding cannot account for," she replied. But something in her tone suggested she wasn't expecting that outcome. The Void Scanner represented a last resort, a final attempt to categorize something that had already proven itself to be uncategorizable.
'Warning alarms beginning.'
The technicians finished their preparations and retreated to the far side of the chamber, taking shelter behind additional shielding that had been hastily erected. Their faces were grim, the expressions of people who understood they were about to witness something that could go very wrong very quickly.
"Beginning void resonance scan," announced the lead technician, and I could hear the reluctance in his voice. "All personnel maintain safe distance. Dimensional containment at maximum."
The machine activated with a sound like reality tearing at the seams.
'Reality-rending noise.'
Immediately, I understood why the technicians had been afraid. This wasn't like the previous scans, with their gentle probing and gradual intensity increases. The Void Scanner hit me with the full force of its examination from the first moment, and that examination felt like being dissected by the concept of emptiness itself.
My vision went black, but not the simple darkness of closed eyes. This was the absence of the possibility of light, a negation so complete it made the word "dark" seem inadequate. I could feel the scanner probing spaces in my mind and body that didn't exist, examining dimensions of my being that shouldn't be accessible to any external force.
And then, incredibly, impossibly, I felt it recoil.
Not mechanical failure this time. Not system overload or cascade collapse. The Void Scanner had found what it was looking for, examined it with its alien senses, and decided it wanted nothing to do with whatever it had discovered.
'Electronic scream cutting off abruptly.'
The machine shut itself down with a sound like a scream being cut off mid-breath, but not before its final reading appeared on every functional display in the room.
[ERROR: DIMENSIONAL VOID DETECTED]
[WARNING: REALITY ANCHOR COMPROMISED]
[CONTAINMENT FAILURE IMMINENT]
[NULL NULL NULL NULL NULL]
When my vision returned, the containment field around the scanner had collapsed, and the device itself was sinking into the floor. Not breaking—sinking, as if the metal and electronics were too heavy for reality to support their weight. Within minutes, there was nothing left but a perfectly circular hole in the floor where the most advanced piece of diagnostic equipment in the Bureau's arsenal had once stood.
'Complete silence.'
The silence in the room was absolute.
Sloane stared at the hole in the floor with an expression I'd never seen on her face before. Not quite shock—she was too controlled for that—but something close to it. The confidence that had carried her through every previous interaction was showing hairline cracks, and for the first time since I'd met her, she looked like someone who was confronting a problem she might not be able to solve.
"Status report," she said quietly.
The lead technician consulted his instruments with shaking hands. "Void Scanner achieved full resonance lock for approximately 2.8 seconds before initiating emergency shutdown protocols. Preliminary readings..." He paused, double-checking his displays with the expression of someone who couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Director, the readings don't make sense."
"Explain."
'Nervous gulping.'
"The scanner detected a void signature consistent with high-level dimensional displacement abilities, but the energy patterns were completely inverted. Instead of drawing power from external dimensional sources like normal reality manipulators, the subject appears to be..." He struggled for the right words. "...creating voids where those sources should exist. He's not just outside our classification system—he's actively negating it."
Sloane was very quiet for a very long time. When she finally spoke, her voice carried implications that made my blood run cold.
"He's not just an anomaly," she said, more to herself than to anyone else. "He's an anti-anomaly. A null space in the shape of a human being, walking around canceling the very forces that make Awakened abilities possible."
She turned to face me, and in her gray eyes I saw something I'd never expected to see from Director Sloane Merritt: uncertainty bordering on fear.
"You're not just someone who doesn't fit our system," she said quietly. "You're someone who could potentially unmake it entirely."
The implications of that statement settled over the room like a shroud. In a world rebuilt around the careful cataloging and control of supernatural abilities, I wasn't just someone who didn't fit the system.
I was someone who could potentially destroy everything they'd built since the Collapse.
'Sharp exhale.'
"Academy transfer," Sloane said, her voice taking on the crisp efficiency of someone who'd reached a decision. "Immediately. Priority Alpha clearance, Code Black protocols."
Lena stepped forward, her face pale but determined. "Director, Code Black is reserved for extinction-level threats. Surely—"
"Exactly." Sloane's smile was winter frost on broken glass. "Contact the Academy directly. Tell them we have a Class Zero manifestation. They'll understand what that means."
She moved toward the door, then paused to look back at me one final time. "The Academy has containment protocols designed for scenarios most people can't imagine. Threats that could potentially unravel the foundations of everything we've built since reality broke."
Her gray eyes met mine across the wreckage of failed diagnostics and impossible readings. "Congratulations, Karl. You've just become the most dangerous person in North America. Possibly the world."
'Door sealing with finality.'
The door sealed behind her with mechanical finality, leaving me alone with the growing understanding that I wasn't being transferred to find answers about what I'd become.
I was being transferred to prevent what I might do.
The Academy wasn't a prison or a research facility.
It was a tomb, designed to bury threats too dangerous to exist in a world that had already broken once and couldn't survive being broken again.
And I had less than six hours to figure out whether that's what I deserved—or what I was going to do about it.
'Electronic hum fading to silence.'