Within a lab where much research was underway, machines looked and sounded ancient, heaving beasts of brushed brass and dulled steel, their sides paneled with cracked glass and iron piping that hissed softly every few seconds, as if exhaling exhaustion.
Boxy monitors buzzed with a faint blue glow, and thick tubes ran from their backs into the floor and ceiling like roots burrowed into some buried, unknown thing.
Cables twisted overhead, looping through iron rafters, dripping condensation in slow, timed droplets.
The air was thick with heat and hum.
The constant clatter of mechanical keystrokes echoed off the metal walls, keys that clicked with the force of typewriters, punched by lab-coated researchers moving with quiet urgency.
One of them, his shoulders squared, glasses fogged slightly from the ambient steam, walked near the center of the chaos. He placed a black mask-like object into the deep pocket of his coat and began looking at one of the overhead screens.
His white coat was stained at the hem with dust and faint rust smudges. A name badge hung from his breast pocket, marked with thin black letters:
Emanuel: Senior Research Specialist.
He cleared his throat, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he turned toward the others.
"After the blackout, we have it all together again, so tell me… Any update on Subject Thirty-Three?" he asked, voice cutting clean through the mechanical rhythm. "Why did his vitals flatline for eight minutes before reappearing at the final second?"
Across the room, a younger researcher with a small, neat afro glanced up from his workstation. His fingers paused on the keys.
"No definitive cause, sir," he said. "We combed through the pulse data and sub-brainwave activity. Still looking, but so far... nothing. Could've been a system lag or a feedback loop. Or—" he hesitated "—some kind of deep-state delay. His consciousness signal just... stopped. And then rebooted."
"Rebooted," Emanuel repeated, as if tasting the word for poison. "That's not something that just happens."
The man with the afro shrugged helplessly, palms raised. "We're not ruling out a system bug, but... it doesn't make sense. All the other failures registered clean death indicators. Number Thirty-Three is the only one who ever came back."
Before Emanuel could speak again, a voice called from the back.
A female researcher stood beside a heavy, clipboard-like data board. Her dark hair was tied back in a tight knot, and the screens behind her blinked in patient rows of green and red indicators.
"I have cognitive return updates," she said. "Awakened states have been confirmed in Subjects Eight, Forty-Five, Seventy-Seven, and One-Thirty."
Emanuel nodded. "And Thirty-Three?"
She glanced at the board again. "Thirty-Three... stirred briefly after the main sequence. Vital patterns spiked, indicating cognitive activation. Then he lay back down, possibly playing unconscious. However, he had just moved again, with a subtle motion in his chest, a minor neural fluctuation. He's awake. Again."
Emanuel's brow creased. "Two and Two-Fifty-Six?"
"Still unresponsive," she said. "Minimal readings. Shallow waves. Could be coma states. It could be brain death. We're continuing passive scans."
Emanuel grunted and turned to the room.
"Good enough," he said. "Keep monitoring Two and Two-Fifty-Six. Log everything, minute by minute. No assumptions."
He turned back toward the sealed door at the far end of the lab, motioning for two assistants to follow.
"I'll check on Thirty-Three myself," he muttered, voice lower now. "If there's something wrong with that one, I want to see it in his eyes."
The researchers returned to their keys. Data streamed down green-lit monitors. Tubes gurgled. Somewhere behind the walls, something hissed... and listened.
And Subject 33, Sym, waited as he had stopped playing dead..
The floating screen hovered inches from Sym's face, pulsing faintly with soft light.
He sat up cross-legged on the narrow cot, back against the wall, staring at the cold digital display as if it might change if he glared long enough.
The blue light from above bathed everything in a colorless pallor, turning flesh into gray and corners into infinite shadows.
He focused on the first entry.
[Skill: Sage's Assistance]
Type: Passive
Description:
Allows the host consciousness to retain full connection with the Sage Intelligence construct. Functions include thought and physical support, Individual Analyzer, memory indexing, decision optimization, Battle simulations, threat analysis, and emotional suppression upon request.
...
He blinked. "That's you," he murmured. "Still here. Still... real."
It didn't make sense. Sage was born from the fusion of military-grade AI and deep-space symbiosis tech, bound to his old neural signature. And yet, here she was. As if her presence had become part of his soul.
But questioning it led nowhere. This world didn't operate under the rules of physics or neural science. It was something else, half-coded, half-sacred. He set the thought aside.
He moved on to the next skill.
[Skill: Boost]
Type: Active
Description:
While active, enhances the user's survival potential based on immediate threat context. Scaling unknown. Usage cost unknown. Activation automatic under qualifying circumstances.
...
Sym frowned.
"'Survival Potential?" he repeated aloud. "What the hell?"
The wording felt vague by design, intentionally ambiguous, as if the system wanted him nervous.
It didn't say what got boosted. Reflexes? Strength? Will? And what were the "qualifying circumstances"? What kind of cost? His mind? His body?
His eyes lingered on the screen.
Unlike Sage's entry, which glowed with a tranquil blue hue, [Boost] was wrapped in an ominous red halo, dark, almost rust-colored, like dried blood.
He swallowed the rising questions. Asking Sage wouldn't help; she had no frame of reference here. Even her brilliant mind was limited by this place's logic.
Instead, he dismissed the screen with a blink. It flickered and faded, leaving him once again with the cold walls and the distant hum of hidden machinery.
He leaned back against the wall and exhaled slowly through his nose.
"I need more data," he muttered. "More knowledge. Everything in this world is locked behind action. No use sitting in the dark hoping to get smarter."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three precise taps against the sealed door.
His heart slowed.
They were here.
He didn't need Sage to confirm it.
He didn't move right away. He simply sat, staring at the door.
"Time to play the survivor," he whispered.
And waited.
The heavy door hissed open with a mechanical groan, steam coiling out from the edges like breath from a beast.
The lighting in the room dimmed slightly as the figures stepped through.
First came a man with sharp features, horn-rimmed glasses, and a white lab coat that hung from his narrow shoulders like a ritual robe.
In one hand, he held a clipboard, pen, and paper. The other hand was tucked into his coat pocket, fingers twitching as if playing out calculations.
Emanuel.
Behind him stood another man, stockier, taller, with an unshaven jaw and a bored expression.
In his hands, he cradled a strange weapon. It was bulky, built of brass and copper, with hissing valves and glowing tubes.
Wires wrapped around its barrel like arteries, and the whole thing looked like it had been pulled from the belly of a broken train.
Sym's eyes locked on it instantly.
Crude, he thought. A weapon only by necessity. Where I come from, this would be a museum piece.
He didn't hide his disdain. Emanuel noticed.
"This is just for safety," he said gently, raising a hand in a gesture of appeasement. "Standard protocol. We don't know how subjects react to the process, so precautions are taken. It's not meant to offend."
Sym gave a slow nod, keeping his expression passive. Inside, he told Sage: Scan them. Intent, posture, and biometric signs.
Sage's voice replied in the back of his mind, clipped and quiet. "No immediate signs of aggression. Heart rates are consistent with alert caution. Speech patterns are non-hostile. Not here to harm."
That was enough for now.
Emanuel stepped farther into the room, motioning for the armed man to stay by the door.
"You're stable," he said, flipping through notes on his clipboard. "That's promising. We weren't sure at first. You were... inconsistent."
Sym said nothing.
Emanuel adjusted his glasses. "You may have noticed," he continued, "that you haven't... awakened fully. Your powers, if any, are still embryonic. That means, for now, you're still vulnerable."
He gestured to the weapon with a tilt of his head. "To these, for example."
Sym resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he gave a polite nod.
Sage's voice hummed in his mind, "Noted. Awakened surpasses physical vulnerability eventually."
His body did feel stronger. More responsive. Like his blood moved faster than it used to. Like the air tasted different.
"Recovery is necessary," Emanuel said, pacing slowly in front of the bed. "The awakening process... it takes a toll. Per your contract, you'll remain in isolation here for some days. Medical observation. Psychological profiling. Orientation, if you feel up to it."
Sym gave a small nod. "Makes sense."
"And after that, you'll be transferred to our central facility," Emanuel continued. "The Group's headquarters. That's when your training begins. Two-year contract. Full board starting two months from now. Compensation, of course."
He paused.
"You don't have to understand all of it now. What matters is that you're among the chosen now. Out of hundreds of thousands in the settlement, there are only a few hundred Awakened. And you're one of them."
He smiled faintly. "That puts you above nearly everyone else. In this zone, that means something."
Sym met his gaze and forced a flicker of awe into his eyes. "I see," he said softly.
Inside, he was calculating.
So the world outside the lab was vast. A city of hundreds of thousands. Only a handful of Awakened. And even fewer in the Order.
A hierarchy.
A system built on those who survived the impossible.
He would play the part for now, meek, disoriented, humble.
But Sym had no intention of remaining at the bottom.
Not for long.
Sym remained seated as Emanuel spoke, his expression carefully neutral, though inside, he was sorting through every word like clues in a riddle.
He understood half of what was said. Maybe less.
The Obelisk's Order. The catastrophe. The settlement. The words came like echoes from someone else's life, important, powerful, but floating in the air without roots in his memory.
The old Sym had never been taught much.
Education was a luxury for those who mattered, and he had been one of the invisible ones, surviving in the cracks of society.
But even with that ignorance, the term Obelisk rang with something deeper, almost sacred.
He didn't know what the Obelisk was, or how it had helped the world survive... but he felt it in the way Emanuel spoke. With reverence. With fear.
So he asked the question that gnawed at the back of his mind. "What makes me different now?" he said, voice calm but cutting. "Aside from the ability to make money."
Emanuel blinked, then let out a dry chuckle. "Money is the least of it," he said, his smile tight. "Being Awakened... it means you're one of the few who can step beyond the wall's gates. It means you can fight."
"Fight what?"
Emanuel's eyes darkened. He paced slowly, gesturing as he spoke.
"Since the catastrophe, whatever you want to call it, the sky fractured. Dimensions thinned. The fabric of space tore. Gates opened. Cracks in the world, some small, some so vast they swallowed cities. From those cracks come... things."
He stopped, looking Sym dead in the eye.
"Creatures. Nightmares. Abominations. Some of them crawl. Some whisper. Some wear human faces."
Sym stared back. His breath slowed. A chill danced up his spine.
"Awakened," Emanuel continued, "are the only ones who can approach those places and come back alive. Your body, your spirit, they've been changed. Reinforced. Altered. You can resist the madness, at least for a time."
Sym let the words sink in. He could already feel something different inside him. A quiet hum beneath the skin. Like the blood itself had become aware.
But Emanuel wasn't done.
"There's a catch, of course."
Sym raised an eyebrow. "Of course."
Emanuel's smile turned bitter.
"You weren't born Awakened. You weren't chosen by the Obelisk. You didn't ascend. You were made. By us. That means your gift, whatever it is, isn't pure. It's what we call a Faux Skill."
Sym frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means it's synthetic. Tethered to being a dupe of sorts. Unstable. Limited. And to the zealots in the Order, it makes you... less."
Sym's jaw tightened.
"So I'm Awakened. But not truly."
"You'll learn more in time," Emanuel said, his tone sliding back into corporate warmth. "For now, rest. Food will be delivered shortly. You'll have more briefings soon. The next session will be about your 'feats', what you felt, what you saw. We'll need details."
Sym nodded slowly, suppressing the bitterness curling in his chest.
"Understood."
Emanuel turned and motioned to the guard, who opened the door with a mechanical hiss. Steam spilled into the room again, the door closing behind them with a final metallic clunk.
Silence returned.
Sym lay back on the cot, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
Faux.
But that was fine.
He never mentioned his other skill.
He didn't need to be pure.
He just needed to be stronger than anyone else.