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Processing took forever.
Medical exam first. Some older doctor who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else poked and prodded me for an hour. Blood samples. Reflex tests. The whole nine yards.
"Malnourished," he said, scribbling on his clipboard. "Underweight. Dehydrated. Bruised ribs, probably from the altercation. Nothing broken though." He looked up. "When's the last time you ate a real meal?"
"Define real."
"Something that wasn't garbage."
"...It's been a while."
He sighed like I was personally inconveniencing him. "I'm putting you on a high-calorie diet. Three meals a day plus supplements. You'll pick them up from the cafeteria." More scribbling. "Any allergies?"
"None that I know of."
"Drug use?"
"No."
"Sexual history?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Standard questions." He didn't even look up. "Just answer."
"None."
That got a glance. Probably didn't believe me. Sixteen year old homeless kid with no sexual history. Sure buddy.
Whatever. I wasn't here to convince him of anything.
"You're cleared for basic training," he said finally. "Come back in two weeks for a follow-up. If you feel dizzy, nauseous, or notice anything unusual, report to medical immediately."
"Got it."
Psych eval was worse.
The psychiatrist was this woman in her forties with sharp eyes and a smile that didn't reach them. The kind of person who made you feel like everything you said was being filed away for later use.
"Tell me about your childhood," she said.
I gave her the version that matched Laurent's memories. Parents died in a devil attack when I was eight. Bounced around foster homes. Ended up on the streets. Standard tragic backstory.
She wrote things down. Asked follow-up questions. How did that make you feel. What do you remember about your parents. Do you have any recurring nightmares.
I answered carefully. Not too healthy that would be suspicious. But not too broken either. Just a kid who'd been through some shit and was holding it together. Functional trauma.
"You seem rather composed for someone in your situation," she said eventually.
"I've had time to process things."
"Three months on the streets."
"Yeah. You learn to deal or you don't make it."
She studied me for a moment. I couldn't tell what she was thinking.
"The incident in the alley," she said. "You severely injured a man. How do you feel about that?"
Careful now.
"Bad," I said. "I didn't want to hurt anyone. It just happened."
"Just happened."
"I was being attacked. I panicked. Next thing I knew his leg was..." I trailed off. Shook my head. "I'm still processing it honestly."
"Do you feel guilty?"
"Yeah. I think so. But also..." I paused like I was struggling to find words. "He was gonna kill me. So it's complicated."
She nodded slowly. Wrote more notes.
"Have you ever had thoughts of hurting yourself? Or others?"
"No."
"Any history of violence before this incident?"
"No. I've never even been in a real fight."
"And yet you were able to dismember a man without hesitation."
"It wasn't without hesitation." I let some frustration into my voice. "I didn't know I could do that. I didn't choose to do that. It just happened and now I have to live with it."
More nodding. More notes.
"I'm clearing you for training," she said finally. "But I'd like to schedule regular check-ins. Once a week to start."
"Sure."
"And Laurent?" She set down her pen. "It's okay to not be okay. If you need to talk about what happened, that's what I'm here for."
"Thanks." I didn't mean it and she probably knew I didn't mean it. But she let it go.
The ability assessment was the part I'd been dreading.
They took me to a reinforced room in the basement. No windows. Cameras in every corner. Concrete walls that looked thick enough to stop a tank.
There was a table in the middle with a bunch of objects on it. A brick. A piece of wood. A metal pipe. A glass bottle. And what looked like a chunk of raw meat.
Officer Shiwa was there along with two other people. A big guy with a military look and dead eyes. And a younger guy with a clipboard who seemed nervous.
"Alright Laurent," Shiwa said. "This is the ability assessment. We need to understand what you can do so we know how to train you. Just demonstrate on these objects and explain what you're doing."
I looked at the table. The lines were all over everything of course. The brick had thick obvious ones. The wood had fainter lines following the grain. The metal pipe's lines were thin and precise.
The meat's lines were... different. Organic. It made my stomach turn a little.
"I'll try," I said. "But like I told you, I don't really understand how it works. It's not consistent."
That was a lie. Kind of.
I'd been thinking about this since the alley. About what to show them and what to hide. Not in some genius mastermind way I wasn't that smart. But I knew enough about how organizations worked to know that being too useful could be just as dangerous as being useless.
If I showed them everything the eyes could do, they'd fast-track me to some special division. Put me on the radar of people I really didn't want noticing me. I knew who ran this organization. I knew what she did with useful tools.
Better to be mediocre. Unremarkable. Just another recruit with a weird power that needed development.
I reached for the brick first. Found one of the major lines. Traced it with my finger.
The brick split clean in half.
"Interesting," the military guy said. Flat voice. "No visible force. Clean separation."
"It's like I can see where things are weak," I said. "Like cracks. And if I touch the crack it just... comes apart."
Clipboard guy was writing frantically.
I reached for the wood next. This time I deliberately picked a minor line, one of the surface ones that wouldn't do much.
A small splinter came off. Nothing dramatic.
"See?" I frowned like I was confused. "Sometimes it works better than others. I don't know why."
"Try the metal," Tanaka said.
I touched the pipe. Traced a shallow line.
A thin scratch appeared but the pipe stayed intact.
"Inconsistent," military guy observed.
"Yeah." I shrugged helplessly. "In the alley it worked because I was panicking I think. When I try to control it..."
"Emotional trigger perhaps," clipboard guy muttered. "Power scales with stress response?"
I let them come to their own conclusions. Easier that way.
"Try the meat," Shiwa said.
I looked at it. The lines were complex, layered. Muscle fibers and fat and connective tissue. I could see exactly how to take it apart. Every single way.
I touched it carefully. Traced a surface line.
A thin slice came off. Clean cut. Like a sharp knife had done it.
"That's about all I can do with... organic stuff," I said. "It feels different. Harder."
Military guy picked up the slice. Examined it.
"No tearing. Precise cut." He looked at me. "In the alley you took off an entire leg."
"I was dying," I said simply. "I grabbed and pushed with everything I had. I don't know how to do that on purpose."
They exchanged looks. Shiwa nodded at something unspoken.
"Good enough for now," she said. "You'll work on control during training."
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
After the assessment they gave me a keycard, a meal schedule, and directions to the temporary housing wing.
"Training starts in one week," Tanaka said. "Use the time to rest and recover. Eat. Sleep. Stay on the premises."
"Got it."
"And Laurent?" She paused. "Don't make me regret recommending you."
"I'll do my best."
The temporary housing was a small room in a dormitory. Bed. Sink. Toilet. A window that faced a concrete wall.
It was the nicest place I'd slept in three months.
I sat on the bed and let out a long breath. The frame creaked under me.
I'd done it. Made it through processing. They thought I was just some traumatized street kid with an inconsistent power he couldn't control. Nothing special. Nothing worth paying extra attention to.
Now I had a week to figure out what the hell I was doing.
The lines on the walls pulsed faintly. On the bed frame. On the ceiling. Everywhere I looked, I could see how things ended.
I closed my eyes. The lines were still there somehow. Always there.
But for the first time in days, I wasn't hungry. I wasn't cold. I wasn't scared of someone finding me in an alley.
Small victories.
I laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
One week until training. Three months until I got assigned somewhere. And then... whatever came next.
I thought about everything I knew about this world. All the horrible things that were coming.
Could I change any of it? Should I even try?
I didn't know. I didn't have answers.
But I had time now. Time to get stronger. Time to learn. Time to figure out who Laurent was gonna be in this fucked up world.
I closed my eyes and for the first time in what felt like forever, I actually slept.
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