The morning after was a gym morning. Not scheduled he'd texted in voluntarily, which was
either discipline or a coping mechanism dressed up as discipline. Either way, 5:30 AM, chalk dust,
quiet machines, the exact same stillness as always.
He was on his third set of deadlifts when Mr. Osei appeared in the doorway.
Not for a session. Just standing there in his regular clothes, holding a tiffin box, looking at
Marshal the way a man looks at something he's been thinking about since yesterday.
"You ate the rice," Osei said. Not a question.
"Yes. Thank you."
"Empty container was in the bin outside." He walked in, set the tiffin on the bench. "My wife said
the rice was dry. So, she made more. Different spices this time."
Marshal blinked at the container. Looked up. "You didn't have to!"
"Eat," Osei said, in the exact same tone he used for "last set, don't argue."
Marshal ate. It was jollof. Proper jollof — the kind that took two hours and an argument about
tomato ratios and came out perfect anyway.
"So," Osei said, sitting on the bench beside him, forearms on his knees. "Your father told me you
went somewhere. Industrial side."
Marshal set the fork down slowly. "He talks a lot."
"He worries a lot. There's a difference." Osei didn't push. Just waited, the way retired boxers wait
— like they have all the time in the world and also know exactly when to throw.
"I went to do something," Marshal said. "A sync scan. For a game."
"Failed?"
"Three times."
Osei was quiet for a moment. Then: "You know what the problem with fighters is?"
"They punch things?"
"They stop eating when something goes wrong." He tapped the tiffin with one finger. "You're
going back?"
"Three days."
"Good. Eat before you go." He stood, picked up his jacket. "And tell your father he still owes me
twenty pounds from 1998."
Marshal looked at him. "What?"
"Goodbye, Marshal." And he was gone — unhurried, unbothered, as if dispensing wisdom and
jollof at 5:30 AM was simply part of his morning routine.
Marshal finished the tiffin. Then went back to deadlifts
He lasted until 7:45 AM before he checked the Mind Vault login page.
The grey download button stared back at him.
He put his phone away.
He lasted another eleven minutes
The thing about 'three days' is that no one actually says you can't show up in two.
Marshal tested this logic during a cooldown stretch, turning it over like a problem he was solving
and not a rule he was about to break. Ornix had said, 'come back in three days.' He had not said 'do not
come before three days.' Technically. Probably. If you were being generous with language, which
Marshal was prepared to be.
This is a completely reasonable interpretation of the instruction and not at all the justification
of someone who has been awake since 4:00 AM thinking about skill trees.
His gym bag was still on his shoulder when he hit the industrial zone at 9:20 AM.
The dome looked exactly the same. Faded signage. Dusty cams. Creaking gate.
He stopped at the gate.
He had not been invited today.
He was here anyway.
He pushed the gate open
The entrance lobby had two researchers in it, both with coffee, both mid-conversations. They
stopped when the door opened.
Marshal stood there.
He was in his gym clothes. Bag on one shoulder. Still slightly damp from the morning session.
The ID card — HELIOS, APPLICANT, PENDING SYNC CLEARANCE hung around his neck
because he'd been wearing it since yesterday and hadn't quite managed to take it off.
One of the researchers opened his mouth.
Dr. Sen appeared from the side corridor before he could say anything. She stopped. Looked at
Marshal. Then at the clock. Then at Marshal again.
"You were told three days," she said
"Yes."
"Today is day one."
"Technically day two. I'm counting from when I left, not from —"
"That's not how days work."
Marshal adjusted the strap of his gym bag. He had prepared for this. Not prepared in the sense of
having an actual argument — more in the sense of having decided that whatever expression he was
wearing was going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting.
He looked at her.
Not a challenging look. Not a demanding look. Just — the look of someone who had deadlifted
his frustration at 5:30 AM, eaten two portions of jollof rice from a retired boxer's wife, walked 2.4
kilometres in gym clothes, and had run out of anything else to do except be here.
Dr. Sen looked back at him for a long moment.
The researcher with the coffee made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh, which he
immediately converted into a cough.
"I'm not here to cause problems," Marshal said. "I just want to watch. Or sit. I can sit quietly in a
corner. You won't know I'm there."
"You are already very much there."
"I can be less there."
Dr. Sen pinched the bridge of her nose.
The other researcher — the one who hadn't fake-coughed — was now very interested in his tablet
screen, in the way people get interested in screens when they want to avoid being implicated in a
decision.
"If I send you home," Dr. Sen said slowly, "you will be back tomorrow."
"Almost certainly."
"And the day after."Also very possible."
She looked at the ID card around his neck. Then at his gym bag. Then at his face, where the
expression was still happening.
She exhaled through her nose.
"Calyx!" she called down the corridor.
A head appeared around the corner. Twenty-something, sharp eyes, lab coat slightly too big for
her, protein shake in hand. She looked at Marshal. Looked at Sen. Looked back at Marshal.
"Is he supposed to be here?" Calyx asked.
"No," Dr. Sen said. "But apparently he's going to be here anyway. Get him an orientation."
Calyx looked at Marshal with the energy of someone who had drawn the short straw and was
somehow fine with it. "You eat?"
"Yes."
"Good. Follow me."
Marshal followed.
Behind him, he heard the researcher with the coffee say, very quietly to Dr. Sen: "Was that the
triple-fail sync from yesterday?"
And Dr. Sen, equally quietly: "Yes."
And the researcher: "Huh."
Marshal kept walking. He did not smile.
He smiled a little.
Calyx handed him the tablet before they'd even reached the room.
"Read it on the walk," she said. "All of it.
He read it on the walk. All of it.
The tablet opened on a full interface overview — not a tutorial, not a marketing page. A technical
document. Phase breakdowns, skill architecture, stat allocation logic, AI behaviour notes. The kind of
reading that assumed you were serious and would catch you if you weren't.
He read fast. The way he always read things he actually needed.
Three phases: Exploration, Engagement, Eclipse. The zone shrink. The boss awakening. The
extraction window. He'd watched enough replays to know the broad strokes — but seeing it written out
in the facility's own language was different. Precise. Clean. The gap between knowing a thing and
being told a thing by the people who built it.
Skills. Over a thousand. Seven hundred adapting to personal data. Three hundred randomised. No
two builds the same.
Seven stats. Attack, Defence, Mana, Control, Speed, Precision, Luck. Three points per level. One
stat capped at 100, everything else at 85.
He stopped walking for exactly two seconds when he hit the Luck entry.
Luck — base value: 50. Non-variable. System note: flagged for review.
He kept walking.
Non-variable. The same word the chamber used when it couldn't hold him. He filed that and
moved on.
Calyx glanced back. He hadn't asked a single question. She'd expected at least three by now.
"Anything?" she said.
"Not yet," he said.
She kept walking.