Caleb scraped the last bite of protein paste from the plastic hospital tray.
It stuck to his teeth like wet chalk. He swallowed anyway.
His bruised right arm moved when he told it to, with no catch in the tendon and no lightning down the shoulder.
The torn muscle had rebuilt itself while he slept, and that should have terrified him more than the hospital bill taped to the foot of the bed.
Caleb lifted the arm, flexed two fingers, then let it drop beneath the blanket before anyone with a scanner wandered close enough to ask questions.
Rubber soles squeaked against the linoleum.
An orderly in a faded blue uniform came in without looking at him. The man reached over the mattress to collect the empty tray.
Halfway through the motion, his spine locked.
The tray clattered onto the rolling metal table.
Caleb shifted against the pillows, both hands visible above the blanket. Old yard habit. If somebody went strange near you, do not give them a reason to claim you reached first.
The orderly turned his head. His eyes had gone milky, emptied rather than blind or unconscious.
"Rest up, Caleb," the orderly whispered.
The voice did not match the throat. Too smooth. Too pleased with itself.
"The draft is approaching. The right hands will reach for you."
One blink broke it.
The orderly stumbled backward, gaze jumping from the tray to Caleb to his own shaking hands. Color drained from his face. He hurried out before either of them had to say the obvious thing.
Caleb gripped the edge of the mattress until the metal frame creaked.
Three times in ten days. A nurse. A physical therapist. Now an orderly.
The anonymous viewer who bought his stream was not just watching.
She was getting closer to the walls.
-----
The underground deployment bunker smelled like floor wax, weapon oil, and nervous sweat.
Eighty recruits stood in aligned rows beneath the reinforced lights. Bandages, black medical slings, and borrowed crutches broke the clean formation. The urban zone trial had chewed them up and the Defense Force had still ordered attendance.
Standing meant eligibility.
Failure to stand meant somebody else took your future while you healed.
Ten yards to Caleb's left, Kikaru Mitsurugi held the front row like the room belonged to her family.
The white prototype armor was gone. A standard gray academy uniform had replaced it, ironed so sharply it was almost insulting against the medical brace locking her left leg straight. Compression wrap bound her ribs under the jacket. When a passing medic offered a crutch, Kikaru dismissed him with a shake of her head that carried more authority than most officers managed with a sidearm.
Her face was chalk white.
Her chin stayed angled up toward the observation boxes.
Hiro stood in the second row, worrying the tape around his wrist until the adhesive peeled. Beside him, Iharu Furuhashi tapped one boot in a restless rhythm. A white strip of medical wrap covered his broken nose, and the redhead wore the personal offense of a man whose injury had not made him more intimidating.
Caleb wore his faded disposal jacket over a black undershirt and kept his right arm loose at his side.
If anyone asked, the stims worked.
If anyone scanned too deeply, he was probably dead anyway.
"Attention on deck."
Captain Ren Kade stepped onto the raised platform.
The man who had flattened the invisible Kaiju with localized gravity now wore the dark formal uniform of the Seventh Division. The dress coat fit like it had been made around a weapon rack.
High above the dirt floor, eight reinforced glass observation boxes jutted from the concrete wall. Shadows moved behind the tinted panels. Division Captains, sponsors, and whatever clerks existed to turn human desperation into neat columns of numbers.
"The replenishment draft will now commence," Kade said over the PA. "Due to heavy casualties across the grid, the divisions require new blood. The format is a snake draft. First Division selects first. I select for the Seventh. Eighth Division concludes the round before the order reverses. Stand by for assignment."
The digital board above the blast doors flared, and the First Division insignia flashed white and gold.
[First Division selects Kikaru Mitsurugi]
A murmur ran through the recruits.
Kikaru saluted the first glass box. The motion was crisp enough to hurt through her ribs.
The board shifted.
[Second Division selects Ren Kawakami]
[Third Division selects Iharu Furuhashi]
Iharu pumped his fist and grinned for the little camera drone hovering near his shoulder.
The board chimed again.
[Third Division selects Hiro Okuda]
Hiro exhaled so hard his knees almost went soft. He shot Caleb a quick, relieved look.
Caleb gave him a short nod.
Names kept flashing.
The highest sync rates stepped out first. The beautiful profiles. The sponsored kids. The ones whose streams had already turned them into marketable faces before the blood on their boots dried.
Rounds three and four passed in a hard blur of names and insignias. Captain Kade stepped to the microphone.
"Seventh Division selects Kenji Sato."
[Eighth Division selects Mina Arisato]
The board flashed solid red.
[DRAFT CONCLUDED]
Thirty recruits remained in the dirt. For three seconds, nobody moved. Then reality reached them.
A boy two rows ahead dropped to his knees and pressed both fists to his mouth. A girl with a sling over one arm fixed on the board like she could make it change by hating it hard enough.
Kade lowered his datapad.
"Those unselected will turn temporary access tags into the quartermaster at the gates," he said. "Clear the field. Go home."
Go home.
Caleb kept his eyes on the red text.
Home meant the containment bays.
Home meant rotting intestines, broken saw teeth, and debt collectors smiling at his mother like manners made extortion legal.
Home meant all that blood yesterday had bought him nothing.
He stepped out of formation, gravel crunching under his surplus boots.
"Wait."
Every head in the bunker turned.
Caleb tipped his chin toward the observation boxes. His voice came out rough, but it carried.
"I want an explanation. I scored twelve confirmed hits with a shattered shoulder. I survived a Danger Class Six zero-zone breach. Why am I still standing in the dirt?"
Gasps moved through the remaining recruits.
Questioning Captains was not brave in the Defense Force. It was expensive.
A shadow shifted in the second observation box. The glass panel slid open.
A broad man in an immaculate white uniform stepped to the railing. Thick silver hair swept back from a weathered face. His shoulders strained the coat seams. Second Division.
"Because nobody knows who you are, son," the silver-haired Captain said.
His voice carried an almost friendly weight. That made it worse.
"Your private broadcast feed went black during the breach. Nobody watched your stream. The grid never formed an opinion on you."
Caleb's jaw tightened.
The hacker.
She had cut his feed.
"We review the physical data," the Captain continued. "You look like a banged-up scrubber operating on a one percent sync rate. Your tactical intelligence is high. Your pain tolerance is impressive. Neither one makes you a weapon on paper. We need weapons."
He spread one hand.
"You read as liability."
Caleb had no clean answer for that.
The first observation box crackled.
"The First Division requests the floor," Elara said.
Her voice cut through the bunker with polished authority.
The silver-haired Captain turned toward her box. "The draft is closed, Captain."
"The First Division sustained a thirty percent casualty rate during the last subjugation raid," Elara answered. "I am requesting an emergency additional pick to replenish my front line. In exchange, the First Division accepts an automatic one point deduction in the end-of-year interdivisional rankings."
The observation boxes came alive with whispers.
Even Caleb understood the size of that sacrifice. Rankings controlled budgets, gear priority, sponsor packages, political favors, and the kind of funerals that made families feel less robbed.
"A formal vote is required for emergency amendments," Kade said from the platform.
"Call the vote," Elara replied.
Green and red lights illuminated across the observation boxes one after another.
Kade checked his datapad.
"Four in favor. Three opposed. Motion passes. First Division, make your selection."
"I defer my selection to the Proctor," Elara said.
The silver-haired Captain laughed once. "Passing the buck, Elara?"
"Captain Kade is acting Proctor because the Seventh Division placed last in the previous cycle," Elara said. "That position grants him the sharpest eye for overlooked talent in this room. We have worked together for years. I trust his judgment."
All attention fell to Kade.
Kade held on his datapad, then on the First Division box.
He had the worn-down face of an honest man finding politics on his desk.
"I am being politically pressured," he said into the microphone. "And I despise politics."
A few nervous laughs died before they became real.
Kade lowered his hand from the bridge of his nose. His eyes swept over the unselected recruits, skipped the weeping teenagers, and stopped on Caleb.
"However," Kade said.
He tapped one final command.
"It is useful to have another old head among all these young bodies."
The board flared brilliant blue.
[Seventh Division selects Caleb Mercer]
A sharp crackle of static popped behind Caleb's right ear.
The military HUD inside his cracked visor dissolved into deep purple text.