Kahn left the surface world in a haze of copper aftertaste and street-market sweetness.The warmth of roasted chestnuts, the crisp bite of an apple—small anchors to ordinary life—still lingered on his tongue, but the memory of the alley's decay rode beneath each breath like rust in water.
When Voss finally called him back, the simple comfort of the city peeled away. A black-paneled transport waited at the curb, engine humming with the low resonance of Federation tech. Kahn stepped inside, the fragment under his skin twitching once in faint recognition as the doors sealed behind him.
The transport slid beneath the city with a sound like distant thunder, a pressure that settled behind Kahn's eyes and refused to leave. Fluorescent panels glowed along the tunnel walls, their light too clean, too exact, as if the Federation had scrubbed every shadow into submission. The fragment inside his arm pulsed once against the sterile air—a restless twitch, as though testing the invisible field that lined the carriage.
Voss stood opposite him, coat unbuttoned, a cigarette tucked behind one ear. He hadn't lit it. Smoke wasn't allowed in transit, but Kahn suspected the real reason was the dampening grid humming through the cabin. Even flame felt unwelcome here.
"Suppressors," Voss said without looking up. "Keeps stray concepts quiet. You'll feel it in the bones before long."
"I already do," Kahn murmured. His teeth ached with a faint, metallic pressure, like biting on foil.
The train slowed. A soft chime—too cheerful for the depth of earth—announced arrival. When the doors parted, a breath of cold, filtered air rolled through the cabin. It smelled faintly of antiseptic and something sharper, a trace of ozone that prickled his sinuses.
The base was buried beneath four hundred meters of bedrock. It felt deeper.
The arrival concourse opened like the throat of a cathedral. White stone floors stretched beneath a lattice of black steel, polished until each step returned a ghost of his reflection. Sigils of containment glimmered faintly beneath the surface—thin lines of copper set into the tiles, pulsing in rhythms too slow for the eye. Overhead, conduits braided through glass panels, carrying power and the low, constant hum of suppression.
Kahn's fragment twitched again, softer now, like an animal testing the edge of a cage.
Selene waited at the foot of a wide staircase, her red hair a stroke of living color against the monochrome space. Obsidian eyes fixed on Kahn the instant he stepped off the platform. No greeting, only measurement.
"You made it," she said. "Good. Follow."
Her voice carried the weight of command without needing to rise. Cadets and technicians alike moved aside as she passed, leaving a narrow path through the busy concourse. Kahn followed with Voss a half-step behind, the three of them a quiet wedge cutting through the low murmur of arrivals.
They entered a corridor that smelled faintly of cold iron. Behind a glass wall, recruits in grey training suits filed across a testing arena etched with containment grids. Energy dampeners pulsed in the ceiling, each beat a low vibration in Kahn's chest.
Selene didn't slow. "Orientation first. Then assessment. Your fragment will remain sealed until the drills begin. Do not test the suppressors—they will win."
Kahn nodded, though the fragment fluttered against the order like a stubborn muscle.
The Orientation Hall resembled an auditorium crossed with a war room. Tiered seating curved around a central dais where a holographic sigil rotated in slow, deliberate spirals. Screens along the walls displayed profiles of notable agents: Light, Stone, Mirror, Blood. Each image carried a faint distortion, as though the concepts themselves resisted being captured.
A handful of recruits already filled the lower rows. They turned as Kahn entered, eyes narrowing with the subtle tension of people measuring a new variable.
A girl with hair like spun copper offered the quickest glance and the sharpest smile. A faint shimmer traced the air around her fingers—light bending to her pulse. Lira, Kahn guessed, though no one had spoken a name.
Two seats away a broad-shouldered man rested elbows on his knees, gaze steady and unmoving. His presence felt heavy in a way that bent the floor more than the eye. Stone, Kahn thought. Havel.
Other faces lingered at the edges: a wiry boy whose pupils dilated and contracted in silent rhythm; a woman with scars that glowed faintly like embedded circuitry. Each gave off a scent Kahn could almost taste—copper for aggression, ozone for focus, the faint sweetness of suppressed fear.
Selene stepped onto the dais. The room hushed.
"You stand at the edge of something larger than survival," she said. Her voice carried easily, smooth and cold as polished glass. "You have chosen knowledge over safety. Memory over erasure. That choice will cost you."
She gestured to the rotating sigil above her. "Fragments grant power, but power is hunger. Each concept you wield will press against your mind until you either master it or become its echo. We will teach you control. We will also teach you what happens when control fails."
A subtle vibration threaded the air. Copper in the taste of breath. Kahn felt the fragment twitch beneath the suppressor's field, a low growl trapped inside bone.
Selene's eyes swept the room, pausing on him a heartbeat longer than on the others. "Discipline is survival. Curiosity is a weapon. Remember that."
After the briefing, Voss led the rookies through a sequence of corridors that spiraled downward like the coil of a shell. Training rings flashed behind thick observation glass: recruits sparring inside sigil cages, containment teams calibrating resonance dampeners, technicians etching copper lines into new glass plates. Each room hummed with the faint pressure of controlled distortion.
The fragment inside Kahn responded in restless pulses. He tasted iron every time they passed a sealed chamber, a reminder of the rot-symbol still burning in memory.
At the final door Voss stopped. "Dormitory sector," he said. "Lights out at twenty-three hundred. Suppressors drop to half-strength during sleep. Dreams are your problem."
A faint smile flickered at the edge of his mouth, gone before Kahn could read it.
Inside the dorm, narrow bunks lined a long corridor lit by amber sconces. The air smelled faintly of linen and copper. Recruits claimed beds with the quiet efficiency of soldiers. Lira tossed her bag onto a top bunk and gave Kahn a quick, curious glance that caught the reflection of light in her eyes. Havel settled across the aisle without a word, the weight of his presence bending the silence.
Kahn chose a lower bunk near the far wall. The mattress was firm, the pillow thin, the air thick with the suppressed hum of hidden sigils. When the lights dimmed to a soft, unnatural dusk, he lay back and listened.
The base exhaled in slow mechanical breaths. Somewhere beyond the walls, containment grids pulsed like a giant heartbeat. Beneath his skin, the fragment answered with a quieter rhythm—restless, patient, waiting for the next test.
And in the darkness behind his eyelids, a faint whisper surfaced like paper tearing:
Shiver…