"The first step into the unknown is never taken with courage, but with necessity."
— Cadet Orientation Log.
Cadet Academy,
VFP,
New Facility.
The New Facility stirred awake a few weeks after the August Visit, and the quietness felt like something it had earned. The lights along the upper grid flickered back into their steady rhythm and the machines slowly found their hums again, and even the sharp ozone smell that once clung to the halls had settled into the softness of the recycled air.
And within that time, most of the promoted Unfits had become Explorers.
On their promotion day, Bale stood before the cadet registry board and watched his name flare to life with a cold blue tag beside it that read VC-1, Explorer.
With a smile on his face, he muttered to himself, "Finally."
He did not really smile though, but something tight in his chest loosened as cadets around him whispered and compared their new roles. Some shouted for their friends and others clapped shoulders and traded rough little laughs that sounded almost human again. Just like that, a few weeks had passed, and Bale was now an Explorer cadet. Well, sadly enough, not all Unfits were able to see this happy day. Some were yet to achieve 10% synchronization and so, their VCI must surely be below 5, thus leaving them stuck as Unfits. They would be waiting until they achieve the synchronization limit. Since the VCI of Unfits were only calculated by their neural band synchronization, it was going to be a hard feat for most, because it was a heinous training, straining one's neurones under guided pressure to connect with the wrist band in the process. Some even undergo seizures in their neural systems, while some drop out of the Academy, getting deported back to their planets.
Well, the instructors of the Academy won't force them behind walls. To the instructors, they had simply chosen to encounter the Cadet training, which was compared to the very beginning of the 'abnormal' path of ascension, which was why the Academy served as a prerequisite for the real neural unlock evolution. Matter-of-factly, there were more than enough spaceships available at the Academy, ready to deport the 'drop-outs' back to their various home planets. It was commonly knownthat there was no problem leaving.
Bale however, was reminiscing on his moments as an Unfit. He realized that he hadn't been much of a trainer. He had not really trained or synced well with his neural band. Most of the time, it was the usual anomaly that makes the day. His neural band would either flicker red on most occasions or on rare cases, it wouldn't even glow a faint light. Also, he had earned the name "Prophet of Soup", which he guessed was earned by him from Tora because of his affinity to his usual aromatic delicacy, Nutri-soup. That wasn't much of a problem anyways. He had always tried to appear unperturbed by whatever uncomfortable tantrums or insults were thrown at him. He would simply always try shrugging things off, not paying attention to those.
Bale wasn't much of a comedian, or "Prophet" as people might have known him for – that though, he was yet to ask Tora why she named him that. He was simply just stuck in series of clumsy incidents or the other, especially during synchronization tests. That, nevertheless, wasn't what actually planted the impressions in the cadets' hearts. One day on his first practical assignment to join his mates in working on a nearby Repatriation spaceship docked near the Academy fort outskirts, he had accidentally pressed a button he wasn't supposed to, which jolted the ship for a while before it came back under control. The cadets around laughed him to scorn, thus making them earn the impression that he was a frailty bastard.
...Only for the red flicker incidents to fan the flame of scorn, blooming the usual seed of hostility into a flower of intimidation.
He shrugged off all those embarrassing moments, even if he had learned to grow accustomed to it.
For the first time in a long while, the Facility felt less like a cage.
Tora drifted up beside him with her hands in her pockets and she still wore that same easy grin she always carried.
"Explorer Bale. That sounds like someone who finally stopped breaking scanners."
He looked at her and shook his head. "You're acting like you didn't threaten to break one yourself last time."
She smirked. "Yeah, but I made it look cool."
That was one of their times during the sync tests. Remembering that scene made them feel a little bit nostalgic about it. Their first days here were not easy ones, even for Tora.
They laughed softly, and for a moment, it felt normal.
As days passed, the daily schedule of the new Explorers began to shift with their promotion. Explorers were given wider access to tactical classes, vortex fields simulation halls, and even short-range external patrols somewhere on the Academy planet, but far away from the Academy fort. The first division had grown louder, busier, and alive with the constant rhythm of drills and alarms. The new Explorers were getting happy with their new assignments. The sound of boots striking alloy had become more of its own kind of heartbeat.
Morning routines had started before dawn. Neural synchronization checks were always first, with the same dull hum of scanners tracking pulse readings through their bands... well, Bale's neural band had grown stable these days, for once. The med staff still ran extra diagnostics though, but they no longer stared at him like a problem.
After the neural sync checks were done, physical combat training was next. Rows of cadets sparred under fluorescent light, their movements sharp and deliberate. Their sparring came in batches. Bale, was performing fairly well, at least for a start. Of course, at least for a start, his performance still paled in comparison to that of his mates. The instructors noticed, even if they didn't say it aloud. He was barely holding on to the combat practice, especially that he had not been exposed to lifestyles like this before getting into the Academy. All his childhood, he grew to know only his immediate environment in the public Foster House back at Borderlands, learning only how to repair drones and related tech devices. He had only grown up to live a usual life of being a cadet later on.
'Gross..'
In the afternoons, they trained in vortex simulations. The vortex simulations were like controlled distortions that mimicked the real anomalies of the vortexes. They operated similarly like the commonly known old tech Virtual Reality software programmes. The simulated fields shimmered like warping reality, bending air and gravity in subtle, deliberate ways. Though not dangerous and paled in comparison to the real ones, every cadet who entered came out looking, at the very least, changed somehow. They were being taught how to fight disorientations, cope with the fluctuating wrongness of the vortex environments, and how to stabilize their senses when space itself shifted around them.
Tora always performed better in her sessions. Her focus was clean, and her movements were confident. She seemed to enjoy the challenge, while Bale approached it like walking a tightrope. Careful, tense, and mostly off balance. Yet every time, he adapted a little faster. He was improving...
... manageably.
These days to the cadets of the Academy, evenings seemed calmer. The Academy lights dimmed into deep blue, signaling rest cycles. During these periods, cadets would gather in their halls, some sharing quiet conversations, while others would check on their neural analysis reports. Bale often sat by the upper window panels, watching the tiny faint glow of the Vortex Frontier which loomed millions of kilometres away from the Academy. He had never seen a real vortex up close, but somehow, he could feel its pull. It felt strange, in fact very strange, because he hadn't heard of this situation before. He could have asked one of the instructors, one which he trusted, but his instincts told him to keep it to himself, at least for now.
In that watching silence, a strange, distant heartbeat seemed to echo somewhere deep inside his skull. He could feel it.
Back to the Academy, life had settled into rhythm again.
Eat. Train. Sync. Sleep.
A quiet cycle, almost peaceful in its repetition.
And yet, something lingered beneath the calm.
The Prometheus Division still hadn't backed off. Every few days, another pair of 'technicians' showed up during his neural tests, and they watched him too closely and wrote down every shift in his sync readings. Instructor Jet kept his distance, yet Bale still 'felt that piercing stare' from across the hall, as if the man expected something wrong to spark.
But nothing came.
Not yet.
Later that evening, during rest hour, Tora found Bale sitting by the window of the cubeshall corridors. He was looking through the invisible dome of the containment grid at the thin rivers of light sliding across the night sky, and it reminded her of all the quiet moments they always seemed to share whenever their schedules finally loosened.
"You keep looking up," she said, settling beside him.
He didn't answer right away. "Just thinking."
"About?"
"Everything. The rain. The Unbounds. What they are up to."
She tilted her head. "Huh? They show up whenever they need to. Besides, we'll become one someday."
"Yeah," he said quietly, and lingered. " They are stronger than we think, aren't they?"
Tora didn't answer him.
However, they sat in silence for a while. The hum of the Academy filled the space between their breaths. Beyond the sky, the faint red arc of a distant vortex shimmered and vanished again, like a heartbeat fading into the dark.
Hours later, the day ended.
Another dawn came. More drills came, and more sync tests continued.
The calm continued. But beneath it, the story of humanity's survival carried on, quietly, endlessly, within steel walls and silent skies.