The first thing Marcus Cole noticed about Iron City was the silence.
Not the peaceful kind no birds, no distant traffic, no lazy background noise. This silence felt engineered, like the city was holding its breath. Towers rose out of the haze, dark metal and glass cutting into a gray sky that never fully committed to daylight. Screens wrapped around buildings, displaying numbers, rankings, and feeds of violence edited into something clean and watchable.
Marcus stood at the gate with a single bag slung over his shoulder and a burned-out phone in his hand. The signal had died ten miles back. No warnings. No map. Just silence.
Ahead of him, the gate slid open.
No guards. No greeting.
Just an open path.
He stepped inside.
The streets were wide, too wide, like they were designed for movement at speed. People walked with purpose but never hurried. Everyone looked fit. Not flashy. Not smiling. Eyes forward. Shoulders tight. Fighters, runners, thinkers men and women shaped by pressure.
Marcus caught his reflection in a window as he passed. Thirty-two. Scar across his eyebrow. Military posture he couldn't shake. He looked like he belonged here, and that thought unsettled him more than anything else.
A screen flickered to life overhead.
WELCOME, NEW ENTRANT.
STATUS: UNREGISTERED
TIME REMAINING: 58:12
Time remaining for what?
A man brushed past him, muttering under his breath, "Don't stop walking."
"Why?" Marcus asked.
The man didn't turn. "Because stopping means choosing."
Before Marcus could ask what that meant, a chime echoed through the street. The screen changed.
TRIAL ONE AVAILABLE
COMPENSATION: FOOD, HOUSING, ACCESS
FAILURE: DENIAL
Housing.
That made his chest tighten. He hadn't slept properly in weeks. He hadn't eaten in two days.
This wasn't coincidence. Cities didn't work like this. Systems didn't reveal themselves this quickly unless they wanted something.
The trial location blinked into existence on the building ahead.
An old gym. Concrete walls. Steel doors scarred by impact scars and fists.
Marcus pushed inside.
The smell hit him first sweat, iron, disinfectant. A dozen men stood in a loose circle, stretching, pacing, eyeing one another like animals in a pen. No referee. No announcer. Just another screen glowing above them.
TRIAL ONE: ELIMINATION
RULES: LAST STANDING ADVANCES
MEDICAL SUPPORT: LIMITED
A door slammed shut behind Marcus.
One man laughed nervously. "This is a joke, right?"
No one answered.
The first punch landed without warning.
Chaos followed. No music. No countdown. Just raw movement bodies colliding, fists breaking skin, someone screaming when a knee gave out the wrong way. Marcus moved on instinct, years of discipline taking over before thought could interfere.
He didn't fight to dominate. He fought to survive.
Minutes blurred. Seconds stretched. When it ended, Marcus was breathing hard, knuckles split, blood not all his own dripping onto the mat.
He was still standing.
Around him, men lay groaning or unmoving.
The screen updated.
TRIAL COMPLETE
STATUS: ACCEPTED
A door opened. A tray slid out with food and water. Real food.
Marcus stared at it, then up at the screen.
"That's it?" he asked.
The screen flickered almost like a smile.
THIS WAS ONLY THE INVITATION
Somewhere deep inside Iron City, another screen lit up.
SUBJECT: MARCUS COLE
BACKGROUND: WAR-TRAINED
RISK LEVEL: HIGH
POTENTIAL: EXCEPTIONAL
Marcus didn't see that screen.
He was too busy asking himself the question the city had already answered.
How far was he willing to go to get what he came for?