The orb hummed.
It was a sound Kaelen hadn't noticed before—a soft, high-frequency whine buried beneath the ambient hum of the Null Quarter. Now, with his attention laser-focused on the point of blue light hovering over its surface on his tablet screen, it was all he could hear. Harmless photon bleed. 12.3% energy loss. A flaw.
He had no kinetic resonance pulse generator. He didn't even know what one looked like. But the diagnostic had been specific: frequency: 4.7Hz.
He was a maintenance technician. From a world of wires, circuits, and machinery that followed rules. When a pump bearing was misaligned, you didn't wish it straight—you tapped it with a hammer at the right angle, with the right force. A pulse was just a tap. A targeted tap.
He scanned the room again. The bed, the desk, the chair, the synthesizer slot. No tools. His own body? He doubted slapping the orb would produce a 4.7Hz kinetic resonance.
His eyes fell on his chair. It was a simple, sleek thing, its metal legs fused seamlessly to the floor. But the backrest… it was a separate piece, attached by what looked like a simple ball-joint. He grabbed it and twisted. It resisted, then gave with a soft pop. In his hands, he held a curved piece of lightweight, graphite-grey alloy. It wasn't a hammer, but it was solid.
He looked at the orb, then at the schematic on his tablet. Junction 45B. He lined up the edge of the chair back with the glowing blue point. He had to get the frequency right. 4.7Hz. That was 4.7 taps per second. Not too fast, not too slow. A steady, metronomic beat.
Taking a deep breath, he raised the makeshift tool.
Tap.
A dull, plastic thock.
Nothing. The orb's light didn't flicker. The hum remained unchanged.
He waited a second, then tapped again, trying to establish a rhythm. Tap… tap… tap… He counted in his head, aiming for that specific, slow pulse.
On the seventh tap, something shifted.
Not in the orb. In the air.
A faint, visible ripple, like heat haze, emanated from the point of contact. The orb's hum dipped, stuttered, and then smoothed out into a lower, quieter tone. The light, which had been a harsh, cool white, warmed slightly, becoming more like midday sun.
On his tablet screen, the diagnostic refreshed.
[Status: OPTIMAL. Efficiency: 99.9%.]
[Lattice harmonic alignment: STABLE.]
[Note: Unorthodox corrective method applied. Energy savings: +0.00037 V-units/cycle.]
A laugh burst from Kaelen's lips—a short, incredulous sound that echoed in the small room. He'd done it. He'd fixed a cosmic lightbulb. The energy savings were a pitiful, infinitesimal drop in the ocean of the Versity's power grid, but that wasn't the point. The point was the interface. The point was that the glitchy system on his cracked tablet could see the cracks in reality itself, and he could, in his small, human way, poke them.
The triumph lasted for exactly three seconds.
Then, the wall to his left fuzzed.
It was the only word for it. The solid, grey surface momentarily lost cohesion, pixelating like a bad hologram. In that split-second blur, Kaelen saw not the blank wall of the next room, but a chaotic, swirling vista of broken landscapes—a desert of shattered glass under a green sun, a frozen ocean with tides of mercury, a city of inverted spires—all tumbling over each other in a silent, dizzying rush.
And in the center of it, staring right at him, was a face.
It was a small, triangular face with large, luminous eyes the color of corrupted data—shifting between purple, green, and static-grey. It had two twitching, antenna-like protrusions from its forehead and a mouth that was currently formed into a perfect 'O' of surprise.
Then the wall snapped back to solidity with an audible snap and a smell of ozone and burnt sugar.
Kaelen stumbled back, his heart hammering against his ribs. The chair back clattered to the floor. He stared at the now-innocuous wall, the afterimage of those bewildered eyes burned into his vision.
A faint, chittering sound came from the other side. Then, a voice, high-pitched and tinged with digital reverb, as if filtered through a broken speaker.
"...you fixed the wall-node's bleed-through? How did you see the nodal junction?"
Kaelen didn't answer. He was still grappling with the violation of physics.
The voice continued, a note of awe creeping in. "You're the new Null-Type from the fading matter-world. The one with the... interesting enrollment flag. You shouldn't be able to perceive lattice harmonics. Your sensory apparatus is biologically limited. Primitive. No offense."
"Who are you?" Kaelen managed, his voice rough. "What was that?"
"A side-effect!" The voice became excited. "The Lumina-Orb in your berth is on a minor sub-grid that shares a regulator with the interstitial damping field in this wall segment. Your realignment pulse created a harmonic echo that briefly weakened the damping field! Brilliant! Accidental multidimensional eavesdropping! I've been trying to map the bleed-through points for cycles!"
A section of the wall, about the size of a dinner plate, shimmered and became transparent. On the other side was a room identical to his own, but in a state of controlled—or uncontrolled—chaos. Floating holographic schematics overlapped in the air. Disassembled Versity-tech components lay in neat piles. And in the center, perched on a floating stool that constantly adjusted its height, was the creature.
It was about three feet tall, with slender limbs that seemed made of articulated crystal and light. Its body was a hazy, semi-solid core of shifting colors, like a glitch given form. The large eyes blinked at him. It waved a four-fingered hand.
"I am Zyx! Designation: Glitch-Sprite, Sub-Type: Coherent Error. Also assigned to Null Quarter! My berth is 41! We are wall-adjacent!" It leaned closer to the transparent patch, its nose (or what passed for one) almost pressing against the barrier. "Your device. The primitive matter-sliver you used to interface. It accessed the local diagnostic stream? How? It has no trans-dimensional receiver matrix. Its computational substrate is silicon-based and decaying."
Kaelen instinctively clutched the tablet to his chest. "It... linked on its own. When I arrived."
Zyx's antennae vibrated. "Fascinating. Sympathetic resonance with your anomalous enrollment flag, perhaps. Or a latent property of your origin reality's information-field. May I see it?"
The request was so earnest, so devoid of the contempt he'd felt in the plaza, that Kaelen hesitated. This creature, this "Coherent Error," was clearly a fellow outcast, but of a different kind. Zyx wasn't powerless; it was a glitch in the system itself. A potential ally? Or a risk?
Before he could decide, a heavy, rhythmic THUMP echoed down the hallway outside, followed by a low, grating voice.
"...useless clutter. Should be recycled for base components. Nulls consume resources and produce nothing."
Another voice, smoother but equally cold, replied. "The Headmaster's rules, Brog. Even errors have a place. For now. The duty roster will see to them. Physical labor clears space for those who matter."
Kaelen froze. Zyx's eyes widened, and with a quick gesture, the transparent section of wall solidified back to grey. Its whisper hissed through the wall, barely audible. "Brog. From the Forge-Scrapyard of Xylos. And Vik'nar, a logic-bound from the Engine district. They 'supervise' the Quarter. They're doing rounds."
The thumping footsteps stopped outside Kaelen's door. A heavy fist pounded on it, making the whole frame shudder.
"New null! Your interface has your assignment! The Versity doesn't feed idle hands! Out! Now!"
Kaelen's tablet screen lit up with a new, urgent message, overriding his diagnostic view.
[IMMEDIATE DUTY ASSIGNMENT: MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN (PROBATIONARY).]
[REPORT TO: SUB-BASEMENT 7, QUARTERS RECLAMATION & SANITIZATION.]
[SUPERVISOR: BROG (Xylos-Forge Scrapper).]
[FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN LIFE SUPPORT ENERGY ALLOCATION REDUCTION.]
The door hissed open without his command. Framed in the doorway were two figures. Brog was a hulking humanoid, over seven feet tall, with rust-red, metallic skin that looked welded together in plates. One eye was a cracked red lens, the other a naked, burning optic. He smelled of hot oil and ozone. Vik'nar was slimmer, clad in sleek grey body-armor, his face obscured by a smooth, featureless helm with a single blue sensor-bar where eyes should be. He held a data-slate.
Brog's functioning eye scanned the room, lingering on the chair back on the floor, then on Kaelen, still holding the tablet. "Playing with furniture, matter-world null? The Versity's assets are not toys."
"He was likely attempting to comprehend his environment through primitive manipulation," Vik'nar said, his voice a synthetic monotone. "Inefficient, but within expected parameters for his type. Your assignment is to process inert matter from decommissioned berths. Manual separation. You will follow."
It wasn't a request. Kaelen slipped the tablet into his jumpsuit pocket, feeling its warmth against his chest. He glanced once at the wall separating him from Zyx, then stepped into the hallway.
The Null Quarter's corridors felt even more oppressive under Brog's shadow. They passed other doors, some silent, some from behind which came strange, soft sounds—a melodic weeping, the crackle of unstable energy, the scratch of claws on metal. The unfortunate, the broken, the misplaced.
They descended via a large, clanking lift that seemed older than the rest of the Versity, down into the bowels of the district. Sub-Basement 7 was a vast, cavernous space, lit by flickering lumina-orbs far above. The air was thick with dust and the acrid smell of dissolved memories and neutralized exotic materials. Piles of... stuff were everywhere. Furniture from a thousand different aesthetic sensibilities, now cracked and inert. Strange machines, their cores removed, lying like metallic carcasses. Chunks of architectural material, some still faintly glowing with dead magic or inactive technology.
"This," Brog grunted, gesturing a massive arm, "is reclamation. Your task is simple. Sort. Metal here. Crystalline there. Organic matter in the dissolution vat. Composite materials in the grinder. You will be monitored." He pointed to a corner where a single, flickering orb cast a weak light over a mound of debris. "Start."
Vik'nar looked at his data-slate. "Efficiency expectation is 0.8 cubic meters per cycle. Your energy ration is tied to this metric. Begin."
The two overseers retreated to a raised platform at the far end of the hall, where a console glowed. Brog produced a heavy flask and took a swig of something that steamed. Vik'nar began scrolling through his slate, utterly disinterested.
Kaelen approached the mound. It was a tangled mess. A chair made of something like petrified wood fused to a section of metallic flooring. A shattered console spilling hair-thin crystalline filaments. He bent down and grabbed the chair. It was heavier than it looked.
As he strained to pull it free, his pocket vibrated. He subtly shifted, turning his back to the overseers' platform, and pulled out the tablet.
The screen was active. A simple wireframe overlay was superimposed over the camera's view of the debris pile. Different materials were outlined in different colors. The petrified wood glowed a soft brown, with tiny text: [Inert Biomorphic Alloy. Density: High. Separation point: thermal shear at fusion junction.] An arrow pointed to the seam where the chair leg met the metal floor.
Another object in the pile, a twisted rod of dark metal, was outlined in red. Text flashed: [CAUTION: Unstable Reality-Fragment Core. Containment failed. Spontaneous dimensional collapse probability: LOW but NON-ZERO. Do not strike with force.]
Kaelen's blood ran cold. He'd been about to just start yanking and throwing things. He looked at Brog and Vik'nar on their distant platform. They hadn't warned him. Of course they hadn't. To them, he was disposable. A null doing null work.
But he wasn't blind.
He carefully set the chair down, avoiding the red-outlined rod. Following the tablet's guidance, he looked around. His eyes fell on a tool rack against a nearby wall—basic cutters, pry-bars, thermal torches (cold and inactive). The tablet's camera panned over them. The thermal torch handle glowed blue. [Tool: Standard-Issue Thermal Shear. Status: Energy cell depleted. Lattice igniter misaligned.] A schematic showed the internal mechanism, with a single component highlighted. [Fault: Phase-converter crystal shifted 0.2mm. Correct by tapping housing here.]
A plan, fragile and desperate, formed in his mind. He couldn't just sort debris. He had to survive it, and maybe turn it to his advantage.
He walked to the tool rack, making his movements look like those of a confused new worker selecting a tool at random. He picked up the dead thermal shear. It was a heavy, pistol-like device. Turning his body fully away from the overseers, he pretended to examine it, while holding it in view of his tablet, tucked in his other hand.
He saw the fault point. A specific spot on the housing. He raised the tool and, using its own weight, gave the housing a sharp, precise tap with the heel of his hand, right on the indicated spot.
Click.
A low hum emanated from the device. A wan, sputtering orange light appeared at the nozzle, then stabilized into a steady, white-hot half-inch beam with a quiet whine.
He had a working tool.
He walked back to the fused chair and floor plate. The tablet's overlay showed the exact line of the fusion seam. He triggered the thermal shear. The beam cut through the strange, petrified material like a hot knife through butter, with no spark or smoke—it simply separated along a perfectly clean, molten line. In seconds, he had the chair free. He tossed the biomorphic alloy into the designated bin, then cut the metal flooring into manageable sections for the metal pile.
He worked. Not with the frantic, dangerous desperation of a slave, but with the calm, precise efficiency of a technician following a schematic. The tablet showed him stress points, weak links, hazardous materials to avoid. His pile of sorted material grew. He found a partially intact data-cube in a pile of composite slag; the tablet identified it as [Damaged Educational Module: "Intro to Thaumic Thermodynamics." Data Recovery Possible: 12%.] He pocketed it.
He found a small, dormant power cell, its charge depleted to 0.5%. The tablet schematic showed a simple workaround: [Cell can be trickle-charged from ambient Versity grid via induction if placed within 1 meter of an active power conduit for 48 cycles.] He noted a crack in the floor from which a faint blue glow emanated—a conduit. He subtly slid the cell next to it with his foot.
He was no longer just sorting garbage. He was salvaging. He was learning.
After what felt like hours, a grating horn sounded. Brog stood up on the platform. "Cycle's end! Null! Report to your berth! Your ration will be calculated and delivered."
Kaelen's body ached, his hands were sore, but his mind was buzzing. He had processed nearly triple the expected volume, all of it correctly sorted, with zero incidents.
As he trudged back toward the lift, Vik'nar floated down from the platform on some anti-grav disc, his sensor-bar scanning the sorted piles. He paused, looking at the neat stacks, the clean cuts, the obvious avoidance of the hazardous-waste bin (which contained only the red-outlined reality fragment rod, carefully placed using a long pry-bar).
"Efficiency: 247% of quota," Vik'nar stated, his synthetic voice betraying a flicker of something—not praise, but analytical surprise. "Error rate: 0%. Hazard mitigation: proactive." He turned his helm toward Kaelen. "Anomalous performance for a Null-Type. You will be reassigned to more complex reclamation tasks next cycle. Dismissed."
Back in the stark silence of Berth 42, the food synthesizer slot had dispensed a bland, nutrient-dense bar and a bladder of water. As Kaelen ate, the wall fuzzed again.
This time, a small, three-fingered hand pushed through the melting wall-matter, holding a shiny, pebble-sized object. It dropped it on Kaelen's floor with a clink, then withdrew. The wall solidified.
Kaelen picked it up. It was a perfectly smooth, cool sphere of some dark blue crystal.
His tablet, left on the bed, lit up.
[Object: Stabilized Data-Condensate.]
[Function: One-time use memory storage. Contains: Basic Map of Null Quarter (Including Unmarked Conduits & Weak Structural Points). Schematic: Standard-Issue Ration Synthesizer (With Modification Nodes Highlighted).]
[Source: Glitch-Sprite Zyx. Message attached: "For the Light-Fixer. Your work with the thermal shear was elegantly non-standard. The overseers' logs show your efficiency. They are curious. Curiosity from them is dangerous. Be careful. But... if you want to learn more about fixing things, the weak point in the wall near your desk cycles its damping field every 73 seconds. It lasts for 0.4 seconds. Just long enough for a conversation.]"
Kaelen clutched the data-condensate, looking from it to his tablet, to the now-solid wall. The crushing loneliness of the plaza was gone. In its place was a different weight—the weight of secret knowledge, of a hidden ally, of a system full of flaws waiting to be understood, and of overseers whose "curiosity" felt like a targeting laser.
He was Kaelen, Administrative Error. He wasn't a cultivator or a mage. But in the belly of the Apex Versity, surrounded by the discarded and the broken, he had found his first tool, his first blueprint, and his first friend.
The real work was just beginning.