When Jim followed Danny into the plaza, his steps slowed without him realizing it.
It wasn't fatigue.
His body wasn't protesting.
His legs hadn't reached their limit.
It was the sound.
A sound he hadn't heard in a very long time.
Laughter.
Not the kind that burst out sharply, not the exaggerated laughter designed for television audiences, not the loud noise people made in public spaces to convince themselves—and others—that everything was fine. This laughter was different. It was old. It was uneven. It carried pauses where breath had to be caught, where chests rose slowly, where air struggled briefly before finding its way out again.
Yet it was real.
Deep, rough laughter mixed with wheezing inhales and delayed exhales. Each sound seemed to take effort, but no one tried to hide it. The laughter drifted through the open space of the plaza, spreading slowly instead of bouncing sharply. It didn't demand attention. It simply existed.
Jim stopped walking.
The plaza itself was wide and open, paved with pale synthetic stone that reflected the sunlight just enough to make his eyes narrow. The surface was clean—too clean. Lines between the tiles were perfectly aligned, as if measured repeatedly by machines rather than laid by human hands. Around the edges stood several evenly spaced trees, their leaves barely moving in the air, and rows of benches placed at calculated intervals.
There were no banners.
No statues.
No decorations meant to convey meaning.
Yet at the center of the plaza, something had gathered.
A circle of people.
They weren't standing in perfect formation. The shape wasn't precise. Some sat slightly farther apart, others closer. Wheelchairs, canes, mechanical frames, and support devices broke the symmetry. It was a circle held together not by design, but by presence.
Jim's gaze moved once—
And stopped.
He saw his grandfather.
The world narrowed to a single point.
For a brief moment, Jim forgot how to breathe.
His grandfather sat in a wheelchair near the inner edge of the circle. He looked smaller than Jim remembered. Not just thinner, but lighter, as if some invisible weight had been slowly shaved away over time. His shoulders were narrower. His arms rested more lightly against the armrests.
But his back was straight.
Rigid, almost stubbornly so.
Behind the wheelchair was a large barrel-shaped device, attached directly to the chair's frame. Its surface was smooth metal, neither polished nor worn, reflecting the sunlight with a muted, indifferent gleam. Several semi-transparent tubes extended outward, curving gently as they connected to ports along the wheelchair and a supporting structure beside his grandfather's torso.
The tubes carried something colorless. Or perhaps something too subtle to be seen.
It didn't look like medical equipment.
It didn't resemble any hospital device Jim had encountered before.
There were no familiar symbols. No reassuring green lights. No soft padding designed to look humane.
It felt experimental.
Unfinished.
Jim stared at it longer than he realized, trying to understand its purpose. His mind searched for references—hospital visits, news reports, images from screens—but found nothing solid to hold on to.
He couldn't name what it did.
He only knew that it didn't belong to the world he remembered.
And that made it unsettling.
His grandfather wasn't alone.
The people around him formed a loose, uneven ring. Some sat in wheelchairs of different designs. Some leaned heavily on canes, their grips worn smooth by constant use. A few bodies were visibly asymmetrical—one shoulder lower than the other, a leg stiff and unmoving, a spine bent just slightly too far to one side.
Several of them were connected to machines.
Not the same machines.
Each device looked different, customized, altered, adapted. Some emitted a faint mechanical hum, so low it blended into the ambient noise. Others displayed small indicator lights that pulsed softly at regular intervals, producing gentle notification tones that felt restrained, almost polite.
Despite all of this—
The atmosphere wasn't heavy.
It wasn't oppressive.
It wasn't soaked in despair the way Jim had unconsciously expected.
Instead, the air felt calm.
Still.
Gentle.
The laughter faded naturally, without anyone forcing it to stop.
A white-haired elderly woman spoke.
She sat upright in her wheelchair, hands folded neatly on her lap. Her fingers were thin, her knuckles slightly swollen, but her posture was composed. When she spoke, her voice wasn't loud, yet it carried clearly through the circle.
"My name is Margaret."
No tremor.
No hesitation.
She said it as if stating her name was neither an introduction nor a declaration—just a fact.
"My granddaughter… is an ability user."
The words landed softly.
She paused, eyes lowering for a moment. Not from shame. Not from fear. More like she was checking something internally, confirming that this sentence no longer required caution.
"After she came here," Margaret continued, "she found a boyfriend."
She lifted her head and looked around the circle. Her lips curved slightly upward—not enough to be called a smile, but enough to change the weight of her expression.
"You'd assume he's an ability user too, wouldn't you?"
A brief, knowing silence followed.
She shook her head gently.
"No. He's an ordinary person. He works here in town."
There was something unexpectedly light in her tone. As if she wasn't contradicting expectations, but dismissing them entirely.
"She calls me every day."
Margaret's gaze drifted downward, unfocused, as if watching memories rather than the ground.
"She tells me what they ate together. What they watched together."
"She boasts about how much they love each other."
This time, she smiled.
It wasn't wide. It wasn't dramatic.
But it was unmistakably real.
"They're getting married soon."
She lowered her head and raised the back of her hand, wiping gently at the corner of her eye.
"I never thought," she said quietly, "that before I died… I'd get to see my granddaughter this happy."
The plaza fell silent.
Not the abrupt kind.
The silence arrived naturally, like a pause everyone instinctively respected.
No one rushed to respond.
No one offered comfort.
It wasn't because they didn't care.
It was because they understood.
Then a man cleared his throat.
An old man stood slightly forward in the circle. He leaned on his cane, body angled ahead as if gravity were constantly testing his resolve. His back wasn't straight, but there was something unyielding about the way he held himself.
"My name is George."
His voice was rough, worn down by time and use, but steady.
"I didn't come to Freetown because my family were ability users."
He didn't look up.
"I spent my whole life hiding my ability outside."
He paused.
"When I was young, I could manage it. When I got old… I slipped. Someone noticed."
His grip on the cane tightened, just slightly.
"After that, my social connections were gone. Completely."
No one reacted.
No gasps.
No murmurs.
It was a story they had heard before. Perhaps not his—but one like it.
"So I left my children behind," George continued. "So they wouldn't be implicated."
"And I came here."
He lifted his head then, scanning the circle.
"I thought that even if all I could do was menial work, I'd stay."
A stiff, humorless smile pulled at his mouth.
"But instead, they let me rest here. Recover."
"I don't pay anything."
"I just go to the Ability Development Bureau for regular checkups."
He nodded once, as if concluding a report.
Jim stood at the edge of the gathering, his chest tightening.
There was no anger in these stories.
No accusations.
Just facts. Polished by repetition. Stripped of excess emotion.
Then another wheelchair was pushed forward.
The man seated in it looked severely malnourished. His body seemed almost too small for the chair, skin drawn tightly over bone. His head hung low, chin near his chest.
Behind him was a far more complex barrel-shaped apparatus. More tubes. More ports. More lights.
He opened his mouth.
Air escaped—but no words.
The device activated.
"Due to incomplete vocal function," a calm, emotionless voice said, "I will speak on behalf of my ward."
Jim's eyes widened.
"My name is Lain."
The voice wasn't human—but it wasn't cold.
"I was born in a war-torn border region. My companions—my sisters—all died."
No pause.
"I was rescued by Combat Division One and transferred here."
"I hope such incidents never happen again."
A short silence.
"I wish to join Combat Division One."
The plaza froze.
Then applause began.
Not loud.
But sincere.
Jim finally exhaled.
So the barrel-shaped device… was an AI caretaker.
Another wheelchair moved forward.
A child.
All four limbs were gone.
The small body was secured carefully, interfaces covered by clean protective layers. No blood. No wounds.
Only absence.
"My ward is named Null," the AI said.
"They were forcibly amputated."
"They were rescued by Combat Division One."
Null looked up.
Their eyes didn't focus.
Then—
Jim's grandfather stood.
"Jimmy," he said, smiling.
"Come here."
And for the first time since entering the plaza—
Jim felt steady.