Ren woke up to the sound of a dripping pipe.
It was a small, pathetic sound. A single drop of water gathered on rusted metal, swelled until it was too heavy to hold on, and fell. It hit a puddle on the concrete floor with a tiny, echoing splash.
Drip. Ren did not open his eyes. His skull felt like it had been split open and filled with molten lead. The phantom memory of Lin, the older version of her weeping in a ruined marble palace, still burned behind his eyelids. The sheer emotional weight of that vision left his chest feeling hollow and bruised.
He took a slow, rattling breath. The air was cold, damp, and smelled strongly of rust and stale sweat.
Drip. Another drop hit the puddle. This time, something impossible happened.
Ren "saw" the drop.
Even with his eyes tightly shut, the moment the water broke the surface of the puddle, a perfectly clear, three-dimensional blueprint of the room painted itself inside his mind. The soundwaves rippled outward from the puddle, bouncing off the walls, the ceiling, and the heavy iron door.
[PASSIVE SKILL: ECHOLOCATION]
[STATUS: ACTIVE]
[SENSORY OVERRIDE INITIATED]
Ren gasped, his eyes flying open. The mental blueprint vanished, replaced by absolute, pitch-black darkness. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, but there was zero ambient light. He was blind.
He closed his eyes again. He focused on his breathing. He let out a soft, controlled exhale through his nose.
The air moving from his lungs created a microscopic vibration. Instantly, the room mapped itself in his brain again. He was in a standard-issue military holding cell. It was roughly four meters wide and four meters long. The walls were reinforced concrete lined with sound-dampening foam. There was a metal cot bolted to the floor, a bucket in the corner, and a massive, heavy iron door with a single sliding viewing slit.
He did not just know the dimensions of the room. He could feel the micro-fractures in the concrete. He could hear the faint, electrical hum of a surveillance camera hidden behind a mesh grate in the ceiling.
His muscle memory had not just given him combat reflexes. The System had unlocked an entirely new way to perceive reality.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the other side of the iron door.
Through his Echolocation, Ren could hear them perfectly. Two sets of boots. The rhythmic clinking of tactical gear. The low, thrumming vibration of kinetic batons powered by cheap Resonance Cores.
The viewing slit slid open with a harsh metallic scrape. Blinding white light flooded into the pitch-black cell.
Ren winced, throwing his hands up to shield his sensitive eyes. The sensory transition from perfect acoustic mapping to blinding visual light made him intensely nauseous.
"On your feet, Null," a gruff voice barked through the slit. "The Instructor wants a word."
The heavy iron door groaned open. Two guards stepped inside. They wore bulky, scuffed grey armor plating and carried thick metallic batons that hummed with a low-frequency charge. They did not wait for Ren to stand. They grabbed him by the arms, hauled him off the cold floor, and dragged him out into the corridor.
Outpost 104 was not a grand military academy. It was a subterranean nightmare.
As the guards marched him down the narrow hallways, Ren took in his surroundings. The ceiling was low, lined with hissing steam pipes and flickering fluorescent lights. The walls were painted a sterile, depressing grey. The air scrubbers hummed constantly, struggling to cycle the stale oxygen. It felt less like a training facility and more like a submarine buried miles deep inside solid rock.
Soldiers and cadets moved through the corridors, all wearing variations of the matte-black and grey uniforms he had seen on Lin. They looked exhausted. Their eyes were hollow, and their weapons were heavily scarred. This was not a place of glory. This was the meat grinder.
The guards dragged Ren to a heavy steel door labeled "Interrogation Room B." They shoved him inside, forced him into a bolted metal chair, and secured his wrists to the table with magnetic cuffs.
They left without a word, slamming the door behind them.
Ren sat in the silent room. There was a single, harsh lightbulb hanging directly over the table, casting deep shadows into the corners. A reinforced two-way mirror took up the entire right wall.
He closed his eyes. He let the Echolocation take over, pushing his awareness beyond the physical walls.
He could hear the faint, muffled sounds of the Outpost. The rhythmic thud of combat boots on metal grating. The distant roar of an engine being tested. The clatter of metal trays in a cafeteria.
Then, he heard the footsteps approaching his door.
They were completely different from the guards' boots. These footsteps were light, bouncy, and completely devoid of military discipline. They practically skipped down the hallway.
The heavy steel door did not just open. It was kicked open with an explosive, cheerful slam that rattled the hinges.
"Ah! There he is! The absolute legend of the Whispering Canyon!"
A massive man stepped into the interrogation room. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing a military uniform that looked incredibly messy. His jacket was unbuttoned, his tie was loose, and he possessed a thick, untamed beard. He was carrying a cardboard box stained with heavy grease.
He had the most overwhelming, blindingly bright smile Ren had ever seen.
"Instructor Krell, at your service," the man announced loudly, tossing a datapad onto the metal table. He pulled up a chair, flipped it backward, and straddled it. He placed the greasy box on the table and flipped the lid open. Inside were six massive, deep-fried mutant-meat pastries.
"You look terrible, kid," Krell laughed. It was a booming, infectious sound. "You want a cruller? They use actual Packrat fat in the dough down in the mess hall. It sounds disgusting, but it gives it this incredible crunch. Come on, take one."
Ren stared at the man. His wrists were still locked to the table.
"Right, the cuffs," Krell chuckled, slapping his own forehead. "My bad. Protocol is so boring."
Krell reached out and tapped the magnetic locks with a thick finger. There was a soft chime, and the cuffs released Ren's wrists.
Ren did not rub his wrists. He did not reach for the food. He simply kept his eyes locked on Krell's constantly smiling face.
"Not a talker. I respect that," Krell said, taking a massive bite out of a pastry. He chewed loudly, wiping grease from his beard with the back of his hand. "So. Let us talk about the report our lovely, highly irritated Scout Lin filed this morning. Because it is a fascinating read."
Krell picked up the datapad, clearing his throat dramatically.
"Quote. Target is a Null. No uniform. No identification. No registered Resonance Core. Target plummeted from a fifty-meter cliff, absorbed a direct sonic blast from a Reverb Alpha, and then liquefied the beast's skeletal structure by touching it. End quote."
Krell tossed the datapad back onto the table. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his folded arms. His smile never wavered.
"Now, kid. I have been training cadets in this miserable canyon for ten years. I have seen Strikers with High-Frequency blades slice monsters in half. I have seen Bastions crush them with gravity hammers. But I have never, in my entire life, heard of a naked Null turning an Alpha into soup with a slap."
Krell took another bite of his pastry. "So. Are you going to tell your favorite new Uncle Krell how you did it? Or am I going to have to hand you over to the medics for a vivisection?"
Ren remained perfectly silent. He was not looking at Krell's eyes. He was listening to him.
Ren closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, letting the Echolocation sink into the room. He tuned out the humming lightbulb. He tuned out the chewing sounds. He focused entirely on the acoustic signature inside Krell's chest cavity.
When a person interrogates a dangerous, unknown anomaly, their body reacts. The adrenal glands fire. The heart rate elevates. The breathing becomes slightly shallow. It is basic human biology.
But as Ren listened to the rhythmic thudding of Instructor Krell's heart, a chill ran violently down his spine.
Krell was smiling like a golden retriever. He was laughing. He was projecting an aura of completely harmless, goofy enthusiasm.
But his heart was beating at a perfectly steady, terrifyingly slow fifty beats per minute. It did not spike when he asked a threatening question. It did not flutter. It sounded like the ticking of a cold, mechanical clock. His frequency was perfectly, unnaturally controlled.
This man was not a friendly, goofy instructor. He was a monster wearing a very convincing human mask.
"Careful, Conductor," Valen's mocking voice whispered faintly in the back of Ren's mind. "Do not let the dog bite you while you are petting it."
Ren opened his eyes. He met Krell's gaze. He kept his expression completely blank, burying his realization deep inside his mind.
"I do not know," Ren said finally. His voice was hoarse from disuse. "I have no memory of who I am. I just reacted."
Krell stared at him for a long, agonizing moment. The silence stretched in the small room, thick and suffocating. The enthusiastic smile remained plastered on the large man's face, but for a split second, Ren saw something impossibly cold flash behind Krell's eyes.
Then, Krell burst into a booming laugh, slapping the metal table so hard it dented.
"Amnesia! The classic trope! I love it!" Krell cheered, wiping a fake tear from his eye. He stood up, grabbing the box of pastries. "You know, military law dictates I should execute you as an unregistered spy. Or at least hand you over to Envoy Lyra for a mind-wipe. But I like you, kid! You have grit. And this Outpost is desperately short on cannon fodder."
Krell walked to the door, kicking it open again. He paused in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder.
"Congratulations, Null. You are officially conscripted into Outpost 104. I am assigning you to Squad 9."
"Squad 9?" Ren asked softly.
"The logistics and janitorial squad," Krell grinned widely. "You are going to be scrubbing the latrines and hauling battery packs. Try not to die on your first week. It really ruins my paperwork."
With a final, booming laugh, Krell stepped out into the hallway. The heavy steel door slammed shut automatically, locking Ren alone in the interrogation room once again.
Ren sat in the shadows, listening to the falsely cheerful footsteps echo away down the corridor. He looked down at his own shaking hands.
The apocalypse was not just outside the walls. It was already inside the Outpost, eating pastries and smiling at him.