I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Chapter 69: One Future

Nora finished closing the cut in Nate’s side while three people argued over whether WB-17 could be placed inside Field Unit 03 without destroying both.

Nobody asked Nate. That was probably sensible.

He sat on the edge of a medical bench with his shirt open and watched through the glass wall. The black capsule rested inside a containment cradle. Small. Eighty-one years old. It had survived longer than everyone who had used the Skill stored inside it.

Nora pressed the dressing flat. "Done."

Nate looked down. "Can I use Body Memory?"

"You can eat first."

"It would take thirty seconds."

"And then you’d tell me you were hungry like that surprised you." She handed him his shirt. "Leave it alone until tonight."

Nate dressed. His shoulder moved cleanly. The cut pulled when he twisted, but that was all.

Through the glass, Seris arrived carrying a terminal under one arm. She went directly to WB-17.

Nate stood. Nora caught his sleeve. "Where?"

"Operations."

"You were stabbed twenty minutes ago."

"Cut."

"You say that like the creature was doing tailoring." Nate looked at her hand. She released him. "Food before you disappear underground again."

"I’m not going underground."

Nora glanced toward the containment room. "Somehow that wasn’t reassuring."

Field Unit 03 had been moved into an isolated testing chamber. Its casing was open. The Impact Frame capsule had already been removed and placed in storage. One slot waited empty. WB-17 remained outside it.

Seris stood beside Tessa and an engineer Nate hadn’t met. Renn watched from farther back. Dorn was there too.

That surprised him. "You stayed."

Dorn looked at him. "Apparently the city rearranging itself is bad for my afternoon."

Nate stopped beside Darek. "Can it work?"

Darek pointed through the glass. "Ask the people touching the eighty-year-old machine."

Seris heard him. "We’re not touching it." The engineer was currently halfway inside the open casing.

Darek looked at Nate. Nate looked back. "Technical definition," Seris said.

The engineer pulled himself out. "The pattern interface is intact."

Tessa nodded toward WB-17. "And that?"

"Also intact."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I can insert it without immediately expecting fire."

Dorn folded her arms. "Your standards are inspiring."

"They’re realistic."

Renn stepped closer. "What happens if you power it without a host?"

The engineer glanced at Seris. She answered. "According to the surviving procedure, it verifies the pattern, reconstructs the Skill architecture, then waits."

"For how long?"

"We don’t know."

"And reconstruction consumes the pattern?"

"Only after host transfer begins."

Nate’s attention sharpened. "So we can see Warbody without using it."

Everyone looked at him.

Darek sighed. "There he is."

Renn ignored him. "You shouldn’t even be in this room."

"Then why haven’t you sent me out?"

Renn considered that. "Because if the device reacts to your Class again, I’d prefer not to hear about it afterward."

Fair.

Dorn pointed at the engineer. "Verification only."

He inserted WB-17. The capsule clicked into place. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then Field Unit 03 woke. The same three rising tones filled the chamber. Old Imperial text appeared.

RESIDUAL PATTERN DETECTED

A progress line started.

Tessa watched the diagnostics. "Pattern integrity?"

Seris read the result. "Seventy-three percent."

Nate frowned. "Is that enough?"

"Apparently we’re finding out."

The progress line reached the end. The display went dark. Then returned.

RECONSTRUCTION COMPLETE

Below it:

WARBODY

Nate forgot about his side.

The machine opened a technical summary. Not the military archive. The Skill itself. Full-body combat conversion. The first lines described increased Circuit throughput and redirected physical safeguards. Then came the part the old footage had already shown.

During activation, the host body prioritized immediate combat output over long-term structural preservation. Muscular inhibition reduced. Joint protection reduced. Trauma response suppressed. Circulation limits raised. The higher the host’s existing physical and Circuit capacity, the greater the output.

Nate read that twice. Warbody didn’t give every user the same strength. It amplified what was already there. A First Circuit would become dangerous. A Second Circuit would become worse. A Third Circuit...

The old archive hadn’t shown one. Maybe there was a reason.

Seris scrolled farther. "Here’s the shutdown condition."

Darek leaned forward. "What condition?"

"Core threshold, host command or structural failure."

Dorn looked at her. "Structural failure?"

Seris didn’t answer immediately. Tessa read over her shoulder. "The Skill can keep operating until the body can’t support the conversion."

Darek looked at Nate. "Still interested?"

"Yes."

"Of course."

The machine changed screens.

HOST REQUIRED FOR PROPOSAL

Nobody moved. Then the scanning strip on the casing lit by itself.

Dorn stepped forward. "Kill the power."

"Wait," Seris said.

The scan passed across the empty chamber. Nothing. Then through the observation glass. Across Tessa. Darek. Nate.

The light stopped. Nate’s third Node tightened.

Field Unit 03 beeped.

COMPATIBLE OPEN CAPACITY DETECTED

Dorn looked at Nate. "Seriously?"

"I didn’t do anything."

The machine continued.

HOST CANDIDATE: UNREGISTERED CLASS ARCHITECTURE

Renn’s eyes went to him. Nate felt his stomach drop. Seris froze beside the controls.

Another line began forming. Nate reached toward the power disconnect. Dorn got there first. The screen died.

Nobody spoke. The hum inside Field Unit 03 faded.

Renn looked at the dead display. Then at Nate. "What did your Awakening evaluation register?"

He knew what she was asking. "Unrecognized Core manifestation."

"Class?"

"Kinetic Recall."

Renn watched him. Nate kept his expression still. Darek knew the public story. Seris knew enough to be dangerous. Dorn knew something was wrong. None of them had Path Reclaimer.

Not yet.

Dorn broke the silence. "We have a city emergency. Whatever Calder’s paperwork problem is can survive an hour." Nate held his breath until she looked away. Then she looked directly at him.

"Don’t mistake that for me forgetting."

She left.

They moved the test into a room with no windows. Nate wasn’t allowed inside this time. He stood in the corridor with Darek while Seris and the engineer checked whether killing the power had damaged the reconstruction.

Darek leaned against the wall. "Kinetic Recall."

Nate looked at him. "What about it?"

"Nothing."

That was worse than a question. Nate waited.

Darek rubbed the dried blood from his sleeve. "You know what I like about field work?"

"What?"

"Eventually something tries to kill you and everyone stops lying for a minute."

Nate looked toward the sealed testing room. "Didn’t work today."

"No." Darek pushed away from the wall. "Get better at it."

He walked toward Operations. Nate stayed.

His terminal vibrated. Ethan.

For a moment Nate expected another picture from the capital. Instead:

Are you seeing the Varen alerts?

Nate typed: I’m in Varen.

The reply came immediately. I KNOW THAT

Then: You okay?

Nate looked through the corridor window. Emergency crews were crossing the floor below. A wall display showed the western district. Four evacuation zones now. One entire street marked unresolved.

He typed: Yeah.

Three dots. That’s all I get?

Nate thought about Vale. The dead Field Command soldiers. Vault Four. WB-17. The machine calling his Class architecture unregistered.

He wrote: Busy. I’ll call later.

Ethan replied: You better.

Nate locked the terminal. He had promised Ethan he’d tell him when something happened. Something had happened. Several things. He put the device away.

Seris came out eleven minutes later. "Pattern survived."

Nate stood. "And?"

"The reconstruction is stable."

"Can it make the proposal?"

She looked behind her before answering. "Probably."

Nate waited for the problem. Seris knew him well enough to skip the suspense.

"Not for you."

His expression changed. "Why?"

"Field Unit ran a compatibility simulation before we disabled host scanning." She handed him a printout. The first lines were simple.

AVAILABLE NODE: CONFIRMEDPATTERN COMPATIBILITY: ACCEPTABLE

Then:

HOST CIRCUIT CAPACITY: INSUFFICIENT

Nate read the next section.

MINIMUM STABLE HOST CONDITIONSECOND CIRCUIT

He looked up. Seris was watching him. "Warbody can force significantly more current than your First Circuit can safely carry."

"How unsafe?"

"The simulation stopped at predicted pathway failure."

"That doesn’t answer it."

"It predicted your chest route tearing before full activation."

That answered it.

Nate looked at the paper again. Second Circuit. He was close. Rovan’s memory had shown him how close mattered. His shoulder was physically restored. His routes had months of conditioning behind them.

For the first time, Second Circuit wasn’t just the next milestone. It was standing between Nate and something he actually wanted.

Seris took the page back. "There’s another problem."

"Natural selections."

"Yes."

They walked into the test room. Field Unit 03 sat dark again. The engineer had moved WB-17 back into containment. Seris brought up the historical results on a separate terminal.

"Every successful reclamation case lost natural Skill proposals afterward."

"I read them."

"You don’t sound concerned."

Nate didn’t answer. Seris looked at him. "Why?"

He could have given her another useless response. Instead he chose part of the truth. "My Class doesn’t give me Skills normally."

Seris stopped. Nate immediately knew he’d said too much. "Explain."

"It works differently."

"That’s not an explanation."

"It’s what I’m giving you."

Seris stared at him. A month ago she might have pushed. This time she didn’t. She looked back at Field Unit 03. "Then you think the cost doesn’t matter."

"I think we don’t know."

That was safer.

Seris tapped the terminal. "If you’re wrong, every future Node could open empty."

Nate thought about Forsaken Claim. About Body Memory appearing only because Mara rejected it. Posthumous Disciple because Ethan had. Second Vector waiting in reserve. His Class had never asked what Skill Nate wanted from itself. It had asked what everyone else had refused.

"Then I should know before using it."

Seris nodded. "Finally."

"What?"

"Something sensible."

Nate ignored that. "Can you test it?"

"Without knowing what your Class actually is?"

He looked at her. Seris held his gaze. Then exhaled. "That’s what I thought."

She unplugged the terminal. The conversation ended there.

The fourth city-wide structural event hit at 18:42.

Nate was eating. The cafeteria floor lurched hard enough to throw half the trays from one table. People shouted. A window cracked. Then every light went out.

Emergency illumination returned three seconds later. Nate was already standing. His terminal filled with alerts. Western district. Southern transit. Two utility levels. Then:

WESTERN ACCESS EVACUATION ORDER

He left his food.

Darek called before Nate reached the stairs. "Don’t come down."

Nate slowed. "What happened?"

"Sector Three shifted again."

"How bad?"

A crash came through the call. Darek swore at someone away from the microphone. "Nate."

"Yeah?"

"Stay surface."

The connection died.

Nate stared at the terminal. Then another message appeared. This one wasn’t Field Command. The old Imperial crest replaced the emergency interface.

RECLAMATION NETWORK

Nate stopped in the stairwell. People moved around him. Nobody else seemed to see it.

A map began rendering. Not Varen’s municipal map. Something beneath it. Dozens of lines. Vault nodes. Dead Field Units. Storage sectors. Most unavailable.

At the centre sat one structure larger than all the others. Its designation was damaged. Only part survived.

CENTRAL RECLAMATION ARRAY

A warning flashed.

CONTAINMENT FAILURE

Then another.

AUTOMATED PATTERN RELEASE ACTIVE

Nate looked toward the nearest window. The western skyline was visible beyond the glass. One building moved. Not fell. Moved. Its upper floors shifted sideways while the lower structure remained where it was.

People in the stairwell stopped. Someone whispered. "What the fuck?"

Sirens started across Varen.

Nate’s hidden interface opened. Forsaken Claim reacted. Once. Then again. Then so many times the sensation blurred together.

REJECTED RESONANCE DETECTED

Across an entire city.

Nate gripped the railing. Another Imperial message appeared beneath it.

FIELD UNIT 03: AVAILABLERETAINED PATTERN: WB-17HOST CONDITION: INSUFFICIENTREQUIRED: SECOND CIRCUIT

Nate stared at the last line.

Outside, Varen’s evacuation sirens changed tone. The calm municipal warning became something harsher. A voice followed. "Western districts are under mandatory evacuation. All combat-capable Awakened report to assigned emergency stations."

People started moving again. Fast.

Nate closed the Reclamation Network. His third Node remained empty. Second Vector remained in reserve. Warbody waited inside a machine he could not safely use.

And somewhere below the city, thousands of things people had rejected were beginning to wake up.

Nate started down the stairs.

END OF VOLUME ONE