I Choose the Skills Everyone Else Rejects

Chapter 72: Eleven Minutes

The countdown began at ten forty-three.

West Operations changed with it. People stopped discussing what Varen might be doing and started preparing for what it would do next. Survey technicians pushed fresh route data to every active response team. Municipal coordinators marked shelters that could still be reached without crossing unstable streets. Field Command pulled two combat units away from the southern perimeter and sent them west.

Seris stood beside the main table, scrolling through historical records fast enough that Nate stopped trying to follow.

Tessa had three communications open at once. "Route Twelve is yellow."

A voice answered through her headset. "Survey cleared it six minutes ago."

"Six minutes is old."

"We need somewhere to send eighty people."

"Then wait thirty seconds." Tessa enlarged the route, and a street camera loaded. The image showed an empty avenue. She switched to another camera twenty metres farther north. The same avenue wasn’t there.

"Route Twelve is grey."

Nobody argued after that.

Nate checked the countdown. Nine minutes.

Joss leaned against the table. "What happens when it reaches zero?"

Seris answered without looking up. "If I knew that, we wouldn’t call it an estimate."

"Could have said nothing."

"I considered it."

Darek came back from the equipment wall carrying three fresh field transmitters. He gave one to Nate. "Keep this active even if the city network dies."

Nate clipped it to his vest. "Where are we going?"

"We aren’t yet." Joss looked pleased. Darek continued. "Until we know where the response starts, sending teams blind gives Survey more missing people to track."

Joss’s expression disappeared. "Fair."

Nate looked toward the western map. Thirty-one anomaly markers. Some were already fading. Others had stabilized around reconstructed sections of the city. One apartment block had become two different buildings joined through the middle. A section of road now ended at a courtyard demolished before Nate was born. A public school had gained a second gymnasium that municipal records said had burned down twenty-four years ago.

People lived around all of it. That was the part the reports flattened. Every marker represented somebody’s home. Somebody’s workplace. Somebody wondering whether the room behind their bedroom door would still be there when they opened it.

Seris touched Nate’s arm. "Look." She had opened an old personnel file. The name meant nothing to him.

MAREL TIN

CLASS: STRUCTURAL KEEPER

Below it sat three Awakening options. Load Brace. Still Frame. Return Line.

Nate stared at the last one. "What did she choose?"

"Load Brace."

"Return Line rejected."

"Yes."

Seris opened a second file. Different person. Different year. Another rejected Skill involving restoration of damaged structures. Then another. Then another.

Nate felt the first uncomfortable piece of a pattern settle into place. "How many?"

"Too early."

"Seris."

"Seven possible matches. Three decent ones."

"Across Varen?"

"Across people who lived or worked in affected areas."

Darek heard that. "You’re saying these events might be tied to specific Awakened?"

"I’m saying the functions we’re seeing resemble Skills rejected by people historically associated with those locations."

Joss scratched his jaw. "That’s worse."

Seris looked at him. "Why?"

"Because buildings don’t have bad ideas on their own."

The countdown reached seven minutes.

Nate stared at the files. Forsaken Claim had reacted to the corridor. To the reconstructed apartment. To the creature beneath Western Access. The same sensation. Rejected resonance.

Seris noticed where he was looking. "You’re thinking something."

"I usually am."

"Useful thinking."

Nate pointed toward the historical files. "If a rejected Skill leaves something behind, why doesn’t this happen everywhere?"

Seris answered immediately. "Good question."

Tessa spoke from the other side of the table. "And one we don’t have time for." A new message appeared across the main display.

SHELTER W-14 LOST INTERNAL ACCESS

Tessa’s hand moved. "Population?"

A municipal worker answered from another station. "One hundred and six."

"Alternate route?"

"None verified."

Darek was already moving. "That’s ours."

Joss pushed away from the table. Nate followed.

Seris caught his sleeve before he left. "Calder." He looked back. "If Forsaken Claim reacts differently before the event starts, remember exactly when."

"You know I can’t exactly write that in the report."

"I didn’t ask you to." She let go.

That was the entire conversation. Nate liked that more than he expected.

Shelter W-14 occupied the lower floors of a public library. The building had been chosen because it was reinforced, centrally located, and had three independent exits. When Nate’s team arrived, it had one.

The front doors still opened. They just opened into a reading room from thirty years ago. Rows of wooden shelves filled the space where the modern lobby should have been. People were visible between them. Some modern. Some not.

A police officer stood outside holding the door open. "Nobody crosses until Field clears it."

A woman inside shouted back. "My son’s outside."

The officer didn’t respond.

Darek stopped beside him. "How many inside?"

"One hundred and six current occupants. Unknown reconstructed."

"Any injuries?"

"One person crossed before we sealed the door."

"Where is he?"

The officer pointed toward an ambulance. "Alive. Doesn’t remember crossing."

Joss looked through the doorway. "That’s encouraging."

The officer glanced at him. "It took three medics to stop him trying to go back in."

That was less encouraging.

Nate approached the threshold. Pressure built behind his sternum. Forsaken Claim reacted.

REJECTED RESONANCE DETECTED

Weak. Then stronger. Then gone.

Nate frowned.

Darek noticed. "What?"

"It changed."

"How?"

"I felt it, then nothing."

Joss looked at the countdown on his wrist display. Four minutes. "Maybe it’s polite."

Nate ignored him and studied the room. The library’s modern ceiling lights hung over old wooden shelves. Two eras occupying the same place. People trapped inside had gathered near the centre. A librarian was trying to keep them away from the reconstructed sections.

A man in an old brown coat stood behind one shelf, reading a newspaper. He seemed completely unconcerned by the crowd. Nate watched him turn a page. The date printed across the top was twenty-nine years old.

Darek stepped through first. Nothing happened. Joss followed. Nate crossed last.

The pressure returned instantly. He stopped. "Wait."

Darek turned. "What now?"

"It’s stronger inside."

Joss looked at the doorway behind them. "Should we leave?"

Nate looked at the countdown. Three minutes thirty-eight. "I don’t know."

"Love this job."

The librarian approached. She wore a municipal shelter vest over ordinary clothes. "Are you taking us out?"

"Maybe," Darek said.

Her face tightened. "That’s not what people want to hear."

"It’s the answer I have."

She looked over the trapped civilians. "Then give me something else."

Darek thought for half a second. "Keep everyone together. Nobody touches reconstructed objects. Nobody follows anyone they don’t recognize."

The librarian nodded. That was enough. She turned and began repeating the instructions.

Nate looked toward the man with the old newspaper. He had stopped reading. He was staring directly at Nate. Not Darek. Not Joss. Nate.

The man folded the paper. "You shouldn’t be here."

Nate felt Forsaken Claim pulse.

Joss looked between them. "You know him?"

"No."

The man stepped around the shelf. His clothes belonged to the same period as the reconstructed room. He looked perhaps fifty. Thin face. Ink stain along one thumb.

Darek moved slightly in front of Nate. "Name."

The man ignored him. His attention stayed on Nate. "You’re carrying too many."

Nate’s hand moved toward Graveshare before he could stop himself. The man smiled. Not warmly. Recognition.

Nate’s chest tightened. "Too many what?"

The man opened his mouth.

The lights went out.

The countdown hit two minutes forty-one. People screamed. Emergency strips activated along the modern sections of the floor. The reconstructed lights did something else. They turned on slowly, one after another. Warm yellow bulbs. Shelves extended.

The room grew.

Nate heard wood scraping across tile. Joss shouted. "Everybody stay where you are!" His voice carried through the room. The civilians stopped moving better than Nate expected. Training. Protocol. Maybe simply fear.

Darek activated his Circuit. A faint pressure gathered around him. "Nate."

"I’m here."

"The man?"

Nate looked. Gone. Only the folded newspaper remained on the floor. Nate picked it up. The paper felt real. The headline mentioned a transit strike. The date was still twenty-nine years old.

Joss appeared beside them. "Bad news."

"Which one?"

"Back door’s gone."

Darek looked toward the entrance. The front doors were still visible. But they no longer showed the street. Beyond the glass sat another room. A library hall. Older than the one they stood in.

Nate checked his transmitter. No city network. Field channel remained. Tessa’s voice came through in bursts.

"...teams report... simultaneous..."

Static.

"...forty-two..."

Then Seris. "Calder, can you hear me?"

Nate grabbed the transmitter. "Yes."

"Your signal just moved."

He looked at Darek. "We haven’t."

"I know."

"How far?"

"According to the beacon, one hundred and twelve metres."

Joss stared at the floor. "Wonderful."

Seris continued. "Your building hasn’t moved."

"That makes less sense."

"Correct."

Nate looked at the old room beyond the doors. "What are you seeing?"

"Your beacon is inside the current library footprint. Your physical position is not matching the interior geometry."

Darek took the transmitter. "Can you route us out?"

"Not yet."

"Then tell us what changes when the Tide begins."

A pause.

"Everything."

The transmission died.

The countdown reached one minute.

Nate felt the resonance again. This time it didn’t come from one direction. It was under the floor. Inside the shelves. Behind the walls. Everywhere.

Forsaken Claim flooded his vision.

REJECTED RESONANCE DETECTED

The message vanished. Returned. Vanished. Returned. Too many sources.

Nate gripped the edge of one shelf.

Darek saw him. "How bad?"

"Different."

"That’s not useful."

"I know."

Joss had already reached the civilians. "Listen to me." People turned. He pointed toward the floor. "When I tell you to move, you move together. Nobody runs alone. If your kid runs, grab them. If your husband runs, let him learn."

A few nervous laughs. Good. He had them listening.

Nate looked at him. Joss noticed. "What?"

"You’re good at that."

"Getting abandoned by spouses?"

"The other part."

Joss shrugged. "People panic slower when you make them annoyed."

The countdown reached twenty seconds.

Darek checked his weapon. Nate loosened Graveshare. The librarian stood with the civilians, one hand resting on the shoulder of a boy who kept staring at the reconstructed shelves.

Ten.

Nine.

Nate felt his heartbeat.

Eight.

The shelves began humming.

Seven.

The floor trembled.

Six.

Someone whispered a prayer.

Five.

The old bulbs flickered.

Four.

Forsaken Claim reacted so violently Nate nearly lost his balance.

Three.

A line of text appeared.

RECLAMATION PRESSURE RISING

Nate froze. He had never seen that message before.

Two.

Another line.

LOCAL RESONANCE SATURATION: CRITICAL

One.

The entire library disappeared.

For less than a second, Nate stood under an open sky. No roof, no city. Black stone stretched beneath his boots. Something enormous moved in the distance.

Then Varen returned. Except the library had changed again. No civilians, no Joss, no Darek. Nate stood alone between shelves he had never seen.

His transmitter hissed. Then a voice came through. Not Seris. Not Tessa. A man. Calm. Close.

"Found one."

Nate turned. Someone stood at the far end of the aisle. Modern clothing. Field harness. A white Continuance emblem on his chest.

The man looked at Nate. Then at Graveshare. "You’re Nate Calder, right?"

Nate didn’t answer.

The stranger smiled. "I was told Varen had started producing interesting survivors."