Chapter 2 TWO

Ken counted four dead by the time the compound went quiet.

He did not count while it was happening. He only knew the number when he stopped moving and his brain caught up with his body. Four creatures. Four kills. And him, still standing in the middle of the west courtyard with blood on his boots that was not his.

He looked around.

Three Z-Band soldiers down to his left. The A-Band commander he recognised from the mess hall was slumped against the blown wall, hands still shaped like he had been trying to summon something. Eyes open.

Ken walked over and closed them.

He did not know why he did that.

"You are shaking," the voice said.

"I know."

"That is normal. Adrenaline. Your body does not understand the threat has passed."

Ken sat on a piece of broken wall. His legs decided before he did.

"Who are you," he said.

"A system embedded in your biology before you were born. I have been dormant inside you until today. The activation required a trigger."

"The fight."

"Your first kill, specifically."

Ken looked at his hands. Steady now. He was not sure if that was him or the voice doing it.

"Built by who."

"That answer requires context you do not have yet."

"Then give me context."

"Not here. There are wounded in the east block. Three minutes without intervention and two of them do not make it. I am giving you a choice."

Ken stood up before the voice finished the sentence.

He moved at a jog toward the east block. His body felt recalibrated. Not stronger. Sharper. Like every sense had been adjusted upward by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. He heard the north perimeter before he saw it.

Three sets of footsteps. Practiced movement. Flanking the medical bay.

"They are already in position," the voice said.

"I know."

"You heard them before I told you. Your auditory range has been enhanced. You will need time to adjust to the difference between what you hear and what you see."

"Stop explaining things I already figured out."

"Noted."

Ken changed direction. Came around the medical bay from the angle they were not watching. The first one he hit without sound. The second reacted fast but trained instinct is still instinct and instinct has patterns.

The third one stopped.

It looked at Ken. Not the way the others had. Not like prey. Like something it had been briefed on.

Then it turned and ran.

Ken started after it.

"Let it go," the voice said.

"It recognised me."

"It recognised me. Which means a command level above it now knows you exist. Chasing it wastes time we do not have."

Ken stopped. He stood in the empty corridor with his fists still closed, watching the space where the creature had been.

He hated that the voice was right.

He turned back toward the medical bay. Inside, four wounded soldiers and a medic with a broken arm trying to cover all of them at once. The medic looked up when Ken walked in. Her eyes went straight to his chest.

No band insignia.

The look lasted half a second. He had seen it a thousand times in two years. The slight recalibration when someone realised he was not one of the chosen. The way their expectations rearranged themselves downward.

He picked up a med kit off the floor and started working without being asked.

"You have no medical training," the voice said.

"Then guide me."

They worked together in silence. The voice directed. Ken's hands followed. Fourteen minutes to stabilise everyone who could be stabilised.

When it was done Ken stood at the window and looked at what was left of the city. There were places on the skyline that simply were not there anymore. Whole sections of the place he had grown up in, erased between morning and now.

He had not grown up with a family. He had aged out of state housing at sixteen and found a room above a laundry shop two blocks from the recruitment office. He had walked past that office every morning for three months before he went in. Not because he wanted to serve. Because staying still had never been something he could make himself do.

The recruitment officer had looked at his results and frowned.

No band. No power. No family record.

"Support capacity," the officer had said. "Non-combat."

Ken had signed the form and walked out without answering.

That was two years ago. He had spent both years preparing for a war the system had decided he was not allowed to fight in.

He touched the center of his chest.

"AIDEN," he said quietly. The name had come to him without thinking. Like remembering something he had always known.

The voice did not correct him.

"Why me," Ken said. "Not the R-Band. Not the A-Band. Me."

The longest silence yet.

"Because of what you carry. Not the blood they tested. The blood they never thought to look for."

Through the window a comm unit crackled on the wall. All surviving personnel to central command. A-Band authorisation. Commander level.

Dave.

Ken had seen him once from a distance. Omega's chosen son. The product of every promise the preselection system had ever made.

He stared at the city for one more second.

Then he turned away from the window.

"One more thing," AIDEN said. "Do not tell anyone about me."

"Why."

"Because not everyone who survived today is on your side."

Ken stopped walking.

He looked back at the medic with the broken arm. She had stopped working. She was watching him with an expression he could not read.

He held her gaze for exactly three seconds.

Then he walked out.