The GAIA system was glitching. Again.
I slouched in my seat, shoulders slumped like a rag doll, eyes half-lidded. The clock above the holographic board ticked past 8:05 a.m., sharp and hollow. The classroom hummed—a low, monotonous drone, so constant it was almost alive.
Mr. Riz flailed at the screen behind him, waving his arms like he was conducting an orchestra that didn't exist. His words washed over me like white noise: a symphony of ritualized civility.
"…Today is your awakening ceremony," he said, clipped, professional, every syllable precise. "We'll be heading to the GAIA Talent Bureau at 9:00 a.m. for your talent scans."
I didn't care. Not that I was apathetic—it was exhaustion more than anything. Six months of the same spiel, the same excited murmurs, the same fake hope. Nothing felt real anymore. Not the school, not the students, not the way the city gleamed outside the reinforced glass with its promise of opportunity and quiet despair.
"Now, remember," Mr. Riz said, flipping to a new slide. The process, he said, though I could only hear the word "process" and nothing else.
"Just because you don't awaken a talent today doesn't mean it's the end of the road. You all have two chances. If you don't awaken today, the second awakening program is your backup."
A few scattered chuckles rose and fell, like frightened birds in a cage. Everyone knew the second program was a gamble—a coin toss with their futures riding on it. Few bothered. Fewer survived intact.
"Anyone who successfully awakens will be assigned to a GAIA Talent Academy," Mr. Riz continued, his tone growing enthusiastic. "Those with an A rank or higher will receive invites to select their academy. Choose wisely; your future depends on it."
A shiver of excitement rustled the classroom, faint but tangible. "A rank" was a promise. Prestige. Doors. Power. But the thrill didn't touch me. Ranks, academies, accolades—it all felt like someone else's game. I wasn't sure I wanted to play.
Mr. Riz finished, striding toward the door, leaving a classroom vibrating with whispers, half-nervous, half-hopeful. Faces glowed with anticipation. I watched them. I couldn't remember what it felt like to feel that.
"Hey, Noah, you ready?"
Graham. Grinning like he'd swallowed sunlight. Lanky, messy brown hair, eyes alive. A childhood friend. A relic of simpler days. His voice yanked me out of my spiraling thoughts.
"Ready for what?" I asked, stretching, lying back against the edge of my seat. Half-hearted smile. Don't crush his buzz.
"To see my talent!" His grin widened, nearly manic. "I've been training. Stats above average, for sure. Maybe even an A! I bet—"
I raised an eyebrow. "You're not the only one with above-average stats." My tone neutral, but my mind went elsewhere. My HUD hadn't shown mine in weeks. Everything blank, everything question marks. Strength? Intelligence? Energy acuity? Gone.
Graham leaned closer, whispering, conspiratorial. "Come on, you're worried about a low rank, huh?"
I laughed. Hollow. "Nah. I'll go. Just… don't expect much."
******
By 8:30 a.m., the school's front entrance buzzed with teens chattering like startled birds, each carrying a cocktail of hope and fear. Shuttles lined up to take us to the GAIA Talent Bureau. Air thick with anticipation. My chest, empty. Detached. I floated above it all, watching. Ghost in the crowd.
The Talent Bureau was monumental. Wide, sterile, humming with invisible energy. Teens from all over—bright-eyed, trembling, some nervous, some smug. Disinfectant tang and ozone lingered like ghosts. GAIA's systems pulsed in the background, a heartbeat stitched into the building itself. Efficient. Sterile. Oppressive.
"Follow me, everyone!" Mr. Riz barked, cutting through the din. "Check in, then proceed to your designated capsule!"
HUD blinked. Check-in required: GTB Registration in progress.
Tap. Hum. Credentials scanned. Pulse ticked faster than it should.
The interface bloomed in front of me: sleek, minimalistic, pulsing with faintly threatening energy. "Accept." Tap.
Verifying applicant…
Seconds stretched, elastic and tight in my chest. Then the screen shifted:
Applicant verified. Welcome to the GAIA Talent Bureau.
Normal. Clinical. Boring. Except… the stats.
Name: Noah Adler
Age: 16
Talent: None
Class: None
DA: ???
EA: ???
Attributes: ???
I froze. What the hell? I'd seen my stats before—my strength, intelligence, potential—all there. Now? Void. Blank. A hollow cavity where numbers should be.
Graham nudged me, oblivious. "See? Told you. Above average all the way."
I forced a grin. "Yeah, good for you."
"Hey," he lowered his voice, scanning me, grin fading slightly. "You sure? You don't look so hot."
I didn't answer. My thoughts were already tangled in the glitch, wondering if GAIA had finally caught a system it couldn't predict. Or maybe it was me.
******
The line moved fast. Capsule Fifteen blinked at me like a predator. Cool metal pressed against my skin as I sank into the chair. Lid hissed closed, sealing me in. The hum turned into a low vibration, crawling under my skin, buzzing static along nerves.
Screen lit up. Words floated in neon clarity.
Talent Awakening is initiating…
Warmth spread through me. Then cold. Then warmth again. My HUD blinked, showing progress bars tracking energy and data.
[Energy Acuity (EA) Progress: 35%… 40%… 55%…]
[Data Accumulation (DA) Progress: 21%… 67%…]
A small sense of calm. Maybe this would be simple. Standard. Predictable. Like everyone else.
[Determining Class…]
Screen froze.
[ERROR] [Progress interrupted]
I whispered, "What?"
Then the words appeared. Slow, deliberate. Red. Unignorable.
Initiating Codebreaker…
Heart skipped. Pulse stuttered. "Wait, that's…"
Energy thrummed like a live wire beneath skin, sparking across nerves. HUD flared. Numbers twisted. Letters scrambled. Red warnings blinked. Capsule vibrated, shrieked. Vision fractured into code and static.
CODEBREAKER SYSTEM OVERRIDE: ACTIVATING.
Black. Green. White-hot pins in the brain.
And I understood, with a clarity that rattled bone: GAIA was no longer in control.
******
I opened my eyes to darkness stitched with lines of raw code, a language I could almost read. The hum of the capsule had shifted—alive, aware. My heartbeat echoed in rhythm with it.
I flexed fingers. Sparks danced, imagined but tantalizingly real. Every muscle alive, humming, awake. I tested the HUD. Stats, attributes, energy: all blinking question marks.
And the first rule of power whispered in my head: You either take it… or watch it be taken.
Outside, other capsules hummed. Bright-eyed teens would awaken. Power. Prestige. Roles assigned before their hearts even beat. I? I sat in anomaly. Ghost. Glitch. A system no one could measure.
******
The glitch convulsed—zeroes and ones twisting into jagged, meaningless glyphs, a machine vomiting its own logic. My eyes burned, straining to read the chaos, to pull sense from the static.
And then it unraveled. Letters aligned, symbols bent themselves into order. A sentence blinked up at me like a secret code carved into the air:
Even gods are hackable.
Some call awakening a gift. Others, a curse. Me? I call it leverage. A puzzle written in circuits and blood. Every machine has a flaw. Every god can bleed. And sometimes, the first strike belongs to the quietest shadow—the one hiding inside the folds of light, unseen, unclaimed.
The city would rise tomorrow under GAIA's perfect choreography. Every drone, every streetlight, every pulse of electricity: accounted for.
But I? I would wake to something… else. Something the system hadn't calculated, couldn't predict. Something that whispered in binary, bled in code, and smiled where gods feared to look.