Niri didn't sleep.
The Chancellor's words pressed into her chest like iron plates—quiet, immovable, and heavy. She lay on the cot with her eyes open long after the lights dimmed, the room bathed in filtered blue. Sleep never came. Her mind spun in tight, anxious circles. The image of Yvith Korr's feathered silhouette, the weight behind her every word, played again and again behind Niri's eyes.
You are being watched.
Every syllable still echoed, not just in her thoughts, but in the air itself. It wasn't just the Chancellor anymore. It was everything. Everyone.
She stared at the ceiling until the cycle light shifted to a pale amber, signaling morning.
Niri sat up slowly. Her limbs felt stiff, like she hadn't moved in hours—which she hadn't. Her breath came shallow. She didn't bother checking the time. What difference would it make? The moment the schedule began, she would have to move. So she moved early.
She stood and dressed in the uniform that still didn't feel like it belonged to her. Grey standard-issue weave, breathable and durable. No rank, no insignia. A nothing-color meant for those with undefined roles. The belt clipped tightly across her waist. It hissed slightly as the gravity set, pressing her just a little more into the floor. A strange comfort.
The door opened to a hallway already stirring. No greetings. No acknowledgment. The cadets who passed her were absorbed in their own paths. She kept her gaze low, steps even, breath shallow. Not sneaking. Just silent.
The plaza met her like a slow, pulsing heartbeat. Soft light through the dome panels scattered in geometric shards across the paving. Walkways glimmered with motion. Study kiosks blinked awake. Info screens unfurled fresh layers of academic traffic. The hum of the day was building, and she moved through it like a ghost.
Her wristpad buzzed.
She paused in the shadow of a walkway arch. The display pulsed once, then revealed a full-line system command.
STATUS UPDATE: CORE STUDENT PATH ACTIVATED
Curriculum Tier: Oversight Level Authorization
She opened the schedule.
It loaded like an avalanche:
Diplomacy and Multispecies Relations
War Analysis and Historical Conflict Patterns
Interstellar History: Collapse to Present
Pre-Ascendancy Archaeology
Advanced Logic and Mathematics
Cultural Systems of the Reach
Bioethics and Inter-Species Law
Strategic Civic Theory
Common Script Language Integration (Priority)
All locked. All active. No options to decline, drop, or defer.
A few passersby glanced her way. She didn't return it. She closed the display with a flick of her finger. Her pulse had spiked, but she kept walking.
Another alert pinged.
Behavioral Metrics Enabled – Oversight Channel Active
So they'd started already.
Every step would be logged. Every hesitation. Every error.
She took a breath and let it out through her nose, slow.
Then she followed the first path listed on her new schedule.
---
The amphitheater sat half-sunk into the spine of the mid-tier structure. Students were already filing in. Some moved in clusters, others in solitary quiet. The seating tiered steeply toward a central platform.
The course: War Analysis and Historical Conflict Patterns.
Niri stepped in and located her assigned seat—mid-left, neutral position. Not back row, not exposed. She sat and kept her pad inactive. Her eyes moved across the room, scanning without trying to. Everyone else looked like they belonged here.
The professor entered moments later. Tall. Slender. No ornamentation to his robes. His voice carried immediately.
"We begin with escalation."
He said nothing else for ten full seconds.
Then the feed activated. A holograph of border space. The Nharin Conflict. A familiar name—barely. The projected interface outlined five key phases. Each one labeled by historical timestamp.
"Causes?" the professor asked.
A student raised a hand. "Trade violations."
Another: "Alliance posturing."
A third: "Cultural incompatibility. Mutual disrespect."
The professor allowed it all. Nodded once. Said nothing.
Niri watched the map shift. Data streams rolled beneath it—resource movement, refugee displacement, deployment patterns.
She raised her hand.
The professor looked directly at her.
"Yes?"
"Resource control," she said. Her voice was calm, clear. "Specifically the refraction basin in the eastern quadrant. Whoever controlled it held energy leverage for both sectors."
The room stilled.
The professor paused, then said, "Correct."
No praise. No commentary. Just confirmation.
But something shifted after that.
The way the next slide moved. The way the silence held a second longer. A few students looked her way—not with recognition, but with new attention.
The rest of the lecture passed in a measured rhythm. The professor introduced two more historical escalations, layered in cause and effect. She tracked all of them before he finished. Pressure points. Resource competition hidden beneath ideological masks.
When it ended, no one stopped her. No one said anything.
But the professor made a note on his slate:
Exceptional logic reflex. Advance tracking advised.
---
Next: Advanced Logic and Mathematics.
Different building. Smaller lecture room. White light everywhere.
She entered late and slid into the nearest open seat.
Numbers already floated in the air—layered scripts scrolling from three focal points across the room. Students stared into the light, hands moving across pads as data compiled and translated.
The instructor didn't look up.
Niri activated her pad.
Within thirty seconds, she knew she was lost.
Not confused—obliterated.
The translation interface pulsed in a corner of her vision, but even the "simplified" feed was a crush of nested equations, recursive notation, glyphs she didn't recognize. The instructor spoke fast, layering logic strings with variant alignments.
Students around her were inputting answers in real-time.
She sat still.
The more she stared, the more abstract it became. Not like a code she could break—more like a language she was never meant to hear.
She stared at one floating equation for a full minute, heart rate ticking higher. It meant nothing. Symbols blurred. Context dissolved.
She looked away.
By the time the class ended, she hadn't touched her pad.
She stood and left with the others. No one noticed. Her file would still register attendance. That was all it would register.
The corridor outside was bright. Too bright. She moved into the first shaded walkway she could find, leaned back against the wall, and exhaled.
A small sound escaped her lips—something close to a laugh, but dry.
"So much for a quiet start."