When I wake, the city is different.
It vibrates deeper. Not more loudly, just lower—like something has been shifted in its center. Like energy is being rerouted from where it shouldn't be to where it shouldn't be.
The towers outside are violet.
They only flash like that when Strata agents are all over the place.
Jin is still not home.
Her cot is undisturbed. Her coat is missing.
There's a flashing red badge on our kitchen console.
SECURITY NOTICE: Sector 9 grid interference. Evacuation advised.
I don't touch it.
I already know what it means.
They're drawing lines.
And we're on the wrong side of every one.
At school, the atmosphere's sharp as a blade.
Students march in regulated paths, guided by drones emitting low-frequency commands. Uniform colors are brighter than usual—re-scanned, re-coded, re-approved. But mine remains gray.
Rank: Zero.
The number that now means everything but nothing.
My classes are empty of challenge, full of tension.
I don't pay attention.
I map exits.
Count the watchpoints.
Time air rotation.
At lunch, I don't eat. I watch.
A folded note is slipped under my tray.
"Tonight. Third underlevel. No shadows. No guards."
No signature.
But I already know it's from Angel.
At 21:00 hours, I keep my dorm window open and slide down the vent pipe like I do every week since I was twelve. No alarms. No patrols.
No trouble—until I reach the bottom of the central tower.
Two red-uniformed students stand waiting.
They're silent.
They look at me once.
Then one nods and steps aside.
The access grate creaks open.
I descend.
It's the taste of coolant and metal and ghosts of shelved projects.
Nessa stands waiting.
So does Lio.
And a third person.
A girl I've never seen before.
She's younger than me. Maybe thirteen. Almond-eyed. Too calm.
She doesn't flinch when I enter.
Nessa nods at her. "Sera, this is Miko. One of ours."
The girl salutes. "Codename: Drift."
I blink. "You gave a kid a codename?"
"She deserved it," Nessa replies.
"She hijacked a Sector 3 control array and took down a whole surveillance wing for seven minutes," Lio continues. "With a stylus."
Miko shrugs. "It wasn't encrypted quite right."
She walks over and hands me a chip.
"This is the RankLoop protocol," she says. "Every rank adjustment, scan output, correction—all of this gets run through here before upload."
"And you want me to do what?" I ask.
"Set it on fire," she says. "But not just yet. First, you have to sync it."
"Sync it how?"
"Sync your glyph with the core line," Nessa explains to me. "Be the pulse of the system. Then and only then can you reimplement it."
I don't query how they know it will work.
I simply ask how much it will cost.
We load the core sync test into the old diagnostic bay.
Lio double-checks seal locks as Miko calibrates input.
Nessa inscribes glyphs on my wrists with glowing ink. They hurt.
As the lights die, I move into the chamber.
The air grows thick immediately.
The chip is placed in a reader panel in front of me, tethered to a power conduit by the floor.
A synthetic voice begins to count down.
"Initiating Phase 1: Synchronization."
My hands start to glow.
Not the crazy, flashing white from earlier.
This is more contained.
Bluer."
The glyphs on my arm pulse in time with the machine.
Then faster.
Then faster still.
Until the sync line spikes.
And the voice speaks:
"Override detected. Designation: SEVA_103X. Welcome home."
The lights flick off.
I'm gasping, surrounded by sparks of static in the air.
Miko grins. "You crashed their system. Twice."
Nessa is kneeling beside me. "You made contact. You didn't just override the RankLoop. You spoke to it."
"I don't remember," I whisper.
"You don't need to," she says. "It remembers you."
Lio helps me sit up.
His hand is warm.
Steady.
Present.
"You're not just the end of their system," he says. "You're the next one."
I leave the lab before sunrise.
Back through shadows and tunnels and dormitory silence.
Jin is waiting.
She sits in the kitchen, eyes dark, coat soaked from night air.
"I went to Sector 3," she says.
My throat closes.
"I saw your name on a thread. Voss classified you as threat class omega. No trial. No conditioning."
She inserts her hand into her coat and bangs something down on the table.
It clatters.
A shattered suppressor collar.
"I took it off a girl who resembled you exactly."
We look at each other.
Then she says it.
"I'm finished hiding you."
We do not say anything after that.
We plan.
Together.
For the first time in years.
The morning after, the central plaza of the academy is awash in flags.
Not student artwork.
Not team banners.
Order crests.
Sewn by drones.
Saturation-coded.
No escape.
They signify one thing:
"Comply or Collapse."
Sera Vane is not named.
But the threat is for me.
I know it in the delay of security cameras.
In the quiet when I walk past a classroom.
In the hesitation during class when teachers wait for me to pass on.
And I do.
Until I don't.
At 13:00 hours, I am in the Hall of Ranks.
It's an atrium with computer monoliths along the walls, all of them pulsing with student names, color, and titles. A graphic monument to the system.
I reach the center.
Place my hand on the central pillar.
My glyph pulses.
The screen blanks.
And then all the pillars in the hall begin to flash.
Once.
Then a second time.
Then all of them at once.
As if they're waiting.
I pull out the chip Miko gave me.
Slot it into the override port.
The entire hall goes dark.
A single word appears:
SEVA.
Then:
System pulse unlocked. Waiting directive.
I breathe in.
The glyphs on my skin burn.
But I do not look away.
I say three words.
Not loudly.
But the system hears.
"Begin the breach."