The central hall was too bright.
Not welcoming-bright. Clinical.
Rows of seats curved around a lowered stage, lights angled downward so every face was visible from above. First-years filled the lower section. Upperclassmen lined the balcony railings like spectators at a match that hadn't officially started.
Aiden took a seat halfway up.
Not front.
Not back.
Kael sat to his left. Thorne dropped into the chair on his right with a sigh that drew a few irritated glances.
"You think they're going to explain what that was?" Thorne whispered.
"No," Kael replied.
Aiden didn't answer.
On stage, Instructor Sel stepped forward.
No microphone.
Didn't need one.
"What you witnessed," she said, "was a containment drill."
A quiet ripple of disbelief spread across the hall.
Sel continued without pause.
"The breach was controlled. The risk was calculated. The response time met expectations."
A student near the front stood halfway. "He's still unconscious."
"Yes," Sel said. "He is."
No apology. No reassurance.
The student sat back down.
Aiden watched the balcony instead of the stage.
Most upperclassmen looked bored.
One did not.
Third railing from the left. White uniform accents. Lean build. Still posture. Watching the first-years without moving.
Not scanning.
Focused.
Aiden's eyes shifted before they could lock too long.
Sel clasped her hands behind her back.
"You are here because your cores stabilized above the national minimum threshold. That does not make you strong. It makes you usable."
The word sat heavy in the room.
"Outer Noise incidents have increased in density over the past six months. Breaches are no longer random. They are responding to something."
She let that settle.
Kael leaned slightly toward Aiden. "Responding to what?"
Aiden kept his gaze forward. "Signal density."
Kael didn't reply, but he didn't disagree either.
Sel continued. "You will train in squads of three. Squad synergy matters more than individual output. A flawless high-output resonance user who destabilizes the formation is a liability."
A pause.
"Squad assignments have been pre-determined."
A screen behind her lit up.
Names began scrolling.
Aiden didn't expect to see anything surprising.
Then he saw it.
Squad 17.
Kael Ren.
Thorne Vance.
Aiden Vale.
No mistake.
Thorne let out a low whistle. "Guess we're stuck with each other."
Kael's expression didn't change, but his eyes shifted briefly toward Aiden.
That wasn't coincidence.
Assignments were data-based.
Compatibility.
Stability under stress.
Aiden's 41 should not have placed him with a 72 scorer.
Unless the real measurements weren't visible.
More names scrolled.
Squad 3 caught his eye.
At the bottom: Lyra Morn.
The name echoed faintly in memory.
He didn't know her personally, but he knew the reputation. Tactical cognition index near the top of her intake year. Quiet. Sharp. Observant.
And she had been standing near the distortion earlier.
Not close enough to engage.
Close enough to observe.
Sel dismissed them with a final instruction.
"First training cycle begins at 0600. Dorm curfew is midnight. Violations will lower your evaluation standing."
Students stood in waves.
Noise returned slowly.
Aiden rose with his squad and moved toward the exit.
As they reached the corridor, a voice spoke behind him.
"You felt it, didn't you?"
Not Kael.
Not Thorne.
Female voice.
Calm.
Close.
Aiden turned.
Lyra Morn stood two steps behind him.
Up close, she looked even more composed than she had from a distance. Dark hair pulled back cleanly. Eyes that didn't dart or fidget — they locked.
"I felt a lot of things," Aiden said evenly.
Her gaze didn't waver.
"The activation disruption. It wasn't suppression field interference. It was layered."
Kael stopped walking.
Thorne looked between them. "Layered?"
Lyra ignored him.
She focused on Aiden.
"And when the array flickered during your evaluation earlier," she said, "it showed the same delay pattern."
Thorne blinked. "Wait."
Aiden held her gaze.
"You're making assumptions."
"I am," she agreed. "But I prefer testing them early."
A few students flowed around them in the hallway, annoyed at the obstruction.
Lyra tilted her head slightly.
"Your frequency doesn't stabilize cleanly," she said. "It bends around interference rather than resisting it."
Kael spoke before Aiden could respond. "You were analyzing everyone's output?"
"Yes."
She didn't sound embarrassed about it.
Thorne folded his arms. "And what's yours?"
Lyra looked at him briefly.
"Reflection."
Aiden felt something click.
Reflection wasn't passive mimicry.
It absorbed structure and returned modified output.
That explained the observation.
She wasn't just watching.
She was mapping.
She shifted her attention back to Aiden.
"I don't think you caused the disruption," she said. "Your field strength is lower."
Honest.
Calculated.
Not accusing.
"That's comforting," Thorne muttered.
Lyra continued.
"But whoever did it used a resonance technique that shares conceptual overlap with yours."
Aiden said nothing.
She waited.
Not pushing.
Just watching his reaction.
He gave her none.
Finally, she stepped aside to let other students pass.
"If it happens again," she said quietly, "I'd prefer to know whether you're a variable or a constant."
Then she walked past them.
Thorne exhaled sharply. "Okay. She's intense."
Kael's eyes were thoughtful. "She's right about the pattern."
Aiden resumed walking.
"She's fishing," he said.
"For what?" Thorne asked.
"For alliances," Kael answered.
Aiden didn't correct him.
But that wasn't the only thing she was fishing for.
She was checking for reaction latency.
She wanted to know if his emotional response spiked at the accusation.
It hadn't.
That was deliberate.
By the time they reached the dorm wing, the hallway had emptied.
Thorne broke the silence. "So. Squad seventeen. Are we trying to win, or survive?"
Aiden stopped at their door.
He looked at both of them.
"Those aren't different goals."
Thorne stared at him for a second, then laughed under his breath.
Kael didn't.
Inside the room, the air felt still again.
Normal.
Too normal.
Aiden sat on his bed and closed his eyes briefly.
Interference stirred faintly under his ribs.
Not reacting to danger now.
Reacting to proximity.
There was someone in this academy whose frequency ran parallel to his own.
Not identical.
But close enough to intersect.
And parallel frequencies either synchronized…
Or collided hard enough to tear something open.
He opened his eyes.
First training cycle started in less than eight hours.
And someone had already begun testing fault lines.