Life on Skorrag had a way of forcing itself back into place, no matter how much the world shifted beneath it, and by the next cycle I found myself returning to the same routines that had defined every day before the mine, even though nothing about me felt the same.
I woke early, not because I had rested well, but because the habit had long since replaced comfort, and as I stepped out into the thin, dust-laden air, I became aware of how easily the familiar environment tried to reclaim my attention, as though the events of the past days had been something distant rather than something that had rewritten the way I saw the world.
The settlement moved as it always did, with quiet urgency and low expectation, people carrying tools, hauling scrap, and negotiating over small quantities of resources that meant survival for another day, and yet beneath that normalcy there was a shift that could not be ignored.
The presence of the regime had spread through the networks faster than any official announcement ever could, and now it lived in the conversations of workers, in the tension behind glances, and in the constant awareness that something larger had taken interest in a planet that had always been overlooked.
Mary was already awake by the time I returned to the shelter, and as usual she was working, her focus entirely absorbed in something that only made partial sense to me. Despite her age, she had grown into what the settlement called a techno, someone capable of interfacing with advanced systems through augmented and virtual overlays that most of us could barely process, let alone control. The equipment she used was patched together from salvaged components and outdated systems, yet in her hands it behaved with a level of precision that made it seem far more advanced than it actually was.
I had never understood how she learned any of it. There had been no formal training, no structured teaching, nothing that should have allowed someone her age to operate at that level, and the only explanation I could settle on was the group shelter we had once been part of, a place where skills circulated in ways that did not follow normal patterns. While I spent my time in the mines, taking whatever work I could get, she had been somewhere else, building something I could not see until it was already there.
Not that I minded. If anything, it meant she had options I never did.
I stepped out again soon after, heading toward the lower shafts where I worked as a mine rat, the kind of job that required little skill but a high tolerance for risk, and as I moved through the network of tunnels and access points, the conversations around me became impossible to ignore. The miners' network had been flooded with speculation, each version of the story drifting further from reality than the last, and it had already begun to shape how people understood what had happened.
"They say the regime is setting up permanent control," one man said as he adjusted a piece of equipment that looked like it had failed more times than it had worked.
"That's because they found something valuable," another replied, his tone confident despite the lack of evidence. "Rare ore, something big. That's why they came."
I listened without interrupting, not because I agreed, but because it was easier than explaining something they would not believe.
They were wrong.
Completely wrong.
But they had no way of knowing that.
To them, the idea that the regime would arrive for anything other than material gain made no sense, because that was the only language Skorrag understood.
One of them even suggested that the entire planet might be taken over, turned into something more controlled, more productive, as if that were a possibility anyone should welcome. I shook my head slightly as I moved past them, resisting the urge to correct them,
The rest of the day passed in familiar patterns, physical labor blending into repetition, my mind splitting between the work in front of me and the constant awareness of the change that had taken root beneath it. Every time I looked at someone, the overlay appeared if I focused long enough, faint and precise, the same structured information repeating itself across different faces.
Human | Level 2 | Psi: 0
Human | Level 1 | Psi: 0
Human | Level 3 | Psi: 0
The numbers varied slightly, but never by much, and the consistency of it made it difficult to ignore. Whatever this system was, whatever it measured, it placed everyone within a range that suggested limitation, not potential.
I did not yet know where I stood.
That uncertainty stayed with me.
By the time the work cycle ended, the light had already begun to fade, the sky shifting toward the dull tones that marked the approach of night, and I stepped out onto the surface just as Mary arrived, the small engine of her moped cutting through the low hum of the settlement with a sound that was almost comforting in its familiarity.
She pulled up beside me with the same steady confidence she carried in everything else, her expression relaxed despite the environment around us, and gestured for me to get on without needing to say anything.
"Something happened at the pit," she said as we began to move, her voice carrying easily over the wind. "There's a new champion."
I shifted slightly behind her, settling into position. "From here?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No. Not from Skorrag."
That alone was enough to make it unusual, but I did not press further. There were always stories about the pits, always something new to draw attention, and for now it was not something I needed to involve myself in.
Instead, my focus shifted again, not outward, but inward, toward the system I had begun to understand in fragments. As we moved through the settlement, I tested it again, allowing my gaze to settle briefly on people as we passed them, watching the overlays appear and disappear with each shift in focus.
When I looked at Mary, it appeared again.
Human | Level 1 | Psi: 0
The same as the others.
No difference.
No exception.
I frowned slightly, not because I expected something else, but because it confirmed something I had already begun to suspect.
This system did not see potential.
It measured something else entirely.
We reached the shelter not long after, the structure barely visible against the surrounding terrain, its worn exterior blending into the environment as if it had always been part of it. Mary slowed the moped as we approached, bringing it to a controlled stop before stepping off, her movements efficient and practiced.
I followed, my attention lingering for a moment on the quiet around us, the distant sounds of the settlement fading into the background as the reality of the day settled into place.
Everything had changed.
And yet everything looked the same.
I stepped inside after her, the door closing behind us with a dull, familiar sound, and for the first time since leaving the mine, I allowed myself a moment to think about what came next, knowing that whatever this system was, whatever it was becoming, it was not something I could ignore.
Not anymore.