He sprinted down the hallway, tracking the green arrows painted on the floor. He took every sharp turn down the white corridors. Boot steps hammered the tile behind him. Faint voices shouted for him to stop.
There would be no second chances anymore. This was his second chance. Hiro's words rang in his head about resting and trying again next year.
He probably could.
His eyes dropped to his bruised arm. They told him it was dead just a short while ago. Cold air hit his hand, and his fingers answered with a sharp, unpleasant sting. None of it made sense. He didn't understand what had happened to his body. He only knew he could move and he needed to use it.
He came up to a double sliding bolt door.
It hissed open.
He walked in. The proctor from the first and second rounds stood in the dirt, yelling at the potential recruits. They were all back in their suits with rifles slung over their chests.
The proctor stopped and turned toward Caleb. He gave a loud cough.
"Caleb, what in the world are you doing here? Medical pulled you an hour ago."
A defense force guard grabbed Caleb from behind, locking his arms against his ribs.
"Sorry about the disturbance, sir," the guard grunted, hauling Caleb backward. "I'm removing him."
The recruits turned. A few snickers broke the quiet. Then the laughter died. Eyes dropped to his bare right arm. Purple bruising covered the skin. Burn scars and torn flesh stood out clear against it.
The guard locked his grip tight around Caleb's ribs.
If security dragged him out now, it was over.
He planted his feet and threw his weight forward. The man flipped over his hip and slammed onto his back in the gravel. A shocked grunt burst out of the guard's throat.
The guard rolled. His hand slapped the hard plating at his hip. A green light flared on his belt.
"Five percent output request," the guard muttered.
The suit whined and the guard came in faster than he should have. A gloved palm rushed straight at Caleb's face.
He couldn't duck. The impact caught him in the jaw.
He toppled backward into the dirt. The guard dropped his full weight on top of him, driving an armored knee directly into Caleb's bruised right arm.
Pain tore through his bicep. Caleb ground his teeth together.
Heavy boots crunched on the gravel. Two more defense force officers rushed onto the staging ground.
The head proctor stepped down from his metal platform.
"Now, now," the proctor said. "If he's as injured as the medical report claims, why are you being so rough with him?"
The guard stayed planted on Caleb's arm. He was panting.
"He's stronger than he should be, sir," the guard wheezed. "I can barely hold him down, even using the suit's sync power."
Caleb forced his fingers to curl. He dug his bruised hand into the man's leg and twisted, shoving hard while the guard was distracted. The guard tipped sideways into the dirt.
The victory lasted two seconds.
The other two officers slammed into his back. They drove him face-first into the ground and pinned both his arms tight.
Too heavy. Cannot fight three of them. Ribs are going to snap again.
He tasted dirt and blood. Something in his chest pushed back. It still wasn't enough. He needed a suit. Just let him reach the racks.
The other two officers slammed into his back. They drove him face-first into the ground and pinned both his arms tight.
Too heavy. Cannot fight three of them. Ribs are going to snap again.
He tasted dirt and blood. Something in his chest pushed back. It still wasn't enough. He needed a suit. Just let him reach the racks.
"Stand down."
The proctor's voice cut through the low hum of the staging ground.
The heavy armored knee stayed planted on Caleb's bruised right bicep. The pressure ground his raw muscle against the bone.
"I said off him," the proctor ordered. "Clearance just updated. Applicant 4013 is Black-class. Get back to your posts."
The crushing weight vanished. Winter air hit Caleb's spine.
He pushed up to his hands and knees. He spat a wad of bloody saliva into the gravel. His right arm throbbed a steady, toxic rhythm from the guard's knee, but his chest remained strangely solid. He planted his bare feet and forced his legs to straighten.
"You have two minutes to gear up, 4013," the proctor said. The older man kept his eyes fixed on a glowing datapad. "One flinch on the firing line, and medical carries you out. We test soldiers, not liabilities. Move."
Caleb nodded. He limped toward the surplus racks at the edge of the dirt.
The other recruits were already in formation, fully dressed in their combat suits with rifles slung over their chests. They watched him in dead silence.
He reached the automated tracks. He grabbed the nearest set of standard-issue armor. The jet-black Kaiju muscle fibers felt warm and organic. He pulled the skin-tight suit over his hospital briefs. It clung to his bruised right arm like a compression bandage, covering the purple scarring and torn flesh. He locked the colored armor plating over his chest and knees, strapped the thigh holsters tight, and pulled a surplus rifle from the bin.
He slid the helmet over his head. Three biometric needles punched through the fabric directly into the skin over his spine, connecting his nervous system to the suit's biological battery.
A sharp, electric sting radiated down his back.
He racked the bolt of the rifle. The metal clacked loud in the cold air.
Hiro stepped half a pace out of the recruit formation. He was already strapped into a pristine infantry harness, his hands gripping his rifle tight. His knuckles were white.
"You are entirely insane," Hiro muttered, his voice barely carrying over the wind. "They were going to break your arm. You don't fight security."
"I needed the gear," Caleb said, walking over to join the line.
Iharu leaned out from the second row. The redhead wore custom crimson-trimmed armor. A personal camera drone hovered over his shoulder, tracking his face.
"Watch closely, chat," Iharu announced to his drone. "The scrubber broke out of the ICU to play soldier. Don't blink or you'll miss his elimination."
Kikaru stood ten yards down the line. She cast a single, scathing glance toward Caleb's taped knuckles gripping the surplus gun. She turned her back to him, locking her posture in absolute disgust.
The massive digital board above the blast doors chimed.
Names and sync rates scrolled in bright yellow text.
KIKARU SHINOMIYA - 72%.
Kikaru's suit hummed with a sleek, high-tech vibration. The bio-engineered fibers contracted perfectly around her joints. She rolled her shoulders, her physical strength drastically multiplied by the armor.
IHARU REKAIKU - 15%.
The redhead shifted his weight, tapping his boots against the gravel in a rapid, energetic rhythm.
HIRO OKUDA - 18%.
Hiro let out a shaky breath. He executed a shallow knee bend to test the power release in his legs.
A dull, flat beep sounded inside Caleb's helmet.
CALEB MERCER - 1.2%.
The Kaiju muscle fibers in Caleb's suit twitched. A faint hum of energy washed over his body. He felt his raw physical output increase by a tiny fraction. It was a boost, but against prodigies pushing past fifteen or seventy percent, he was basically just a regular guy holding a gun.
Static popped in his right ear piece.
The military blue HUD inside his visor flickered. Lines of code corrupted into a deep, vibrant purple.
[??? : Look at you. Covered in dirt and still standing.]
Caleb ground his teeth together. He checked the rifle's safety switch.
[??? : You refuse to stay down. It makes my heart race. Let the prodigies play with their expensive toys. I love a cornered dog. Keep fighting for me.]
The purple text vanished. The standard blue targeting reticle snapped back into place.
The proctor stepped onto a metal crate.
"This is a baseline calibration," the proctor announced. "We check your targeting and your weapon handling. The visors track distance. The suits act as a battery, storing and releasing power to compensate for recoil. Clear your targets."
The heavy steel blast doors ground open.
A wide, smog-choked firing range stretched out before them. Painted mechanical targets hid in the shadows of ruined concrete walls.
"Line up!"
Caleb jogged to the painted white line.
The starting siren shrieked.
Mechanical whines bounced off the concrete. A dozen crawler targets popped up from the rubble.
Iharu fired instantly. The custom rifle barked in rapid three-round bursts. His suit absorbed the heavy kickback flawlessly. He dropped four targets in three seconds, laughing for his camera drone.
Kikaru barely looked like she was aiming. She brought her weapon up in one smooth arc. Her visor glowed blue. She pulled the trigger. Dead center. The steel target shattered. She shifted her hips, letting the suit carry her momentum, and fired again. Perfect accuracy.
Caleb raised his surplus rifle.
His right bicep burned. The 1.2 percent boost helped, but it wasn't enough to make the military rifle feel weightless.
He looked through the visor.
Data flooded his vision. Blinking red boxes. Wind velocity metrics. Distance counters. Trajectory lines. It was total sensory overload. The numbers shifted and blurred every time his grip trembled.
A mechanical target snapped up behind a concrete pillar fifty yards out.
Caleb tried to track it. He swung the barrel to the right. He squeezed the trigger.
The rifle kicked like a mule. The massive recoil tore through his grip. The suit's bio-fibers tried to absorb the shock, but at 1.2 percent, it was like putting a bandage on a sledgehammer. The kinetic force slammed straight into his collarbone.
White pain flared in his neck. The barrel jerked high.
The round blew a chunk of concrete off a wall ten feet above the target.
A harsh red MISS flashed across his visor.
Iharu snorted from the next lane over. "Did he just shoot the sky? Unbelievable."
Kikaru ignored the noise, methodically reloading her weapon.
Hiro leaned over the painted white line. "Caleb."
Caleb lowered the smoking barrel. His shoulder throbbed.
"The HUD is too much," Hiro said quietly, keeping his own rifle trained downrange. "Ignore the numbers on the side. Just find the green dot in the center. And don't brace for the shot."
Caleb wiped sweat from his chin guard. "If I don't brace, it's going to break my jaw."
"The fibers will catch it," Hiro said. "Just let the suit absorb it. Trust the tissue."
Another mechanical target sprang up from a rusted car hood.
Caleb inhaled. The cold smog stung his throat.
He raised the rifle. He ignored the scrolling wind data. He ignored the distance metrics. He focused entirely on the tiny green dot hovering in the center of the glass.
He placed the dot over the target's painted chest.
He relaxed his shoulders. He stopped fighting the recoil.
He pulled the trigger.
The gun exploded backward. Just before the stock shattered his collarbone, the biological fibers in the suit hardened. The suit absorbed just enough of the massive kinetic shock to keep his arm in the socket.
The round tore through the smog.
The mechanical target shattered into jagged steel fragments.
A green HIT blinked on the HUD.
The proctor blew a sharp whistle.
"Cease fire. Safeties on."
The mechanical targets dropped. The smog-choked street fell quiet.
Caleb lowered his rifle. The iron barrel dragged his bruised arm down. He tasted dirt and copper.
"This was a baseline screening," the proctor announced, walking the painted white line. "The Defense Force does not carry dead weight. The minimum score to advance is twelve confirmed hits. Look at the board."
The digital screen above the blast doors shifted. The sync rates vanished. Scores populated in descending order.
Kikaru Shinomiya sat at the absolute top.
114 Hits. Perfect Accuracy.
Iharu Rekaiku followed close behind.
98 Hits.
The names scrolled rapidly. Red lines struck through the recruits who missed the cutoff. The board narrowed the field from two hundred down to less than eighty.
Caleb stared at the bottom of the screen. His chest heaved.
The scrolling stopped.
A single name sat at the very bottom, hovering right above the red elimination line.
Caleb Mercer. 12 Hits.
Dead last.
He hit exactly the minimum. He wasted almost every round in his magazine. His shoulder throbbed from absorbing the suit's recoil system. The numerical gap between him and the prodigies was a glaring chasm.
Humiliation curled in his gut. He locked his jaw.
It was ugly. Ugly still counted.
"Are you kidding me?" Iharu barked.
The redhead leaned heavily against his custom rifle. He pointed a gloved finger at the bottom row. His voice filled the quiet staging ground, injecting a raw jolt of energy back into the recruits.
"Twelve? The guy shot the ceiling!" Iharu let out a barking laugh. "Hey, scrubber. Try not to die in the next phase. I want to watch you wash out on my stream."
It was loud. It was mocking. It also proved Iharu was paying attention to him.
Kikaru ejected her spent magazine. It clattered against the asphalt. She kept her back to Caleb. Her eyes flicked up to the bottom of the scoreboard.
"He wasted eighty percent of his ammunition fighting his own armor," she muttered, adjusting her gauntlet. "A complete statistical anomaly. If he survives the next hour, it will be a miracle."
She marched toward the inner staging doors. She dismissed him with her words, but she checked his score. She knew he passed.
Hiro walked over. The kid looked exhausted. Sweat soaked his face beneath the helmet. A relieved smile broke across his face.
"Twelve," Hiro said. "You got twelve."
"Barely," Caleb rasped.
Hiro gave a sincere nod. "You passed."
Caleb looked down at his bruised right hand. The fingers were stiff. The iron gun felt heavy. He was completely outclassed, physically wrecked, and standing in dead last.
He adjusted his grip on the rifle.
"Yeah," Caleb said. "Still in."