Yesu opened her eyes.

The first thing she noticed was the humming.

Machines.

Dozens of them.

Soft lights blinked across metal panels positioned around the room.

The second thing she noticed was that she couldn’t move.

Leather restraints held her wrists and ankles firmly against a chair.

She blinked once.

Twice.

Then turned her head.

"Doctor Heck?"

Doctor Heckman looked up from a report.

His face immediately brightened.

"Excellent." He checked his watch. "You woke up earlier than expected."

Yesu blinked.

"What am I doing here?"

Doctor Heckman lowered the report. He looked offended.

"You missed our appointment last Saturday. I waited and you were a no show."

Yesu was puzzled for a moment.

"Right. Everyone got locked up in the Academy over the weekend to prepare for Trials."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Which is still ongoing."

"Hmm." Was all Doctor Heckman said.

Yesu looked around the room. It was a very small lab. The floor, walls and roof were made of metal.

The shape was rectangular.

A trailer.

"So I missed an appointment, and then you kidnapped me and strapped me to a chair like a criminal?"

She sounded like someone simply observing a scene, not particularly affected by it.

Doctor Heckman waved a hand. "That is not what happened."

"It looks exactly like what happened."

"I asked Echelon to bring you properly."

"And?"

"They refused."

Yesu cocked her head. "Why?"

"Apparently, escorting you out of an active school event would attract attention."

Yesu considered that.

"So kidnapping attracts less attention then?"

"Seems like it."

Doctor Heckman looked pleased.

"As for the restraints, the people who brought you here were wary of you."

Yesu sighed, relaxing in her confinement.

"Still, this isn’t cool."

Doctor Heckman nodded slowly.

"Well noted."

He pulled over a stool and sat opposite her, eyes eager.

"Tell me something."

Yesu was facing the ceiling. "What?"

"Were you scared?" Doctor Heckman asked curiously. "When you were suddenly whisked away?"

Yesu thought about it for like a minute. Then she shifted her gaze from the ceiling to the Doctor.

She looked him straight in the eye without a word.

Doctor Heckman’s smile widened.

"Wonderful."

"Huh?"

"As expected."

He reached for a tray nearby.

"Your complete lack of fear isn’t even the interesting part anymore."

He held up a syringe filled with clear liquid.

"This was the sedative used on you earlier. I made it myself."

Doctor Heckman’s grin grew wider.

"Ten times stronger than standard human sedatives."

He pointed upward dramatically.

"Enough to put down an elephant."

Yesu blinked. "So?"

Doctor Heckman looked delighted.

"You woke up five minutes after the first injection."

He stood.

"Completely functional."

He held up three fingers.

"So they administered three more. And now you wake up ten minutes later."

Yesu stared at him blankly.

Doctor Heckman hurried to a nearby table and grabbed a test tube half-filled with blood.

"I ran a test."

He held it up to the light.

"Large amounts of sedative remain in your bloodstream." His eyes shone behind his glasses. "Active sedative."

He pointed an excited finger at her.

"By the laws of science and nature, you should not be conscious."

A pause.

"You should barely be breathing." He shrugged nonchalantly. "Or dead perhaps."

Another pause.

"Yet here you are."

He spread his arms, like someone just making a big discovery.

"How is that even possible?"

The question sounded rhetorical, so Yesu didn’t bother to think about it, much less answer.

And even if it wasn’t a rhetoric question she wouldn’t have had the solution anyway.

A long pause followed.

"I’ll tell you how it’s possible." Doctor Heckman said finally.

He grinned.

"Adaptation."

Yesu’s brows furrowed.

"Adapt... what?"

The Doctor laughed. "Do you learn much biology at school?"

Yesu shook her head.

"Not really."

Doctor Heckman sighed heavily.

"What a tragedy."

He began muttering to himself.

"System education. Ability rankings. Combat training. Nobody teaches useful things anymore."

"They don’t."

Doctor Heckman looked up, surprised.

"You agree?"

Yesu nodded.

"Of course. Everyone has just been fighting since the trials started."

She glanced around the laboratory, as if she could see outside. See the trial grounds.

"It’s either that or they’re trying to outsmart one another."

She sighed.

"And it’s barely been two days."

The Doctor looked oddly pleased by that observation.

"Exactly." He said it quietly, like it was something he had never said before.

A brief silence followed.

Then Yesu tilted her head. "When can I go back?"

Doctor Heckman’s smile faded.

For the first time since she woke up, he took his time answering.

His fingers tapped lightly against the test tube.

Then he looked directly at her.

"You won’t be returning to the trials at all."

"Why not?" Yesu asked.

For the first time since waking up, she sounded genuinely incredulous.

Doctor Heckman folded his arms.

"Because we have multiple tests to run."

He began pacing around the room.

"I’ve been studying your bodily patterns. Your behavioural patterns. Medical reports. Assessment records."

His eyes gleamed.

"And I am this close to understanding exactly what you are."

"What I am?" Yesu echoed, then shook the thought out of her head. "I want to go back to the trials."

The Doctor looked disappointed.

"I have something my squad needs to claim today." She continued.

Instantly, his expression changed. Interest returned.

"Oh?" He leaned forward. "Do you, perhaps, care whether your squad succeeds or not?"

Yesu paused.

She considered the question carefully.

"I think I do."

Doctor Heckman’s eyes widened.

"Excellent."

He hurried to a nearby table and shuffled through several documents.

"Do you have things you care about?" He asked.

"Sometimes."

"Since when?"

That question took longer.

Yesu thought deeply.

Doctor Heckman returned holding a printed brain scan.

He held it up.

"Yours." He explained. "Back at the Assessment Facility."

He tapped the image.

"When you sat beneath the Heckman Classifier, I stored your neural information."

Doctor Heckman pointed at several highlighted regions.

"What caught my attention was this."

He tapped the page repeatedly.

"Large portions associated with normal emotional processing are dormant."

Yesu stared at the scan.

At him.

Then back at the scan.

She looked more confused than ever.

Doctor Heckman sighed.

"Meaning those systems aren’t functioning properly."

He tapped another section.

"Instead, your brain appears to have diverted enormous resources into one singular priority."

His finger landed on a highlighted region.

"Survival."

A pause.

"Your survival instincts have been amplified far beyond normal human parameters."

Silence filled the laboratory.

Yesu lowered her eyes.

So that was it.

Why Millie’s hugs never felt like anything.

Why she had felt nothing when her parents died.

Why becoming an orphan had simply... happened.

Why Aunt Mei’s abandonment had felt no different from the weather.

Why life always seemed like something occurring around her rather than to her.

She had never truly been living.

Only continuing.

Only surviving.

Eventually, she looked back up.

"I still have to go."

Doctor Heckman said nothing.

"My squad may not need me." Her hand moved unconsciously toward her pocket. "But they’ll need the Scales."

Doctor Heckman remained silent.

For the first time since she had awakened, he wasn’t looking at test results.

Or brain scans.

Or blood samples.

He was studying her.

Thinking.

Contemplating.