The boundary was transparent. That was the worst part.

  Kai stood in the center of the vast hall and stared at it—not a wall, not a fence, just a strip in the floor, barely noticeable, light gray on dark gray concrete. Ten centimeters wide. Nothing. And yet—everyone knew where it was. Everyone was already on one side or the other, and no one stood upon it except for Kai.

  To the left—armchairs. Soft, with armrests, spaced out so there was room between them—personal space, a luxury Kai had never really known. Carpet underfoot—not synthetic, something denser. Quiet voices. Properly tailored clothes. Several people already held thin tablets—where they’d gotten them from was unclear; they just had them, as if that were the way things should be.

  To the right—metal benches along the walls. A smell Kai knew: sweat, cheap air filters, a hint of fear—not sharp, not fresh, but the kind that had been lingering for hours. People stood or sat on the floor wherever they could find space—not because there weren't enough benches, it just happened that way. Someone by the wall, someone right in the middle of the aisle. No one spoke loudly.

  Varra appeared nearby noiselessly. Kai didn't hear footsteps—he just was, and then he was beside him. A tablet in his left hand, a gaze at Kai—quick, evaluative, like in the car but shorter. Then—a nod. To the right.

  A single gesture. Without words. Kai looked at him for a second—just looked—then walked to the right. He found a spot by the wall. Not a bench—just the wall, cool through his jacket. He stood. Looked around.

  The first thing he did—routes. A habit from the farm, from the horizons, from any unfamiliar space: two exits visible, a third guessed behind a distant partition. No guards—or they were there, but not in uniform, not in sight. Varra—alone, at the center of the hall. The guard from the car—gone, stayed outside, meaning his job was finished.

  Then—the people.

  The right side was clear immediately. Farming sectors, slums, a couple from the mining sectors—Kai recognized them by their hands, by how they held their shoulders, by the habit of taking up less space than there was. Young—all between sixteen and nineteen; the system didn't take younger and didn't wait for older. A few girls. One guy with the same scars on his palms as Kai—technical, not combat, from tools. He was staring at the floor.

  Then Kai looked to the left.

  The "Domer" from the car was already sitting. He’d already found a chair—not the first one he saw, the second from the aisle, the better one. Legs crossed. He held a tablet—scrolling through something, not reading, just holding it. On his face—the same as in the car: not anger, not fear, just the habitual rexation of a person to whom it had never occurred that the world might not be arranged for him.

  He looked at Kai. He didn't recognize him—or pretended not to. His gaze passed over him like an object of the environment—wall, bench, person by the wall—and went back to the tablet. Exactly that. Not the malice from the car, not tension, not even a sneer. Simply—furniture. Simply—part of the background.

  Kai watched him for three seconds. Then he looked away.

  There was anger—he felt it, low in his belly, dull and familiar. Not at the "Domer" specifically. At the fact that this gaze was accurate. At the fact that in this hall, with this boundary in the floor, with these armchairs on the left and this wall on the right—the "Domer" was right about the furniture. That is exactly how it is arranged. That is exactly what the right side means.

  Kai pushed the anger away. Not because he didn't have the right—because anger is a waste. You can't waste here for nothing.

  He looked further. And found the stranger.

  He sat by the wall—right side, corner, the bottom tier if there were a bunk. Back straight, legs extended, hands on knees—free, without tension. He stared ahead. Not at Kai, not at the "Domer," not at Varra with the tablet. Just—ahead, into space, like a man who has already looked at everything he needed to and is now waiting.

  Kai couldn't understand why it was irritating. Maybe because everyone around was doing something—looking, talking, thinking, fearing, not fearing, pretending. And this one just sat there. Without effort. As if the waiting hall in the womb of Object "Zero" were a pce he had been before. As if the boundary in the floor, the armchairs on the left, the metal on the right—all of it was known to him in advance and required no reaction.

  Too calm. Kai had remembered that word regarding him back in the car. Now it was more accurate. The stranger didn't look at Kai. Kai didn't look either—he turned away, found the gear in his pocket, began to turn it.

  The hall hummed with a quiet background sound—voices, movement, somewhere far off, ventition. Nothing sharp. Object "Zero" was quiet. This in itself was strange—such a rge building, so many people, and such silence. As if the walls absorbed it. Or as if noise wasn't allowed here. As if already at the entrance it was clear—this isn't your pce for making noise.

  Varra walked through the hall—unhurried, measured—and stood at the passage in the left section. He said something to several "Heirs." They stood up—carefully, without fuss—and followed him. The "Domer" included. He walked st. Didn't look back.

  The right side remained waiting.

  Kai stared at the ceiling—high, white, without a single mp; the light came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Skyran work. He counted the seconds until he stopped, then just stood and turned the gear and thought that somewhere out there, beyond this silence and this light, began that for which he had come here.

  Two years. Leo is waiting. That was enough.

  ---

  The white was aggressive.

  Kai realized this when he stepped into the corridor—and stopped mid-step, almost imperceptibly; his body just reacted before his head. After the gray concrete of the hall, after the gray sky outside, after the gray wastend beneath the Sky-Rail—this white was almost physical. Not light. Color. Walls, ceiling, floor—identical, without seams, without shadows, without a single point for the gaze to catch on. Just a white space that began and didn't end.

  Ten people entered in a batch. Kai was in the middle.

  "Go straight," said the guard at the entrance. A new one—not the one from the car. This one was younger, without creases at his mouth; the uniform fit differently—tighter, more precise. Academic, not transport. "Do not stop. Hands at your sides." Nothing more. They walked.

  The tingling began after three steps. Not pain—something finer. Like a static field, like when Kai was a child and touched the antenna of an old receiver and felt the hairs on his arm stand up. Only now it wasn't on his arm—it was everywhere, under the skin, evenly, from the back of his head to his heels. Light, almost imperceptible. Almost.

  Kai walked and felt this field feeling him out—not with hands, not with a tool, just somehow different, from the inside. As if someone were flipping through him from the other side of his skin, page by page, unhurriedly. He didn't know what this sensation was. He only knew that it existed—and that for him, it was stronger than for the others.

  He saw it by their faces. The girl in front—from the slums, short hair, moved easily—walked steadily, without reaction. Two behind her—winced slightly, synchronously, in the same spot, then it let go. The guy to the left frowned—once, not deeply—and then nothing.

  For Kai, it didn't let go. He walked and the field walked with him—mounting toward the middle of the corridor, then receding slightly, then again. Three waves. Unevenly. As if something in him were harder to scan than in the others—required more time, more passage. He didn't know what it meant. He remembered it.

  Then a tall guy stopped. Kai almost crashed into him—managed to step aside. The guy stood in the middle of the corridor—rge, with broad shoulders, the kind they take on the farm for heavy lifting—and just stood. Hands at his sides. Staring ahead. Not at the wall, not at the floor—at a point in the air that wasn't there.

  "Go," said the guard from behind. The guy didn't move. Not because he didn't hear—Kai saw his shoulder twitch, so he heard. He just didn't move. Feet stood and wouldn't walk. Face—calm, almost empty, like a person looking at something inside and unable to look away.

  "Go." Nothing.

  The guard approached—without sudden movements, businesslike—and touched the guy's shoulder. He blinked. Looked at the guard. Looked at the others. Something in his face was such that Kai didn't look longer—he turned away and went forward.

  Behind him, footsteps were heard—not forward, to the side. A second guard appeared from nowhere—Kai didn't notice from where—and the two of them led the guy into a side passage Kai hadn't seen before. The door opened and closed. Quietly. Without words, without expnations. Simply—there was a person. Then he wasn't.

  The remaining nine walked in silence. Kai thought: *what did they find.* The scanners were reading something—what exactly, he didn't know. A Gift? Its absence? Something in the head, something in the blood, something in how a person reacts to the field? The guy was big, strong, the kind who looks like a soldier. And yet—side passage, closed door, never to be seen again.

  Then he thought: *what did they find in me.* Because for him, the field worked differently. He felt it—not a guess, a fact, bodily. Three waves. Longer than the others. Something in him was scanned harder. Or more interestingly. Or—something was being found that wasn't found in others.

  Kai didn't know if this was good or bad. Here, those words could mean anything.

  The end of the corridor opened into a small anteroom—gray again, again without extra details. Varra stood at the far wall with a tablet. He looked at those entering—each one, for a second, no longer. Nodded. Pointed right, left, straight—wherever for whom.

  Kai approached. Varra looked at the tablet. Then at Kai. A pause—short, almost imperceptible, maybe half a second longer than for the previous one. Tablet, Kai, tablet. Something in his face didn't change—it was professional, even, without reaction—but the pause was there. Kai caught it.

  "Next room," Varra said. Straight ahead. Without expnations.

  Kai went straight. To his back—nothing, no words. He didn't look back. But the pause went with him—tiny, half a second, completely insignificant by any measure—and Kai knew it would live in his head for a long time. Because Varra looked at everyone the same. But at him—slightly longer.

  They found something. He went to the next room and thought about what exactly.

  The room was without corners.

  Kai noticed it immediately—not because it was important, just the brain registering what doesn't match expectation. The walls transitioned smoothly into the ceiling, the ceiling into the floor, everything one continuous oval—gray, matte, without a single seam. Like the inside of an egg. Like the stomach of something rge.

  In the center—a chair. One. Kai looked at it from the threshold—a second, no longer—and already knew he didn't like it. Not because it was scary. Because it was *right*. Exactly as a chair in which you are studied should be: the backrest angle precise, armrests at the right height, wrist restraints—thin, almost imperceptible, made of the same silvery material as the bracelets in the car.

  Skyran work. Calcuted for a human. For any human.

  A technician stood to the side. A human—not a Skyran, ordinary, in medical uniform, with dark circles under his eyes like a man working three shifts. He held a neuro-syringe in his hand—thin, longer than Kai expected, with a blunt end that didn't look like a needle and yet was one.

  "Sit," the technician said. "Hands on the armrests."

  Kai sat. The restraints closed themselves—a quiet click, light pressure on his wrists. Not painful. Simply—his hands were here now.

  "The procedure will take less than a minute," the technician said. "Do not move. If you feel discomfort—that's normal. Do not move."

  "What exactly are you looking for," Kai said.

  The technician looked at him. Not with irritation—with slight surprise, as if the question were unexpected not in content but in fact. Most, apparently, didn't ask.

  "Potential," he said. "Nothing more."

  Then he went behind the chair. Kai felt something cold touch the base of his skull—there where the neck meets the back of the head, in the small hollow under the hair. Cold, precise, without warning. He didn't move. Kept his hands on the armrests. Looked ahead at the gray wall without corners.

  The needle entered.

  Not painful—that was the first thing he thought. Then he stopped thinking.

  The hand was slipping.

  He knew it was a scenario—somewhere in the furthest corner of his head that thought remained, thin as a thread, holding on—but his body didn't know. His body was there. Horizon, darkness, the smell of rock and hot metal and something organic that shouldn't smell like that. His father's hand in his hand—heavy, hot, then just heavy.

  Rock was coming from above and the sides simultaneously and Kai pulled and pulled and the hand slipped. Fourteen years old. Not enough strength.

  Then—darkness. Not the darkness from the horizon—another kind, clean, odorless. A pause. One heartbeat in the silence.

  Then—mother. Not a face at once. First, hands—chem-burns from wrists to palms, pink-white, dense skin. Then the face. But not the one he knew—not the kitchen, not the st evening. Different. Mother stood at the container door and looked somewhere past Kai, through him, at something coming toward her from the street. People in uniform—not academic, different, with yellow piping. Mining recruitment. For Leo.

  Kai stepped forward—between his mother and the people in uniform—and realized he wasn't there. He watched, but he wasn't there. Just—watching, and able to do nothing.

  Then—Leo. Not at home. Somewhere deep, underground—Kai knew it by the air, by the pressure in his ears. Leo stood in a Miner's uniform—gray, without insignia—and looked directly at Kai. Eyes—empty, not blind, just empty, like a person who hasn't been waiting for anything for a long time.

  Fourteen years old, disheveled, with those silly eyebrows. He watched and was silent. Then—quietly, calmly, without reproach, just as a fact long established:

  "But you promised."

  Kai gripped the restraints. He didn't remember when he’d started—at some point he just realized his fingers were squeezing the armrests so hard his knuckles were white. He didn't scream. Didn't ask to stop. Just held on—the restraints, the chair, the thread in the far corner of his head that said *this is a scenario, this isn't real, Leo is at home now*—held it and didn't let go.

  Leo watched. "But you promised," he repeated. Same tone. Without malice. Simply.

  Kai held on.

  Then—void. Not darkness—precisely void, without bottom and without walls, just the absence of everything. No scenarios, no voices, no images. A silence that wasn't silence because silence is when sound was and ended, and here sound had never been.

  This is a scenario. Leo is at home. He is fourteen years old and he is at home.

  Click. Cold at the base of the skull—the needle was coming out. Kai felt something let go inside—not pain, just pressure that had been there and now it wasn't. The restraints clicked and opened.

  "Done," the technician said. As if nothing had happened.

  Kai sat for a second. Hands on the armrests—fingers still white, he forced them to unclench. He stood up. His legs held—normally, without dizziness, just a bit weak. He went to the door.

  In the corridor was the stranger. Standing by the wall—hands in pockets, back straight, looking at Kai like a man who had been waiting specifically for him. Not smiling. Not expressing anything. Just waiting.

  Kai stopped.

  "How many?" the stranger said quietly. Kai looked at him. "Scenarios," the stranger crified. "How many did you watch to the end."

  "All of them," Kai said.

  The stranger nodded. Slowly, once. Looking at Kai—not evaluatively, not with interest. Just looking. "It shows on your face," he said.

  Pause. "How do you know how many there are," Kai said.

  The stranger didn't answer. Simply—turned and walked down the corridor, steadily, unhurriedly. Hands in pockets. Back straight. As if the question hadn't happened.

  Kai watched his back. The third time. The third time this man said something to him—in the car about the Shafts, now about the scenarios—and each time he knew more than he should have known. And each time he left without introducing himself. Without a name, without expnations, just—information and a back.

  In the corridor it was quiet. White light from above. Ahead—the next door. Kai rubbed his wrists—where the restraints had been, the skin a bit red—and walked toward it.