Chapter 80: Second

The medic made Nate open his Circuit three times before she believed him. The first scan lasted twelve seconds. The second almost a minute. On the third, she called another specialist over.

Nate sat on the examination table while both of them studied the image of his circulation. His original route appeared as a bright loop around his Core. The new one was thinner, uneven in places. But it was there.

The specialist enlarged the section across Nate’s back. "When did this establish?"

"About twenty minutes ago."

"During supervised progression training?"

Nate looked through the glass wall. Darek stood outside with his arms folded.

"Technically."

The medic followed his gaze. "That’s not reassuring."

"Dorn gave me ten minutes."

"Captain Dorn gave you ten minutes to train. I doubt she gave you permission to establish a Second Circuit in the middle of an active field response."

"She didn’t specifically forbid it."

The specialist stared at him. Nate stopped helping.

She returned to the scan. "No tearing, no pathway rupture. There is inflammation around the new route, which is expected."

"Can I work?"

"Light duty."

Darek opened the door. "No."

The medic looked at him. "I was talking to the patient."

"I’m improving the answer."

Nate swung his legs off the table. "My Core is stable."

"Your Core was stable before you fell over in the street."

"I’d just broken through."

"Exactly."

The specialist removed the sensor strips from Nate’s back. "He’s not wrong about one thing. The route is stable."

Darek’s expression did not improve.

She continued. "Stable doesn’t mean conditioned. His throughput increased faster than the tissue around the pathway adapted. If he pushes full Second Circuit output for an extended period, he’ll irritate everything around it."

Nate pulled his shirt back on. "How long?"

"Days if you’re sensible."

Darek looked at him. The medic noticed. "Longer, apparently."

Nate ignored both of them. She updated his record. His wrist band vibrated. The old designation disappeared.

CALDER, NATE

SECOND CIRCUIT

PROVISIONAL FIELD CLEARANCE

Nate stared at it longer than he meant to. Nothing about his name had changed. Nothing about his Class. One line had.

The medic tapped her terminal. "Your operational insurance category just changed. Field Command will need to update your deployment authorization."

Nate looked up. "Insurance?"

"Second Circuit injury compensation, liability limits, medical access. You didn’t think Circuits only mattered in fights, did you?"

He had not thought about it at all.

The medic smiled faintly. "Most people don’t until payroll notices."

Darek opened the door wider. "Come on." Nate followed him out.

At the corridor checkpoint, a security officer scanned Nate’s band. The gate opened. Then the man looked at the display and scanned it again. "Second?"

"Apparently."

"You came in as First."

"Busy evening."

The officer stepped aside. "Congratulations." It was the first one from a stranger. Nate liked it more than he expected.

Seris had occupied a corner of West Operations with three terminals, two empty cups and a paper food box she had forgotten to close. Nate put a fresh drink beside her keyboard.

She looked at it. Then at him. "Bribery?"

"You looked tired."

"I’ve looked tired for six hours."

"You looked worse twenty minutes ago."

"Much better." She took the drink anyway.

Nate leaned against the edge of her table. "Medical cleared me."

"I heard."

"How?"

"Your personnel status updated."

"You’re watching my personnel status?"

"I was watching every active Second Circuit because we’re trying to match Circuit presence with resonance behavior."

Nate looked at her. She kept typing. "Convenient."

"It is."

A few seconds passed. Then she added, "I also checked yours."

Nate smiled. Seris finally looked at him. "What?"

"Nothing." She pointed at the chair beside her. "Sit before you become unbearable." He sat.

For a moment neither of them talked. The operations room had settled into a rhythm after the evacuation route reopened. Reports came in, maps changed, teams rotated through food and medical checks. The city outside was still under emergency restrictions, but there were fewer people shouting.

Seris pushed one terminal toward him. "Look at this." A city compensation schedule filled the screen.

Nate frowned. "What am I looking at?"

"Field pay."

He found his name. Then stopped. His emergency rate had changed. A lot.

"That’s per hour?"

"Deployment hour."

"That can’t be right."

"It is."

He looked at her. "Why?"

"Because you’re Second Circuit."

"I was doing the same work this morning."

"And this morning the city valued your deployable capability differently."

Nate stared at the number again. He had known higher Circuits earned more. Knowing it and seeing what one night had done to his rate were different things.

Seris watched him. "You really never looked this up?"

"I had other problems."

"You’ve been trying to become Second Circuit for months."

"For the Circuit."

"Normal people also enjoy money."

"I enjoy money."

"You seem surprised by it."

Nate saved the page. Seris laughed. He looked at her. "You were making fun of me."

"Still am."

A message appeared on Nate’s terminal.

ETHAN: Heard something ridiculous. Call me.

Nate showed Seris. "How did he hear already?"

"Your friend is First Banner at the Academy. You’re surprised he has information?"

"He’s going to be annoying."

"Probably."

Nate started to put the terminal away. Seris looked at him. "Call him."

"Now?"

"You’ve been ignoring him enough."

"I called him."

"You sent messages."

"Same technology."

"Not the same thing."

Nate stared at her. "When did you become invested in my friendships?"

"I’m not. He sent me a message."

Nate stopped. "Ethan messaged you?"

"Once."

"What did he say?"

Seris turned back to her terminal. "Ask him." Nate’s suspicion increased immediately. She looked much too satisfied.

Before he could press, every operations screen flashed amber. Tessa’s voice came over the room channel. "Field response needed. West Medical Annex. Structural event with biological contact."

Darek was already moving.

Nate stood. Seris pointed at him. "Medical said light duty."

"Tell the biological contact."

"I might."

Nate headed for Darek. Behind him, Seris called, "And Calder?" He looked back. She raised the untouched food box. "You bought me a drink and stole half my dinner earlier."

"I didn’t steal anything."

"You will eventually."

Nate looked at the box, then at her. "Save it." Her expression softened a little. "Come back and eat it yourself."

Darek shouted his name from across the room. Nate left before he had to answer.

West Medical Annex had once been a rehabilitation clinic. Tonight it held eighty displaced patients from two smaller hospitals. They were evacuating again. Nate arrived with Darek and a four-person Field team.

A doctor met them outside. "We’ve cleared the upper floors. Six patients remain in lower recovery."

"Why?" Darek asked.

"Three can’t walk. One is ventilated. Two are post-surgery."

"Creature?"

The doctor pointed toward the glass entrance. "Basement level."

Something struck a wall below them. The vibration reached the pavement. Nate felt rejected resonance immediately. Different from the road. Biological. Familiar. Pale plated body. Restoration behavior.

Darek looked at him. "Same kind?"

"Probably."

"Second Circuit doesn’t make probably better."

"No."

Darek checked his weapon. "Then don’t get excited."

Nate looked at him. "About the creature?"

"About yourself." That was annoyingly specific.

They entered. The lower corridor smelled of disinfectant and ruptured plumbing. Water covered the floor near the stairwell. A nurse was moving an elderly patient on a wheeled bed while two orderlies carried portable oxygen.

Darek pointed toward the exit. "Keep going."

One orderly looked at Nate’s wrist band as they passed. "Second Circuit?" Nate nodded. The man’s shoulders loosened. It lasted less than a second. Still enough to notice. Someone had seen a designation on Nate’s wrist and felt safer. That was new.

The creature came through the rehabilitation gym wall before Nate had time to think about it. Pale armor, six limbs, vertical mouth, about the length of a small car. One rear limb had fused into a broad hooked structure that dragged across the floor.

A Field fighter opened his First Circuit. Darek raised one hand. "Hold."

The creature turned. Nate felt its weight load forward. He knew this timing. Weeks ago he would have needed everything, Killing Step, perfect angle, a little luck. Now his current moved through two routes. His body didn’t feel stronger in a simple way. It felt less crowded.

He stepped. The creature committed. Nate changed direction halfway through. The new Circuit caught the correction, no jolt through the knee, no desperate strain through the hip. He was simply somewhere else. The creature’s limb missed him. Nate entered beneath it. Graveshare cut between two plates. The creature twisted, fast, but Nate had already moved. Its second strike broke a therapy machine instead of his ribs.

Darek didn’t intervene. Nate noticed. That meant more than praise.

The creature charged again. Nate watched the shoulder structure. Its front limbs spread before impact. Too early. Killing Step. He crossed the commitment line. Graveshare entered the same wound. The pale plate tried to restore. Nate pushed current through his Second Circuit, more output reaching his arm without choking the old route. Mourning Edge deepened.

The creature screamed. Its body slammed into the wall. Nate stayed with it. One step. Correction. Another. The thing tried to turn. He changed direction during its turn. For the first time, Killing Step did not feel like a trick he had to steal from an opponent. It felt like control.

The creature opened its vertical mouth. Threads exploded outward. Nate ducked under the first cluster. The second came lower. He couldn’t avoid all of them. So he didn’t. He shifted to the side, let one thread graze his vest, and drove Graveshare through the opened mouth.

The creature hit him. Hard. Nate went into the floor. Pain burst through his shoulder. He rolled before the next limb came down.

Darek moved. Nate was already up. "I’m fine." Darek stopped.

The creature wasn’t. Graveshare had opened something inside its head. Dark fluid ran between the plates. The wound began closing. Nate saw the restoration start. He had seen this before too. He attacked the recovery instead of waiting for it. Second Circuit current surged, his new route burning, not enough to stop him.

Nate drove Graveshare into the wound again and used the creature’s attempt to pull away against it. Killing Step. Weight committed backward. Nate stepped inside. The blade changed angle. Something broke. The creature collapsed. Its limbs jerked twice, then stopped.

The First Circuit fighter behind Nate had never entered the fight.

Nate looked down at the body. His breathing was elevated. Core usage noticeable. His back hurt. But he wasn’t shaking. Weeks ago, one of these things had required planning, help and a very real chance of dying.

Nate turned. Darek was looking at him. "What?"

"You felt that."

Nate knew what he meant. The difference. "Yeah."

Darek approached the corpse. "Don’t get addicted to it."

Nate looked at his hands. Current still moved through both routes. "I might."

Darek glanced at him. Nate wasn’t completely joking.

They reached the remaining patients without another attack. Joss arrived with the extraction team while Nate was helping move a post-surgery patient onto a suspended stretcher. He looked at the dead creature on the way past, then at Nate. "You?"

"Yeah."

"Alone?"

"Darek watched."

Darek, several metres away, said, "He’ll make that sound more impressive every time he tells it."

Joss grinned. "Second Circuit for one hour and already insufferable."

Nate took the opposite end of the stretcher. Joss stopped him. "What are you doing?"

"Helping."

"You don’t know how to carry this."

"It’s a stretcher."

"It has an active spinal support." Nate released it. Joss took his place. "Go be powerful somewhere less expensive."

The nurse beside them laughed. Nate stepped away. He had it coming. Joss had his world. Nate had his. Being Second Circuit hadn’t changed that.

He followed the evacuation upstairs. Outside, the last ambulance left the annex. A municipal officer entered the incident report. The dead creature went onto a recovery manifest. The building was sealed. The city kept functioning.

Nate’s terminal vibrated again. This time it wasn’t Ethan. West Operations.

RECLAMATION ACCESS UPDATE

He opened it. A live image showed the black wall beneath Varen. The words Dorn’s team had seen were gone. New ones had replaced them.

ACCESS STRUCTURE COMPLETE

RECLAIMER DETECTED

Then another line appeared.

ENTRY AVAILABLE

Nate stopped walking.

Darek looked over his shoulder. "What?"

Nate turned the screen toward him. Darek read it. His expression hardened. "You’re going to be annoying about this."

Nate looked back toward the western city. "I wasn’t planning to."

Darek started toward the transport. "That’s somehow worse."

Nate followed.

For the first time since Varen had started changing, the thing beneath the city was no longer telling him to wait.