The morning horn went off at six sharp, a low mechanical growl that rolled up through the hollow concrete shafts of District 9 and set the window buzzing in its frame.
On any other day it meant twelve more hours at the scrap yards or the spirit-coal docks. Today, nobody had waited for it. I'd been listening to the stairwell since four: the slap of good shoes that only came out for weddings and funerals, a mother's voice saying stand up straight through a thin wall, someone on the floor below running through the same prayer so many times the words had worn smooth.
I sat up on the cot, and the concrete under my bare feet was cold enough to make my toes curl. My forearms were still raw from the Blood-Root, speckled with small, angry blisters. I poked one. It answered with a bright, specific sting, and I hissed through my teeth. "Well," I muttered. "That's what I get for shopping in the trash."
I tore two strips from an old bedsheet and wrapped my arms, working carefully around the thread on my left wrist. Lin's lucky red had dried stiff overnight, stained the color of old blood, and it crackled faintly when I bent my hand. I left the knot exposed. I told myself that was so the bandage wouldn't slip. Walking into the square looking like I'd spent the night scalding myself in herbal sludge would get me committed, after all.
Best trousers, the ones with only one patch. Thin canvas shoes, laced tight. There was no point checking for breakfast. Chen's stall wouldn't open until after the ceremony, and my stomach had a lot to say about that. I locked the door, tugged the padlock twice out of habit, and started down.
On the fourth-floor landing, Lin was sitting on the top step in her school tunic, her braids freshly redone. Badly. By her own hands, I'd bet; the left one started a good inch higher than the right. Behind her, the door stood cracked open, and a pair of scuffed work boots sat just inside, still crusted at the toes. Her mother had come home from the night shift sometime before dawn.
"You still have it on," Lin said, eyes on my wrist, and when I told her I wouldn't dare take it off, she gave a short nod and turned her scowl on her own knees. "Mom says I'm too little for the square. Too many people. So I'm going to sit right here until you get back."
"That could be a long time," I warned her. She didn't even look up. "I'm good at sitting."
From inside the apartment, a tired voice rasped, "Lin, let the boy go. He'll be late." Then, a little softer, and not really meant for me: "Good luck, Adrian."
I stood there with my hand on the rail, the cold iron pressing a line into my palm, and found my jaw had locked up tight. It took a second to work it loose. "Every word," I told Lin. "I promise." She repeated it back, deadly serious, and waved me off like a general dismissing a soldier.
Damp fog clung to my clothes as I came out into the central square, beading on my sleeves and settling cold against the back of my neck.
Usually, the square was a wide slab of pitted asphalt ringed by rusted fence posts and creeping spirit-weeds. Today, it looked like a festival ground, if the festival was run by people who were all trying not to throw up. Thousands of fifteen-year-olds were packed behind iron barricades in their best, and sometimes only, clothes. Parents hovered at the edges, clutching cheap luck charms and murmuring prayers. A man weaving through the crowd was selling red paper talismans for two coppers apiece, and a surprising number of people were buying. Two coppers. My entire net worth, for a square of paper with a stamp on it.
Overhead, anti-grav platforms held up giant projections of the Municipal Cultivation Bureau crest next to the silver sigil of the Elven Empire, the high-tier state that ruled Azure Star and a hundred other worlds in this sector.
Five hundred years ago, Azure Star had plugged into the wider network of worlds, and the Universal System had come with it. Qi came, and martial arts, and cultivation. So did the rifts. Everyone in this square knew the rest by heart. A flicker of talent today was a ticket out of the lower districts. Everyone else got stamped for labor, shoveling rift-ash or scrubbing air purifiers for the rest of their lives.
Near the front, a woman was smoothing down her son's collar. She smoothed it again, then a third time, while the boy stood perfectly still and stared at nothing. I looked away. It felt like reading someone else's mail.
I kept my head down and edged toward the side of the stage.
"Hey! Watch it, rag-boy!"
I didn't need to look up. Jax stood near the base of the main platform with his four usual hangers-on, resplendent in a brand-new leather tunic studded with brass rivets, his hair slicked back with oil that shone wet in the grey light. He had his chest puffed out so far he looked like a strutting game-hen.
"Sorry, Jax," I said, flat, and stepped back against the fence. The rusted post left an orange smear on my sleeve.
His eyes dragged over my rumpled shirt and bandaged arms. "You actually showed up? What for? To see if the System has a talent for 'Master of Zero'?" His friends laughed on cue, and he stepped closer, riding the noise. "My father spent fifty gold on a grade-two Body-Warming Pill for me last night. My meridians are practically singing. What did you take, a nap?"
Fifty gold. I tried to work out how many of Chen's bowls that came to and gave up somewhere around the rest of my life. "Something like that," I said.
It should have ended there. It usually did. But as he turned away, I caught his right hand at his side, the fist clenching and unclenching, clenching and unclenching, like he was trying to wring something out of it. The grin was a hair too wide.
Near the front barricade, a man in a spotless coat stood with his arms crossed. Jax's father. He wasn't watching the platform. He was watching his son, the way I'd seen merchants watch for an expensive shipment that hadn't arrived yet. Fifty gold spent, and nothing delivered.
"You'll be fine, Jax," I said, before I could stop myself.
He blinked at me. "I know I'll be fine," he snapped, far too fast, and shoved back into his little group.
I slid away, irritated with myself. Hating him had been a lot easier when he didn't look terrified.
At seven sharp, a deep metallic chime rolled across the plaza, and I felt it more in my back teeth than in my ears. Twelve municipal guards in grey alloy armor marched up in formation and ringed the structure at the center of the stage.
It was an obsidian monolith set into a polished base, crowned with a translucent crystal column pulsing a slow, steady blue. Thick copper cables ran from its foot into a heavy floor anchor, linking it straight to Azure Star's planetary array. I'd spent my entire life hearing about it. Up close, it was a lot bigger and a lot quieter than I'd expected.
On a stone balcony raised above the back of the stage stood the Municipal Director in a navy uniform, and beside him an envoy from the Elven Empire: tall and pale, silver hair tied in a neat knot, long limbs folded at careful angles inside broad, aether-threaded robes. He looked down at thousands of human children with perfect, languid boredom. To an empire spanning star systems, a backwater world like ours was just a chore on a long list.
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Dugan stood by the monolith in the same heavy grey robes, clipboard tucked under one arm and an iron-shod staff planted at his side, every bit as immovable as the stone beside him. He caught my eye across the crowd. He didn't nod. He just held my gaze for a second, then went back to scanning the line.
Then I found Chen. He was at the very back by the barricade, wearing his good cloth cap, the one he kept folded in a drawer for the same occasions as the stairwell's good shoes. When he noticed me looking, he gave a short, gruff jerk of his chin, exactly the way he'd check a pot to see if it had boiled.
I looked down at my shoes for a moment, because my eyes had started to sting. Fog, obviously.
The Director stepped up to a hovering sound-array and cleared his throat. Feedback squealed off the tenement walls, and then his voice boomed through the plaza. "Citizens of District 9! Five centuries ago, our ancestors walked in darkness, ignorant of the grand laws of cultivation. Today, you stand before the Universal System to forge your path. Whether you are called to the way of Spirit, the way of Body, or to administrative service to the Elven Empire, remember that all of us serve the grand architecture!"
"Easy for him to say," someone muttered behind me. "His boots don't scrape sewage lines."
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the smirk down while the Director droned on into procedure. "When your number is called, step onto the platform and place your palm flat against the crystal core. Hold for three seconds. The System will scan your foundation, register your profile, and display your results on the central screen."
He nodded to Dugan. Dugan raised his clipboard. "Registration Number 0001: Alan Vance!"
A thin, nervous boy climbed the wooden stairs, hands shaking as he pressed his palms to the glass. Two seconds passed. Then the column flared a soft pale green, and text scrolled across the holographic screen overhead.
[SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE]
Name: Alan Vance
Affinity: Low-Grade Wood
Path: Spirit Refining (Qi Condensation Realm)
Talent: None
Grade: F-Rank (Common)
F-rank. Common. In the crowd, a woman burst into tears and started cheering like her son had just won the planetary tournament, and the boy stumbled down the steps into her arms, laughing and crying at once.
I would have taken F-rank. I'd have had it framed.
The line moved quickly after that. Kid after kid stepped up, pressed a hand to the glass, and watched green or yellow flashes settle the rest of their lives in three seconds flat. Most were F-rank with a low-grade elemental affinity. A few hit E-rank and drew roars from their families. Tomas, three rows ahead of me, went up white-faced and came down F-rank, Low-Grade Earth. He stood at the bottom of the steps with his hands braced on his knees, laughing breathlessly, then turned, found me in the crowd, and gave me a shaky thumbs-up. I returned it, and I meant it.
When Jax's number was called, he whooped and strutted up the steps like he already owned the place, then slapped his palm onto the pillar with a loud thwack. The monolith flared a vivid, fiery orange. The light swirled wildly before settling into crisp text.
[SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE]
Name: Jax Mercer
Affinity: Mid-Grade Fire
Path: Spirit Refining (Qi Condensation Realm)
Talent: Flame Ignite (E-Rank)
Grade: D-Rank (Uncommon)
Surprised murmurs ran through the crowd. D-rank was solid for a lower district. It meant a place at a regional martial academy, paid for by the city. Tuition, board, and a way out, all on someone else's ledger.
Jax didn't look at the screen. He looked straight at his father. The man in the spotless coat gave one slow, measured nod, and Jax's shoulders dropped a full inch, like someone had finally cut a rope. Then he turned, threw me a mock bow, and marched off the stage. The bow was brittle, and his hands were still shaking.
"Not bad for a coal merchant's son," the elven envoy remarked, in a tone that suggested he'd rather be napping.
Dugan flipped to the final pages of his clipboard, the lower-sector orphans, and his shoulders went still. He stood there a moment too long. When he finally spoke, the granite had gone out of his voice.
"Registration Number 4092. Adrian."
He read it out the way you'd read a bill you knew nobody could pay.
A hush fell over the nearest rows. A few heads turned. I kept my chin up and pushed through the crowd toward the center aisle, canvas shoes tapping against the pavement, elbows tucked in so I wouldn't brush anyone's good clothes. Fifteen years in District 9 had taught me not to care about being stared at. I still took the seven wooden steps a little faster than necessary, just to get it over with.
At the top, I glanced back once. Chen was gripping the barricade with both hands.
Up close, the monolith was carved with thousands of tiny silver runes that flickered with faint light. The crystal column above me hummed, low and steady, like something breathing in its sleep. The air around it was a shade warmer than the fog and smelled faintly of hot copper.
Everyone got a result. That was the one promise the System made, the one thing nobody argued about. Even the dullest kid in District 9 walked away with an F-rank and a status panel. The only exceptions were Nulls, the ones the System couldn't read at all, and Nulls were the kind of story adults told to scare children into studying. One in a hundred thousand, if that. I'd run those odds plenty of times. I'd always assumed I'd be the worst F-rank anyone had ever seen, and I'd made my peace with it. Mostly.
I looked down at my wrapped arm and the stained red thread peeking out at my wrist, and made my fingers uncurl one at a time. "Here goes nothing," I whispered, and pressed my palm to the cold glass.
One second. Two.
Nothing happened. The pillar stayed a dull, constant blue. The runes didn't stir. The screen above sat on its blank waiting loop.
Below the platform, a few kids snickered. Somewhere in the crowd, Jax's friends let out a soft, ugly laugh. I stood there waiting for the shame to hit, and it did, hot and familiar, right on schedule, climbing my neck and settling behind my ears.
Well. At least it was fast.
I let out a quiet breath and started to pull my hand away, already rehearsing what I'd say to Lin. I'm sorry. It was zero again. Just as my palm left the glass, something hit the center of my chest.
It wasn't the warm tingle the manuals had promised for fifteen years. It felt like a heavy, ancient iron lock, buried somewhere deep in me, suddenly snapping open.
Pressure built behind my ribs, then broke outward in a hot wave that tore down my shoulder, through my arm, and slammed into my palm.
BZZZZZZT.
The monolith shuddered violently beneath my hand.
The light in the column didn't turn green or orange. It turned pitch-black and brilliant gold at once, like a storm of ink and lightning. The low hum of the platform spiked into a harsh, vibrating whine that rattled my teeth in their sockets. My palm stayed fixed to the glass. I couldn't have pulled it away if I'd tried.
Dugan stumbled backward, gripping his staff. Up on the balcony, the elven envoy yanked his hands out of his sleeves and leaned far over the stone railing, his eyes wide. For the first time all morning, he looked awake.
Inside the crystal column, words were crawling upward. Tiny white characters scrolled fast through the glass, set deep inside it like something frozen under ice. From the plaza, they'd have been invisible. From six inches away, with my hand still locked to the stone, I could read every line.
[SYSTEM ERROR: UNKNOWN BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE]
[WARNING: BLOODLINE THRESHOLD EXCEEDS PLANETARY BOUNDARIES]
[EVALUATION OVERRIDE INITIATED]
Whatever that meant, nothing with error, warning, and override in it had ever been good news for anyone in District 9. I glanced up at the big screen, half expecting the whole square to be reading along with me. It hadn't changed. The waiting loop sat there as if the System had decided this was a private matter.
CLACK.
With one deafening snap, the silver runes blazed blindingly bright and went dark. The whine cut out. The black-and-gold storm drained from the column and took the scrolling words with it, leaving the glass dull and grey.
Above the plaza, the waiting loop stuttered once and cut to black.
No name. No path. No grade. Not an error message, not even an empty template. Just a dead black rectangle hanging over thousands of heads.
I stood frozen, palm still resting against the dead pillar. The glass under it had already gone cool. The whole square had fallen silent, thousands of faces turned up toward the stage. In the crowd, a woman had stopped mid-prayer, her mouth still open around the word.
I looked for faces I knew. Dugan, pale, his eyes moving from me to the blank screen and back as if he'd forgotten how to blink. Tomas, with his thumbs-up still half raised. Jax, arms hanging loose at his sides, the smirk wiped off so completely it might never have been there. And at the very back of the crowd, Chen, his good cap knocked crooked, one hand pressed flat against his mouth.
This wasn't zero. I knew zero. Even zero got a screen, a name, a little F-shaped box to sit in. Zero had a shape, and I'd lived inside it for fifteen years. This was something else, and the whole planet was watching it happen to me.
I pulled my hand away slowly and tucked my wrapped arms into my sleeves. The thread at my wrist was suddenly, distinctly warm against my skin.
Lin was going to want every word. I didn't have a single one.
Well, I thought, my heart slamming against my ribs. Crap.