The bell rang with a sharp metallic bite, and the hallway stopped feeling like a hallway.
It became dangerous in the way Sector Seven always changed whenever something official moved through it.
Laughter thinned.
Conversations sharpened.
Shoulders turned careful, and every pair of eyes seemed to be waiting for the same thing.
A soft vibration brushed Jup’s wrist.
His comm lit without opening a full screen, a faint projection forming above his hand, flickering once, then stabilizing into a clean rectangular display.
The message reached every comm in the hallway at the same time.
CMAS PUBLIC INDEX — SECTOR 7
STATUS: QUARTERLY SCAN DAY
The public index was live.
Today’s scans would set the next cycle’s official rankings.
Students slowed, heads dipping toward glowing wrists while whispers moved through the hallway.
“Yo, it’s live.”
“Already?”
“Think Blackwell stays C?”
“After the court and the cafeteria?”
“Disciplinary weighting doesn’t disappear because you had a bad week.”
“He was B before all this.”
“Official lock’s today.”
The projection collapsed.
Jup hitched his backpack higher and stepped back into the current of bodies, wishing the school day had ended before it started.
The current parted differently today.
Mark’s shirt fit better than anything Jup owned, but pulled across his shoulders.
His old shoes still pinched despite loosening the fasteners as far as they would go.
More disturbing was how naturally his body moved: every step landed balanced, every turn happened cleanly, and the hallway felt fractionally smaller than it had Monday.
Two girls leaning against a row of lockers stopped talking as he passed.
One nudged the other.
“Wait, who is that?”
Her friend squinted.
“That’s Jureel.”
“No shit.”
Jup kept walking.
“Since when did he get that tall?”
A pause.
“He’s actually cute.”
Triōhnah’s voice entered his thoughts with perfect timing.
External attention increasing.
Jup kept his focus ahead.
Please stop doing that.
Doing what?
Giving me reports about people looking at me.
Noted.
A beat passed.
External attention continues to increase.
Jup nearly stopped walking.
You did that on purpose.
Response pattern test.
We’re going to have problems.
Probability already high.
Jup pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and kept moving.
Four students farther down had gathered around a comm projection, shoulders angled inward.
“No, I’m telling you, that’s him.”
“You’re reaching.”
“Look at the height.”
“The video doesn’t even have a face.”
“That’s the point.”
Jup caught the footage in his peripheral vision, and his chest went tight.
Someone had recorded the street yesterday — or tried to.
The video showed Civic drones descending while a tall figure in a dark hoodie stood near the center of the road, and every time the recording tried to focus on his face, static swallowed it.
The original footage had apparently not been dramatic enough.
Someone had added music.
Another version had fake blue cracks tearing through the sky.
A third had inserted an explosion behind him that absolutely had not happened.
A caption floated above the clip.
DRONE KID OF SECTOR 7???
Jup’s eyes lingered.
Triōhnah spoke.
Visual accuracy: poor.
That’s your concern?
The explosion did not occur.
I was there.
Then the footage is misleading.
Thank you.
Robert’s voice came from behind him.
“Jup.”
Jup turned.
Robert stopped three steps away, his eyes traveling from Jup’s face to his shoulders, down to the sleeves of Mark’s shirt, then back up again.
“No.”
Jup lifted an eyebrow.
“Good morning.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“What?”
Robert pointed at him.
“You cannot disappear for one day and come back a different size.”
“I didn’t disappear.”
“You missed school yesterday.”
“I was busy.”
“Doing what? Growing?”
Robert stared harder.
“Seriously. What happened to you?”
Jup settled for the answer he’d been using at home.
“I don’t know.”
Robert’s expression changed, the joke leaving him fast.
“That’s becoming a bad answer.”
“I know.”
Robert’s attention shifted from Jup to the projection farther down the hall.
His eyes widened.
“Wait.”
“Don’t.”
Robert looked from the video to Jup.
“That is you.”
“Lower your voice.”
“That is absolutely you.”
“The face is static.”
“Jup, I know what your hoodie looks like.”
“Apparently so does half the school.”
Robert stepped closer and dropped his voice.
“What happened?”
Jup looked toward the nearest ceiling camera.
It pointed in their direction.
“I’ll tell you when I understand enough to lie convincingly.”
Robert stared at him.
“That was somehow less reassuring.”
The assessment tone sounded before Jup could answer.
Every second-year comm pulsed.
CMAS QUARTERLY ASSESSMENT
REPORT TO ASSIGNED SCAN BLOCK
Robert looked toward the assessment wing, then back at Jup.
“Oh, this is going to go terribly.”
“Thank you for the support.”
“I’m supporting you emotionally from a safe distance.”
They joined the students moving toward CMAS.
The room looked as Jup remembered it, which was the worst part.
White scanner arches surrounded the raised platform.
Cameras sat in each corner.
Pale Aether regulators glowed beneath the housings.
A week ago, Jup had stood in the same place while the machine traced his Ki, found something deeper, locked the doors, and failed to classify him.
Now everything below his skin had changed.
Mr. Crawford stood beside the console.
His eyes found Jup, then narrowed.
“Amon?”
“Still me.”
Crawford looked like he had several follow-up questions and none he wanted answered in front of thirty students.
“Take your seat.”
Jup did.
The assessments began.
Nia went before him.
The scanner passed over her once. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
NIA DEAN
B-TIER
TECHNICAL APPRENTICESHIP: CONFIRMED
QUARTERLY PLACEMENT: LOCKED
Relief showed on her face before she controlled it.
The apprenticeship was real now.
She stepped down and caught Jup looking.
Her eyebrows rose when she got a proper look at him.
Jup looked away as Robert went next.
ROBERT CROSS
C-TIER
MUNICIPAL TECHNICAL POOL: ACTIVE
QUARTERLY PLACEMENT: LOCKED
Robert stared at the display.
“Still employable.”
Nobody laughed as hard as he wanted them to.
Marcus entered the platform several students later, and the room changed around him.
His scan completed without difficulty.
MARCUS BLACKWELL
C-TIER
DISCIPLINARY WEIGHTING ACTIVE
QUARTERLY PLACEMENT: LOCKED
Something in Marcus’s face went hard.
There would be no return to B next week.
C was official now.
He stepped down without looking toward the whispers that followed him.
Then his eyes found Jup and held.
Crawford looked at the next name, his expression tightening before he spoke.
“Jureel Amon.”
The room went quieter.
Robert leaned toward him.
“Try not to break civilization.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Your best concerns me.”
Jup stood.
Nia and Marcus watched him cross the room.
He stepped onto the platform.
Nothing happened at first.
Then the scanner woke.
JUREEL AMON
IDENTITY CONFIRMED
PREVIOUS CLASSIFICATION: UNRESOLVED
ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW: OPEN
The sweep rose from his feet, cold prickling across his skin as the scanner traced the familiar pathways of his Ki.
They answered normally.
KI PROFILE: VALID
Apparently some part of him still knew how to behave.
Then the sweep reached his chest, and Triōhnah’s voice sharpened.
External diagnostic sweep detected.
Jup kept his face still.
CMAS.
Confirmed.
The scanner slowed.
A second pass began, and Jup felt pressure beneath his ribs, deeper than his Ki.
The Divine Core.
His breath shortened.
What are you doing?
Observing.
You’re not interfering?
Negative.
That answer mattered more than he expected.
The arches brightened.
Crawford leaned toward the console.
“Remain still.”
“I am.”
The scan crossed him again.
His Ki registered, followed by altered muscle density and skeletal measurements.
Crawford’s eyes widened.
Then the system reached whatever lived underneath all of it.
The pale regulators dimmed — not as violently as they had during the benchmark, but enough.
A familiar pressure rolled outward from Jup’s chest, and Crawford went rigid.