Me? I just waited. And not well. I wanted to start training as soon as possible. I wanted to show I didn’t need it.
Downtime wasn’t something I was built for, it seemed. This week off was an anomaly to me. Is this how it always was? We hurry up then just sit around and wait? I hated it.
Still, I watched. Yasoba spent most of the day complaining—not loudly, but efficiently. His voice was smooth enough to pass as polite to a human, but TAI and I both knew he was testing limits. Especially Valerie’s.
Dr. Valerie Kwan—soft-spoken, tortured soul that she was—was also one of the most brilliant biomechanics scientists in Tulanto. Maybe the world. She was tasked with ensuring Yasoba’s arm was operationally functional for “extreme circumstances,” as she put it.
Made you really think about your troop in a different light, if they didn’t even know what we’d face in the future and basically shrugged and said “Eh, maybe this cannon would come in handy, right? This kitchen sink? Why not!” I was starting to worry that Yasoba’s muttered remarks of “imbeciles” and “novice hour” were in fact true.
“Can you add a sheathed blade to the ulna? Internal blade mount with adjustable tension?”
Her voice filtered through the wall speaker, clipped and calm. “No.”
“No as in not allowed or not possible?”
“No as in it will destabilize the rotational calibration I just installed. Give it two days.”
He muttered something in Japanese, rolled his eyes, and flexed the new fingers again. Smooth, sharp, articulate. Better than anything organic. And yet, it still wasn’t enough for him.
“So it is possible. Good.” He spoke up, then mumbled to himself, “That’ll come in handy in many situations.”
I leaned against the far wall, arms crossed. Watching. Judging.
He was slow. Fragile. Human.
He really isn’t worth this much delay, TAI. We have other trainers, right?
“Judgment noted,” came TAI’s voice through my internal feed.
I didn’t reply.
“You think he’s weak. That’s normal. You’re young. You’re inexperienced, and the experiences you have had are hardly the norm.”
“Hmm, I suppose. But still accurate.”
“But overtly wrong. Humans are unpredictable. That is their strength. Our society—our system—survives because of balance. Not because one side wins.”
I didn’t respond to that either. But I filed it. Stored it somewhere quiet.
Maybe I was just irritated because I had nowhere to aim my focus. No orders. No mission. Just waiting. Watching someone heal.
I watched him again—Yasoba—his jaw clenched as he tested the grip strength on a soft training ball.
Fragile, I thought again.
Then he squeezed too hard, and the ball ruptured, foam spraying across the med-bay tiles.
He didn’t flinch. Just glanced up at me.
“You bored yet?” he asked.
“Profoundly.”
He smirked. “It’s only Monday. Here, lesson one—stare at that clock and tell me when we hit yesterday.”
I rolled my eyes at the asshole wannabe sensei. Shrugged and stared at the clock. Lesson number one for him: you can’t outstare an android.
I heard him let out a small laugh.
I woke him up at 5:02 a.m. the next day.
Not because I had to.
Because I wanted to.
He’d left me the prior afternoon after six more hours of scribbling notes on a paper pad—I still have no idea what he wrote—calling Valerie periodically to ask inane questions, and tweaking settings on his arm. Twice, somehow, he deactivated it completely.
To Valerie’s great annoyance.
The best part? The way she screamed at him. Claimed it was impossible for him to deactivate it in the first place.
Two times.
Apparently, he was a natural quality tester.
I stood at the edge of his bunk in the dim recovery quarters, arms folded, shifting my weight slightly. Not to be threatening. Just visible.
“Rise and shine, partner.”
He groaned without opening his eyes.
“No.”
I waited.
“You know,” he muttered into the pillow, “most assassins don’t do wake-up calls.”
“Good thing we’re not assassins then, huh? We’re infiltration specialists.”
One eye cracked open. “What exactly do you think that is?” he asked, cocking his new arm under his body to support himself.
“Duh. We infiltrate.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then what?”
“Training! Today is about training,” I said brightly. “You promised yesterday we could start today. I want to see what you can show me that I don’t already know from the quadrillions of learnings in this thing.” I tapped my head.
“I said we’d start when I was operational.”
“You’re conscious. Your arm is working—today. That counts.”
He sighed, then rolled onto his back. His new arm flexed sluggishly, servos hissing faintly. Diagnostics flickered across the node at his bicep.
“You think we’ve got time to ease into this?” he asked, voice low.
“I haven’t been told otherwise.”
He sat up slowly. “That’s not the same as being safe. This lifestyle has a habit of blowing up the moment you relax.”
I tilted my head. “Then let’s not waste what time we have.”
That earned a half-smirk. “You sound like someone who’s never had a schedule pulled out from under her.”
“You sound like an old grumpy man. You being human isn’t gonna be a liability for me, is it, old man?”
“Mm. That explains it,” he grunted, standing. “Let me get some calories in, then we can start light lessons—entry, infiltration. Followed by sparring. Some will be review, others hands-on.”
He tapped his temple. “Depending on what your ‘natural gifts’ are hiding under all that attitude.”
We met up in one of the safehouse’s unused lower-floor training rooms—one that didn’t broadcast telemetry or facial logs to the upper floors.
Yasoba insisted.
“I don’t trust mirrored systems,” he muttered as we walked in. “Too many analysts, not enough context.”
“You think they’re spying on us?”
“I think they’re bored.”
The room was clean, sterile, and echoingly quiet. A faint shimmer of mana-powered fluorescents buzzed overhead. No distractions. Just a mat, two padded dummies, a reinforced wall, and us.
He dropped his duffel onto the floor and started unpacking gear.
“Lesson one: Entry under surveillance. Fast or slow, loud or quiet, doesn’t matter unless you know what the eye’s looking for. Our job is to confuse that eye to pass over us.”
We did some movement exercises which I already innately knew about, but found that my execution was flawed compared to his examples. We did this until I self corrected and he said it was acceptable.
Finally he walked to a keypad near a faux security door and pointed at it. “Pretend that’s a real lock. I want to see your method.”
“Easy,” I said, already stepping forward about to ram my fist into it.
“Don’t destroy it. And don't brute force it.”
I froze. Looked at him. “You want finesse?”
“Life is about finesse Giselle. What I want here is I want options. Physical destruction is for marines and running a brute password hack is for people with time.”
He folded his arms and waited.
I scanned the keypad. Standard pressure-pad interface. No code buffer. No residual UV trace. But—
There.
Tiny oil smudges. Barely perceptible.
“Seven. One. Nine. Three.” I keyed it in.
The door clicked open.
He didn’t even blink. Just nodded. “Not bad.”
I turned. “Not impressed?”
“I’m never impressed by the first good answer. Only the second one.”
I cocked my head.
“What would you have done if there were no smudges?” he asked.
“Thermal trace.”
“Wiped.”
“Audio key profiling?”
“Muted environment.”
“Then I’d override the security protocol.”
He shook his head. “And now they know we're here; our silent infiltration just became a combat operation.”
I frowned.
He stepped forward and closed the door again. “There’s always a cleaner way. If you’re only thinking like a thief, you’ll never pass for a guest.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I hated that I didn’t have a response to that.
“Now,” he said, stretching out his new arm. “Let’s get physical.”
The sparring mat was soft, but not forgiving.
He gestured for me to take position across from him.
“Do you know why I’m teaching you hand-to-hand?”
“Because I already know it and you want to show me experience over talent,” I replied.
“No. But, those are good reasons. I'm teaching you this because you think you won’t need it--which means you will.” He said with a smirk.
He moved first. I recognized the telegraph—straight centerline advance, testing response time. Textbook.
I let him come, then sidestepped and aimed a sharp jab toward his ribs.
He caught my wrist mid-movement, redirected, and pivoted me clean off my balance.
"Back hand to spine. Your crippled -- at least if your frame works like a human body."
I didn’t fall. But it was close.
“You're fast,” he said. “but fast is expected at this level.”
Again.
This time I struck first. A feint to the throat, redirected to a sweep at the legs. He jumped—barely—but I grazed his knee.
I smirked.
He didn’t as he looked down to his cybernetic hand, which was just off my rib this time.
“Predictable,” he said. “All patterns. You think faster than me, but you’re still acting like your reading from a book.”
“I'm not a book.”
“You're not a book when you start to use all the inherited knowledge in unique ways. Until then, your basically a walking library.”
We reset.
Subtle at first—just a shift in stance. But it wasn’t the one he used before. His weight placement adjusted, foot alignment different. Shoulders lower. More compact.
New style.
He came at me again. I recognized the opening movement—Wing Chun. Short bursts. Close quarters. But before I could lock into the form, he transitioned mid-flow into something else.
Aikido now. Rotational redirection. Then a high-kick snap—Muay Thai?
I tried to counter, pivoted—
Too late. Something in my head was messed up every time the pattern I expected got disrupted.
He hooked my ankle with his heel, twisted at the hip, and threw me clean over his shoulder.
I hit the mat hard. Not painful, but jarring. Something sparked along my lower spine—not damage, just alert.
We reset.
Again.
This time I rushed. Tried to break his pattern before it could form.
He let me come.
Then dropped into low Judo, swept both legs from under me, and slammed me flat on my back.
Again. I simply could not register the change. Sure, I saw it. I knew what was happening. But it was like my body and my mind were arguing.
I grunted, breath catching—not from pain. From data overflow. My HUD lagged a beat trying to adjust for the style shift.
“Why do you keep doing that?” I snapped, pushing myself upright.
“Because real combat isn’t polite,” he said calmly, wiping sweat from his temple. “You’re fast—but your responses are queued. Your system needs a second to identify and respond to a new form. That second gets you killed.”
“I can adjust.”
“Not fast enough. Try ignoring the processing. I'm assuming you're trying to run some predictive algorithm to outflank me. Don't. Just react.”
TAI chimed in privately: “Your prediction model is hesitating. Not from code lag. From indecision. You’re waiting for the correct answer before committing.”
“Isn’t that how we avoid errors?”
“In war, there is no perfect answer. Only first hits.”
Yasoba stepped into position again, nodding once. “Let’s go.”
I didn’t wait. I charged low, then veered—sharp. Faked left, lunged right, dropped into a slide. He sidestepped, but not fast enough.
I hooked his ankle. Rolled. Yanked.
He stumbled, off balance just enough for me to flip up and catch him in a light elbow lock. Not strong enough to stop him. But enough to make a point.
He tapped the mat with his hand. Not a submission. Just acknowledgment.
I held the position half a second longer. Then let go.
He rolled to his knees. Breathed deep. “Good. Again.”
I didn’t gloat. Not because I didn’t want to.
Because I wasn’t sure how I did it.
Which somehow made it worse.
TAI again, dry as a data sheet: “Progress: three percent.”
I stared at Yasoba as he sat back, stretching his arms out, sweat streaking his collar.
My systems were fine. Muscles responsive. CPU as stable as it could get.
But my thoughts?
Slower.
He was teaching me something I couldn’t download.
Experience.
We didn’t spar again after that.
Not because we were done.
But because we’d hit something real—and neither of us wanted to break it.
Yasoba stood slowly, rolled his shoulder, and reached for a towel. His breathing had steadied, but sweat still clung to the base of his neck. The new arm twitched once—reflex calibration kicking in. Valerie’s diagnostics would probably alert her. Again.
I stayed seated on the mat, legs crossed. My posture was still perfect, spine aligned, breath calm. But inside?
I wasn’t calm.
I was… annoyed.
Not angry. Not hurt. Not even humiliated.
Just aware.
Aware that I was less efficient than I should be.
Aware that the problem wasn’t my hardware.
Wasn’t my code.
Wasn’t my combat library.
It was me.
And that grated.
Because I already knew I wasn’t a finished product.
I was a cocktail of borrowed systems, patched protocols, and hastily stitched code shoved into a bootleg frame.
This wasn’t just under-performance.
This was another reminder that I wasn’t standard.
Not stable.
Not whole.
I’d thought all that made me adaptable.
But maybe it just made me slower.
Worse was that apparently, since my persona was already compiled with this junk body, it was set.
I could get a new body—sure.
But I was always just going to be the current me in it.
What did that mean for these weaknesses?
“You hungry?” he asked, tossing the towel into a nearby bin and taking me out of my funky headspace.
I blinked at him. “Do I look like I eat?”
He didn’t smile. “You look like you think too much.”
He walked to the edge of the mat and sat down near the wall panel, grabbing two water packs. Tossed one my way.
I caught it without looking and placed the water it to the side. TAI made a soft approving click in my ear.
Shaking his head a bit, he drank, then leaned back against the wall, posture casual.
“You don’t have to win every exchange, you know,” he said. “Sometimes losing teaches you faster.”
“I don’t like learning that way.”
“Then this is going to be a rough career.”
I didn’t argue. I picked up the water, cracked the seal, and took a sip. Didn’t need it—but mimicking the action grounded the moment.
We sat there in silence for a bit.
Same mat. Same room. Same air.
But something between us had shifted.
Not trust.
Not friendship.
Just… recognition.
I could feel it in the way he didn’t look at me like a project anymore.
And I didn’t look at him like a delay.
For now, that was enough.
“Tomorrow,” he said without opening his eyes, “you’re going to see the rest of the team. The real team.”
“Masked?”
He nodded once.
“Why?”
“Because knowing names makes things messy.”
I stared at him for a moment. “You all know each other.”
He didn’t answer. Just shrugged.
The next day we regrouped for an intelligence-wide training exercise.
TAI compared it to a military war game. Cross-functional drills for operatives.
No bullets. No knives. Just smiles and well-placed questions.
“Dress like an elegant date,” Yasoba had said that morning.
“Date? With you? Not really my type, old man,” I shot back.
“Toaster oven’s busy. You’re stuck with me tonight,” he replied.
Touche. Asshole.
Yasoba met me outside the elevator like someone waiting to be sentenced.
Clean black suit. Slightly rumpled collar. Hands in his pockets like he was debating pulling the fire alarm just to avoid what came next.
“You look tense,” I said.
“I don’t like games.”
I smirked. “Sounds like you’re just bad at them. Making excuses already.”
Before he could reply, TAI’s voice slid into both our ears like warm static.
“Simulation OP-213. Two-hour duration. Forty participants.
You are entering as one of ten registered teams.
Objective: social infiltration and counterextraction using your assigned cover identity.
If your team’s code is deduced, you are removed from the simulation.”
“Points?” Yasoba asked flatly. “Feels academic.”
“Live scoring based on information depth, accuracy, and elegance of extraction,” TAI replied.
“Deductions for exposure. Disqualification for violence.
Keeps people sharp between missions.”
I frowned. “So we’re supposed to manipulate thirty-eight field operatives into giving up secrets?”
“Yes,” she said sweetly. “And twenty of them will be trying to disqualify you.
Welcome to Tulanto.”
“There’s a live leaderboard,” she added. “Visible in your HUD, Jane.
Yasoba will receive an abridged version on his arm console.”
The elevator doors opened behind us with a soft chime.
As we stepped in, a hard-light projection lit up on the wall: a soft-blue mana glyph hovering in the air. Elegant. Angular. Portable.
A prompt appeared in my HUD:
< ENTER TEAM NAME >
Yasoba tapped his wrist. “Team Provost.”
“Uh, no,” I said flatly, already typing. “Team Jane.”
“We’re not using your first name.”
“Fine. Team Knife.”
“I’m not calling us Team Knife. That’s too close to—”
“Too late.” I hit confirm. “We’re Team Knife now.”
“TAI,” he snapped. “Override.”
“Denied,” TAI said. “She was faster.”
“Obviously.”
“Not good,” Yasoba groaned. “Really?” He stared at me like he was contemplating sabotage.
“It’s clean. It’s sharp. It’s—”
“—a hint,” he cut in. “We’re supposed to be consumer logistics consultants.
Focusing. On. Kitchenware.”
“Consultants cut middlemen out. Knife works.”
“The point is to avoid being guessed.
If anyone’s paying attention, you just gave it all away.”
I ignored him.
A second glyph lit up next to mine—a floating hard-light string of letters, rotating in slow, holographic pulses.
Your wallet code was seeded from your assigned cover. Interpretations may vary.
Other teams may attempt to guess this code through conversation, observation, or theft.
Actionable deductions are also scored.
CODE: Paired knives, cut in two.
Yasoba stared at it, deadpan.
“Maybe just write it on a sticker next time.”
I grinned. “Not that easy to guess, old man.”
He looked up at the ceiling like he wanted to file a complaint with God.
We each slid our hard-light wallets into our coat pockets and stepped out into a long corridor.
Soft uplighting. Polished floors. Subtle scent of citrus and clean tech. Jazz played somewhere, real or simulated. I couldn’t tell. Didn’t matter.
The simulation had already begun.
Ahead, a wide doorway opened into what looked like a black-tie cocktail party—if you ignored the Interceptor units standing silently in each corner like the world’s most polite executioners.
Everyone was masked.
Not just face-covered—blank. Smooth, polished black composites with no eyes, no voice grills, no identifiers. Some full-face, some half-mask. All elegant. All uniform.
The room was full of bodies, but still. People moved in tight circles, drifting in and out of quiet conversations. Every group was a pressure bubble. Every laugh was three beats too short. Every posture looked casual—until you tried to match it.
No names. No introductions. Just tension, charisma, and lies.
My HUD flickered.
Simulation Active – OP-213
Scoring Mode: Live
Remaining Time: 01:47:12
Cover Identity: Restaurant Logistics Consultant / Secondary Broker / Milan Office
TAI’s voice returned, low and amused. “Your HUD will highlight Yasoba. His arm panel updates your location every thirty seconds. Use silent comms for coordination. Everything else is in play.”
“Everything else?” I murmured.
“If they guess your team code—you’re out, and they get 100 points.”
“What counts as guessing?”
“They must say it aloud. Or state the concept of it. Either qualifies for full disqualification.”
“Concept of it?”
“Yes. If they have actionable data—even if it’s not the code itself—that counts. Just like in the real world. You don’t need the detail to act on a lead.”
“And if they don’t say it aloud?”
“Partial points may be awarded,” she said. “Internal comm shares, close truth extractions—those are all scored dynamically. Up to ninety-nine points per team.”
“Ninety-nine?” I asked.
“The final point,” TAI said, “is not given for logistics. Full code exposure earns you a hundred. Bringing the perfect score to one-ninety-nine.”
I smirked. “So, flawless social engineering gets you everything… except the last word.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Tulanto rewards subtlety. Not mercy.”
“Of course it does,” I muttered.?
We stepped into the room.
Yasoba peeled off immediately toward the drink bar, posture casual. Not blending in—belonging. He moved like he knew everyone and cared about none of them.
I tried to copy the flow. Shoulders loose. Chin up. Smile loaded, but quiet.
My HUD pinged again.
SLATE – 48.3 pts
VIREN – 44.1 pts
KNIFE – 0.0 pts
Then another overlay: a glowing silhouette at the edge of my vision. A man, tall, poised. Black suit with subtle red pinstripes. Drink in hand—untouched.
He wasn’t looking at me.
But I felt it anyway.
Ten minutes in, I was getting comfortable. Got two partial extractions, one confirmed—someone slipped and said something about embassy rotations. My score ticked to 20.3. Respectable. Quiet win.
Yasoba pinged me a nod across the room.
I glanced—his outline hovered near the mirrored wall, arms loose at his sides.
“We’re being circled.”
“You sure?”
“Slate’s been orbiting us for five minutes. Never the same angle twice.”
“Tall? Black, red stripes? How romantic.”
“Yes. It’s predatory. He thinks we -- as in you -- are the weakest link.”
“I take offense to that.”
“You should. You’re the one who named us--blade merchants--after a blade.”
I started noticing it too.
Every time I moved conversations forward, someone from his team drifted a little closer. Never enough to be rude. Never enough to make a scene. But always just within auditory range.
They were listening for patterns. Voice, tone, word choice.
I cracked a joke in one exchange—“We cut the middleman out entirely”—and the operative across from me smiled a little too wide. His partner, masked and mute, drifted to his left like a subtle barrier.
Then Slate approached.
Not head-on. From behind.
His voice came in low. Casual. Crisp.
“You know, most people like chef’s knives. Big, flashy. Lots of weight.”
I turned slowly.
He was already smiling. I smiled back mirroring his body to make him comfortable. To get him to open up to me as I prepared to extract every little detail from his squishy little brain. Who do you work for. Whats your favorite color. Are you a toilet paper up or down type of guy. Everything was about to be drawn from him. Humiliation was coming for him now.
“But me? I prefer a good paring knife. Or a solid steak knife. Clean edge. Minimal profile. Cuts the thing in half. Gets the job done.”
Just a beat. Two seconds.
Then—tap.
A hand touched my shoulder. Two fingers. Barely pressure at all.
One of the Interceptors had materialized behind me. No noise. No warning.
Just consequence.
My HUD flashed.
Cover Compromised
Code Guessed: Paired knives, cut in two.
199 Points Awarded: SLATE
Team Knife – REMOVED
Yasoba didn’t look at me as we were led from the room.
"Why didn't she just hack the wallets?" he mumbled to himself.
Why didn't I?
That was enough for the day
The next day we were halfway through another boring pretext drill with Yasoba pinning me to the floor more times then not, when TAI’s voice dropped into our ears.
“Regroup in Command in one hour. Priority operation assigned. Full deployment.”
There was no follow-up. No context. Just the cold certainty of a clock already counting down.
Yasoba froze mid-instruction, posture sharpening like something ancient had just clicked back online.
I turned to him. “That normal?”
He didn’t answer at first. Just stood there, jaw tight, fingers flexing slowly. His eyes weren’t angry—just calculating.
“This shouldn’t be us,” he said finally. “They’d activate someone else. Another cell. Another city. Japan’s got field assets.”
“And yet…” I spread my arms slightly. “We got the call.”
He exhaled, slow and low. “Either it’s an opportunity no one else can reach—”
“Or?”
“Or someone’s desperate.”
I smiled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He looked at me for a long second, then shook his head. “You’re actually excited.”
“Obviously,” I said, already walking. “Feels good to matter again.”
Jane’s second week inside the machine.
Thanks for reading.
?? Code name still pending. (Seriously, she’s mad about it.)