The gymnasium smelled of floor polish and damp coats.
Eli followed the volunteer past a row of folding chairs. Basketball lines crossed the wooden floor beneath temporary tables. At one end of the room, staff had hung curtains around several testing stations. The curtains did little to contain the noises coming from them: instructions, startled laughter, the sharp pop of something striking a padded wall.
A sign over the nearest table read REGISTRATION. Another read ASSESSMENT. Beyond them, a third station was marked PERMITS AND INFORMATION.
Eli remembered the signs. He had stood under them ten years ago, watching people come away with numbers and letters that seemed to decide the rest of their lives. At the time he had believed his result could be changed if he explained himself well enough.
The volunteer gave him a numbered card. “Wait until your number is called. If you experience any uncontrolled effects, tell someone in a blue vest.”
“What counts as uncontrolled?” a man behind Eli asked.
“If you’re worried, tell us.”
The man accepted that and took a chair. Eli remained standing. He could see a clock above the far doors. Each minute here was a minute someone else might spend finding the freight-yard gate.
A girl emerged from a curtained station carrying a glass bowl. Water rotated inside it without spilling. She walked carefully to a table where an examiner wrote something on her form. When she relaxed her grip, the water settled.
“Control over existing water,” the examiner said. “Can you create it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Can you make it move without the bowl?”
She looked at the floor. “I haven’t tried.”
“Let’s try safely.”
A volunteer brought a tray. The girl poured a little water onto it and held out her hand. The liquid gathered into a trembling bead. Her mother, waiting behind a rope barrier, pressed both hands over her mouth.
Eli looked away. There was nothing wrong with the girl’s excitement, or her mother’s. He had once wanted a talent he could show people in a room like this. His anger at the assessment had not been the same thing as anger at everyone who received a better result.
The center still carried signs for the emergency medical drill it had been set up to host. Staff had crossed out the drill schedule and written new assessment stations on the backs of the signs. The provisional ranks came from a scale officials had announced that morning, and even the clerks were arguing over how to apply it.
A blue-vested official called his number. Eli crossed to a table where a woman with a headset checked his form.
“Any observed effects?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“Any sudden physical changes, unusual perceptions, or difficulty controlling your movements?”
“No.”
She gave him a brief explanation of the assessment: a baseline examination, a controlled test if an ability appeared, and a provisional classification based on what could be demonstrated. Some abilities might not show themselves immediately. The registration would allow a later review.
Eli signed where she indicated.
“Please read it first,” she said.
He had already put the pencil down. “Sorry.”
He read the form. It authorized the assessment and listed the limits of the initial classification. It did not promise access to every gate, employment, or payment. The official watched him finish, then directed him to a curtained station.
An examiner sat behind a desk with a covered tray. His name badge read H. Lin. He had dark circles under his eyes and a stain on the cuff of his white shirt.
“Mr. Voss?”
“Yes.”
“Sit down. Have you noticed an interface or written message that nobody else seems to see?”
“Not yet.”
“Then look at the card on the desk and tell me whether it changes.”
The card was blank. Eli stared at it. Nothing happened.
Lin asked him to hold a small weight, walk across the station, and describe any unusual sensations. Eli performed each task. He felt no surge of strength, no hidden knowledge, no sign that his body had changed. It was almost worse than receiving Gravekeeper again. For a few minutes he wondered whether the return had erased his talent altogether.
Lin made a note. “We can check your baseline readings again in an hour. Some awakenings are delayed.”
Eli glanced at the clock through the gap in the curtain.
“Is there another test?”
“Do you have a reason to expect a specific ability?”
Eli thought carefully. Saying I had it for ten years before I died would end the conversation in a way that helped neither of them.
“I’ve noticed things around the dead,” he said. “Names, sometimes. Causes of death.”
Lin’s pencil stopped. “When?”
Eli had not noticed them in this life. He could not give a truthful recent example. “I think I might be able to identify remains.”
“That is a specific claim.”
“Can you test it?”
Lin regarded him for a moment, then left the station. Eli heard him speaking to another examiner in a low voice. The second examiner asked whether the claim had been documented. Lin said no. A few minutes later he returned with a sealed envelope and a covered container.
“The remains were provided for authorized testing,” he said. “The identity and recorded cause of death are in this envelope. I haven’t opened it.”
Eli stared at the container. The fact that he had dealt with human remains for years did not make this part easier. Someone had agreed, or someone authorized to act for them had agreed, that their remains could be used here. They were not a puzzle invented for his convenience.
“Do you need me to touch it?” he asked.
“Not unless your ability requires it.”
Lin lifted the cover. Inside was a small fragment of bone, resting on clean cloth. Eli focused on it. For a moment nothing happened. He felt his heartbeat in his throat and imagined leaving the station with no talent, no permit, and no way to reach the gate before someone else claimed it.
Pale text appeared above the container.
Ruth Larkin.
Cause of death: complications from pneumonia.
Eli let out a breath.
“Ruth Larkin,” he said. “Complications from pneumonia.”
Lin wrote the words on a separate sheet before opening the envelope. He compared the contents with Eli’s answer. Then he covered the container again.
“The name matches. So does the recorded cause.”
The confirmation did not make Eli happy in the way he had expected. It made the room feel solid. He had the same talent. The strange morning was not simply a dream in which he could choose a different power.
Lin asked him to describe what he had seen. Eli explained that the information appeared as text, fixed near the remains. He could not hear a voice. He could not determine the person’s history or identify anyone responsible for the death. Lin wrote each answer carefully.
“Is there a distance limit?” the examiner asked.
“I don’t know.”
That was partly true. He had learned through experience that distance and obstructions could affect what he saw, but the boundaries were inconsistent around gates. He did not want to claim a precise limit he had never measured.
“Can you use it on animal remains?”
“I haven’t confirmed that.”
Lin made another note. “Can it identify an injury before death?”
“No.”
“Does it offer any defense?”
Eli thought of the bodies in the locked chamber and the names he had written down. “It can help establish who died and what killed them.”
“That is valuable.”
“It could tell a rescue team whether someone has already died in a collapse.”
“Potentially. We’d need to test the distance and whether the ability can distinguish remains through debris.”
“It could identify casualties when their tags are missing.”
“Yes.”
“Then it shouldn’t be the lowest rank.”
Lin put down his pencil. “The classification is based on the current assessment criteria. They give more weight to demonstrated defense and combat capacity.”
“People die on these jobs. Someone has to identify them.”
“I agree. That doesn’t mean this ability has demonstrated a way to protect a team from a living threat.”
Eli felt heat rise in his face. In his first life, he had argued more loudly. The examiner had repeated the criteria until the next person in line complained. Eli had left humiliated, and the memory of the laughter had stayed with him longer than anything the examiner said.
He looked at the covered container. Ruth Larkin had received a name and an accurate cause on the record. That mattered. It did not change the form Lin was about to fill out.
“Can you show me the criteria?” Eli asked.
Lin passed him a sheet. The classifications were provisional, with a review available for new evidence. The examples were already biased toward combat: shields, physical enhancement, directed force. The section on investigation and recovery contained less detail.
Eli pointed to it. “There’s no standard test here for identification.”
“Not yet.”
“So you’re applying a combat scale to an ability that isn’t for combat.”
“Yes.” Lin did not sound pleased about it. “The scale was assembled quickly. You can request a review once there’s a procedure for evaluating this kind of work.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer was honest enough to make Eli angrier. He handed the sheet back.
Lin entered the result and turned the form so Eli could see it.
GRAVEKEEPER. PROVISIONAL RANK: F.
The words looked smaller on paper than they had in his memory.
Outside the curtain, someone asked what result he had received. Another voice said, “F? For looking at bones?” A few people laughed. The sound came and went quickly; the people laughing were probably already thinking about their own assessments.
Eli had carried that moment for ten years. He had let it explain every closed door afterward, every contract in which his name appeared as a number. Some of those doors had been closed by people who benefited from keeping him in his place. Others he had stopped trying to open himself.
Lin slid the form across the table. “Take this to permits. They can explain the registration options.”
Eli picked it up. “If I refuse to sign?”
“You can decline registration. You can also sign and request a review later.”
He walked to the permit station with the form in his hand. The clerk there was dealing with three people at once. A newly classified hunter wanted to know whether his rank entitled him to enter a gate immediately. A woman with no visible ability wanted to know whether she was required to register at all. A man in a suit wanted to know whether a company could register its employees as a group.
The clerk answered each question with a patience that was beginning to fray. When Eli reached the front, she checked his assessment.
“Provisional F,” she said. “You’ll need to sign the registration and acknowledge the restrictions.”
“What can I do with it?”
“Registered recovery work, support assignments, and supervised entry where permitted. Gate access depends on the site’s authorization.”
“What about an unregistered opening?”
“Do not enter an unsecured opening.” She pointed to the printed warning. “Contact the local response office.”
“If a recovery team forms before the response office arrives?”
“Your registration helps establish who you are and what you’ve demonstrated. It doesn’t authorize you to ignore a closure.”
He studied the permit. His name would appear beside the lowest rank. Anyone hiring a hunter would see it before they saw anything he could actually do. In his first life, he had taken the card and hidden it in his wallet as soon as he left the building.
Now he considered tearing the form up.
He could walk away from the label. He could head to the freight yard as an ordinary civilian and hope the confusion at the gate gave him an opening. It would feel better for a few minutes. It might also put him outside the perimeter when the person he remembered found the item.
The clerk waited. She did not seem interested in persuading him.
“If I don’t sign, I can’t apply for supervised entry,” Eli said.
“Correct.”
“And a review doesn’t require me to surrender the permit?”
“Not automatically. Ask the review office about the conditions when you apply.”
He signed.
The clerk stamped the form and gave him a temporary permit, a list of restrictions, and an address where permanent documentation would be issued. She also gave him a number to call if his ability changed or caused distress.
“Keep the permit dry,” she said. “We’re already running short of replacements.”
Eli put it in his wallet beside the folded notes. The two pieces of paper made an awkward thickness against the leather. He stepped away from the desk so the next person could approach.
He needed a moment alone. The gymnasium’s side corridor led to a row of restrooms and a drinking fountain. He found an empty stretch near a locked classroom and leaned against the wall.
The freight yard was still possible. He could reach it by bus if the roads reopened, or walk if they did not. He needed a better map and perhaps a pair of gloves. The item recovered there had been described as a core, though the reports differed about its exact properties. He could sell it, pay his debts, and avoid the desperation that had kept him returning to Aegis.
A pale notice appeared in front of him.
[Gravekeeper has evolved.]
Eli straightened. The notice remained in place as he moved his head.
[New designation: Heir of the Fallen.]
He waited for the rest.
No explanation followed.
He reached toward the text. His fingers passed through it. He tried concentrating on the new designation, then on the word evolved. The notice did not expand. No list of abilities appeared, no instructions, no conditions or cost. When he looked away, it faded; when he focused on the thought of his talent, it returned.
In his first life, Gravekeeper had never changed its name. He had tested it at different gates, used it for guild work and private recovery, and submitted two requests for reassessment. Neither review had revealed anything like this.
He thought of the people in the hidden chamber. He thought of his own death. The new designation might have something to do with either, or with the strange return itself. The notice did not say.
“Heir,” he whispered.
A man coming out of the restroom glanced at him. Eli stepped aside to let him pass and pretended to check his phone. He could go back to Lin and report the change. The examiner had been willing to listen, even if he could not change the criteria. But Eli had no way to demonstrate what the new designation meant. Reporting it would invite questions he could not answer, perhaps another assessment, and a delay he could not afford.
He had just signed a form promising accurate information about what he could demonstrate. He reread the relevant line. The notice had changed; its effect had not yet been demonstrated. That distinction might matter later. For now, he put the form away.
A cheer came from the gym. Someone had awakened a defensive barrier strong enough to stop a thrown practice weight. Eli listened to the applause, then walked toward the exit.
Outside, the line had grown again. A volunteer was passing out water. Eli accepted a cup, drank half, and poured the rest over the pencil marks on his fingers. The graphite blurred but did not wash off completely.
He checked the map on his phone. The fastest route to the freight yard crossed the street where Mina had avoided the collision. Traffic there was still blocked. He selected a route on foot and started walking.
Behind him, the assessment center doors opened for another group. Ahead, a siren sounded in the distance.
Eli quickened his pace. He had his F-rank permit, ten years of memories, and a new name for a talent he did not understand. The gate would not wait for him to sort out which of those things mattered most.