GATE: First Encounter

Chapter 27

The room is silent. Dim strips of light run across the ceiling in a steady line, heralding neither night nor day. In this windowless box, time has lost its meaning. I lie motionless on the bed, staring at the ceiling. My body is exhausted, yet my mind is taut with the prospect of training with Lynx at dawn. "Tomorrow at first light," she'd said. The words are both a promise and a countdown. With every second I edge closer to the Serynox team's arrival—closer to the inevitable end.

"Your heart rate is above baseline," Yaren says inside my head, his voice now softer, familiar. "Anxiety elevated. I advise regulating your focus and breathing. Conserve energy for tomorrow."

"Hard to focus," I whisper into the empty room. "How does a man with an appointment with death stay calm, Yaren?"

"Not death," he corrects immediately. "War. There's a difference. And we are preparing for it."

His unflinching logic damps the panic swirling in me. He's right. This isn't waiting; it's preparation.

Just then the door taps twice—soft but deliberate.

My heart stutters. Who could it be at this hour? It can't be Lynx; dawn is still far off. Swallowing hard, I push myself upright.

"Who is it?"

My voice rings stronger than I expect in the stifling silence.

The door slides open almost soundlessly. The silhouette in the threshold sharpens under the corridor light—Valsera. No formal uniform, only a plain, dark outfit the research staff wear. She looks tired—still not fully healed—but her eyes are as keen and focused as a surgeon's scalpel.

"Sorry to wake you, Okan," she says, low but clear. "Time is short. We need to talk and we need to prep."

"Prep?" I ask, rising from the bed. "For what?"

Valsera steps in, and the room's chemistry changes instantly. She is one of the smartest—and perhaps most dangerous—people here.

"To keep you alive," she answers flatly. "To do that, I need data. Your data. I can't rely on what they have. I must run my own analysis. You're coming with me."

It's no request; it's an order—yet laced with genuine concern. I nod. "All right."

Out in the corridor we take an unfamiliar route—sterile, silent. This must be the Medical and Scientific Wing. The air is colder, laced with antiseptic. Walls gleam, floors shine like mirrors. No laughter, no whispers—only the steady hum of ventilation and the occasional beep of distant equipment. Over each door float complex formulas and warning symbols I can't read: a place for dissecting life into its smallest parts.

At the corridor's end we stop at a larger door marked only by a single red line. Valsera scans her wrist device on the panel. With a vacuum hiss, the door slides aside.

A blast of cold, dry air hits my face. Inside smells of ozone and sterilizing chemicals. Less a room than a temple—one consecrated to the harsh, unforgiving gods of science.

Brilliant shadowless white light from ceiling panels illuminates every detail. Nothing can hide here. In the center awaits the thing I'm meant to lie on: a procedure bed—really a polished slab of metal fitted with leather-and-steel restraints. From its head and sides sprout jointed robotic arms tipped with needles, sensors, scanners—metal spiders poised for their prey.

Walls are lined floor-to-ceiling with glass cabinets and monitors. Inside shimmer surgical tools of impossible design, vials of colored fluids, intricate devices. Screens loop genetic sequences, 3-D cell models, tangled graphs. A room built not to celebrate life, but to take it apart molecule by molecule.

"Strip to your underwear," Valsera orders, voice all professionalism. "Then lie down."

I obey. The metal shocks my back with its chill. I'm exposed, defenseless.

She approaches with a tablet, first passing a small scanner across my body. A thin blue beam sweeps my skin while a 3-D map blossoms on her screen.

"Muscle density slightly below projection, but bone structure solid," she mutters, logging notes. She tests reflexes, pressing precise points.

Next she lifts my arm. No needle: a coin-sized disk adheres to my inner wrist, vibrates, and I feel a pinprick burn. Seconds later it detaches, now holding a tiny reservoir of my blood. She docks it into an analyzer; data scroll across a monitor.

"Now," she says, picking up another device, "we measure endurance."

She presses the probe to my shoulder. "This will apply escalating neural pressure. It will hurt. Scream if you must—I need your threshold."

"Ready, Okan," Yaren warns. "I'll analyze incoming pain signals and feed you feedback. Focus on your breathing."

Valsera activates the device. First a tingle—then a searing heat boring into bone. I clench my teeth, eyes shut, will fighting the agony. I want to scream but swallow it.

"Pressure at 7.3. Nociceptors firing overload. Muscles locking. Hold on, Okan!"

My body shakes violently. Sweat drips from my brow onto the cold metal. Valsera never looks up, absorbed in the readouts.

"Incredible..." I hear her whisper. "Pain threshold... matches no recorded species."

At last she cuts the current. I'm gasping, muscles still twitching.

When she finishes her notes, she studies the monitors in silence. Her face is unreadable—neither hope nor despair, only analysis.

"What are you looking for?" I rasp.

She turns. For the first time a flicker slips past the scientist's mask—pity, or perhaps awe.

"An anomaly," she says. "Anything that lets you survive. The speed of your cell repair, how your nerves endure stress, the tiniest genetic quirk... I'm searching for a bargaining chip, Okan. If there's even a twig to cling to, I have to find it."

Her words hammer home the stakes again.

"Dress and return to your room," she says, turning away. "Tomorrow will be hard. Rest."

I rise, every muscle aching. Dressing, my eyes snag on the cold metal bed. In a few months it may be my battlefield. Whether Valsera finds that twig—I have no idea.

Leaving the lab, the corridor's hush feels ready to swallow me. This place is no longer just an outpost; it is a vast organism waiting for its sacrifice. And I stand at its heart.