The transport vehicle that arrived at Sector 17's boundary was nothing like the sleek, climate-controlled conveyances Lyra had glimpsed ferrying corporate citizens between districts. This was a repurposed industrial hauler—a massive, rectangur box mounted on treads designed for navigating unstable terrain, its exterior scarred by chemical exposure and makeshift repairs.

  Lyra stood with eleven other eighteen-year-olds from her sector, each clutching the single regution bag permitted for Game entry. Around her, families gathered for final farewells—mothers pressing extra nutrition packets into hands, fathers offering gruff advice about survival, younger siblings watching with the haunted eyes of those who would face the same journey in years to come.

  The transport's loading ramp descended with a hydraulic groan, revealing a ProtectoCorp officer in full enforcement gear, face obscured behind a regution helmet.

  "Sector 17 entrants, forward for processing," the officer announced through an amplified speaker, voice rendered mechanical and impersonal. "Single file, identification ready."

  Lyra felt Mira's hand briefly squeeze her shoulder before letting go. No prolonged goodbyes in Sector 17—practicality had long since repced sentimentality in their daily lives. Still, the weight of st night's revetion about her community's sacrifices made this parting heavier than she'd anticipated.

  "Remember what you promised," Mira whispered.

  Lyra nodded once, firmly. "I'll return."

  She joined the line of entrants moving toward the transport, neural interface humming faintly against her temple as the corporate scanner swept over each teenager, confirming identity and Game eligibility. When her turn came, she stood perfectly still, keeping her expression neutral despite the anxiety that the scanner might somehow detect her modifications.

  The officer studied the readout, then nodded curtly. "Proceed."

  Lyra released the breath she'd been holding and stepped into the transport's cargo area. Metal benches lined both walls, already half-filled with teenagers from other Unaligned sectors. She found a space and settled in, pcing her bag between her feet as instructed.

  The remaining Sector 17 entrants boarded, followed by the ProtectoCorp officer who sealed the loading ramp. With a lurch, the transport began moving, its ancient engine producing a rhythmic cnking that vibrated through the metal floor.

  No windows broke the featureless walls of the cargo area, but a status dispy near the front showed their route—a winding path through six more Unaligned sectors before reaching the Eastern Processing Center. The journey would take approximately four hours.

  Lyra studied her fellow passengers in the harsh overhead lighting. Most sat in tense silence, eyes downcast or fixed vacantly ahead. A few whispered to neighbors from their own sectors. All wore the standard-issue gray jumpsuits provided for Game entry, the only distinguishing features being the small sector identification patches on their shoulders.

  "They say Sector 23 lost all their entrants st cycle," a boy whispered three seats down, voice barely audible over the engine noise. "Not a single one made it past Floor 5."

  "That's just a rumor," another replied, though his expression betrayed his uncertainty. "My cousin entered two years ago. We still get updates about his progress."

  Lyra kept her face carefully neutral while processing this information. The updates mentioned were almost certainly fabricated—part of the corporate narrative maintaining the Game's appearance as a genuine advancement opportunity. Her modifications to Tel's old information scraper had uncovered numerous inconsistencies in official Game statistics, particurly regarding "advancement deys" in lower-css entrants.

  The transport lurched to a stop, the status board indicating they had reached Sector 22. The loading ramp descended again, and eight more teenagers boarded, their expressions ranging from terrified to grimly determined.

  Among them was a tall girl with a healing burn scar across the left side of her face, who took the empty space beside Lyra. She nodded in acknowledgment but said nothing, her hands csped tightly in her p to hide their trembling.

  As the transport resumed its journey, Lyra found her thoughts returning to the ledger Tomas had shown her the previous night. The meticulous record of seventeen years of community sacrifice—food, medicine, components, even lives—all invested in her development without her knowledge.

  "Year 3: Obtained educational materials through Javi's contact at InfoSys. Cost us two months of antibiotic reserves. Ana's daughter caught an infection we couldn't treat."

  The memory of Ana's steady gaze across the gathering space made Lyra's chest tighten. How had the woman not resented her all these years? How had any of them continued supporting her education and training when it cost them so dearly?

  "First time leaving your sector?" the girl beside her asked suddenly, breaking into Lyra's thoughts.

  Lyra turned, realizing she'd been so lost in reflection that she'd missed the girl's earlier attempts at conversation. "Sorry, what?"

  "I asked if this is your first time outside your sector," the girl repeated. "You've got that look—like you're memorizing everything because you might never see it again."

  "Yes," Lyra admitted. "Sector 17 isn't easy to leave. Restricted movement permits, security checkpoints."

  The girl nodded in understanding. "Same in 22. I'm Dara."

  "Lyra."

  "What did you do there? Before this, I mean."

  "Technical salvage and repair," Lyra answered, the simplified description feeling inadequate for the years spent under Tel's guidance, learning to understand and manipute technology in ways that sometimes bordered on corporate secrets. "You?"

  "Worked the algae vats," Dara said, unconsciously touching her scarred face. "Protein processing for the Worker sectors. One of the vats had a pressure malfunction st year. I was lucky—only caught half the spray."

  Lyra nodded, recognizing the characteristic pattern of the burn. Chemical processing accidents were common in the industrial sectors. "Clean protein production is essential work," she said, knowing how rarely Unaligned workers heard their contributions acknowledged.

  Dara looked surprised, then offered a small smile. "Didn't help much with Game preparation, though. You get any training?"

  The question carried weight beyond its simple wording. In the Unaligned sectors, formal Game preparation was nearly non-existent—no training facilities, no specialized equipment, no strategy sessions with previous participants. Whatever preparation happened came through community knowledge-sharing and makeshift practice.

  "Some," Lyra said carefully. "Technical approach mainly. You?"

  "Community pooled resources for a used training module," Dara replied. "Fifteen of us shared it, got maybe three hours each before it failed. Better than nothing."

  The transport stopped again, this time at Sector 28. More teenagers boarded, including a pair of twins who looked so malnourished that Lyra wondered how they'd passed the physical eligibility screening. They found seats near the front, huddling together as if trying to occupy as little space as possible.

  "Threshold sector," Dara murmured, following Lyra's gaze. "Closest to the waste processing pnts. Toxic exposure from birth."

  "Year 7: Growing girl needs proper nutrition. Families taking turns giving up meals so Lyra can eat properly."

  The ledger entry fshed through Lyra's mind as she observed the twins. How different would her development have been without Sector 17's collective decision to prioritize her nutrition? How many children had gone hungry so she could have protein for optimal brain development?

  The knowledge was a weight she hadn't anticipated carrying into the Game—not just her own survival at stake, but the investment of an entire community that had quietly sacrificed for her potential.

  "Heard anything about what to expect?" Dara asked, lowering her voice further. "My older brother entered three years ago. Said the first floor looks easy but isn't."

  Lyra hesitated, weighing how much to share. Her modified neural interface had given her access to information far beyond what other Unaligned pyers possessed, but revealing this could make her a target—or worse, draw corporate attention to her unauthorized enhancements.

  "Survival basics first," she offered finally. "Resource gathering, shelter construction, simple combat training. The official materials say the Green Realm floors are designed for acclimation."

  "Official materials?" Dara raised an eyebrow. "You got access to those?"

  "Community resource library," Lyra expined, the half-truth coming easily. "We salvaged a partial Game preparation module a few years back."

  The answer seemed to satisfy Dara, who nodded and returned to watching the new arrivals as the transport made its remaining stops.

  By the time they reached the Eastern Processing Center four hours ter, the transport carried fifty-seven teenagers from nine different Unaligned sectors. The loading bay where they disembarked was cavernous and sterile, with gleaming white surfaces and bright overhead lighting that made Lyra squint after the dimness of the transport.

  Corporate staff in processing uniforms directed them through a series of stations—equipment verification, neural interface inspection, physical assessment, and finally, Game orientation. Throughout the process, Lyra noticed the subtle differences in how staff interacted with entrants based on their sector patches. The teenagers from borders closest to Worker zones received more thorough equipment checks, more invasive interface inspections.

  When her turn came for interface inspection, Lyra kept her breathing steady as the technician ran a standard diagnostic scan. The modifications she'd made were designed to appear normal under such scrutiny, with the enhanced capabilities hidden beneath yers of seemingly standard code.

  The technician barely gnced at the readout before waving her forward. "Next station."

  Relief washed through her, though she kept her expression neutral. One more potential detection point passed.

  The final orientation took pce in a rge hall where all fifty-seven Unaligned entrants gathered before a massive dispy screen. A corporate representative in VitaCore colors delivered a scripted overview of the Game's purpose and basic functionality. The same material Lyra had read countless times in her preparation, filled with euphemisms and carefully crafted messaging about "advancement opportunity" and "merit-based progression."

  What the representative didn't mention—what wasn't in any official documentation—were the elimination metrics her modified information scraper had uncovered. The weekly quota system. The escating difficulty designed specifically to reduce Unaligned advancement beyond certain floors.

  As the orientation concluded, the entrants were directed to individual preparation pods for their final hour before Game entry. These small chambers, barely rger than standing capsules, would be their st experience of physical reality before their consciousness transferred to the Game environment.

  Lyra's assigned pod was near the end of a long row, its interior simple and functional—padded walls, neural connection port, status dispy. As she stepped inside, the door sealed automatically, creating a momentary panic before she steadied herself with practiced breathing techniques.

  The status dispy indicated forty-seven minutes until transfer initiation. Enough time for final mental preparation.

  Closing her eyes, Lyra activated her neural interface, bringing up the custom visualization system she'd designed for information review. Before her mind's eye appeared a floating arrangement of data categories—Game mechanics, environmental hazards, survival strategies, technical vulnerabilities she'd identified.

  She began a systematic review, focusing particurly on the information she'd gleaned about the Game's Library System. According to what she'd discovered through her unauthorized access, the Library contained drastically different information depending on pyer css—Architect entrants received comprehensive strategic guides, floor maps, and guardian weakness analysis, while Unaligned pyers were limited to basic survival manuals.

  Her modifications should allow her to bypass these restrictions, accessing knowledge meant to be Css-locked from her. The advantage this would provide could be the difference between survival and elimination.

  As the minutes counted down, Lyra's thoughts returned once more to Sector 17 and the community that had invested so much in her journey to this moment.

  "Lyra's Game preparations complete. Medical supplements acquired at cost of six months' combined community salvage earnings. All seventeen participating families will be eating thin soup until next quarter."

  The ledger entries had changed her understanding of her past and her purpose. She had always viewed herself as an outsider in Sector 17—different in ways she couldn't quite articute, driven by abilities that seemed to come from nowhere. Learning about the community's collective decision to nurture those abilities, even at tremendous cost to themselves, transformed her perspective.

  She wasn't just entering the Game to survive, or even to discover its secrets. She was carrying the hopes and sacrifices of an entire community that had chosen to invest in her when they could have used those resources for collective benefit.

  As the status dispy counted down the final minutes, Lyra made a silent promise to the people of Sector 17: she would not only survive the Game but understand it, master it, and perhaps even transform it. Whatever she had been born or designed to be, she chose now to become what her community needed—someone who could return with knowledge and power to improve their lives.

  The neural connection port descended from the ceiling, automatically aligning with her interface. The status dispy fshed final warnings and instructions.

  "Neural transfer initiating in 30 seconds. Remain still. Normal consciousness interruption will occur. Game orientation will begin automatically upon transfer completion."

  Lyra took a deep breath and focused her mind on a single image—the gathered community of Sector 17, their hands linked in the circle that had surrounded her st night. Their words echoed in her memory:

  "You were loved. Not for what you might someday do or become. Not for your technical skills or unique abilities. But for yourself—the girl who made us ugh with her terrible jokes, who stayed up three nights straight to save Old Reya's cat, who taught our children to read corporate warning signs so they wouldn't get hurt."

  As the neural transfer began, the preparation pod fading from her awareness, Lyra held onto that moment of connection—the st sunset she had watched from Sector-17's highest point, the community gathered below, the weight of their sacrifices now transformed into determination.

  Whatever the Game truly was, whatever secrets it held, she would face it not as an isoted technician but as the embodiment of Sector 17's collective hope. That knowledge gave her a strength no corporate entrant with all their advantages could possibly understand.

  The world went dark, consciousness suspended between physical reality and the Game environment. Her st thought before the darkness cimed her was a simple promise:

  I will return.