Carlo’s boots left bloody prints on the Citade’s ascension platform.

  The elevator shaft stretched into clouds that shimmered like broken glass. Beside him, a bio-engineered goat chewed on the keycard.

  “Steve,” said the elevator’s voice module, “is not part of your admission package.”

  Carlo pried the card from the goat’s titanium teeth. “You named it?”

  “Steve is a they.”

  The platform lurched upward. Carlo’s mutation flared—[RADIANCE EYES] peeling back the Citadel’s illusions. Where others saw gilded stadiums, he saw pulsating organs grafted to scaffolding. The clouds? Aerosolized nanobots. The cheering crowds? Holograms masking empty seats.

  A notification seared his vision:

  [SKILL SYNCHRONIZATION: 12%]

  [REMAINING LIFESPAN: 6 DAYS 23 HOURS]

  “Welcome, meat,”sneered a voice dripping with synthetic honey.

  The Proctor floated at the arena’s edge, her body a liquid metal sculpture of every sports poster Carlo had ever looted for toilet paper. Behind her, twenty-three candidates glowed with genetic perfection. One boy had literal wings.

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  “You’re late,”the Proctor said. “And you brought… vermin.”

  Steve headbutted her shin.

  The trial began without rules.

  Carlo’s first opponent materialized—a girl whose skin shifted between fractal patterns. Her cleats left burning afterimages. [RADIANCE EYES] flagged her weakness: A flickering core beneath her left collarbone. A power source.

  “You’re the sewer rat,”she grinned. “Let’s see if you bleed gray.”

  She moved faster than his mutation could track.

  Left hook. Feint. Spinning kick aimed at—

  [PRECOGNITIVE FEINT: ERROR]

  The vision stuttered. Carlo’s nose shattered.

  Blood splattered Steve’s fur as the girl pinned him. “Citadel eats legacies like you for breakfast. Your dad’s corpse still twitches in Lab 9.”

  [SKILL SYNCHRONIZATION: 27%]

  New text burned through the pain:

  [ADAPTIVE COMBAT INSTINCT (CORRUPTED) ACTIVATED]

  Carlo’s hand moved on its own—a savage jab into her flickering core.

  The girl’s scream harmonized with Steve’s triumphant bleating. Her skin stabilized into something human. Vulnerable.

  “Yield,” Carlo growled.

  “You… cheat!” Her fist crackled with plasma.

  The Proctor appeared, melting the plasma into confetti. “Genetic improvisation is art,” she purred. “But Carlo—you’ll need better tricks.”

  She tossed him a crumpled photo.

  His father stood in the same arena, face half-rotted, holding a trophy made from a human spine. The timestamp: 19 years ago.

  “Your next trial starts now,” the Proctor said. “Try not to resurrect any family curses.”

  The floor vanished.

  Carlo fell through layers of dead simulations—old matches where ghostly players repeated their final moments. A striker dissolved mid-goal. A keeper’s hands fused to a ball made of screaming faces.

  [RADIANCE EYES] overloaded.

  Lina’s voice cut through the static: “Your heartbeat’s wrong. Come home.”

  He crashed into a pitch of black grass. The goalposts were ribcages. The ball? A pulsing brain hooked to wires.

  Across the field stood a boy with Carlo’s face.

  “Hi, big brother,” Not-Carlo smiled. “Let’s play Dad’s favorite game.”