Snow blanketed the training grounds he had learned to call home. Step, strike, step, block, step. The movements were second nature.

The softer crunch of the instructor’s pacing through the lines of trainees were an imbalance to the rhythm of their cadence. O-247’s gi did little to blunt the icy wind slicing through the yard. Snap. A staff cracked across a trainee’s calf, correcting his form. The boy shuddered but kept moving, desperate to avoid another blow.

O-247 clenched his jaw as an instructor drew closer to him. Step, strike, step, block, step. The man passed without a word. Only then did O-247 allow his red eyes to flick sideways, checking his peripherals. Relief flickered through him—quick, dangerous, and immediately buried.

He could not afford to stand out. Not here. Yet, his mind kept drifting beyond the walls, to the neon-drenched skylines of the New York Megacity that bled color into the clouds. To the prospect of a life outside this place.

His ribs ached from yesterday’s drills. A bruise sat dark beneath his left shoulder blade, another along his hip, and something sharp twinged in his knee every time he planted too hard on the turn.

None of it mattered.

Pain belonged here. A routine, like roll call and ration trays and the hiss of heaters that never seemed to work. He would heal soon enough, so ignorance was the choice. Fixating on it became a weakness.

“Again,” barked the lead instructor.

The formation reset.

Hours had no meaning in the yard. Time broke apart into set and correction, into repetitions and punishments, into the burn of muscle and the sting of cold and the certainty that the sun never broke through the clouds. When weak daylight seeped over the walls, it revealed nothing new. Just the same courtyard, The same grey stone. The same lines of children honed into weapons.

“Hold.”

The trainees froze mid-stance.

The pause should have been relief. It wasn’t. Holding hurt more than moving. Quads shook. Shoulders burned. Snowmelt ran down O-247’s spine in a thin, freezing thread. He stared at the back of the neck in front of him and counted breaths.

One. Two. Three—

A muffled thud sounded somewhere to his right.

Awareness spread through the formation, subtle as static. A body hitting stone sounded different from a knee touching down on command. He felt the ripple through rows: the split-second tightening in shoulders, the microscopic shift in attention.

“R-119,” said the lead instructor.

Silence.

Then lower and closer to the ground, a ragged attempt at breathing.

He could see the boy now as fragments in the edge of his vision: one arm folded wrong beneath him, a shoulder twitching against the ground. R-119 was small for his age, the sort of trainee whose uniform always seemed to hang a little too loose. He had been fading for weeks. The slower recovery between drills. The bluish tint around the lips in the morning formation. The way his knees locked under strain.

The lead instructor stepped into view. His boots stopped beside the fallen trainee.

“You have ten seconds to regain your position.”

His voice was calm. Almost bored.

R-119 tried to push himself up.

His arms gave out immediately. His chest hit stone. A whimper slipped out of him then—not a cry, just air forced through a body already past its limits. Even for them.

“Ten,” began the instructor.

The formation held.

“Nine”

A shudder ran through the boy.

“Eight”

His fingers scraped at the frozen grit, trying for purchase.

“Seven.”

One knee came underneath him. Slipped. Folded.

“Six.”

A muscle jumped once in O-247’s jaw, and he killed it.

“Five”

The boy’s head lifted. His eyes were wide and unfocused, face colorless except where cold and exertion had burst red along the cheeks.

“Four.”

He made it halfway up.

“Three.”

His legs buckled.

“Two.”

R-119 hit the ground hard enough O-247 felt it through the soles of his boots.

“One.”

Nothing. Yet not quite nothing. The body was still trying. He could hear the weak drag of breath. See the trembling in the fingers.

The instructor crouched.

“Unfit.”

A small device sat on his wrist. Sleek and black. Linked to the collars worn by every trainee in the yard. He waved his hand over it.

The movement was violent enough to scrape the cheek across the stone. His back arched. Hands clawed uselessly at the metal ring around his throat. His heels drummed twice against the courtyard before his body seized into a rigid line, then dropped, shuddering in small aftershocks. A single tear falling down his cheek.

Two attendants in grey came through the rows carrying a drag-sled. Their faces hidden behind the half-masks. They lifted R-119 by the arms and ankles without ceremony. His head lolled once. One shoe came half off and left a brief track in the snow before disappearing with him through a pair of metal doors.

The doors opened and closed with a soft whoosh.

The lead instructor returned to his place.

“Resume.”

The formation moved again.

Step. Turn. Brace. Pivot.

O-247’s body obeyed on instinct. His mind put the number where it kept the others.

R-119.

He would remember the narrow wrists. The way one front tooth had chipped. The habit of blinking fast whenever instructors passed, expecting a hit before it came. Small things. Useless things. His.