Chapter 13 – A Sense of control

He scrolled on the touchscreen. Another section attempted to hammer in that stabilisation was not simply flipping a switch and shutting everything off. People always made that mistake—trying to kill the resonance, they ended up frying themselves from the inside out. Overload. Discharge. Panic. Stabilisation, according to the manual, was about compatibility. It involved letting one's nerves pick up a new language.

Thinking of resonance as a language, rather than just raw power, made it easier to understand. Power was about control, about crushing things under one's heel. Language was messier. Practice. Mistakes. Learning the hard way.

He continued scrolling, eyes half-glazed, until a block of text with a warning marker—darker than the rest—stood out to him.

Redline notes: electrical types—those who generated or conducted electricity—were advised to avoid powerful emotional spikes. Scar interface environments—areas with damaged space-time barriers, stabiliser junk, or unusual metal alloys—were trouble. Trace markers, signals left by previous exposures to resonance fields, appeared frequently. Actual danger, not as often.

Trace markers. Scar interface. The ARC readout had displayed “TRACE DETECTED.”

He continued scrolling, bracing for the next thing that might leap out and ruin his night.

The scar interface section clarified that “trace” did not mean infection or entity contact. It indicated an event had occurred between resonance and a rift-scarred environment. The danger signs were different: thoughts which seemed external, compulsions, auditory hallucinations, and missing time.

Caelum released a shaky, tense breath. The feeling in his gut was insistent and untrustworthy. Danger could still have been waiting, silent as a breath.

There had been no voices. No missing time. No compulsions.

There was only memory. Rift echo. The feeling of wet leaves and bugs that had no business existing in a place made of steel.

He sighed and tapped back to the drills.

A new section appeared, the header bold enough to make him sit up a little straighter.

Control drills: The Switch. The goal was to move between states without losing control and frying something. Electrical types, apparently, often learned how to turn things on—combat spikes, adrenaline—but never how to turn them off. The manual called for micro-activation, micro-release. Then it ended with a line that made his jaw clench.

Do not chase the high.

He stared at it longer than he wished, resentment and longing wrestling behind his eyes, shame humming low in his chest.

It was almost insulting how well it described the temptation. That clean second in the mangroves, pain turning into fuel, body running as if it had been built for this. That half-breath when everything went pale and, for once, he felt as though he belonged.

He squeezed the tablet until his knuckles hurt, then forced himself to let go. There was no sense in breaking the only thing in the room that could help him.

He read the drill steps further. One was to breathe steadily. Another suggested visualising a spark in one's chest, in the heart. The instructions advised letting it reach the fingertips—no further—holding for a breath, then letting it out on the exhale. Repeat. Stop if the collar buzzes. Simple, if one ignored the part where the body wanted to do the opposite.

A small spark.

He stood over the floor grid, awkward as someone relearning how to pray.

He inhaled slowly.

He imagined the spark.

The spark formed around his heart—warmth, not pain. He moved it down his arms until his fingertips tingled, then held it there. He did not let it go.

He held for one breath.

His body wanted to turn it into something bigger. Nerves itched for a show. His pulse picked up, as if it could sense trouble coming.

He exhaled. The heat slid down into the grid beneath him.

The tingling faded.

The collar stayed silent.

It worked.

Caelum’s shoulders loosened a fraction—a micro release, just enough to register through the pain of wariness itself on his battered nerves.

He repeated the process.

He tried a third time. Then a fourth.

On the fifth attempt, his calf cramped as he shifted his weight. Pain shot up his leg. Instinct caused his shoulders to lock and his fingers to curl, warmth surging before he could stop it.

A crackle jumped between two drops of sweat on Caelum's knuckles—small and bright.

The collar buzzed.

Caelum’s heart beat fast, panic shooting up his spine, the sound of failure clutching in his throat.

He forced his hands open, unclenched his jaw, and dragged his breath back into the drill rhythm. He forced himself not to let panic take over.

He let the charge drip out, slow and steady. The urge to spark waned like a muscle, finally letting go.

The collar went quiet.

He stood there, breathing hard. Fear and relief knotted in his throat. It was impossible to pull apart.

So that was the problem. Not a battle. Not adrenaline.

Pain. Surprise. Tightening. The reflex to clamp down.

He returned to the tablet. Now that he knew, he could prepare. He searched for answers as someone might look for a tourniquet.

The troubleshooting section did not soften anything. He sparked when he tensed up—shoulders, forearms, fists, jaw, breath. He tried to hold the charge rather than let it move. The fix was always the same: open hands, drop the shoulders, breathe out slowly, let it drip.

He repeated the switch drill, slower this time. He formed the spark smaller, letting it fade out. Each round felt like arguing with his own nerves.

He was on his ninth clean repetition when the room’s synthetic voice spoke, calm and utterly uninterested in his pride.

“Cadet Ward. ARC sync update: 58%. Trend stable. Continue grounding practice. Assessment remains as scheduled—first light.”

Fifty-eight. Up from fifty-two.

So they were tracking him. The drills actually mattered. Watched. Logged. Probably both. No surprise there.

He sat on the bed and filled out the self-report as instructed in the manual. He logged the crackle, wrote down the trigger—pain spike. Correction: open hands, drip. Collar buzzes: two.

A line of text showed at the bottom after he submitted:

Good compliance reduces quarantine duration.

He let out a single, breathless laugh that almost broke apart on the way out—a delicate sound.

Of course it did. Why wouldn’t it?

The system did not care if he was brave. It just wanted him to be predictable, safe, easy to file away and categorise.

He searched deeper into the Marked manual and found the section on approved tools: conductive pads. Some places used floor grids. Others made cadets carry their own. If the room had an interface panel, one was supposed to ask for a pad. No improvising with pipes or bed frames.

He eyed the sink. The bed. His own hands.

The urge struck anyway—stupid, fast. He knew better, but that never stopped the thought from appearing.

He reached for the wall interface near the sink and placed his palm on the light-hand icon.

The panel warmed. The collar pulsed.

“Request,” the synthetic voice said.

“A conductive pad,” Caelum said in his husky voice. “For grounding practice.”

A pause.

“Approved,” the voice answered. “Delivery scheduled. Remain calm. Continue practice.”

A small hatch near the door swished open. A sealed package was brought into the room, as if it were being smuggled in. Caelum limped over and tore it open.

The pad was flat, black, and rubbery. A silver strip ran along one edge like a vein of metal. Heavier than it seemed. Dense and built for people the system didn’t trust.

He set it down near the bed. The silver strip lined up with the hidden grid in the floor, as if it belonged there.

He stepped upon it barefoot. The effect was immediate.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing to see. But the pressure under his sternum shifted. His body finally figured out where to send the extra charge. The heat that usually threatened to build up was easier to steer now, less likely to snap free.

He ran the drill again. The difference was obvious. The spark behind his sternum formed with less fight. Letting it reach his fingertips felt smoother. Letting go didn’t take as much effort as keeping it from snapping loose.

His nervous system—this so-called new language—finally found some grammar.

He pushed it too far once, just to see what would happen, letting the spark behind his sternum grow a little bigger.

The collar buzzed—a gentle warning.

He stopped immediately, exhaled slowly, and let the charge bleed into the pad.

The buzz didn’t repeat. He almost smiled.

Not because it had been easy. Because he had caught it.

Control did not mean he never screwed up. It meant catching the mistakes before they burned everything down.

He trained until sweat pricked at his hairline. His calf throbbed every time he shifted. He trained until the heat behind his chest dulled—less wild animal, more precise tool. He trained until hunger finally cut through the adrenaline and refused to be ignored.

When he stopped, it was on purpose. Not because something screamed at him to quit.

He ate the sealed meal, perched on the edge of the bed with his feet still on the pad. The food was bland, protein trying and failing to be chicken. It did not matter. It was warm. It was real. At least it did not carry a mutation.

He filled out the self-report again after eating. Logged better stability, fewer collar warnings, and the kind of fatigue that settled in his bones.

He opened the manual again and reread the most important line until it stopped sounding like a rule and started to feel real: he was not a battery.

He rested on the bed, tablet on his chest, and did one last slow drip, emptying the leftover warmth into the pad until his digits finally stopped tingling.

The synthetic voice returned, softer than before.

“Cadet Ward. ARC sync update: 68%. Trend stable. Rest recommended.”

Sixty-eight.

He gazed at the number. Something hot and unfamiliar stuttered in his chest—a flood of yearning. It felt just like a door cracking open. Not wide, but just enough to sense that something was lying beyond.

He closed his eyes and breathed the way the Marked manual drilled into him: slow, deliberate, shoulders down, jaw loose. He let the room’s hum fade into the background and let the rift echo turn into faraway rain he could remember without flinching.

The electricity still lived in his core, but it no longer seemed like a stranger.

And when sleep ultimately came, it had brought a satisfying sense of progress.