Testing Sector B was basically a high-tech gym. The Holodome, as the students called it, was a huge spherical chamber lined with thousands of hexagonal emitter plates, all designed to project hard-light holograms for practical exams.
Robert stood in the center of the metallic grid, shaking out his arms to relieve the tension in his shoulders. Up in the observation gallery, behind a thick pane of energy glass, he saw a handful of students watching. Freddy was front and center, giving him an exaggerated, goofy salute.
"Alright, Martinez," Professor Vance's voice echoed over the intercom, crisp and authoritative. "Standard agility and precision demonstration. You will navigate a holographic canyon, strike three moving targets, and retrieve the objective orb at the summit. You are being graded on power management and control. You have five minutes. Begin."
The hexagonal plates whirred to life, emitting a blinding flash of white light.
When Robert opened his eyes, the steel cavern was gone. He was standing at the bottom of a projected, rocky canyon. Floating stone pillars formed a treacherous staircase leading up to a glowing blue orb resting on a pedestal.
A soft chime sounded. A small, disk-shaped training target floated out from behind a rock, glowing a bright, friendly green.
Keep it simple, Robert thought. He closed his eyes for a split second, visualizing a third-year student he'd seen practicing bounding leaps in the courtyard.
Slot one: Enhanced Agility. Energy coiled in his leg muscles. He pushed off the ground, easily clearing a ten-foot gap to land on the first floating pillar. He wobbled slightly as his feet hit the uneven holographic stone, his long limbs still a bit uncoordinated, but he caught his balance.
The green target zipped to the right.
Robert needed a projectile. He pictured the energy blasts they learned in basic defense. Slot two: Plasma Bolt. He raised his right hand, felt a familiar hum in his palm, and fired. The blue bolt missed, fizzling against the canyon wall. Robert winced. Using two copied powers always felt like trying to pat his head and rub his stomach at the same time. The agility in his legs made it hard to focus on his hands.
"Breathe," he muttered to himself. He centered his aim and fired again. Smack. The green target flashed blue, then deactivated and dropped to the floor.
"One down," Robert said, leaping to the next two pillars in rapid succession.
Another target swooped out, this one moving faster in a figure-eight pattern. Robert fired twice, missing both times. He gritted his teeth, feeling the strain in his head. He needed to get closer, but the next pillar was too far of a jump, even with enhanced agility.
He needed a third power. He visualized the flight ability he'd used earlier that morning.
Slot three: Flight. As soon as the third power kicked in, a wave of dizziness hit him. Keeping agility, a projectile, and flight going at once was tough. His boosted jump turned into a clumsy, floating stumble. He missed the pillar completely, his feet slipping on the edge.
Robert panicked and dropped the agility and plasma bolts, clearing his mental slate to just flight. The dizziness faded instantly, and he hovered securely in the air, exhaling deeply.
"Careful, Martinez," Vance's voice crackled over the intercom, a hint of warning in his tone. "Don't overload your capacity. Precision over flash."
"Right. Precision," Robert muttered.
He floated gently to the final platform, deciding to rely on just his own two hands for the last stretch. The third target buzzed nearby. He didn't even use a power. He simply reached out and swatted the hovering disk out of the air. It clattered to the ground, flashing blue.
He had made it to the pedestal. The glowing blue orb pulsed gently, waiting to be retrieved.
He let out a sigh of relief, dropping his flight power to clear his slots completely. He reached out to grab the orb.
As his fingers brushed the glowing hologram, the Holodome violently shuddered.
A high-pitched screech of feedback ripped through the chamber, making Robert wince and cover his ears. The holographic canyon flickered, the projection stuttering before the whole simulation just collapsed. The earthy browns and bright blues disappeared, leaving the huge spherical room in total darkness.
For a split second, the air felt freezing, heavy with an unnatural chill. Robert could hear a voice, not over the intercom but directly in his mind, a whisper like grinding stone.
Surge iterum ex umbris…
Down on the dark steel floor, the deactivated training targets suddenly twitched. They didn't disappear into harmless pixels. Instead, they convulsed, their friendly green and blue lights shifting to a sickening, corrupted red.
With a synchronized mechanical shriek, the three disks launched themselves into the air. They didn't move in their programmed training patterns; they swarmed directly toward Robert like predators zeroing in on a kill.
Instinct took over. Robert needed a defense, and he needed it now. He visualized the academy's headmaster, a Meliorate capable of sheer concussive force manipulation.
Slot one: Telekenesis. Robert threw both hands forward, creating a barrier in front of him, bracing himself for the impact.
But the impact never came.
Mere inches from his palms, the red disks abruptly froze in mid-air. They hovered there, shuddering violently as if caught between two commands. Sparks showered from their metallic seams as they glitched and whined, the corrupted red light flickering erratically. Then, with a final, dying spark, the lights went out completely.
The heavy metal disks plummeted to the steel floor, clattering lifelessly at Robert's feet.
Overhead, the emergency lights snapped on, bathing the empty Holodome in stark, blinding white. The heavy vault doors of the sector hissed open. Professor Vance sprinted in, a datapad in hand, looking more rattled than Robert had ever seen him.
"Test canceled! Stand down!" Vance shouted, his energy pulsing erratically along his jawline as he closed the distance. "Martinez! Are you injured?"
"No," Robert gasped, letting his copied barrier fade away. "I'm fine. I didn't even hit them. They just… stopped. What was that?"
Vance looked down at his datapad, his brow furrowed in deep concern. "I don't know. The central mainframe experienced a massive, localized power surge. The safety protocols were forcefully overridden, and the targets' arrays went completely haywire before their core processors burned out."
Up in the gallery, Freddy had his face pressed against the glass, looking down with wide, worried eyes.
Robert pushed himself up from his defensive crouch, staring at the smoking, lifeless disks on the floor. He could still feel the phantom chill in the air and that grinding whisper echoing in his ears. That hadn't felt like a technical glitch. It hadn't felt like machinery at all.