Chương 18: Arc 0 - Chapter 18 - Results

Thea felt the anxiety drain out of her almost without noticing. Something about the way Selene carried herself—relaxed, utterly unguarded—made it hard to stay tense. She sank a little deeper into the armchair without meaning to, the smile pulling at her face before she'd decided to let it.

"Now—I know you probably have a lot of questions. Who wouldn't, after what you went through?" Selene settled back in her own chair, folding her hands loosely in her lap.

"I'll answer everything I'm able and allowed to, but let me give you the rough rundown first:"You've just successfully completed the UHF's Cube Trial Challenge —the first person on Lumiosia to do so, I should add. The Deep-Dive Simulation you ran, the ' Rog'An Prime Theta Outpost Defence,' is rated as one of the hardest assessment missions we have. So your performance is, quite frankly, absolutely absurd." She paused, and the smile crept back.

"The reason I was laughing earlier—about you missing the mission timer—is because the AI's assessment flagged your perception stat as vastly above the norm. And yet you still managed to miss something as critical as the actual mission objective countdown." She stuck her tongue out briefly.

"Just seemed funny to me. Please don't hate me."

'Wait.' Thea's brain had already moved on.' If the mission is rated that hard and I still placed—there has to be a prize tier for this, right? She made it sound like I cleared something above the intended difficulty. There have to be extra rewards for that. There have to be—'"When you first spoke to my AI-created image here," Selene continued, pulling her back, "it told you it felt very optimistic about your chances. I understand why now. I'm glad you did well enough that I actually got to meet you myself."

She leaned forward slightly.

"With a performance like this, I have no doubt you'll be able to join the UHF if you want to—and soon. If you do, send me a message. I'd genuinely love to meet you in person at a station someday." She straightened.

"But before I get even more carried away—the gist of what's happening: With your score of 26, 453 points, you've ranked 17th overall in the assessment database. I'm not allowed to disclose what exactly that means beyond what I've already said, but I can tell you that this result is unprecedented and will absolutely cause an uproar in the UHF's command staff." Thea's smile froze.

'17th… I promised him first. I promised the Old Man I'd get first…!' The number sat in her chest like something cold.' Where did I lose it? What did I miss?' Selene caught the shift immediately.

"It really is a nearly impossible result. Nobody—absolutely nobody —expected a Mid-Worlder, let alone someone from an undercity, to perform anywhere close to this level. Please trust me on that. It's so far beyond what anyone had anticipated from this entire operation that it's genuinely ridiculous." There was something in Selene's voice as she said all of that—a weight behind the words, an honest earnestness that felt like it was pushing up against something it wasn't allowed to say.

Like she was telling her as much as she possibly could without crossing a line she clearly wasn't allowed to cross. Thea filed that away. She was still sitting with it when the thought landed, and her face broke into a grin before she'd fully finished thinking it through.

"Alright. I will!" Thea said.

"You've been nothing but kind to me, and you apparently even showed up here in person—I'll take your word for it. I'm still not happy about only placing 17th, but after seeing some of the Marines in that simulation, I can't exactly call foul play…" Selene stared at her for a moment, visibly caught off guard. Thea noticed, but didn't comment on it.

"Ahh—thank you!" Selene recovered with a wide smile.

"I promise, if you join the UHF, it'll all make sense. Everything I just told you I couldn't disclose will be available to you once you're one of us. I genuinely recommend considering it as a real career option, if you aren't already.

"And to answer your implied question—yes, I'm the real Selene. Nice to actually meet you, by the way.

"I'm currently aboard a UHF station somewhere in the Astraeus star cluster, connected to you through the Deep-Dive Simulation servers for this post-mission briefing. This isn't standard procedure, by the way—it's only happening because of your ludicrous performance. So again, please trust me when I say you've set off all kinds of things today."

"A lot of the Brass was firmly against including Mid-Worlds in this assessment rotation," Selene said, the devious smile still on her face.

"'Waste of resources. No viable candidates, no matter how many Mid-Worlds we check.' And then you show up before the first half-day is even over." She looked genuinely delighted.

"You're not the only Mid-Worlder to pass an assessment so far, of course, but you're easily the most impressive one I've heard of. The Brass is going to be ripping out their balding hair when they get the report." Thea had been listening, but something had been sitting at the back of her mind since the start of this.

"I remember your AI image mentioning that you were against this operation too, actually. Was that not right?" Selene's giddy expression softened into something more pained. She raised both hands.

"I was. But not for the same reason as the Brass—not even close. I just hate extra work." She let out a long breath.

"As one of the Auxiliary Staff Sergeants handling Deep-Dive Simulation assessments, I've spent the past month doing nothing but logistics for this whole operation. You have no idea what goes into distributing dozens of DDS-Cubes to every Mid-World across the galaxy. The security measures alone nearly finished me off." She paused, then looked at Thea with an expression that was entirely too warm to be professional.

"But honestly? Seeing you sitting here right now made it damn worth it. Not only are you an incredibly promising candidate—you're also super cute. We always need more cute women in the UHF. I can't be the only one, you know?" She finished with a wink.

'She did not just—' Thea felt the heat hit her cheeks before she could do anything about it and made a very deliberate effort to focus on the first part of the answer, which she understood completely. Uncertain rewards for extra work was a kind of injustice she had strong personal feelings about.

"Actually—" Another thought had surfaced.

"I had another question, if you don't mind?" After Selene's nod, Thea pushed on.

"There were some—I don't know how to put this—NPCs? AIs? Something like that, in the simulation, and—" This is going to sound so damn stupid.

"—I know it sounds weird, but I wanted to know how they ended up doing." She felt a little embarrassed asking about NPCs, but without them she wouldn't have gotten anywhere close to the result she did.

"NPCs…?" Selene's brow furrowed slightly.

"I suppose there were some, yes. I don't think you interacted with any of them for very long, though—let me check." She pulled a datapad out of seemingly nowhere and typed for a moment. Her expression settled into something satisfied.

"You interacted with NPCs for a total of two minutes and thirty-four seconds across the entire trial." She looked up.

"I was briefly worried when you asked, actually—candidates aren't supposed to interact with them much at all. I thought we'd hit a software bug somewhere." A small laugh. Thea stared at her. Selene seemed to read the confusion on her face clearly, because her expression shifted.

"Ohhh—Thea. Did you think you were the only real person in the trial?"

'... Weren't I?!' Selene's face softened into a gentle smile at Thea's hesitant nod.

"That explains… a lot, actually. To answer the question: You weren't the only real person—not even close. Around forty percent of all the Marines in your simulation were real people running the same assessment at the same time as you. That includes everyone you had any real conversation with—Private Kellerman, Private Orion, Lieutenant Frost, Captain Sable, pretty much all of them..." She paused.

"The only actual NPC you meaningfully encountered was the large bodyguard at the beginning—the one who fetched Captain Sable from the command room for you. He was the only exception among Marines you've interacted with."

'They were all real.' The thought landed like a dropped weight.' The whole time. Every single one of them.' In hindsight, it made complete sense— that was the worst part. They'd felt real because they were. The rez-pods, the way everyone had behaved, the things they'd said—all of it recontextualised at once into something that should have been obvious.

'How did I not figure that out earlier?' It also opened up approximately a dozen questions she'd been sitting on since well before the mission ended, and with the possibility of actual answers suddenly in front of her, she couldn't—and wouldn't—hold them back.

"So what exactly was the whole Focus thing? Why did the simulation help me like that?

"There was this weird feeling in my chest whenever I was about to do something stupid—was that also a simulation feature? Because it didn't seem like anyone else had that, and that feels pretty unfair to me.

"If everyone else was real, did they know they were in a challenge? With me, specifically—or with other challenge-takers?

"And what in the void was going on with everyone's physical abilities?! I know Undercity citizens are less physically developed than main-city people, but I've been training and eating well my whole life. I didn't think the gap would be that massive. Am I actually just that far behind normal citizens…? This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience." And speaking of insane physical abilities—Lieutenant Frost!" Where do I even start with her?!

"If she's a real person, were those her actual abilities? How is that even remotely possible?

"The enemy Captain too! —he literally broke the laws of physics. How was that fair? How was I supposed to do anything against someone who just ignores physics? If Lieutenant Frost hadn't been there, he would've walked straight through all of us!" Selene held up both hands before Thea could get any further.

"Stop, stop—I can imagine you have a lot of questions. More than you just threw at me, I'd guess. But I can't answer them right now." She leaned forward slightly.

"I want you to really understand this: It's not a matter of defying orders. I simply cannot disclose this information. If you go looking for answers from other people who might have them, they'll be in exactly the same position, no matter who they are. I'm genuinely sorry for being this cryptic—I wish I didn't have to be. Truly. But if you want answers, you'll have to join the UHF. Once you're accepted as a Recruit, you'll be able to ask those exact questions freely and actually get answers."

The expression on her face was real. Thea could see that much. Before she could respond, however, Selene pressed on with a more determined look.

"What I can tell you is this: The simulations do not provide assistance to anyone unless the mission parameters specifically call for it. Yours didn't. Which means everything you saw, felt, heard, and experienced in there is a representation of the real world—accurate to within 99. 9%."

'Everything.' Thea sank back further into the armchair.' The Focus. The feeling in my chest. Lieutenant Frost. The captain and his physics-defying shield. All of it—real…?' The questions didn't go away, but she could feel there was no point chasing them here. She filed them away and pulled her attention back to the room.

"So…" She looked at Selene carefully.

"You mentioned I could join the UHF?" Selene lit up immediately.

"Yes! Absolutely yes! —we'd truly love to have you. It's actually part of my role here as debriefer to encourage promising candidates to sign up." She grinned.

"If you do join, please mention that I was your debriefer. It would help me out a lot." A beat passed, and then her face fell slightly.

"I also want to be clear—everything I told you earlier was completely true. I wasn't shaping anything to get you to sign up." She paused.

"I now realise just how bad that looks, given that I just said it right after the recruitment pitch. That was supremely stupid of me, wasn't it?"

"Don't worry," Thea said, and meant it.

"I was planning to sign up with the UHF long before this briefing. You didn't mess anything up—I believe you." She hesitated for a second.

"I'll be honest, I never thought I'd actually get the opportunity, growing up where I did… So—how does this work from here? Do I sign something now, or…?" The residual frown on Selene's face vanished the moment she heard the eagerness in Thea's voice.

"No, no —nothing to sign right now. Your results won't go public until exactly one week from today, when the ladder updates. You're free to tell people your ranking if you want to, but I'd strongly recommend against it—especially in an Undercity. You can never be fully sure how people will react to a sudden windfall like the UHF payout is going to be for everyone.

"It was originally meant as an incentive for people to bring along talented friends," Selene continued, "but I'd imagine there will be some… incidents … when the payout starts hitting. Local gangs generally don't love a sudden influx of money they can't control.

"But don't worry—you'll be completely safe. Once the ladder goes public next week, you'll receive an official invitation to sign up with the UHF, as you've met our minimum recruitment standards." She paused briefly, tilting her head to the side with a growing smile.

"You've done considerably more than meet the minimum, but still. Same thing applies, really. The moment you sign up, you're an official UHF Recruit—which means you fall under our protection immediately. Local gangs, or whatever else might decide to be a problem, stop being your concern at that point." She finished with a goofy thumbs up, as if the whole thing were the simplest process in the world.

'Just like that, huh?' Thea sat with it for a moment. Signing up for the UHF had always felt like something years, maybe even decades away—something that would require clawing her way off Lumiosia first, putting in time she didn't have, proving herself through channels she didn't have access to. And now it was just… sitting there in front of her. One week away.

'It feels too easy.' She turned it over, looking for the catch. But nothing in Selene's behaviour gave her anything to grab onto—no hesitation, no performance, no subtle angle she could detect. She seemed genuine about all of it, including the part that mattered most.

'Trust it. Deal with problems when they're actually problems, not when you make them so in your own head—just like the Old Man always says.'

"So… what else happens in this debrief? Is there anything I need to do?"

"Right!" Selene straightened up slightly.

"I apologise for my complete lack of professionalism—please don't mention it to anyone, I'll get in serious trouble…

"The debrief is almost complete. I've covered how you performed and talked to you about joining up—those are two of the three main points. The third one, though, is the most important." The easy warmth in her expression shifted into something quieter and more deliberate, and Thea felt herself sit up slightly and tense without meaning to. Then, Selene stood, crossed the small space between the chairs, and crouched down in front of Thea until they were at eye level—close, unhurried, her gaze steady.

"How are you feeling, Thea?"

"Ehhh—good? I guess?"

'Why is she so close right now?'

"I'm a bit tired, but I don't really know what's—" Selene touched her arm gently." Thea. The simulation is 99. 9% accurate to reality. No dampener. You felt everything that happened to your body in there— all of it. Despite growing up in an Undercity, you're still incredibly young. There is no way you're " good" after what you just went through." She didn't move. Didn't look away.

"Please—think about it. How are you actually feeling?"

'I'm fine,' was the first thing that rose up and almost blurted out, but Thea held it back. Selene had been open with her in a way that most people weren't. Genuinely open, even when it had clearly cost her something to hold the line on what she couldn't say. The least Thea could do was actually answer the question honestly. She let her mind go— really go, for the first time since she'd stepped into the cylinder. It hit her all at once. Fear. Terror. The pain she'd pushed through and stopped registering.

The bodies. The crater. The moment her arm had dropped and she'd looked at it and kept going. Horror she hadn't had the luxury to feel in the moment. Uncertainty that had been background noise for hours and was suddenly very loud. The emotions crashed down all at once, pulling her under before she could brace for it. She hadn't stopped moving the entire time she was in there—next goal, next crisis, next piece of information to file away and act on. There had been no space to actually feel any of it.

Now there was nothing but space, and everything she hadn't processed came flooding in at the same time. A wave of vertigo hit her hard enough that she thought she might be sick. Her vision blurred. She gasped. Then warmth spread across the front of her, and a calm voice appeared close to her left ear.

"Shhh. It's okay. You've been through a lot. You're safe here, I promise. Focus on your breathing. Slowly—deep breath in… hold it… now breathe out. Slowly." A pause.

"You're going to be fine. Keep going. You're doing great." Thea followed the instructions. Then followed them again. Slowly, the rhythm settled, and the world started coming back in pieces—the room, the armchair, the warmth around her that she gradually understood was Selene holding her. By the time a full minute had passed, most of her senses had returned.

She became aware of tears that had already dried on her cheeks, a stuffy nose, and an exhaustion so total it felt like the entire day had been quietly waiting to land on her all at once.

'Oh.' In Selene's arms, something else settled over her too—something she didn't have an immediate word for. Safety, maybe? The kind of safety that didn't ask anything from her in return, that just existed around her while Selene stroked her back and kept murmuring quiet reassurances close to her ear.

'I'm not going to tell anyone about this.' That thought was immediate and non-negotiable. But she also couldn't pretend, to herself at the very least, that it wasn't exactly what she'd needed right now. Physical affection had always made her uncomfortable—the idea of it more than anything, the closeness, the raw vulnerability it required. She'd kept people at enough of a distance that it had never really been put to the test. Turns out the test results were more complicated than she'd assumed.

'In the right circumstances,' she conceded privately, ' this is actually—okay. Maybe acceptable, even.' She let herself stay in it for a few more minutes, breathing steadily, the frayed edges of her nerves slowly smoothing out. Then Selene gently withdrew.

"Looks like you've calmed down a bit." Selene's voice was gentle, her face carrying a slight flush as she smiled.

"Feeling better?" Thea dragged her sleeves across her cheeks and nodded.

"I—I'm not usually—"'Don't make it worse.'

"—I—Thank you…"

"Think nothing of it. It's part of my role as debriefer," Selene said easily. She shifted, settling back slightly.

"The most important part of the debrief is making sure the candidate can actually process what they went through. Honestly, I was worried about you—you seemed too calm, given everything. I was afraid you might be…" She paused, choosing the word carefully." Broken. Fortunately, it turns out you're just incredibly resilient." Another wink. She stood up from her squat.

"Since you've worked through most of it, the DDS—Deep-Dive Simulation, for short—should handle the rest—filter out any remaining emotional residue. Once you're back in your real body, the experiences from in here should feel like a distant dream at most, emotionally speaking." She smiled warmly.

"It's truly been a pleasure talking to you, Thea. I have to say goodbye now, though—several more debriefings to get through. I doubt any of them will be as enjoyable as this one, but a job's a job." One more of her, by now, signature winks.

'Already…?' Thea felt the pang before she could talk herself out of it. They'd barely spent any time together, and Selene was—well… She was a lot. But in the best possible way." Thank you for everything, Selene. I'll let you know as soon as I've signed up—I really hope we get to meet on a station like you said. I'd genuinely like that." She paused.

"Thanks again. Really."

"Nothing to thank me for, and please do! Goodbye, Thea. Take care of yourself until then, alright?" Selene flicked her wrist, and the room dissolved around them. A message appeared in the centre of Thea's vision—the simulation preparing to end.

"You too! I'll mention you in whatever form I can, I promise! Thank you—for everything!" And then her consciousness was pulled free of the simulation and snapped back into her real body inside the crystal cylinder, deep inside the bowels of the Golden Age Arcade in the Undercity of Lumiosia…