Chương 42: 19.Sweet Poison in a Smile 19-1

It wasn't because I hadn't slept enough. Stay in this place long enough, and getting adequate sleep becomes mythical—like peace, childhood, and normal education. Theoretically it exists, but you're unlikely to witness it personally. What actually tightened my stomach was the door placard. Phase Two Activation Assessment / Final Routing Confirmation The Federal system loves this kind of language. Every word sounds respectable.

Every word, translated into human terms, basically means: Come, let's discuss how to make you break down more efficiently. When the door opened, cold air hit my face first. The room was brighter than last night's evaluation chamber, and quieter. The same single chair in the center—apparently every judgment system in the universe shares a design preference for putting the subject dead center for optimal viewing angles. The assessment panel stretched across the front: Leon, Dr. Steiner, Karl, Mira, Renard, J. J.

—all present in roughly the same positions as yesterday, except today everyone had a formal file open in front of them. At the far end sat someone I'd only encountered as a name yesterday. Brigadier General Vera Eisenherz. She sat perfectly straight—not the performed military rigidity you put on for show, but something higher-tier. Like she'd simply grown into someone who didn't need posture to remind people of her rank. Dark grey service uniform, precisely cut, zero unnecessary ornamentation.

Metal insignia and collar fastened without a millimeter out of place. Hair immaculate. Eyes equally immaculate—immaculate to the point of being sharp. Not Karl's metallic quality, not Mira's cold, not Leon's flatness. Her gaze was like a very thin ruler: when it swept over you, you didn't feel pain immediately, but you knew with absolute certainty you'd just been measured. This woman didn't look like an instructor.

She looked like someone who sat at the top of a bridge, drinking black coffee at exactly the right temperature, deciding which three ships should die first. Standing in the doorway, one thought surfaced immediately. Oh. This one's genuinely dangerous. But what actually stopped my feet wasn't her. It was the person standing beside her. That—individual. No, that was rude. That officer—completely broke the room's aesthetic. Thin. Small. Slightly hunched.

A yellowed cotton undershirt that had been washed to transparency, hanging loose over arms that were too lean but somehow commanded respect anyway. Faded work pants. Black cloth shoes with frayed edges. A thin, cheap hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his mouth, ash grown to a precarious length but refusing to fall. His face wasn't intimidating—it was almost ordinary. So ordinary that if you saw him near old docks or in back alleys, you'd assume he was just someone who repaired radios or sold contraband parts.

The most absurd part: he was squinting. Not the kindly squint of an elder, but the squint of someone who'd seen through too many things to bother keeping his eyes fully open. He stood among a row of high-ranking officers and instructors like someone's back-alley uncle had accidentally wandered into the Federal system's most classified training program—and somehow, no one had dared ask him to leave. My first reaction was impolite: Who is this?

My second reaction was worse: Why does he look more dangerous than everyone else combined? Leon spoke first.

"Enter, Hoshino." I walked to the center, came to attention, and saluted.

"Private First Class Hoshino Shimo, reporting." Brigadier General Eisenherz looked at me without speaking immediately. She simply closed the file in her hands—a soft sound that somehow made the entire room quieter. Then she spoke.

"I've reviewed last night's composite assessment." Her voice wasn't loud. Perfectly steady. But her words carried strange weight—like they didn't need volume to press down. They were heavy enough on their own.

"Close combat. Rapid-response fire. Behind-the-lines sabotage. Non-standard air combat. Tactical analysis." She recited them without inflection, gaze resting on my face.

"Your current problem isn't an inability to learn." I wanted to say thank you for the compliment, but this Brigadier General made me decide to temporarily perform being a well-raised fourteen-year-old piece of military equipment. She continued: "It's that the more you learn, the less suitable you become for return to any standard system." … Perfect. First sentence in, and it already tasted like Phase Two. Refined, cold, and cutting.

I kept my head up, trying to look like a mature Private First Class rather than a minor whose destiny was being restructured at dawn.

"Brigadier General, that doesn't sound like good news." Eisenherz's expression didn't change. She glanced at me once.

"For the Federal system, it is." A pause. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"For you, that requires further observation." …This kind of person is exhausting. Every sentence has two layers, and neither is sweet. She finally turned toward the man in the undershirt.

"Phase Two doesn't only assess how far you can push," she said.

"It assesses what remains after you've been taken apart." A chill ran down my spine. Because the implication was perfectly clear. Every previous class had assumed I still had agency. Even when being hit, spun, pressured—I was still learning how to win. But what Eisenherz was describing was something else entirely. What happens when you lose? When you're captured? When you're stripped down to nothing—no clean answers, no exits, where even staying stubborn might become an intelligence leak?

She finished in the same level tone: "Which is why I've brought you a sixth instructor." The old man seemed to have been waiting for exactly this moment. He unhurriedly moved the cigarette to one side and exhaled a modest puff of smoke. When he spoke, I knew immediately I was in trouble.

"Morning, kid." Slow, loose, deeply grounded street dialect. Not performed swagger, not military roughness. The real thing—someone who'd spent serious time in mud, alleys, docks, and back streets.

"Heard you've got quite a mouth on you." … Oh. I looked at him and felt something go wrong in my stomach. With standard rigid officers, I knew my moves. You go cold, I go sharper. You cite regulations, I play dumb. You freeze up, I use just enough attitude to give you a migraine. But this one— This one looked like he'd climbed down from the top of the criminal evolutionary tree and aged into whatever this was. My usual gutter tricks would probably look like a kid trying to stab someone with a spoon.

I stayed quiet for two seconds, then decided to test anyway.

"That depends on who I'm talking to, sir," I said.

"With reasonable people, I'm usually very polite." The old man squinted at me and gave a slow, satisfied sound.

"Oh, look at that. Knows how to dodge." He put the cigarette back between his teeth, brushed his fingers across the front of his undershirt like looking for ash that wasn't there.

"Alright. I'll remember that mouth of yours. Let's see later if it's really as good as you think." J. J. laughed out loud, shoulders shaking with obvious delight. Mira turned her head, the corner of her mouth holding a very visible waiting for the show curve. Karl didn't move. Renard didn't move. The doctor pushed his glasses up. Leon showed zero intention of rescuing me. Perfect. Not a single normal person in the room. Brigadier General Eisenherz made the formal introduction.

"Master Tam," she said.

"You may address him as such." Just that. No rank. No full name. No résumé. None of the Federal system's beloved formal titles that read like decorative epitaphs. Three syllables. Master Tam. For some reason, that made my skin crawl more than anything else. Someone who could be brought in personally by a Brigadier General, without needing full identification—that wasn't designed to help people sleep soundly. I looked at him and collected my manners.

"Master Tam. Good morning." He made a short sound, seemingly satisfied.

"Not bad. At least you know to greet someone first." He took a drag, half-squinting at me.

"But don't rush to play well-behaved. Playing nice and actually being useful are very different things." … Here we go. This was a strange feeling. Karl would hit you directly. Mira would cut you directly. J. J. would laugh while spinning your soul into a skid. Renard would teach you, coldly, how to make someone else's world slowly die. But Master Tam was different. He stood there—undershirt, cloth shoes, cigarette, hunched back, squinting eyes—looking completely out of place in this evaluation room.

But in two or three sentences, I understood with perfect clarity: This old bastard didn't look at the outside layer. He looked for when you started to crack, which direction you'd leak, and what words you'd try to use to cover your face while it happened. Brigadier General Eisenherz tapped the table once with her fingertip. The room went instantly silent.

"Master Tam's responsibility is not battlefield output," she said.

"Not technical enhancement." She looked at me.

"His responsibility is what remains of your operational value after your agency has been removed." When that landed, I finally understood completely. Interrogation. Counter-interrogation. Pressure. Extraction. Collapse. Misdirection. Silence. Endurance. Don't vomit back everything the first five taught you. … Perfect. The first five taught me how to hold the blade. The sixth was going to teach me that when the blade gets taken away, I don't sell both myself and the technique.

Master Tam seemed too unhurried to wait for formal procedure. He shuffled forward two steps, cigarette still in place. His stride was short, almost dragging. But that lack of urgency made it impossible to look away. He stopped directly in front of me and looked up. Up close, those squinting eyes were worse than expected. Not because they were threatening. Because they were amused.

Not kindly—the amusement of someone who'd seen too many people and knew exactly where to start dismantling your type within five minutes. He spoke.

"Kid, let me be clear about something first." I stood straight, trying not to look like I was already considering exits.

"Go ahead." Master Tam took the cigarette out and tapped it slowly in the air, like outlining a curriculum.

"I don't hit you. Don't draw blood. Don't break bones, don't pull fingernails, don't do any of that stale old-fashioned garbage." He said it as casually as discussing breakfast options.

"I'm a civilized man." …That sentence was scarier than everything before it. Master Tam put the cigarette back and finished at his own pace.

"I just make you realize, yourself, exactly how much that stubborn mouth, that street act, and that refusal to quit are actually worth." No one spoke. Only J. J. drew a quiet breath, already anticipating entertainment value. I looked at Master Tam and felt the sudden urge to push back. Not bravery—just the sense that standing here waiting to be processed felt too much like surrender. So I opened my mouth.

"Master Tam, what if my stubbornness is actually worth something?" Master Tam looked at me. One second of quiet. Then he laughed. Not big. The laugh of a seasoned operator watching a kid point a slingshot at him and finding it mildly spirited.

"Worth something, is it?" He nodded slowly.

"Alright. Then let's find out whether it's genuinely worth something, or just worth the noise." …Done. I knew almost immediately that comeback hadn't landed right. Because he hadn't been blocked by it. He'd picked it up and turned it into teaching material. Brigadier General Eisenherz stood. Not abruptly, but naturally pulling the room's gravity back to her.

"Assessment concluded," she said.

"Phase Two commences today." She looked at me, gaze still like a ruler.

"The first five instructors taught you how to become a threat." She glanced at Master Tam.

"The sixth will teach you how, after losing every advantage, to avoid becoming someone else's asset." She straightened her cuff like closing out routine administrative business.

"Hoshino Shimo."

"Ma'am."

"Go with Master Tam." …That was it. No good luck. No do your best. No token human phrase before sending a minor into something questionable. Very Federal. Very efficient. Master Tam tilted his head at me, turned, and started walking.

"Come on, kid." He spoke as he moved, unhurried.

"Let me show you our new setup. Guaranteed no physical damage, completely safe, clean as a whistle, honest business." … The more you say that, the less I believe it. As I followed him out, I couldn't help looking back. Leon, unmoved. The doctor, consulting his terminal. Karl, a silent wall. Mira, leaning back, gaze tracking me with the faintest curve at her mouth. Renard, still as deep water. J. J.

—who raised one hand and gave me an insufferably cheerful farewell gesture, face broadcasting: Go on, little fish, new hell is calling. And Brigadier General Eisenherz stood beside the assessment panel, not smiling, not adding a word. Just watching me be led away by Master Tam. Her expression was flat, cold, and certain. Not like sending a soldier to class. Like watching a piece of material that had already been roughed into shape, finally being fed into the last and finest mold.