Chapter 193: Scan It Again
Chapter 193: Scan It Again
Glitch slept until 06:40 and then demolished his entire recovery ration, which Jin took as the most reassuring diagnostic available.
He walked him around the room, then the corridor, then the block, watching how he moved.
The awkwardness was real and it was mechanical rather than medical. Glitch’s steps landed correctly. His turns finished about a quarter-second later than they used to and he had already started compensating by beginning them earlier, which he was doing entirely on his own and which Jin found quietly impressive.
He’s not unstable. He’s driving a different vehicle.
Then Jin sat down and considered the actual problem from every useful angle.
He could not hide it. Glitch was twelve percent larger with a visibly different scale pattern, the post-awakening examination was mandatory, and every Fourth Class student from Thursday’s lecture knew where he had been on the threshold.
Meridian can verify Quality in ninety seconds. The only choice is whether I bring it to them or they find it.
He went to find Marr.
"Instructor."
Marr was in the equipment office at 07:30 with a slate and a mug and the expression of a man who had not yet decided to be awake.
"Astor."
"Glitch reached 5-Star last night."
Marr put the mug down.
"Did he."
"The partial awakening triggered about twenty seconds later. It ran roughly twenty minutes and finished clean." Jin kept it flat and factual. "He’s stable, he’s eating, he’s walking. I need the mandatory post-awakening examination."
"You’ll have it this morning." Marr was already up. "How’s the evolution?"
Jin had prepared this answer.
"Bigger than I expected. He’s up about twelve percent, his scale pattern’s completely reorganized, and his bone structure’s changed more than I thought a partial would do." He paused. "I’m not going to guess at what it means. But I’d like the scan to check Quality, not just confirm the awakening."
Marr looked at him for a moment.
"Every student thinks that," he said, not unkindly. "Every single one. Their beast comes out of a partial looking magnificent and they’ve read one line in a textbook about rare advancement and they spend a week waiting for a machine to tell them something it isn’t going to say."
"I know."
"Iron Grey Rock Lizards get denser and heavier. That’s their evolution. Yours will have got denser and heavier better than most, and that’s a genuine achievement and it’s what the scan will say."
"Probably," said Jin.
Marr snorted and picked up his slate.
The beast-development laboratory had four people in it and Jin was glad of that.
Marr. A specialist called Doryn who ran the machine. A Fourth-Class record officer with a slate. And a technician who did nothing except position beasts and who left afterward.
Glitch went onto the platform without complaint and lay down on it heavily and sighed.
The scan took ninety seconds.
Doryn read it, then stopped, then scrolled back to the top of the panel and read it again from the beginning.
"Registered species — Grey Rock Lizard, variant designation retained." She said it slowly. "Combat Rank 1, Novice, 5-Star. Contract stable, resonance excellent. Partial evolution phase complete, no residual instability, no structural stress markers anywhere I can see."
"And?" said Marr.
"Quality reads Bronze."
The room went quiet.
"Run it again," Marr said.
"I’m going to."
She ran it again. Same result.
Marr crossed to the console and checked the beast identifier against the collar tag, character by character. Then he had Doryn recalibrate the plate with a reference block and run it a third time.
[MERIDIAN — POST-AWAKENING EXAMINATION]
[Beast: Glitch (Astor, J.)]
[Species: Grey Rock Lizard, variant]
[Combat Rank: 1 — Novice, 5-Star]
[Quality: Bronze]
[Contract: stable]
[Partial evolution: complete, stable]
[Scan iterations: 3. Concordant.]
Marr stood looking at the display for a long time.
Jin watched the arithmetic move across Marr’s face. He had made a promise in a corridor to encourage a promising student, using a milestone he had considered safely distant. Glitch had crossed it at speed and carried something rarer with him.
He did not say anything about it. He turned to Doryn.
"Log it."
Doryn made her request while she was still logging it, and she made it well.
"Natural Iron-to-Bronze advancement is genuinely rare. I’ve only seen a handful, and none in a Grey Rock Lizard." She turned in her chair. "I’d like scale and blood samples, a developmental panel, and permission to write this up properly, with his growth records."
"No," said Jin.
She had clearly not expected it to be that fast.
"You’d be credited—"
"You can have the mandatory examination. Everything required to update his academy record and his medical file, and I’ll cooperate with all of it." Jin counted off the rest without heat. "No retained blood, scale, or tissue. No genetic work. Nothing invasive. No independent research use. No indefinite storage of his developmental data, and no reuse outside what his official record actually requires."
"That’s every category."
"That’s every category that isn’t required."
Doryn looked at Marr.
"He’s allowed," said Marr.
"I know he’s allowed. I’d like him to reconsider." She turned back. "There are Grey Rock Lizards in every shelter in the region and their owners are all told the same thing, which is that their beast will never amount to anything. If yours did, I’d like to know why."
That was a good argument and Jin recognized it as the second good argument he had refused in a week.
"Then I’ll tell you why," he said. "As far as I can tell, it was optimized feed, training scheduled from condition analysis instead of a calendar, two registered skills, and unusual combat experience for his age. You can write that up. You don’t need his blood for it."
Doryn held his eye for a moment, then nodded and closed the sample fields.
[CONSENT — ASTOR, J.]
[Approved: mandatory post-awakening examination; official record update; medical file update]
[Declined: biological sample retention; genetic analysis; invasive procedures; independent research use; extended data storage; secondary use]
The staff built their explanation during the discussion that followed, and Jin let them.
It came together from records that were all genuine. Doryn pulled his meticulous feed logs. Marr contributed the field assessment and the long hours Glitch had spent working through the Tunnelmaw crisis. The record officer added the training schedule, the higher-class sessions under Cassia Venn, and Glitch’s two registered skills.
"Accumulated development," Doryn said eventually. "That’s what I’ll write. He didn’t jump. He was pushed past the species ceiling gradually and the partial evolution recognized where he’d actually got to."
"By what?" said the record officer.
"By him." She nodded at Jin. "Nutrition against condition analysis, training loads set off recovery data, and a Data Appraisal talent used on the animal instead of on a spreadsheet. That’s the whole story and it’s a good one."
Jin kept his face entirely still.
Yes, he thought. That’s the whole story.
It was also, in every particular, true.
Marr walked out with him.
"I’ll submit the recommendation."
"Thank you."
"Understand what you’re getting." Marr stopped in the corridor. "It’s one of mine. I get very few and I don’t get them back. It buys you a formal hearing for early Third-Class review after the semester examination and it buys you nothing else. You will be judged on everything — academics, beast care, contract stability, command, field discipline, mission results, and whether any of it is repeatable."
"Understood."
"One extraordinary advancement does not cover a weak record anywhere else. If you fail a section of the examination, the hearing will be short and unpleasant."
"Understood."
Marr looked at him.
"You’re still Fourth Class."
"I know."
"Mm," said Marr, and went the other way.
[MERIDIAN — BEAST RECORD UPDATED: Glitch (Astor, J.)]
[Quality: Bronze]
[Feed support: revised to Bronze schedule]
[Facility access: expanded — Tier 4 conditioning, weighted resistance hall]
[Scheduled: post-awakening benchmark testing]
By lunchtime it was on the class board, because beast records were semi-public within a class and always had been.
Jin watched three students read it, look at Glitch across the courtyard, and read it again.
One of them came over.
"Astor. Your board entry’s wrong. It says Bronze."
"It’s not wrong."
The boy stood there for a moment.
"You were four-star on Thursday."
"I was."
"We talked about this on Thursday. About how—" He stopped, and had the grace to look uncomfortable. "About how they only get heavier."
"He did get heavier," said Jin.