Runne followed, his mind a numb buzz. They walked in silence through the pristine, white-walled corridors of the command sector to a private elevator. The ride was a smooth, silent descent deep into the foundations of the facility. When the doors opened, the environment had changed. The corridors here were older, the lighting softer, the walls lined not with polished metal but with shelves of actual, physical books.
The aide stopped at a heavy wooden door with a small, brass plaque that read:
DR. ARIS VANCE - RESONANCE THEORY.
He knocked once, then opened it without waiting for a reply, gesturing for Runne to enter.
The room was a chaotic sanctuary of organised clutter. Every wall was lined with overflowing bookshelves, ancient paper texts crammed beside modern data-pads. Strange, crystalline rocks sat on pedestals next to complex star charts projected in mid-air. In the centre of it all, a man in a rumpled lab coat hunched over a massive holographic table, his wild grey hair backlit by the swirling, complex equation he was manipulating with his hands. He didn't seem to notice them enter.
"Ahem. Doctor Vance," the aide said, his voice tight with impatience. "Your student has arrived."
Dr. Vance jumped, startled, and the complex hologram vanished. He spun around, his eyes dark, tired, but incredibly sharp behind a pair of spectacles which landed on Runne. He looked Runne up and down, taking in exhaustion etched on his face.
"Ah. Yes. Of course," Dr. Vance said, running a hand through his messy hair. He waved a dismissive hand at the aide. "Thank you, that will be all."
The door to the study sealed with a soft, heavy click, leaving Runne alone with the academic. The air smelled of old paper, ozone, and strong, black coffee. Dr. Aris Vance, who had been hunched over a massive holographic table, straightened up. He was a man in his late forties, with the perpetually tired eyes of someone who worked too late and the slightly wild grey hair of a man who had better things to think about than a comb. He wore a rumpled lab coat over a plain shirt, a stark contrast to the military precision Runne was used to.
"Coffee?" Dr. Vance asked, gesturing to a steaming, old-fashioned pot on a hot plate in the corner. "It's real. Grown in the Eastern bio-domes. None of that synthesised nutrient paste they favour upstairs."
Runne was so surprised by the simple, human offer that he just nodded mutely. Vance poured two mugs of the rich, black liquid and handed one to him. The warmth seeped into his cold hands.
"The Grand Marshal is a force of nature, is he not?" Vance said, taking a deep gulp from his own mug. He studied Runne over the rim, his tired eyes incredibly sharp. "I imagine you have... questions."
"I don't even know what to ask," Runne admitted, his voice quiet.
"The best place to start," Vance said, a flicker of his eccentric passion showing through as he gestured to the holographic table, "is always with the fundamentals. So, tell me, Private Veyne, after your recent... field trip... what do you think a Rift is?"
'Here we go. The first test,' Runne thought. He gave the answer he'd been taught at Vanguard Academy. "It's a door, sir. A door that monsters come through."
"A common misconception, but a dangerously simplistic one," Dr. Vance said, shaking his head. He manipulated the table, and a swirling vortex of sickening green and black energy roared to life in the centre of the room, the Advent Rift, rendered in terrifyingly accurate detail from the Wombat's volumetric capture feed. "A door implies something stable, something you can open and close. This," he gestured to the chaotic image, "is a disease."
He leaned forward, his passion now fully ignited. "Imagine our reality is a living organism, with its own rules, its own physics. A Rift is not a wound in that organism. It is a cancerous, replicating cell that overwrites everything it touches with its own, alien logic. It doesn't just let things through; it actively un-makes our world. The monsters are merely a symptom, like a fever. The Rift itself is the sickness."
Runne stared at the hologram, the memory of its pull making his skin crawl.
"You see," Vance continued, his voice quickening, "humanity has lived alongside Rifts for centuries. But they were old, stable, like dormant volcanoes. Predictable. The Fracture, eighteen years ago, was not the birth of Rifts. It was a planetary plague. A 'resonant cascade' where hundreds of new, unstable Rifts like this one tore open across the globe all at once. The Advent Rift is terrifying because it is the first new cancer cell to appear since that day."
He let the information hang in the air for a moment before pivoting. "But to understand the disease, you must understand the body it preys upon. The soul itself. Tell me, what did they teach you about the Core Nexus at Vanguard?"
'The bare minimum,' Runne thought. "That it's an internal organ that processes Resonant Energy," he answered. "It allows the Awakened to use abilities. Constructs."
"An organ, yes, but so much more," Vance said, bringing up a new hologram of a beautiful, shimmering sphere of light. "It is your inner realm, a reflection of your personality, your potential. For the Awakened, this is their true self. They can enter it, meditate within it, and from it, they draw their power." He manipulated the image, and three distinct branches grew from the sphere.
"There are three classes of Construct. The first are Adaptive Constructs." He pointed to the first branch. "These are unconscious upgrades. Your Core, sensing a need, rewrites your body's code without your permission. Stronger muscles, faster nerves, heightened senses. You don't control it any more than you control your own heartbeat."
He pointed to the second branch. "Then you have Basic Constructs. These are the tools you must learn to forge. The conscious manipulation of energy. A fireball, a shield of ice, moving an object with your mind. This is dialogue. This is will given form."
His finger moved to the final, thinnest branch. His voice became more reverent. "And then there are Innate Constructs. The rarest of all. Not a tool you forge, but a weapon you are born with. A unique, conceptual power that cannot be taught or replicated. A true signature of the soul."
Vance swiped the hologram away, and the two pyramidal charts showing the monster and human hierarchies appeared. After a brief explanation of the monster classes, he focused on the human pyramid.
"Awakened, Empowered, Master," he recited, tapping each level. "But beyond that... Deviants, like our Grand Marshal, whose power defies easy classification. And at the very pinnacle, Paragons. Living forces of nature. We can count the number of known Deviants and Paragons on two hands."
He fixed Runne with a serious gaze. "Which brings us to the great question of our age, Private. Why, in a world awash with energy, is true power so rare?"
Runne thought for a moment. "The energy... it isn't strong enough?"
"Precisely!" Vance exclaimed. "Ambient energy is a mist—you can live in it, but you can't get a drink. To truly ascend, to climb this pyramid," he tapped the hologram, "one needs 'solid water,' the potent, crystallised energy from monsters,. This creates a natural, brutal bottleneck. To become powerful, you must be strong enough to kill powerful monsters."
Vance's momentary excitement faded, replaced by a deep, somber gravity. He leaned forward, his voice barely a whisper.
"Which leads us to you, Private Veyne. And the Grand Marshal's horrifying gamble."
Runne's blood ran cold. "Gamble?"
"You are Dormant," Vance stated plainly. "Based on all known science, what you have promised to do is suicide. However," he continued, "there is a fringe theory. Almost a myth. Based on a single, poorly documented case from the chaos of the Fracture, nearly two decades ago. The theory of Forceful Awakening."
'Forceful Awakening?' Runne's mind latched onto the words.
"The theory posits," Vance said, his eyes filled with a kind of pained pity, "that if a dormant individual is exposed to the raw, overwhelming energy at the heart of a live Rift, their Core Nexus might not just be activated. It might be violently ignited." He held up a hand. "There is no proof this is survivable. The only subject of the original case study perished. All our knowledge is limited to a single, terrifying data point: the subject experienced insurmountable pain."
Dr. Vance leaned back, the full, horrifying picture now complete.
"The Grand Marshal is not sending you on a mission, boy. He is pushing you into the heart of a star, gambling your life on a one-in-a-billion miracle, on a fringe theory that promises only agony."
Runne sat in silence, the warmth from the coffee cup long gone. He wasn't a symbol. He wasn't a hero. He was a lottery ticket. And his life was the price of the draw.