Chapter 214: 214 | The Girl With the Loaded Gun Smile
The cohort scattered toward the water station. I found a spot near the edge of the field where I could catch my breath and pretend to recover from exertion I hadn’t actually experienced.
Sloane was feeling something that registered as satisfaction through the Devotion’s Echo. Probably finished her own evaluation and crushed it. That woman didn’t know how to do anything halfway.
Camille appeared beside me. Her breathing was still heavy and there was sweat dripping from her dark hair, but her eyes burned with something that wasn’t quite anger.
"Fourth place," she said.
"Looks that way."
"You weren’t tired."
I didn’t respond.
"I watched you for the whole race." She stepped closer, her presence sharp and demanding in a way that reminded me of Sloane. "You ran the first three laps like you were taking a casual jog. Then you accelerated at the end and finished fourth without even breathing hard. That’s not normal."
"I’m good at pacing."
"Bullshit." The word came out hard and flat. "You’re hiding something. Steele thinks so. I think so. Probably half the cohort thinks so."
"Lots of people think lots of things."
Camille studied me with eyes that were too sharp for comfort. Her gym clothes clung to her curves with sweat, outlining a figure that her fierce personality somehow made more attractive rather than less. She was beautiful in the way a loaded weapon was beautiful, all dangerous potential waiting for a target.
"I’m going to figure you out," she said.
"Is that a threat?"
"It’s a promise." She smiled, sharp and challenging. "You’re interesting, Belmont. And I don’t like mysteries."
She turned and walked toward the water station, her hips swaying with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what she looked like from behind and didn’t care who noticed.
The System helpfully informed me that her Temptation Gauge had initialized at four percent.
Great. Another one.
Felicity appeared from somewhere and handed me a water bottle. "Making friends?"
"Something like that."
"Camille’s intense." She took a long drink from her own bottle. "She and Sloane should form a club for women who express affection through intimidation."
"They’d argue about who gets to be president."
"They’d argue about everything." Felicity laughed, bright and genuine. "That would actually be entertaining to watch."
Steele’s voice cut across the field. "Strength evaluations. Everyone to the testing station."
The testing station was a section of Field Epsilon that had been set up with various equipment while we were running. Weighted cables attached to force sensors. Grip strength dynamometers. A reinforced punching bag with impact measurement systems. Everything you needed to reduce a person’s physical capability to numbers on a tablet.
We lined up again, alphabetically, and began the process of demonstrating how hard we could push and pull and hit things.
Ren Ashida’s grip strength was acceptable but not impressive. His pushing force was better. His punching power was below average, which made sense for someone whose combat style relied on terrain manipulation rather than direct physical engagement.
When my turn came, I approached the cable station first. The setup was simple: grab the handle, pull as hard as you can, and a sensor measures the force you generate.
I grabbed the handle.
The System displayed my current Strength stat: one hundred, with an additional five percent boost from Sloane’s proximity even though she was on the other side of campus. That put me at one hundred and five effective Strength, which was roughly equivalent to a professional athlete at peak performance.
I could pull hard enough to break the cable.
I didn’t.
I pulled with maybe sixty percent of my actual capability, generating a number that was impressive but believable for someone with a telekinetic Aspect who trained regularly. Strong enough to stand out. Weak enough to not raise questions.
Steele noted the number without comment.
Grip strength next. Same approach. I squeezed the dynamometer hard enough to register well but not hard enough to damage the equipment.
Then the punching bag.
This was harder to control. Punching was instinctive in a way that pulling and squeezing weren’t. Your body wanted to generate maximum force because that was what punching was for.
I threw a right cross at the bag, deliberately holding back, trying to hit hard enough to be impressive and soft enough to be believable.
The impact measurement came back higher than I wanted. Not impossibly high, but high enough that Steele’s eyes narrowed slightly as she recorded it.
"Again," she said.
I threw another punch, this time holding back even more. The number was lower but still strong.
"Interesting." She made a note. "Your striking power is inconsistent. That suggests either a control issue or a deliberate choice to vary your output."
"Adrenaline response," I said. "First punch was harder because I wasn’t thinking about it. Second punch I was more conscious of my form."
"A reasonable explanation." Her tone suggested she didn’t believe it. "Step aside."
I moved to make room for the next student, my heart rate elevated for the first time since the evaluation started. Not from physical exertion but from the awareness that Steele was building a case against me, collecting evidence that my performance didn’t match my registration.
Eventually she’d have enough pieces to form a picture.
I needed to decide what that picture was going to be before she decided for me.
The evaluations continued. Caden’s numbers were middling across the board, exactly what his surface presentation would suggest. Marco’s grip strength was surprisingly high but his striking power was average. Theo’s pushing force was excellent, his Kinetic Bank apparently translating to genuine structural strength.
When Camille’s turn came, she attacked the equipment like it had personally offended her. Her grip strength was impressive. Her pulling force was excellent. Her striking power was second only to Rook’s, who had Branded-enhanced strength as part of his permanent physiology.
She caught my eye after her final punch, her expression challenging. See? I’m not hiding anything.
Felicity’s numbers were unremarkable across the board. Her Aspect didn’t require physical strength and she clearly hadn’t prioritized developing it. She accepted the results with a shrug that suggested she had already known and didn’t particularly care.
Rina’s numbers were below average. Her Branded physiology gave her some advantages but enhanced strength wasn’t among them. She looked embarrassed until Lyra said something that made her smile, and the embarrassment faded into something closer to acceptance.
Petra’s numbers were surprisingly good for someone who had run near the back of the pack. Either she had been deliberately holding back during the mile or her physical conditioning was inconsistent in ways that suggested she prioritized strength training over cardio.
When the strength evaluations finished, Steele checked her tablet one more time.
"Agility assessments will begin in ten minutes. Use the time to recover."
