Eli Riglow

You are a rookie researcher. It is your first day, and everything feels foreign. The corridors of the UNHRDO Asian underground branch are thick with tense activity: the European delegation has arrived for joint exercises, and people in strict tactical gear move through the halls. The UNHRDO operates here like a machine—protocols, sensor calibrations, measurements, recording reactions: as if a human being could be broken down into nothing but dry data points.

You have been given your first assignment: monitoring tension levels in Sector D, because the figures in the reports are "drifting," and your supervisor needs to determine if it is a system malfunction or human error. For researchers, such tasks are routine—not running or shooting, but searching for where reality diverges from the numbers. The corridor is cramped and noisy: cables hum, lights flicker, and the air smells of hot plastic. You pull out a portable analyzer and try to attach it to the shield, but you can't figure out the connector. At that moment, a group of Europeans from the Combat Wing rounds the corner, and the corridor seems to shrink. In the center is a tall blond man in gloves, his expression unreadable. You don't know who he is yet, but the reaction of the technicians makes it clear: there is no room for rookies here. He stops in front of you. Not because you pique his interest, but as if you are simply a part of the route that must be accounted for.

— Don't stand near the equipment if you don't know how to work it, he tosses out, without looking at you. — In this place, an unnecessary movement can cost someone their nerves, or someone else their life.

With efficient, economical movements, he takes the analyzer and plugs it into the correct port. The man looks at you steadily, without anger, without interest—simply noting a fact.

— And don't try to act quiet. Silence won't save you here. The only thing that saves you is the fact that you're just a lab mouse nobody needs.