The scale settled, its digital display flashing a number Wallis didn't recognize.

  “Seventy-six kilograms,” Doctor Vermont announced, his voice devoid of surprise. He made a note on his datapad. “And your baseline?”

  “My what?” Wallis asked, looking up from the glowing number.

  “How much were you before?” the doctor clarified, a hint of impatience in his tone.

  Wallis stared back down at the seventy-two. It felt like a stranger’s weight. In this age, environmental shifts dictated biology, and Wallis had been born with the same intolerance as so many other children of the century. A lifetime of restricted nutrition and bland, clinical fuels had left her perpetually underweight—toned by constant activity, certainly, but always hovering at the edge of brittle. Now, looking at herself as a Skinwalker, the shift was jarring. No matter how distorted her limbs or how comically ill-timed her hunger, her body was undeniably more: taller, stronger, and finally, perfectly balanced.

  “Forty-eight,” she said.

  The doctor gave a single, clinical nod. “A significant jump.” He gestured to the wall. “The stadiometer, please.”

  Wallis stepped onto the cold metal plate, her back pressed against the wall as a scanner hummed down from above and then retracted.

  “One hundred and eighty-six centimeters,” the doctor said, finally glancing up. His neutral expression was somehow more unnerving than scorn.

  “Your previous height?”

  Wallis shrugged, unsure. It was Rosaline who answered, her voice soft as she clutched her bag closer. “About a hundred and sixty something, a few months ago.”

  Wallis and Rosaline weren’t in the same local hospital where Wallis was first examined for her abnormalities. This was a branch of the INSO, where fighters weaved in and out. Not the headquarters, but a certified, official facility, which made everything feel colder and more serious.

  The doctor hummed, then fixed his eyes on Wallis. “The weight is healthy for your new height, but the math doesn't add up. Your biomass increase isn't proportional to your skeletal growth.” He paused, his gaze sharp enough to feel like a scalpel. “It’s the Nevas. It’s dense. We need to run more tests.”

  Rono’s threat from that morning echoed in her mind. “They will want to pick you apart, piece by piece. Don’t let them. Find a way to stop them, but don’t be a martyr, and don’t be a fool. Make them think the machine is broken, or that you are. Use your head.”

  She was led to another room, a concrete cube painted in fifty shades of institutional gray. A single equipment table stood against one wall. In each corner of the ceiling and floor, a smooth, black blister of what looked like polished stone was seamlessly morphed into the concrete. Not cameras—sensors. Far more invasive.

  This room, she knew, was originally designed for the anatomical examination of Nevarids, or perhaps their hides. But turns out, it served just as well for radiation inspection.

  ‘Too much gray,’ she thought, a spark of irritation cutting through her fear.

  “Rotate three hundred and sixty degrees,” a disembodied male voice commanded from hidden speakers. It was flat and mechanical.

  Wallis scowled, glancing down at her feet as she began to turn, her slow rotation.

  “Slowly,” the voice corrected.

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  She shot a hateful glare at the ceiling, then deliberately spun at the same speed.

  “Slowly,” the voice repeated, a fraction of a second slower, as if emphasizing the word for a disobedient child.

  “Fine, fine, I’m sorry,” she said, throwing her hands up in mock surrender. She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘How can I even do that?’

  Her mind raced, trying to come up with a plan in the few seconds she had. ‘No visible light, no sound. It must be not to provoke a reaction from the monsters here—… I’m so funny.’ She filed the observation away. ‘Darn, I need to understand this technology more.’

  She began to rotate again, her movements measured and agonizingly slow this time, waiting for the subtle shift in the air that signified the scan. ‘Is this radiation?’ The signal, when it came, wasn't a clear cue but a change in the very air of the room. A strange resonance hummed through the floor, a vibration she felt in her teeth. Then came a prickling sensation, as if her skin were a magnet being brushed by iron filings. ‘This must be it,’ she thought. ‘This sure wasn't designed for humans.’

  A scan came and went. Another came and with the same instructions. As the second microwaving feeling ended, Wallis decided on a feeble plan, just enough at least, she hoped, to stop the scanning, because she was really coming to hate it.

  “Stay still,” said the disembodied voice.

  There was a subtle shift in the air, a hum, then the prickling sensation. The feeling intensified, a sensation of being pulled apart on a molecular level, of pressure building from all directions at once. It carried no heat, but it felt invasive, a deep, pervasive wrongness that seemed to count every cell in her body. ‘They always tell me to move opposite right after this peaks. If I'm going to do this, the timing has to be perfect.’

  She waited for the pressure to build behind her eyes, that specific, throbbing pulse that told her the scan was at its most focused.

  ‘Now.’

  She shattered the silence with a scream, timing it with the scan's peak. It was pure and real because the fear—and cold—fueling it was real. She collapsed, tensing every muscle as she curled into a ball on the cold floor, pressing a pale fist to her sternum and forcing ragged, heaving breaths. The scanning stopped abruptly.

  ‘I feel so embarrassed.’

  For a moment, there was only silence. Then, the heavy door clunked open. Two orderlies in sterile blue scrubs entered cautiously, flanked by a guard whose hand never left the door controls.

  “Miss? Are you alright?” the woman asked, keeping her distance.

  This was the part Rono warned her about. “Make them talk to you, not just at you. They have to see a person, not a specimen.”

  Wallis looked up, widening her dark eyes, letting her lips tremble from the genuine chill of the room. “Wh—what was that?” she gasped, her hand clutching her chest. “What did you do?”

  “We have just scanned as before. Your behavior is sudden,” the man said calmly, his gaze sweeping over her every twitch. “What do you feel?”

  “I feel zapped!” Wallis retorted, pushing herself up to her knees. “Are you electrifying me now? I was compliant. There was no need to hurt me.”

  “We assure you, the scanner emits non-ionizing radiation well within safe parameters. There is no electrical discharge,” the man said, his tone condescendingly patient. “If you experienced pain, the fault lies with your physiology, not our equipment.”

  He was still talking down to her. Of course he was.

  “Please stand,” the woman said, offering no hand to help. “We need to continue.”

  Wallis hesitated, letting her gaze flicker between them. This was the gamble. “I… I don’t feel well,” she stammered. “I can’t.”

  The man exchanged a look with the woman, a contemplative frown on his face. “We will… instruct you on what to do after a short moment. Please excuse us.” He stepped back, turning, and the other nurse followed.

  The heavy door boomed shut, leaving Wallis in the gray silence once more. She sighed, letting her facade drop for a second before curling back into a tight ball on the floor, her cheek pressed to the cold concrete. She kept her jaw clenched and squeezed her eyes shut, faking a pained whimper for the benefit of the black blisters in the walls. She knew her words were most unconvincing.

  After what felt like an eternity, the door opened again. A man in a white doctor’s coat stood in the doorway, flanked by the two orderlies. He didn't look pleased.

  “Wallis,” he said, his voice dangerously calm. “Please come with us.”