[Boat — Deck — 5:00 AM — Day 28]
The team was on deck at five in the morning because Seraph had said training was at five and this ti everyone wanted to watch Alex’s training.
No one had slept well.
Max at the helm with his coffee.
Viktor leaning on the railing, looking at the horizon.
Kira completely awake.
Emily with half‑closed eyes that opened fully every ti the boat moved.
Raven with her arms crossed and a tired look, holding Emily so she wouldn’t fall.
"A woman needs her beauty sleep."
Emily, half asleep, answered.
"You can go to sleep. I can stay on my feet as long as I see Alex is okay."
"I worry about him too, and you’re looking at the sea while they’re in the middle of the boat."
Maya had arrived with the maps.
Jessica had arrived with two notebooks.
Grim on Alex’s shoulder, looking at everyone with calm crimson flas.
**"They’re tired."**
"It’s five in the morning."
**"You’re tired too."**
"It’s also five in the morning for ."
**"It doesn’t show on you."**
"You lie very well for a skeleton."
Seraph reached the deck, and the team moved into position without anyone saying a word.
---
"F5 goes in today," said Seraph.
The calm ocean behind her. The last stars visible on the western horizon.
"Dominion is not like the other two Fragnts. It doesn’t strike. It doesn’t cut. It doesn’t open planes." A pause. "It acts on the will of the people nearby. To train it, we need targets."
Seraph looked at them.
The team looked at her.
"No," said Raven.
"Don’t even think about it," said Emily.
"Absolutely not," said Kira.
Maya looked at Alex. Alex looked at Maya. Both looked at Seraph at the sa ti.
"Not us either," said Maya.
Seraph didn’t seem surprised. She had the expression of soone who had calculated exactly this outco before coming on deck.
Jessica raised her hand.
"I will."
Everyone looked at her.
"It’s information that doesn’t exist in any record," said Jessica, opening the first notebook. "No one has docunted what it feels like to be under Dominion’s effect from the inside. If I record it while it’s happening, we get real data instead of estimates."
"Doesn’t it scare you?" asked Emily.
"At ten percent with Alex controlling the channel —" Jessica without hesitation. "No."
Raven looked at her for a long second.
"You’re weird."
"I’m precise." Jessica. "They’re different things. Start, Alex."
---
Alex activated F5 at ten percent.
The golden pressure on his chest — softer than F1, more subtle than F4.
It pushed outward, toward the people nearby, with the cadence of sothing looking for will rather than bodies.
He oriented it toward Jessica.
Jessica frowned for a mont. Then she began to write.
"Do you feel it?" asked Alex.
"Yes." Without looking up from the paper. "It’s like having one direction that feels easier than the others without having chosen it to be that way. As if soone had slightly tilted the floor to one side without the floor having moved."
"I’m too tired to understand what you said. Can you resist it?"
"With active attention, yes, you could, though I’m also sowhat tired and I don’t know what I said." She made a note. "Take it to fifteen."
"Seraph said—"
"Take it to fifteen," said Seraph.
---
At fifteen, Jessica’s concentration changed.
"Give an instruction," said Jessica.
"Put down the notebook," said Alex.
Jessica looked at the notebook.
F5’s pressure arrived — not as a voice, not as an alien thought.
Jessica kept writing.
"I can resist it." Her voice calm, though the effort was there.
"But I notice exactly when it acts because there’s a difference between what I want to do and what the Fragnt wants to do." She noted it. "It’s like having two thoughts at the sa ti and knowing which one is yours and which one isn’t." More notes. "Go back to ten and give another instruction to compare."
Kira from the railing, in a low voice to Raven:
"She’s taking notes on her own ntal domination."
"I know."
"Doesn’t that worry her?"
"Apparently she finds it interesting."
Raven looked at Jessica for a mont longer.
"I don’t understand her either."
"Neither do I."
"Does it worry us that we don’t understand her?"
Raven considered.
"No." A pause. "As long as she remains useful."
---
A full hour.
From ten to twenty percent and back. Specific instructions versus general instructions.
The difference between Dominion directed toward a concrete action and diffuse Dominion with no defined objective — which, according to Jessica, was more uncomfortable precisely because it was diffuse, because the mind tried to fill the void with sothing, and that sothing always ended up being what the Fragnt would have wanted anyway.
Twelve pages.
In the end, Jessica closed the first notebook and opened the second.
"Conclusion," she said.
"At thirty percent, resistance is possible but requires constant attention. Above that, resistance ceases to be practical for most people." A pause.
"F5 is the most dangerous Fragnt of the three because it doesn’t act on the body. It acts on who you are. And most people can’t tell the difference between their own thoughts and soone else’s until they’ve already made the wrong decision."
Silence on the deck.
"That was deep for six in the morning," said Maya.
"Precision doesn’t keep office hours."
Maya looked at Alex.
"How did it feel using it?"
"Like talking to soone but using pressure instead of words." Alex. "And you don’t know exactly what you’re saying. You just know you’re saying sothing, or if soone said it for you... That must be Fragnt 5 talking."
"And that doesn’t unsettle you?"
"What unsettles more is not knowing how to use it than using it without control." A pause. "F5 is going to do what it wants anyway. I’d rather be the one who decides when and where."
No one answered that.
Emily from her position, looking at Alex.
---
Three Fragnts. Thirty percent. Simultaneous.
Pain in three different points in his chest — all three pushing against each other, all three looking for space in the sa channel.
Minute one. F5 found the space between F1 and F4 and tried to expand.
Alex brought it down.
Minute four. F1 pushed as it always pushed — constant, without urgency, with the patience of sothing that had been waiting a long ti.
Alex brought it down.
Minute seven. All three at the sa ti, all three testing simultaneously, the pain tripled for a second.
Alex held them.
Minute twelve. Seraph said stop.
The numbers unchanged.
Seraph looked at the three points of light on Alex’s chest — low, stable, all three at thirty percent without any having broken out.
"Next week, forty minutes."
"And if I can’t?"
"Then twenty‑five." A pause. "But you will."
"How do you know?"
Seraph looked directly at him.
"Because two weeks ago you couldn’t do eight, and today you did twelve." A pause. "The body learns faster than it thinks when it has no choice but to learn."
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