"Unclassified? What the hell does that even an?"
The Board Chamber overlooked almost the entire Assessnt Facility.
Rain streaked slowly across the towering glass walls while the lights below flickered through the storm.
Around the long black table sat the Facility directors, their expressions ranging from irritated to deeply uneasy.
"So what exactly are we dealing with here?" one director asked sharply. "A malfunction?"
"The system has never returned an Unclassified result," another added. "Not once in thirty years."
Several eyes turned toward Doctor Heckman.
He sat near the far end of the table, half-slouched in his chair, fingers resting against his temple.
Silent.
"Doctor Heckman?" a director pressed. "What does this an for the Facility?"
Still nothing.
His attention seed elsewhere entirely.
One of the older directors exhaled impatiently. "This is exactly why overdependence on a single system becos dangerous."
"The system was recalibrated," another replied imdiately. "Three separate units produced the sa result."
"That's impossible."
"Clearly not."
The room threatened to dissolve into overlapping argunts.
The Chief Director raised a hand casually with a frown.
Silence returned.
Then a woman seated near the center spoke calmly.
"We are overcomplicating this."
Heads turned.
She folded her hands neatly. "The girl survived repeated incidents. Fine. We classify her under Physical Class with Heightened survival instincts as the dominant trait."
A few directors nodded slowly.
"It is broad enough," she continued. "Adaptive endurance response. Elevated recovery capability. The public has seen stranger classifications before."
"And far safer," another director added quietly, "It would certainly be better than the word 'Unclassified' reaching Central."
A heavier silence followed that statent.
Another director added grimly, "Or worse. The High Regent."
That made the room quieter.
One of the older directors folded his arms. "And if the girl becos a problem later?"
"Then we remove the problem now." another said bluntly.
No one reacted strongly enough to condemn the suggestion
Doctor Heckman finally spoke.
"No."
The single word cut cleanly through the chamber.
He lowered his hand from his face and looked around the table.
"Classifying her falsely," he said calmly, "might seem convenient now."
The room quieted imdiately.
"So would dispose of her." He continued. "But both solutions create the sa problem."
One director frowned. "aning?"
Doctor Heckman leaned back slightly.
"If the girl continues displaying behavior outside the assigned classification later on," he said, "then every report connected to this room becos evidence that we ignored it first."
Nobody interrupted him.
"You can bury an irregularity temporarily," Heckman said. "You cannot control what it becos afterward."
The directors exchanged uneasy looks.
"And what exactly are you suggesting, Doctor?" Soone asked.
Doctor Heckman's eyes drifted briefly toward the rain outside before returning to the table.
"That we stop trying to force a conclusion after one day," he answered simply. "And find out what the girl actually is first."
***
A guard arrived at Testing Hall Three and motioned for Yesu, who was still waiting, to follow him.
They rode a silent elevator to the top floor.
As they walked past a long glass corridor, Yesu noticed a massive enclosed compound far beyond the Facility grounds.
Rows of identical buildings stretched across the empty land behind layers of fencing and watchtowers.
Training fields, obstacle structures and floodlit pathways spread between them in rigid order.
Even from miles away, the place felt strict.
Yesu slowed slightly. "What's that?"
The guard barely glanced at it.
"Foundation Camp." He said.
Yesu stared for a mont. She had heard a lot about the Foundation camp, where Rank Initiates were taken for basic training after Classification. But this was nothing like she had imagined.
She was starting to think being classified as a Zero wasn't that unfortunate after all.
***
Doctor Heckman's office looked less like an office and more like a disaster held together by scientific confidence.
Books were stacked in unstable towers across the floor. Half-open machines blinked quietly from cluttered desks while loose papers covered almost every available surface.
A kettle boiled sowhere beneath the ss.
Doctor Heckman pushed aside a pile of folders so Yesu could sit.
She looked around once. "Do you ever clean this place?"
"Of course." Heckman said. "I move the ss into different corners every Thursday."
Yesu nodded slightly. "Efficient."
"Exactly."
He dropped into his chair with a satisfied sigh. "Now then. History lesson."
"Yes." Yesu said flatly. "My favorite."
He ignored the sarcasm completely.
"Thirty years ago," Doctor Heckman began, "classification wasn't done with scanners and brain mapping. We used manual evaluations."
He waved a hand vaguely. "Exposure testing. Stress response observation. Ability triggering."
"That sounds unpleasant."
"It was dystopic." Doctor Heckman corrected. "Children getting frightened half to death while adults took notes on clipboards pretending everything was perfectly scientific.
He leaned back slightly.
"So I built the Classifier. One scan. Fast, accurate, painless. No more trial by fire nonsense."
He smiled faintly to himself. "Best decision I ever made."
Yesu tilted her head. "And it's never been wrong before?"
"Not once."
A brief silence followed.
Then Yesu asked quietly, "What does unclassified an?"
Doctor Heckman looked at her over his glasses.
"It ans exactly what it ans."
"That's not helpful.
"No," he admitted. "But it's accurate."
Yesu rested her chin lightly against her palm. "So what happens to soone without a class?"
Doctor Heckman's fingers tapped slowly against the armrest.
"No one exists without one," he said eventually.
The answer lingered strangely in the room.
Yesu studied him for a mont.
"You're in a ntal class."
Doctor Heckman blinked once.
Then smiled.
"You say that very confidently."
"You talk too much to be Physical."
He laughed unexpectedly hard at that.
"There's a theory I was working on so ti ago, that personality traits could be linked to one's class. But that may be the most offensive classification analysis I've ever heard."
"You didn't deny it."
Doctor Heckman only adjusted his glasses, still smiling faintly.
Yesu looked toward the rain beyond the windows. "Can I go back to my district after this?"
"Not yet."
She looked back at him. "Why?
"There are still tests to run."
"What kind of tests?"
Doctor Heckman stood slowly from his chair and walked toward the window.
For the first ti since eting him, his expression beca slightly harder to read.
"Well," he said lightly, "since my Classifier failed to identify you…"
He turned back toward her.
"We'll have to classify you the old fashioned way."
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