The cold continues its slow descent. My fingertips ache, then go numb. My toes follow. I acknowledge the sensations without reacting to them, file them away like weather reports.
There is a faint hum now, barely audible, like distant machinery. Or blood in my ears.
I close my eyes.
Something changes.
The cold vanishes.
Not gradually. Instantly.
Heat floods the room, sharp and invasive, like stepping too close to a fire after a long winter. My skin prickles painfully as blood rushes back into numbed extremities. I hiss despite myself, breath catching as my body scrambles to recalibrate.
Before I can settle, a sound detonates overhead – white noise at punishing volume, all frequencies at once. My eyes fly open. My hands clench reflexively.
Then silence.
Then cold again.
The transition leaves me disoriented for half a second – long enough to register annoyance. I tighten my control immediately, breathing through the aftershocks, forcing my pulse back down.
I see it now.
This is not about endurance. The cold is trivial. The discomfort manageable.
They are measuring recovery.
How quickly I can return to baseline after disruption.
I laugh once, short and sharp, before I can stop myself. “Is that all?” I ask the room. “You could have saved time by reading my file.”
There is a pause.
“Response time noted,” the voice says. “Introducing variable stimuli.”
Light flickers. Once. Twice. The intensity shifts just enough to trigger my pupils. A low-frequency vibration hums through the floor, more felt than heard. Then a sudden, sharp tone slices through the air, high and piercing, before cutting out.
Each time, I adapt faster.
I feel it happening, the way my mind slides into place with increasing efficiency. My breathing settles almost immediately after each disruption. My muscles no longer tense automatically. I am learning the pattern even as they distort it.
And with that realisation comes something colder than the room.
I am not being tested.
I am beingoptimised. Like a weapon in need of recalibration.
Interesting.
“Subject demonstrates accelerated re-centering,” the voice says, almost conversationally. “Excellent data fidelity.”
My jaw tightens.
They are not interested in how much I can endure. Pain is incidental. What they want is my calm. My control. The thing I have always relied on to survive.
Every instinct I have honed, every disciplined response, is feeding them exactly what they want.
I am solving the problem for them.
