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This was the verdict. The Academy didn’t care about fair play; it cared about value, and the algorithm that ran this place calculated our worth on a brutal split. Sixty percent was Field Metrics, goals, assists, and speed, the things a stopwatch could love. Forty percent was Compliance.

That forty was the trap. Compliance didn’t mean following rules; it meant dominance. It meant looking like a winner for the cameras and feeding the narrative the Regime wanted to sell to the masses.

The screen refreshed.

TOP ASSET: FELIX CENTO

Felix’s face filled the wall, the official portrait, skin airbrushed, eyes cold and blue, every platinum hair placed by somebody on a state salary. The portrait was a lie. I had seen the real thing an hour ago, flushed and furious with the water running off him, and the real thing was better.

The numbers scrolled beneath his chin.

Field Metrics: 99.9%

Compliance: 98.0%

Total Asset Value: 99.4%

A murmur rippled through the hall, a low wave of shock.

He had dropped.

Yesterday the rumors had him touching 99.8. He had lost 0.4 in a single afternoon, and in the ruthless mathematics of the Academy it was a plummet.

ANALYSIS: Asset displayed physical vulnerability during scrimmage. Asset failed to neutralize threat immediately. Dominance compromised.

I chewed the grit in the nutrient paste and suppressed a smile.

Felix sat at the center of the High Table on the balcony with his fork frozen in midair, staring at the screen, his face drained of blood. For a guy who acted like a King, he looked ready to shatter over a decimal point.

The screen flashed again, the list scrolling fast, names and faces blurring past until it stopped on a new entry.

RISING ASSET: LEANDER REGILLEN

My own face stared back at me, ten feet tall and feral, wet hair, a sneer on my lips, anger burning in my eyes, and I had to hand it to the Academy, because they hadn’t airbrushed me at all. They knew exactly what they were selling.

The numbers spun.

Field Metrics: 82%

Compliance: 95%

Rank: 48

The room erupted.

“Forty-eight?” someone whispered at the next table. “He’s a transfer. He should be unranked.”

“That’s a Tier 2 slot,” another voice said. “He just jumped the queue.”

I stared at the board and ran the arithmetic twice, because numbers that generous usually came with a hook buried in them. Rank 48, straight past the grind and the politics.

ANALYSIS: Asset demonstrated high aggression. Tactical foul execution. Territory claimed in Tier 1 sector.

There was the hook, and it wasn’t in me. A dark laugh bubbled up in my chest. The system was rigged, and for once it was rigged in my direction: instead of punishing me for playing dirty, it had rewarded me, points for hurting their Golden Boy on the field, points for walking into the senior showers to swing my dick around.

It wanted monsters. Sector 9 didn’t breed anything else.

I scraped the last of the gray sludge from my bowl and swallowed it. It sat heavy in my stomach, but it felt like power now.