BLOODCAPE
Chapter 120 – Testing the Cage

Chapter 120: Chapter 120 – Testing the Cage

The test began in silence.

No weapons. No masks. No breach.

Just time.

At 06:00 sharp, Hernan entered the gym like always. Same route. Same posture. He scanned in with the same biometric glove, nodded to the same wall camera, and walked past the same three interns bench-pressing out of sync.

Every part of it looked normal.

Except this time, he didn’t leave at 06:43.

He stayed.

Until 06:46.

Exactly three minutes longer.

He didn’t lift more weight. Didn’t run harder. Just sat at the rowing machine, breathing calmly, watching the ceiling through the mirror. No one spoke to him. No one asked.

But a ripple had been sent.

Three minutes was nothing in human time.

But in surveillance?

It was a flare.

From there, the games began.

He left breakfast after only four bites of food. Skipped the usual coffee stop. Avoided the quad. Walked the long way to class, eyes low, pace irregular. He turned his comm-band off mid-ping — a quiet violation of Academy conduct protocols, but subtle enough not to trigger flagging.

He changed rhythm.

Patterns were everything to digital oversight. Breaks drew focus.

And Hernan needed to see if something would bite.

At 11:00, he returned to his room and sat at the wall terminal. It was clean. Untouched. Officially his — unofficially mirrored.

He didn’t encrypt the files.

That would’ve looked suspicious.

Instead, he opened a plain document labeled:

JOURNAL – DAILY CHECKIN

He titled the files like a bored student would:

Reflection_Entry.0619A.txtReflection_Entry.0619B.txtReflection_Entry.0619C.txt

Inside the first, he wrote:

"Today I thought about my father. The way he looked when he fell.Sometimes I wonder if it was my fault. Maybe I slowed her down.Maybe she could’ve lived."

The second:

"Aya’s watching me. I can feel it. She’s smarter than she lets on.I think she suspects."

The third:

"There’s something wrong. My comm-band glitches too much.My last message to Tessa had a three-second delay before delivery.I think I’m being watched."

He leaned back. Read them again.

Crafted to sound raw. Unpolished. Just enough personal trauma to be believable. Just enough truth to sting.

They were bait.

He left the files open. Didn’t close the terminal. Didn’t log out.

Then he left.

Not in a rush. Not sneakily. Just walked out, heading to sparring drills with the second-years — a known schedule block.

He didn’t look back.

It took four hours.

He returned to his room around 15:20.

The terminal was dimmed. Still powered.

The journal folder sat open on the screen.

Empty.

All three files — gone.

No delete flags. No recycle trace. Just... absence.

Someone hadn’t just read them.

Someone had cleaned the plate.

Hernan sat down slowly. No reaction.

But inside?

Satisfaction.

They were in.They were reading.They were scared enough to hide it.

He opened the folder again. Typed a single line:

Welcome to the cage.

He stood. Adjusted the chair slightly — not the same way he’d left it.

Then walked out again.

This time, he left the terminal completely unlocked.

Ten minutes later, the cursor blinked.

A new file appeared.

No timestamp. No author.

Just a name:

Untitled — Edited by Admin.CR-001

The training yard was half-shadowed by late afternoon sun, its concrete perimeter still radiating midday heat. A few students practiced evasive vaults and balance drills, their shoes scuffing rhythmically against the metal bars. One of the foam dummies had been split open again. Its synthetic guts spilled across the mat like burst organs.

Hernan sat on the edge of the far platform, laces half-tied, elbow on his knee. Waiting.

Tessa found him without calling out.

She moved quietly. No greeting. No demand. Just sat beside him and offered a bottle of water without asking.

He took it. Sipped once. Didn’t look at her.

"You missed half of combat prep," she said after a while.

"I wasn’t in the mood to get hit today."

"Fair."

A pause.

Then: "Can I ask you something?"

She nodded. "Anything."

He let the silence stretch, then said:"Do I seem off to you lately?"

She tilted her head slightly. Not suspicious. Just curious.

"Define ’off.’"

"I don’t sleep much. I’m second-guessing everyone. I keep running numbers in my head when I should be training."

Tessa didn’t blink. "You’ve always been like that."

He almost smiled. "You saying I’ve always been broken?"

She leaned her shoulder lightly into his. "I’m saying you’ve always been aware."

He let the pause hang. Watched the light trace along her cheekbone. The way her braid coiled across her shoulder like a noose in disguise.

"You ever feel like you’re in the wrong story?" he asked. "Like you were handed a script that doesn’t fit your lines?"

Tessa looked forward. "All the time."

He watched her carefully now. Slid the next line out slow.

"I saw something strange in the District 4 footage."

Still no flinch. Not even a tilt of her head.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there was a moment — right before I landed the third strike — the drone caught something in the background. A figure. Watching."

She nodded. "Yeah. I saw it."

His breath didn’t hitch, but the air around him cooled.

"You did?"

"It was blurred, right? Looked like a cloak or displacement suit."

His voice went softer. "That part never aired."

"I know."

Another beat.

Then she added: "Virex sent me the uncut version. Said I should study it — learn what high-level missions look like when they’re real."

He stared at the mat below them.

"So," he said quietly, "you have access to off-record drone data now?"

"I didn’t ask for it," she said. "He said I earned it."

He met her eyes.

She wasn’t lying.

But she wasn’t just telling the truth either.

He didn’t ask what else Virex had sent. Or what she’d done with it. He didn’t need to.

Because it wasn’t about answers.

It was about what she didn’t do.

She didn’t act surprised.

She didn’t blink.

Tessa leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees. "You’re not the only one who sees things, you know."

"Oh?"

"I watch the background of every mission now. Ever since what happened at Mid-City."

"You think there’s always someone watching?"

"I know there is," she said softly. "The question is whether they’re waiting to act... or waiting to choose."

He said nothing.

She stood. Stretched. Sunlight touched the curve of her collarbone.

"You want to spar?"

"Not today."

She nodded once, then walked toward the mats.

He watched her go. Measured the angle of her spine. The rhythm of her steps.

She never looked back.

Everyone’s part of the test, he thought.They just don’t know who it belongs to.