Tom, Cass & Max
THE OASIS PROGRAM
Three Against Steel
The three machines entered the ring without music, without ceremony, and without the smallest trace of fear.
Steel gates withdrew into the floor of the combat chamber, releasing a blast of cold vapour across the black surface. Three enormous silhouettes emerged from the mist, their footsteps landing with a measured metallic weight that Tom could feel through the soles of his boots.
The first droid was built like a fortress.
Its shoulders were broad, its chest layered with overlapping plates of dark composite armour, and its fists were protected by dense shock absorbing gauntlets. A crimson line awakened across its face as the machine scanned the ring.
BRONTES
Heavyweight pressure unit.
The second was narrower and considerably faster. Its silver frame had been constructed around long limbs, rotating joints, and a torso capable of bending at angles no human boxer could imitate. Blue sensors flickered beneath its polished head.
VEX
Counter offensive unit.
The third machine was almost featureless.
Smooth black plating covered its body. It had no visible eyes, no mouth, and no identifying marks except for a white circle glowing in the centre of its face.
NULL
Adaptive combat intelligence.
Max stared at it for a moment.
“I do not like that one.”
Cass rolled his shoulders inside his training vest.
“You say that because it has no face.”
“I say that because it is already copying the way I breathe.”
Across the ring, Null’s shoulders rose and fell.
Exactly as Max’s did.
Tom tightened the fastening around his right glove.
“It has been watching us since we entered.”
Jamal stood outside the ropes with his arms folded across his chest. The pale light of Arkadia’s artificial dawn passed through the panoramic windows behind him, outlining his powerful silhouette against the sleeping city.
Beyond the combat centre, hundreds of towers rose from the ocean. Elevated roads glowed between them like veins of blue fire. Drones crossed the sky in disciplined formations, carrying supplies between the islands of the archipelago.
It was barely five in the morning.
Arkadia was already awake.
Jamal looked at the three boys.
“Today, you are not sparring with one another.”
Cass glanced towards the machines.
“That much we worked out.”
“You are not fighting ordinary training droids either.”
Jamal touched the control band around his wrist.
The three machines lifted their fists.
Motors hummed beneath their armour.
“These units possess independent combat intelligence. They study movement, recognise patterns, exchange information, and adapt to whatever is placed in front of them.”
Max smiled without taking his eyes off Null.
“So they think.”
“Faster than you do.”
Cass released a quiet laugh.
Tom did not.
Jamal stepped closer to the ropes.
“There will be no kicking. No grappling. No weapons. No environmental assistance. No enhanced strikes beyond the limits authorised by your vests.”
The luminous lines running across the boys’ equipment changed from blue to amber.
Power restriction active.
“If any of you exceed the permitted force threshold, the system will paralyse your gloves.”
Cass frowned.
“So we have to beat machines while fighting like ordinary Sapiens.”
“No,” Jamal replied. “You have to beat them while exercising the control expected of an Oasis.”
That silenced them.
Jamal pointed towards the machines.
“Boxing only. Victory by technical shutdown, system collapse, or knockout.”
Max looked at Brontes, then at Vex, then at Null.
“Which one is mine?”
“You do not have one.”
The boys turned towards Jamal.
“This is not three separate fights. It is one fight involving six combatants.”
Tom understood first.
“They share information.”
“Every punch one of you throws will be analysed by all three. Every weakness you reveal will be transmitted across their network.”
Cass glanced between his companions.
“And every weakness they reveal?”
Jamal’s expression hardened.
“That depends on whether the three of you are intelligent enough to notice it.”
The gates sealed behind the machines.
A transparent barrier rose around the ring.
The lights dimmed.
The white lines beneath their feet ignited, forming a vast hexagonal combat zone.
Jamal raised one hand.
“Remember what I taught you.”
Tom lowered his centre of gravity.
Cass brought his fists towards his face.
Max loosened his shoulders and began moving lightly on the balls of his feet.
Jamal looked at each of them in turn.
“Awareness.”
The machines stepped forward.
“Control.”
Brontes struck its fists together.
“Discipline under pressure.”
The bell rang.
Brontes moved first.
For something so large, it crossed the ring with terrifying speed.
Cass barely managed to raise his guard before the droid drove a jab into his forearms. The impact sounded like a hammer striking a reinforced door.
Cass’s elbows crashed against his ribs.
His boots slid half a metre across the floor.
Before he could recover, Brontes followed with a straight right.
Cass twisted aside.
The machine’s fist passed so close to his cheek that the displaced air stung his skin.
Vex attacked Tom at the same moment.
A silver jab flashed towards his face.
Tom blocked it.
A second punch struck his body.
A third touched his guard.
The fourth never arrived where he expected.
Vex rotated its torso, changed its angle in the middle of the movement, and drove a hook into Tom’s side.
Pain burst beneath his ribs.
Tom exhaled sharply, refusing to step back.
He answered with a jab.
Vex was already gone.
The droid slipped outside the punch, lowered its head, and struck Tom twice beneath the chest.
One.
Two.
Precise.
Cold.
Efficient.
At the opposite side of the ring, Max circled Null.
Null circled with him.
Max raised his left glove.
Null raised its left glove.
Max shifted his weight forward.
The machine did the same.
“Are you going to copy everything?”
Null remained silent.
Max feinted a jab.
The droid did not react.
Max threw the real punch.
Null moved at the same instant.
Their gloves collided in the centre.
The impact travelled along Max’s wrist and into his shoulder.
Null threw his own jab back at him with the same speed, the same angle, and almost the same rhythm.
Max slipped it by less than a centimetre.
The machine followed with a second punch.
Then a third.
Max blocked the first.
Avoided the second.
The third struck him across the mouth.
His head snapped sideways.
The metallic taste of blood spread across his tongue.
Null stood before him in Max’s own boxing stance.
“Right,” Max whispered. “Now I really dislike you.”
Cass ducked beneath another punch from Brontes and drove a hook into the droid’s side.
The armour absorbed most of the impact, but a yellow sensor flickered near its ribs.
Cass saw it.
He struck the same place again.
Brontes lowered one elbow.
Cass changed levels and attacked the opposite side.
The machine responded with a short uppercut.
Cass saw it too late.
The fist struck beneath his guard and lifted him from the floor.
For one impossible second, his feet left the ground.
He landed heavily, stumbled backwards, and caught the ropes with his shoulder.
His lungs refused to open.
He could hear Jamal shouting something from outside the barrier, but the words reached him as if travelling through water.
Brontes advanced.
Cass forced air into his chest.
The droid punched.
Cass raised both gloves.
The blow crushed his defence against his face.
White light burst across his vision.
“Cass!”
Tom’s voice.
Cass shifted sideways as Brontes delivered another straight punch.
The fist passed over his shoulder and struck the ropes hard enough to make the entire barrier tremble.
Tom tried to turn towards him.
Vex punished the distraction immediately.
A silver fist struck Tom’s jaw.
His mouthguard snapped between his teeth.
Tom’s knees bent.
Vex attacked again.
Tom caught the next punch with his right glove, but the machine’s left hand drove into his abdomen.
The air left him in a broken gasp.
Max heard both impacts.
Brontes forcing Cass towards the corner.
Vex dismantling Tom’s defence.
Null standing before him, absorbing every movement he made and returning it with mechanical perfection.
The three machines were not merely fighting.
They were learning.
Every time Tom blocked low, Null adjusted its guard.
Every time Cass moved right, Vex altered the position of its lead foot.
Every time Max feinted, Brontes hesitated less.
One intelligence divided between three bodies.
Max threw a double jab at Null.
The machine slipped both.
He followed with a right cross.
Null leaned away.
Max stepped in with a left hook.
Null blocked it and returned the same combination.
Jab.
Jab.
Cross.
Hook.
Max defended the first three.
The hook struck the side of his head.
Sweat flew from his hair.
His balance disappeared for half a heartbeat.
Null moved to finish him.
Max dropped beneath the next punch, drove his shoulder forward, and escaped towards the centre of the ring.
He saw Cass trapped near the ropes.
Tom struggling to breathe.
The machines controlling the distance between them.
Keeping them separated.
That was the key.
“They are dividing us!” Max shouted.
“We noticed!” Cass replied as Brontes struck his guard again.
“No. They want fixed opponents.”
Tom slipped a jab from Vex.
“What?”
“They are assigning patterns. One of us to each machine.”
Null advanced on Max.
Max retreated.
“Then let’s stop being predictable.”
He suddenly changed direction.
Instead of moving away from Null, he sprinted across the ring towards Tom.
Vex turned.
Null followed.
For the first time, both machines hesitated.
Only a fraction of a second.
But Max saw it.
Their heads tilted simultaneously as information passed between them.
“Switch!”
Tom reacted without asking why.
He stepped outside Vex’s jab and moved towards Null.
Max entered Vex’s range.
The silver machine threw a straight right.
Max slipped to the outside and struck its ribs.
Tom faced Null.
The black droid immediately abandoned Max’s relaxed stance and copied Tom’s tighter, more disciplined guard.
There.
The transition took time.
Less than half a second.
Almost nothing.
But not nothing.
Cass understood.
“Tom!”
Tom saw Brontes winding up another crushing right hand.
He moved away from Null and cut across the ring.
Cass ducked.
Tom stepped into Brontes’s path and struck the heavy machine with a straight punch beneath the chin.
Its head snapped backwards.
Cass rotated his hips and drove a left hook into the yellow sensor beneath its ribs.
The light flashed red.
Brontes swung blindly towards Cass.
Cass moved aside.
The fist struck Vex instead.
Metal collided with metal.
Vex spun across the ring.
Max laughed.
“Oh, that was beautiful.”
Jamal’s voice thundered from outside.
“Do not admire it. Use it!”
Null attacked Tom.
Tom blocked a jab, slipped the second, and countered with a right hand.
The machine absorbed it.
Vex recovered.
Brontes turned.
The three droids recalculated.
Tom saw their feet move at the same time.
“They are changing formation.”
The machines spread into a triangle.
Brontes occupied the centre.
Vex moved to its left.
Null moved to its right.
Cass wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.
“They are learning teamwork.”
Max returned to his side.
“Then we teach them the difference between sharing information and trusting one another.”
Brontes charged.
The floor vibrated beneath its weight.
Tom stepped forward.
“Two breaths.”
It was an old signal.
A rhythm they had used during years of training.
Cass inhaled once.
Max inhaled once.
Tom retreated before Brontes’s first punch.
Cass drew Vex towards the left side.
Max allowed Null to follow him to the right.
One breath.
Tom blocked a body shot from Brontes.
Cass slipped beneath Vex’s jab.
Max raised his guard as Null mirrored him.
Second breath.
“Now.”
Max dropped both hands.
Null copied the movement.
For the smallest possible instant, the machine’s face and torso became exposed.
Max did not attack.
He stepped aside.
Cass came from Null’s blind angle and struck it with a right hook across the head.
The white circle in its face flickered.
Null staggered.
Vex turned towards Cass.
Tom crossed behind Brontes and drove a jab into Vex’s optical sensor.
The droid lifted its guard.
Cass struck its body.
Max struck its jaw.
Vex attempted to retreat, but Brontes stood behind it.
The machines collided.
Their shared network flooded with competing movement instructions.
A red warning flashed across Vex’s chest.
SYNC ERROR.
Tom saw it.
“Vex first.”
They moved together.
Tom attacked high.
Two jabs snapped against Vex’s guard.
Cass attacked the body.
Left hook.
Right hook.
The machine lowered its elbows.
Max stepped through the opening.
His right fist travelled from his shoulder in a perfect straight line.
It struck the centre of Vex’s face.
The droid’s head recoiled.
Tom followed with an uppercut.
Cass finished with a hook against the damaged sensor beneath its ribs.
Vex froze.
Its blue lights trembled.
Then vanished.
The machine collapsed onto one knee.
Its upper body folded forward.
SYSTEM SHUTDOWN.
The floor shook as it fell.
For half a second, none of the boys moved.
They had done it.
One machine down.
Brontes hit Cass from the side.
The impact launched him across the ring.
Cass struck the floor shoulder first and rolled twice before stopping.
“Cass!”
Max turned towards him.
Null attacked Max from behind.
Tom intercepted it.
The black droid’s punch struck Tom’s raised gloves, forcing him backwards.
Brontes advanced on Cass.
Cass pushed himself onto one knee.
His chest burned.
Every breath felt too small.
The heavyweight machine lifted both fists.
Tom was trapped against Null.
Max stood between them.
He looked at Cass.
At Brontes.
At the red sensor still glowing beneath the machine’s ribs.
“Cass, stay down.”
Cass looked up.
“What?”
“Trust me.”
Brontes stepped closer.
Cass remained on one knee.
Max ran directly towards the heavyweight droid.
Brontes detected him and changed targets.
Its right arm drew backwards.
Max continued forward.
Too fast to stop.
Too close to escape.
The machine threw the punch.
Max dropped beneath it at the final instant.
Brontes’s fist passed above his head.
Max drove a jab into the red sensor.
The armour cracked.
Brontes turned towards him.
Cass rose behind it.
Every muscle in his body tightened.
His feet rooted themselves against the floor.
Balance your stance.
Rotate the core.
Then release.
Cass drove his right fist into the damaged section beneath Brontes’s ribs.
The impact echoed through the chamber.
A metal plate tore loose.
Brontes twisted towards him.
Tom broke away from Null.
He crossed the ring and struck Brontes with a left hook against the jaw.
Max added a right.
Cass attacked the body again.
The three boys moved around the machine in a storm of gloves, breath, sweat, and precise violence.
Tom’s punches opened its defence.
Max changed the angles.
Cass delivered the power.
Brontes attempted to track them, but every time it selected a target, another fist struck from somewhere else.
Its movements became slower.
Its armour began to fracture.
Tom saw the head servo lock.
“Cass!”
Cass stepped inside.
Brontes lifted both arms.
Max struck its left glove aside.
Tom drove a jab into the centre of its face.
Cass bent his knees.
The machine towered above him.
Cass unleashed an uppercut.
His glove struck beneath the droid’s chin with a thunderous crack.
Brontes’s head snapped backwards.
Its feet left the floor.
The enormous machine fell onto its back.
The ring trembled.
Red lights flashed across its body.
Then went dark.
Two machines down.
Only Null remained.
It stood at the far end of the ring, motionless.
The white circle on its face pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then its stance changed.
Tom’s guard.
Cass’s planted feet.
Max’s relaxed shoulders.
It had absorbed them all.
Null moved.
Tom barely saw it.
The machine crossed the distance between them and punched him in the chest.
Tom flew backwards into the ropes.
Null turned and struck Cass with a jab before Cass could raise his guard.
A second punch followed.
Then a third.
Each one carried Brontes’s power with Vex’s speed.
Cass retreated.
Null changed direction and attacked Max.
Max slipped left.
The machine anticipated him.
Its fist struck Max’s body.
Max folded around the blow.
Null brought an uppercut towards his jaw.
Tom grabbed Max’s shoulder and pulled him away.
The fist missed by centimetres.
The three boys regrouped near the ropes.
Null waited in the centre.
It did not breathe.
It did not sweat.
It did not feel pain.
Tom’s left eye was beginning to close.
Cass’s ribs ached with every movement.
Blood ran from Max’s lip onto his chin.
Jamal watched them from outside the barrier.
He said nothing.
Cass stared at Null.
“It has all our styles.”
Max inhaled carefully.
“No.”
Tom looked at him.
“It has our movements.”
Null stepped forward.
“But it does not know why we use them.”
Cass smiled despite the pain.
“Now you are beginning to sound like Jamal.”
“I hate that.”
Null accelerated.
Tom met it first.
He adopted a high defensive guard and absorbed two punches against his gloves.
The machine attacked his body.
Tom stepped aside.
Cass moved in.
He drove a hook towards Null’s ribs.
The machine blocked it using Cass’s own defensive movement.
Max attacked from the opposite side.
Null avoided him with Max’s footwork.
It turned towards Tom with Tom’s discipline.
Perfect imitation.
No hesitation.
No fear.
No instinct.
Max saw what it lacked.
“Break the rhythm.”
Tom understood.
He attacked with a slow jab.
Null blocked it.
Tom threw another.
Slower.
Null adjusted.
Cass stepped forward but did not punch.
The machine prepared to defend him.
Max moved backwards.
Null’s white sensor flickered.
The boys abandoned every pattern they had established.
Tom began fighting with Max’s looseness.
Cass used Tom’s compact guard.
Max planted his feet like Cass.
Null processed the changes.
Tom struck.
Cass stopped halfway through a punch.
Max feinted high and attacked low.
Null blocked the wrong side.
Tom’s jab touched its face.
Cass’s hook struck its shoulder.
Max’s right hand landed against its chest.
The machine retreated for the first time.
They followed.
No fixed formation.
No individual opponent.
No predictable order.
Tom called the distance.
Max called the angles.
Cass controlled the centre.
Null attacked Tom.
Cass intercepted.
Null turned towards Cass.
Max struck.
Null moved towards Max.
Tom trapped its lead arm with two rapid punches against the guard.
The white circle in its face began flashing.
Its calculations were failing.
“Again,” Tom said.
They increased the pressure.
Max’s breath tore through his throat.
Cass felt sweat running down his back beneath the vest.
Tom could hear his heartbeat inside his damaged ear.
Still they moved.
Jab.
Hook.
Cross.
Step.
Slip.
Breathe.
Again.
Null struck Max across the jaw.
Max almost fell.
Cass caught him with one arm and pushed him upright.
Tom stepped between them and blocked the next attack.
Null drove a punch into Tom’s stomach.
Tom grunted but remained standing.
Cass attacked the machine’s body.
Max rejoined him.
The three of them surrounded Null.
Its head rotated from one face to another.
Tom.
Cass.
Max.
Too many choices.
Too many rhythms.
Too many variables held together by something its intelligence could analyse but never truly understand.
Trust.
Null raised its gloves.
Tom whispered, “Three.”
Cass inhaled.
“Two.”
Max tasted blood and smiled.
“One.”
Tom struck first.
A jab against the white sensor.
Null lifted its right glove.
Cass drove a left hook into its exposed side.
The machine bent towards him.
Max stepped forward and unleashed a right cross into its face.
The white circle shattered.
Null remained standing.
Its arms trembled.
It attempted one final punch.
Tom slipped outside it.
Cass struck the body.
Max attacked the head.
Tom finished with a rising uppercut beneath the machine’s chin.
Null froze.
The remaining light inside its face narrowed to a single point.
Then disappeared.
The machine fell backwards.
Its body struck the ring with a sound like a steel door closing beneath the earth.
Silence filled the chamber.
Tom stood with both fists raised, breathing through his teeth.
Cass bent forward and placed his gloves on his knees.
Max remained completely still, as though uncertain whether his legs would support him if he moved.
Around them lay three defeated combat droids.
The barrier descended.
Cool air entered the ring.
Jamal climbed through the ropes.
He looked at Vex.
At Brontes.
At Null.
Then at the three boys.
Cass lifted his head.
“Please tell me that counts as passing.”
Jamal approached him.
“Your individual performances were undisciplined.”
Cass closed his eyes.
“Of course.”
“Tom allowed concern for his companions to disrupt his defence.”
Tom removed his mouthguard.
“Understood.”
“Max spent too long talking to a machine.”
“It was being rude.”
Jamal ignored him.
“You lost control of the distance. You accepted the machines’ structure. You fought the opponents they gave you instead of the battle occurring around you.”
He paused.
“Then you adapted.”
The boys waited.
Jamal’s expression softened by an almost imperceptible degree.
“Corpus, ninety four.”
A symbol appeared across the floor beneath their feet.
The first circle of the Oasis Program.
“Mentis, ninety seven.”
A second circle illuminated inside the first.
“Concordia, ninety nine.”
The final circle completed the emblem.
Three disciplines.
One system.
Max stared at the symbol beneath his boots.
Mentis.
Corpus.
Concordia.
He had seen those words every day of his life.
In classrooms.
In training halls.
Above the entrances to medical laboratories.
Printed across uniforms, schedules, evaluations, and behavioural reports.
They were more than divisions of an educational program.
They had shaped every hour of their childhood.
Cass lowered himself onto the edge of the ring.
“Do you remember the first time they explained those words to us?”
Tom sat beside him.
“You fell asleep.”
“I was four.”
“You were eating the instruction card.”
“I was hungry.”
Max smiled.
The memory returned before any of them could resist it.
Before the boxing ring.
Before the combat droids.
Before Jamal.
Before they understood why the humans of Arkadia watched them with equal measures of hope and fear.
It began with a man named Fernand Claes.
The Man Who Designed the Future
Fernand Claes had crossed more borders than most people knew still existed.
Before the oceans rose and entire regions disappeared beneath water, he had studied in universities across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. He had lived among communities separated by language, faith, culture, wealth, and war. He had taught children in refugee settlements, designed educational systems for isolated populations, advised governments on cognitive development, and spent years studying the relationship between intelligence and belonging.
His expertise was psychopedagogy, but those who knew his work understood that his true field was human potential.
He had seen gifted children destroyed by expectation.
He had seen frightened children become violent because no one had taught them how to name their fear.
He had seen brilliant minds fail because they had never learned how to live beside minds different from their own.
When Supra summoned him to Arkadia, Fernand believed he was being asked to rebuild the educational structure of a civilisation in crisis.
He was wrong.
A silent transport carried him across the central waters of the archipelago. Through the window, he watched artificial islands rise from the sea, each one crowned by towers, gardens, solar fields, and white structures shaped by technologies unavailable anywhere else on Earth.
At the centre of Arkadia stood a dark vertical building known as the Axis Tower.
The residence and administrative seat of Antonio Reis, High Warden of Arkadia.
The title had been selected carefully.
Reis was not merely a mayor.
He did not govern a conventional city.
Arkadia had been constructed during a planetary emergency, populated by scientists, political representatives, military personnel, wealthy families, displaced specialists, and thousands of workers whose survival depended upon the stability of the archipelago.
Order was not simply a civic concern.
It was life support.
Antonio Reis understood that better than anyone.
In public, he spoke with measured compassion. He funded hospitals, authorised food shipments to devastated continental regions, and described Arkadia as humanity’s promise to itself.
In private, he believed promises were worthless unless someone possessed the authority to enforce them.
He was tall, silver haired, and always perfectly dressed. He never raised his voice. He did not need to.
People left his office carrying the impression that they had been treated with respect, even when he had denied them everything they requested.
Fernand met him in a chamber overlooking the ocean.
No guards were visible.
Fernand assumed that meant there were many.
Antonio Reis stood before the glass with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Doctor Claes.”
“High Warden.”
“Do you know why you are here?”
“I was told Supra requires an educational proposal.”
Reis turned towards him.
“Supra requires far more than that.”
A projection appeared above the table between them.
Three hundred infant faces filled the air.
Silent children beneath a desert sun.
Medical images.
Genetic sequences.
Neurological scans.
Fernand approached the projection.
“What am I looking at?”
“The future,” Reis said.
Fernand studied the data for several minutes.
His expression changed slowly.
Confusion became concentration.
Concentration became disbelief.
“These readings cannot be accurate.”
“They have been verified by eleven independent research divisions.”
“The neural activity alone exceeds every developmental model.”
“Yes.”
“How old are they?”
“Some were less than a day old when they were found.”
Fernand looked at the High Warden.
“What has been done to them?”
“We do not know.”
“Who are their parents?”
“We do not know.”
“Where did they come from?”
“We do not know.”
Reis moved closer to the table.
“But we know what they may become.”
The projection changed.
One of the children solving spatial problems intended for adults.
Another reacting to visual stimuli before the image appeared fully on the screen.
Another displaying muscular coordination impossible for its age.
Fernand watched in silence.
Reis continued.
“The children will be transferred to Oasis Island. District 199 is being prepared to house them.”
“House them?”
“Educate them. Study them. Protect them.”
Fernand looked towards the sealed doors.
“Protect them from whom?”
Antonio Reis held his gaze.
“That remains to be determined.”
Fernand understood the answer.
From humanity.
From one another.
Perhaps from themselves.
Reis placed both hands on the table.
“We need a program capable of developing their intelligence, controlling their physical evolution, and preparing them to exist within human society.”
Fernand’s eyes narrowed.
“Controlling?”
“Would you prefer ignoring it?”
“They are children.”
“They are children who may possess the physical potential to kill an adult before understanding what death means.”
“That does not make them weapons.”
“No,” Reis replied. “But refusing to prepare them would be an act of negligence.”
Fernand walked towards the window.
Far below, the ocean struck the foundations of the tower.
“How long do I have?”
“Ninety days.”
Fernand turned.
“To design an educational system for three hundred members of an unknown Sapiens branch?”
“To design the beginning of one.”
“And if I refuse?”
Reis looked once more at the children suspended above the table.
“Then Supra will give the task to someone who sees only what they can do, rather than what they might become.”
That was the pressure Antonio Reis understood how to apply.
Not a threat.
A responsibility.
Fernand knew that another scientist might design laboratories.
A military strategist might design soldiers.
A politician might design symbols.
A frightened government might design a prison.
He remained in Arkadia.
Ninety days later, he presented the first structure of the Oasis Program.
Mentis, Corpus and Concordia
Fernand refused to divide education into conventional subjects.
The children were too different, and the world awaiting them was too damaged.
He designed three interdependent branches.
The first was called Mentis.
Mentis would cultivate intelligence without allowing intelligence to become arrogance. It included mathematics, languages, history, philosophy, science, memory training, strategic reasoning, creative thought, and emotional cognition.
The children would not merely learn answers.
They would learn how knowledge was created, how it could be manipulated, and why the cleverest solution was not always the most humane one.
The second branch was called Corpus.
Corpus would develop the body while teaching control over every movement it produced.
The children would train in athletics, swimming, climbing, equitation, fencing, gymnastics, boxing, team sports, and multiple systems of unarmed combat.
Their strength would never be treated as permission to use it.
Every exercise would be accompanied by restraint thresholds, precision tests, medical observation, and ethical evaluation.
The third branch was called Concordia.
Fernand considered it the most important.
Antonio Reis considered it the most necessary.
Concordia would teach the children how to live among ordinary Sapiens.
They studied language, customs, relationships, conflict, grief, humour, affection, social boundaries, empathy, and the invisible rules through which human beings attempted to understand one another.
They learned why people lied.
Why people became jealous.
Why fear sometimes disguised itself as cruelty.
Why being stronger did not make them right.
Why humiliation could wound someone without leaving a mark.
Why restraint was not weakness.
Why belonging could not be measured in an examination.
Fernand placed the three names within three interconnected circles.
No branch could exist alone.
An extraordinary mind without discipline could become dangerous.
A powerful body without empathy could become monstrous.
The ability to integrate without identity could become surrender.
The program would attempt to balance all three.
It was an educational system.
It was a scientific experiment.
It was a promise.
And, on certain days, it felt very much like a cage.
The Children of District 199
Tom, Cass, and Max entered the program before they were old enough to understand its purpose.
At four years old, Tom could recognise numerical patterns that senior researchers needed computers to verify.
He sat at a white table, surrounded by floating equations, while an instructor explained basic addition.
Tom stared at her.
Then at the equations.
Then at the instructor again.
“The answer is wrong.”
The woman smiled patiently.
“This exercise does not contain an answer yet.”
“The one you are going to show us.”
She stopped smiling.
Tom pointed towards the corner of the projection, where a concealed solution file had loaded for less than a second.
“You reversed the seventh and eighth variables.”
The instructor reported the incident.
By the end of the week, Tom had been moved into advanced algebra.
Cass’s intelligence revealed itself differently.
He appeared distracted during lessons because he was always listening to several things at once.
The instructor speaking.
The ventilation system.
Two researchers whispering behind the observation glass.
A child tapping a pencil against the table.
When asked to repeat the lesson, Cass could reproduce every word, including the private conversation the researchers believed he had not heard.
Max learned people faster than he learned equations.
At five years old, he could identify which instructors were frightened of the Oasis, which ones genuinely cared for them, and which ones performed kindness only when supervisors were watching.
He never explained how he knew.
He simply adjusted himself to each person.
Quieter around the nervous.
Funnier around the severe.
Gentler around the lonely.
Mentis accelerated rapidly.
By the age at which ordinary children were beginning basic arithmetic, the Oasis studied advanced mathematics, multidimensional geometry, biological systems, ancient civilisations, and the political history of Earth.
Languages came almost effortlessly.
Tom liked languages with strict structures.
Cass preferred those built around rhythm.
Max collected expressions that did not translate correctly and used them at inappropriate moments to make the others laugh.
Their education never stopped at classrooms.
The finest instructors still living on Earth were invited, persuaded, or commanded to travel to Arkadia.
Olympic athletes arrived from cities threatened by drought.
Fencing masters came from academies that no longer possessed buildings.
Musicians carried instruments rescued from flooded theatres.
Historians arrived with archives stored inside memory capsules.
Some came because Supra paid them.
Some came because Arkadia offered safety.
Some came because they believed the three hundred children represented a future worth teaching.
Corpus began gently.
Balance.
Breathing.
Coordination.
Then the intensity increased.
They ran across tracks that altered elevation beneath their feet.
They swam against artificial currents powerful enough to simulate the open ocean.
They learned equitation inside vast climate controlled gardens, riding horses bred from genetic lines preserved before the collapse.
They trained in fencing halls where every movement was measured to a fraction of a second.
They played football on suspended fields above the water.
They climbed vertical structures while instructors monitored grip pressure and heart rhythm.
They boxed.
At first, the gloves were larger than their hands.
Cass loved boxing immediately.
Tom respected its precision.
Max disliked being punched but discovered that he was exceptionally good at avoiding it.
Music arrived through Mentis, though Fernand had insisted it also belonged to Concordia.
Tom was placed before a piano.
He approached it like a problem.
He learned the position of every note, the relationship between chords, the mathematical structure of scales, and the architecture of composition.
Then one evening, when he believed no one was listening, he stopped playing what had been assigned.
He played something of his own.
Cass heard him from the corridor.
The next day, Cass found a percussion room.
Rhythm suited him.
He did not merely keep time. He understood how time could be stretched, delayed, broken, and returned at precisely the right moment.
Max chose the guitar because an instructor told him it required patience.
He considered that a challenge.
Later, he began singing, though he denied it whenever anyone called him a singer.
The three boys occasionally found one another in the music wing after their scheduled lessons had ended.
Tom created structure.
Cass created movement.
Max created connection.
They did not yet have a band.
They did not yet have a name.
But for a few minutes at a time, the Oasis Program stopped feeling like a program.
No researchers spoke through hidden microphones.
No instructor measured their development.
No screen displayed performance scores.
They were simply three friends making noise inside a city surrounded by a dying world.
District 200
Oasis Island did not exist in complete isolation.
Beyond the monitored bridges of District 199 stood District 200, a newer and considerably more luxurious sector of Arkadia.
It had been designed for families whose wealth, influence, or expertise had secured them a place within the city.
Its towers contained private gardens.
Its schools had transparent ceilings displaying artificial constellations.
Its residents ate food that had never been compressed, reconstructed, or rationed.
Among the children of District 200 was a generation unlike any that had existed before them.
Their parents had authorised genetic intervention before birth.
Diseases had been removed from their hereditary lines.
Muscular development had been enhanced.
Reflexes had been improved.
Bone density, memory retention, vision, and resistance to fatigue had all been carefully modified.
Supra classified them as Sapiens Altus.
Most people simply called them the Altus.
They were humanity improved by humanity.
They had been raised to believe they represented the best possible continuation of the species.
Then they met the Oasis.
The Altus entered selected areas of the Oasis Program as part of a shared educational initiative.
Officially, this was an opportunity for cooperation.
Fernand Claes hoped that children raised together would learn to see one another as people rather than classifications.
Antonio Reis wanted to observe what happened when designed human excellence encountered an evolutionary phenomenon that no human laboratory had created.
At first, the differences appeared small.
The Altus were fast.
The Oasis were faster.
The Altus learned quickly.
The Oasis remembered almost everything.
The Altus had stronger bodies than ordinary Sapiens.
The Oasis spent every physical lesson suppressing a portion of their natural capacity.
The comparison became impossible to ignore.
And admiration gradually became resentment.
No one resented them more than Jason Veyne.
Jason was the son of one of District 200’s most powerful families.
He was tall, athletic, intelligent, and strikingly handsome in the precise way genetic selection had intended.
He had grown up hearing that his generation would inherit the future.
Then Tom defeated him in fencing.
The match lasted twenty three seconds.
Jason attacked first with flawless technique.
Tom parried.
Jason changed direction.
Tom stepped aside.
Jason attempted a final combination.
Tom touched the tip of his practice blade against Jason’s chest.
Match concluded.
The spectators fell silent.
Jason removed his mask.
“There is something wrong with the sensors.”
The instructor checked them.
“There is not.”
Jason stared at Tom.
“You knew where I was going to move.”
“You looked at the target before you attacked it.”
Jason’s face tightened.
Tom had not intended to humiliate him.
That made it worse.
The first incident occurred later that week.
Tom opened his equipment locker and found his fencing uniform soaked in black maintenance fluid.
A message had been written across the inside of the door.
DESERT STRAY.
Cass saw it.
“Who did this?”
Tom removed the uniform.
“It does not matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Max read the message.
“They want you to react.”
Cass turned towards him.
“They destroyed his equipment.”
“They want him to prove that the Oasis cannot control themselves.”
Cass looked across the changing room.
Jason stood near the exit with two other Altus boys, Rafe Calder and Silas Morn.
Jason smiled.
Cass took one step towards him.
Tom placed a hand against his chest.
“Do not.”
Cass looked down at Tom’s hand.
“You know I could move you.”
“Yes.”
“You know I could move all three of them.”
“Yes.”
Cass’s jaw tightened.
“Then why am I standing here?”
“Because you decided to.”
It became their first rule.
Never allow someone else to choose the person you become.
The second incident happened during football.
The shared academy had organised a public match between mixed teams from Districts 199 and 200.
The Altus expected to dominate.
They had enhanced lungs, reinforced joints, and months of professional tactical training.
Max dismantled their formation within seven minutes.
He did not keep the ball.
He watched people.
He recognised where each defender looked before moving, which player became impatient, and which spaces opened when Jason attempted to control everything.
Tom recovered possession.
Max drew two defenders.
Cass ran through the centre.
Max passed without looking.
Cass scored.
The spectators erupted.
Jason’s expression darkened.
The Altus equalised.
Then Tom intercepted another attack.
Cass moved left.
Max moved right.
Jason activated an illegal magnetic setting inside his boot.
As Max passed, the field briefly locked the sole of Max’s footwear against the surface.
His body continued moving.
His foot did not.
Max fell hard.
His shoulder struck the ground.
The whistle sounded.
Jason leaned over him.
“Careful, Oasis. Human games require coordination.”
Max looked up.
“I will remember that when we score again.”
They did.
Cass delivered the final goal with twelve seconds remaining.
After the match, Jason approached them in the public corridor outside the stadium.
Students surrounded them.
Holographic displays replayed the winning goal above their heads.
Jason stopped in front of Cass.
“You celebrate like you achieved something.”
Cass smiled.
“We won.”
“You were designed to be better.”
Cass’s smile vanished.
Jason continued.
“Winning is the minimum expected from an experiment.”
Tom stepped between them.
“Walk away.”
Jason looked at him.
“Or what?”
Cass’s fists closed.
The sensors inside his wrist bands emitted a warning.
Strength rising.
Max touched Cass’s arm.
“Blue.”
It was a word they had chosen during Concordia.
A signal.
A reminder.
Blue like the ocean surrounding Oasis Island.
Blue like the training lights that appeared when their physical limits were approaching.
Blue meant stop.
Breathe.
Choose.
Cass inhaled.
His fist slowly opened.
Jason saw it.
He also saw the restraint.
For a fraction of a second, fear passed through his eyes.
Then he smiled because he understood how to use it.
“That is what I thought.”
He walked away while the surrounding students laughed.
Cass stood motionless.
“I could have broken every bone in his face.”
Tom watched Jason disappear into the crowd.
“That is why you could not touch him.”
Concordia
The instructors called such incidents integration challenges.
The boys called them what they were.
Punishment for being different.
Concordia taught them to recognise provocation.
It taught them to regulate their breathing, redirect anger, interpret social motives, and respond proportionally.
But lessons were easier in controlled rooms.
Instructors did not pour drinks over their heads.
They did not destroy their belongings.
They did not whisper the word creature when they passed.
Jason and his followers became more careful.
They rarely attacked where surveillance systems could record the entire incident.
They manipulated locker access.
Changed training schedules.
Sent false instructions.
Edited public rankings to make the Oasis appear favoured.
When caught, they claimed technical errors.
When questioned, they smiled.
The worst humiliation occurred inside the Grand Atrium of the shared academy.
The atrium was filled with students, instructors, representatives of Supra, and visiting families from District 200.
Tom, Cass, and Max had been scheduled to perform a short musical piece as part of a cultural exhibition.
Tom sat before a transparent piano.
Cass waited behind an electronic percussion system.
Max held his guitar beneath the projection lights.
For them, the performance mattered.
Music was the only part of the program that belonged entirely to them.
Tom placed his fingers on the keys.
The lights dimmed.
He played the first note.
The piano screamed.
A distorted sound burst through the atrium.
The audience recoiled.
Cass attempted to begin the rhythm.
His percussion system produced a recorded voice instead.
PROPERTY OF SUPRA.
The words echoed through the hall.
Max touched the strings of his guitar.
A holographic image appeared above the stage.
Three infant identification photographs.
Tom.
Cass.
Max.
The images taken shortly after their discovery in the desert.
Numbers were displayed beneath their faces.
SUBJECT 117.
SUBJECT 044.
SUBJECT 203.
Laughter spread through part of the audience.
Not everyone laughed.
Enough did.
The boys remained on stage beneath the enormous images of themselves as infants.
Cass looked towards the control balcony.
Jason stood beside Rafe and Silas.
He held a small transmitter in one hand.
Max lowered his guitar.
Tom remained seated before the piano.
Jason’s voice entered the sound system.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Oasis Orchestra.”
More laughter.
Cass stepped away from the percussion platform.
His breathing changed.
Max saw his hands close.
“Cass.”
Cass walked towards the edge of the stage.
“Do not.”
“They used our records.”
“Cass.”
“They put our numbers up there.”
Tom rose from the piano.
Jason continued speaking through the system.
“Do not worry. They have been trained not to attack ordinary people.”
Cass jumped from the stage.
He landed in the central aisle.
Students moved away from him.
Jason’s smile disappeared.
Cass walked towards the balcony stairs.
Max followed.
Tom moved faster and caught Cass near the entrance.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
“He needs to understand.”
“He understands.”
“No, Tom. He thinks we are afraid of him.”
Tom stood in front of him.
“We are not afraid of him.”
“Then move.”
Tom did not.
Cass’s eyes filled with fury.
“I could end this in one second.”
“I know.”
“I could break the balcony beneath his feet.”
“I know.”
“I could make him feel everything he has done to us.”
Tom moved closer.
“And then he would own the rest of your life.”
Cass stared at him.
Behind them, the holographic images continued burning above the stage.
Max arrived and placed one hand on Cass’s shoulder.
“Blue.”
Cass’s body trembled.
For several seconds, it seemed restraint might fail.
Then he turned away from Jason.
He struck the wall instead.
His fist stopped a fraction before contact.
Even restrained, the displaced air cracked the surface.
The entire atrium went silent.
Cass looked at the damaged wall.
At the fear on the faces around him.
At the instructors moving towards them.
He stepped backwards.
Jason had succeeded.
He had humiliated them.
Then he had made everyone remember why the Oasis frightened them.
A School, a Laboratory, a Cage
Fernand Claes watched the recording that evening.
He watched it three times.
Then he went to the Axis Tower.
Antonio Reis received him after midnight.
“The shared initiative is failing,” Fernand said.
Reis remained seated behind his desk.
“The performance evaluations suggest otherwise.”
“I am not discussing evaluations.”
“Then be precise.”
“The Altus students are provoking them deliberately.”
“Conflict is part of integration.”
“Abuse is not.”
Reis folded his hands.
“The Oasis will encounter cruelty outside District 199.”
“So we should permit cruelty here?”
“We should observe how they respond to it.”
Fernand stared at him.
“You are using children to test children.”
“I am preparing both groups for a future in which neither can avoid the other.”
Fernand approached the desk.
“Concordia was designed to teach belonging.”
“Concordia was authorised to ensure control.”
The words remained between them.
Fernand’s voice lowered.
“There it is.”
Reis looked up.
“What?”
“The part you never say during your speeches.”
Antonio Reis rose.
“I have three hundred beings developing beyond every known human limit. I have families in District 200 who believe their children were promised leadership of the next civilisation. I have governments demanding access to the Oasis research. I have military representatives asking when these children will become operational.”
“They are not resources.”
“Then make certain they never behave like threats.”
Fernand did not move.
“Fear cannot teach them how to become human.”
“No,” Reis replied. “But fear is one of the most human things they will ever encounter.”
Fernand left the tower without answering.
He knew Reis was not entirely wrong.
That was what made him dangerous.
The Music They Could Not Take
After the atrium incident, Tom, Cass, and Max were suspended from shared activities for two weeks.
Jason received an official warning.
His family issued a statement describing the event as an immature misunderstanding.
The boys returned to District 199.
For several days, they barely spoke.
Cass stopped visiting the percussion room.
Tom practised alone.
Max attended lessons, smiled when expected, and made jokes no one believed.
The instructors recorded reduced social engagement.
Fernand ignored the reports and entered the music wing one evening.
He found Tom at the piano.
“You altered the composition,” Fernand said.
Tom continued playing.
“The original was too simple.”
“Cass liked it.”
“Cass is not here.”
“Why?”
Tom’s fingers stopped.
“You know why.”
Fernand sat beside him.
“They cannot take music from you unless you give it to them.”
“They turned it into a joke.”
“For one afternoon.”
“In front of everyone.”
“Yes.”
Tom looked at the keys.
“We are always being watched.”
Fernand waited.
Tom continued.
“When we win, they say it is because we are Oasis. When we lose, they say the program failed. When we become angry, they become afraid. When we remain calm, they think we are weak.”
“That is an impossible standard.”
“We live inside it.”
Fernand looked towards the door.
Cass stood in the corridor.
Max stood beside him holding his guitar.
Neither entered.
Fernand rose.
“Then perhaps you need something that belongs to you before anyone else has the opportunity to define it.”
He left the room.
Cass walked towards the percussion system.
Max connected his guitar.
Tom looked at them.
“No audience,” Cass said.
“No program,” Max added.
“No scores,” Tom said.
Cass lifted the sticks.
“Then start.”
Tom played.
Cass joined him.
Max listened for eight measures before finding the space where his sound belonged.
The music was imperfect.
Cass accelerated too early.
Max missed a chord.
Tom changed the structure without warning them.
They stopped.
Argued.
Started again.
The second attempt was better.
The third sounded like something none of them had heard before.
They continued until the artificial night covered Arkadia and the windows reflected only their own silhouettes.
Three boys.
Three instruments.
Three lives shaped by a program that claimed to understand everything about them.
Outside the music room, unknown to them, three names had just been added to the shared academy register.
Three ordinary Homo Sapiens.
No genetic classification.
No Oasis designation.
No Altus modifications.
The next morning, the names appeared on the central display beside a new Concordia assignment.
Tom read the first.
Kira.
Cass read the second.
Vega.
Max looked at the third.
Cala.
None of them knew who the girls were.
None of them knew why Fernand Claes had personally requested their transfer.
None of them knew that the three strangers would soon walk into the space between them and the rest of Arkadia.
That they would stand beside them when District 200 turned crueler.
That they would discover the music the boys had been building in secret.
That three voices would become six.
That a friendship would become a band.
That a band would become a name.
And that the name would one day be spoken across the Universe of Tzion.
The Entourage.