I looked it up out of curiosity. I was born on an auspicious Monday. Rain fell, nine inches of precipitation to be exact. I can picture it now, the grimy steam of the city exhaling as the chilled rain fell from the sky, its acid being placated by the screens held up by those brave enough to venture outside.

I always hated the rain and what it brought. It bit into you twice. First when the cold drops sunk its cold piercing pitter patter across your skin, and a second time when your skin flared up red from the corrosion. They taught us in history that it wasn’t always like this.

The rain brought life once, and I like to think the day I was born it brought me. Vat number 1387283533. My egg was selected from a fourteen-year-old my senior and the sperm was selected from a 130-year-old. Random selection at its finest. Another thing taught to us in history, eugenics.

Back in the day there was some moral qualm about selective breeding and racism. The program fixed that. Randomly selected father, randomly selected mother. We grew in vats and if any health defects were detected we would be flushed and start over. Artificial natural selection. Mankind flourished as genetic disabilities became rare and far between. Simultaneously, all genetic material had a chance to get through the vats, solving the core criticism with eugenics. The system wasn’t perfect, but it eliminated enough problems to be seen as the best solution. Riots broke out, protesters yelled, but in the end things were fair. They were efficient.

That, at the end of the day, was the goal. Efficiency. When the sky rained down water too acidic for consumption, the dirt too poisoned to grow food, and the sun released enough radiation to kill you with cancer in just a few years the only way to survive was through efficiency.

I read a book once about a dystopian “future.” Of course, that future is in the past now, the author getting it all wrong. Blamed capitalism. I hear similar stories would blame socialism. Of course, those systems went the way of the feudal system. Too ineffective. I wonder what he would think of our current system though, especially since our mechanized assembly lines of a society matched so well with what he envisioned.

There is no government now, just the corporations and the contractors. I myself have a contractor job. Social programs are covered by the corporations. They fund infrastructure, the education system, and healthcare. All of these are free if you are worth the cost. If you get cancer when you’re ten, it all stops. At that point, it’s better to start up a new vat than waste resources treating you and delaying your education. It’s a shame for your partner too. Contractors balance the corporations by preventing them from accumulating too much power. An example are the caretakers.

Being human unfortunately is not the most efficient way to live. Even so, we aren’t about to start modifying our brains to solve that. There is a little less than three quarters projected chance the people would burn the city down if we tried forcing that route; hell, I’d join in. The partner program is designed to alleviate our need for social bonding. It isn’t the most stable method for our mental health, but it reduces tribalism within the city while not wasting resources. Downside is the suicide rates. I’ll get back to that.

When you reach vat maturity you and another baby from your batch are partnered. You’re each other’s family. A friend, a sibling, a lover, a rival. What your partner is to you is up to you. Until you grow up you will be assigned adjacent dorms, assigned the same caretakers, and when you reach age, you’ll be assigned a home unit to share for the rest of your lives. You take psychology and therapy classes growing up to ensure you can be each other’s support. My partner is a brunette with bright blue eyes. She’s quiet. Like me.

Every year, for eighteen years, you are assigned new caretakers. Their job is to raise you, teach you, and protect you. They have different criteria for the year covered. For example, we took home education, philosophy, statistics, damage control, and logic courses in our final year amongst a dozen others. We also had to take regular review classes once a week.

At eighteen, you and your partner sit with a senior caretaker who wasn’t a part of raising you to serve as a neutral party. They go over all the other reports on you and assign you a job. 2000 job assignments and a population of 225,000 to do them. I was glad neither me nor my partner got a corporate job.

No one wants a corporate job. They have the highest suicide rates. This stems from two factors. I mentioned suicide earlier. It turns out when your partner dies it leaves you alone, and people don’t handle that well. Since corporate jobs are so safe, their partners are more likely to bite it first. The second factor is when you mess up in a corporate job, people die. Screw up logistical roll outs of food and medicine; someone dies. When you miss your deadline; someone goes without. And you better believe the auditors will catch you and make sure you know you screwed up. At least if you’re a plumber the worse that happens is someone might have to use public toilets while you fix their bathroom.

I got security transporter. It’s a military contractor job. I’m the one who drives the supply truck. Pretty low on the rung, but it’s the safest job in the military, and overall, it’s pretty good. It isn’t as safe as corporate but sitting in an armored truck is pretty solid. I am lucky to be eligible for promotion to pilot as well, all the way to Alpha, but they have a higher death rate so no thank you.

We mostly accept jobs from the corporations. They like a little extra protection when transporting GEL. The crap can be volatile, especially raw. I forgot what GEL stands for, each word is about fifteen letters long and Latin. It’s an accurate acronym though, stuff jiggles and you can jump in to take a weird bath. About once a month we go out for resource runs when our scouts find something they can’t bring back themselves. We sell that to the city, and occasionally do trades with Atlantis or Olympus. They pay us in something we were short on, and we provide security detail while we pretend to not notice their scavengers. Atlantis pays mostly in raw GEL, and Olympus pays with rare minerals they manage to clear from the debris in orbit. Gold and platinum are especially needed for electronics.

GEL comes in three varieties. Raw GEL, which while powerful, wastes a lot when used up. I’ve looked in the tanks, the stuff is white, yet transparent. It must be made under pressure and in specific atmosphere conditions. Atlantis has underwater labs that allow them to build the stuff in bulk. They have so much of it they don’t even bother refining or poisoning it.

Refined GEL is frankly technological godhood. Imagine a nuclear reactor in terms of energy output with no radiation. It runs at room temperature, so anything you put it in can be light. And the stuff interfaces by touch. Want it to release an electrical arc? Add in a copper coil and touch it with your finger and imagine it. You’ll get a nice arc across the windings. Not really. It’s a bit more complicated than that but that’s what it looks like to a layman like me. It starts off blue, begins to glow as it powers up, then turns red at max output. Very satisfying to watch the console of my truck change colors when I floor it. The only problem is the stuff does not react well with computers; it needs that human factor.

Poisoned GEL is made by throwing in a combination of compatible elements and exhausted GEL. Based on what is thrown in affects the color. You have the whole rainbow available, and yet it ruins the stuff. The only use at that point is to throw it in a boiler, and that is what Olympus does. The advantage is that you can make a lot of poisoned GEL with just a little raw. I think the ratio is one to a hundred.

Anyways, living in the Crossroads isn’t too bad, even if it’s a little dark. The city was built in a tight ravine that was further excavated out and reinforced. It is an impenetrable bunker with a sliver of sky exposed at the top. The sun shines directly in for only an hour a day. This means we don’t have to worry too much about its radiation. Stay inside at noon, or at least underneath a screen. I keep my screen on my belt since I have to use it a bit more when we go out for missions. The city is technically a superstructure with a base pillar. The pillar itself is about a hundred meters thick and reaches to the top of the ravine. It has a deployable shield on its head to cover the ravine up if Olympus flies over. It’s a deterrent for bombings, not that they are willing or wanting to try anything.

Walkways and ladder wells wrap around the pillar connecting to the different roads. The roads are about fifty meters wide. They’re suspended bridges with a main road and buildings all along its sides. They embed themselves into the ravine walls at angles and extend into the Earth itself. Some roads serve as warehouses, some residential areas, and so on and so forth. Everything is made of unpolished steel. The result? A black, central pillar with cross shaped branches, hence the name, Crossroads. The Atlanteans call us Tartarus, but that’s their deal.

It's one of the three cities left in the world. You’ve got Atlantis as well. The whole thing is underwater. Deep enough the sunlight doesn’t reach it. The place is nothing but neon lights from what I’ve heard. Its streets are trashed with the population either addicted to drugs, sex, or both. They love modifying their bodies, and not just with tattoos and piercings either. Cybernetics work real well with GEL, even raw. It makes them easy to control to boot. My unit theorizes the city is controlled by an AI. From the Atlanteans we’ve talked to, they seem poorly educated, though they are experts when it comes to cybernetics. It makes them dangerous too. You need at least a Charlie pilot to take out an Atlantean combatant, since most of them have skin upgrades and reinforcements, making standard guns harmless.

Then you have Olympus, the city of clockwork and steam. Or so they say. Their airships at least reinforce the idea. Olympus is the city in the sky. It’s the biggest waste of time and energy doing that. If the corporations knew we traded with them they’d be pissed. We keep the data sheets proving that it’s the best way to scavenge shit for our electronics, if they ever catch on. Their boilers burn enough steam to cover Olympus in a permanent thunderstorm.

The rumor is that’s what protects them from the sun. Their goal is getting off the planet. I appreciate their hope, even if it is impractical. It would take two millennia to clear our orbit of enough debris to even start sending ships out. If we put all our resources into doing that mankind would die out in a thousand years. If we maintain our current status quo we can survive for another seven millennia before the planet is a barren rock. I… did the math. Like I said, I appreciate their hope. Even so, part of me roots for them. It might be manageable if we could make better computers, but that’s a distant dream.

I don’t remember my first day on the job. I do remember meeting Alloy for the first time.

“So, you’re our new driver?” he asked loudly. I responded with a nod while I continued on my clipboard with my inventory check. I’m a thinker, not a talker.

“A nod? Show some respect kiddo… God I hate your eyes. Something about them, anyways what are you doing? You gonna talk or not? Well, it doesn’t matter, I’ll be taking you under my wing. Not literally, I have arms. I’m pretty good at boxing with them too, we should go a round sometime. Oh, hey Juliet, come over!” I was taken aback at how fast he talked. He never even gave me a chance to respond.

Juliet walked over and I took the chance to take in both. Juliet and I shared the same eye color, but her hair was lighter than mine, and already had a few grey hairs. She did not look happy and wore a flight suit. Alloy on the other hand had curly brown hair and steel eyes. He wore a mechanic’s coveralls, worn at half-mast with the arm sleeves tied around his waist. He did not wear an undershirt and was grossly out of uniform. He was also very, very fit.

“What?”

“Hey, doesn’t this kid have the same ice-bitch eyes you do?”

I dropped my clipboard. Juliet was the number two Alpha pilot. A celebrity. She piloted the Romeo, which was renamed to Legion when she made the top three as was tradition. She was also my mother, though that status meant nothing in our society, and this was the first I had ever met her. And this guy just told her I had her “ice-bitch eyes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re out of regs, unsat haircut, and you clearly didn’t shave this morning. You aren’t wearing a shirt and you are not wearing your flight suit, which need I remind you is your required uniform on the tarmac.”

The man stared her calmly in the eyes, “So is that a yes?”

There was a long silence. A very long silence. I fumbled to pick up my clipboard then continued with my inventory check for a couple minutes before she walked away. The man broke into a smile and whispered, “Bitch.”

I found out later he was Alloy of Justice. You’re allowed to pick a name when you come of age, and this guy went with… that. And he was fully aware of how cringey it was. The man was older than Juliet and thought poorly of the top three pilots calling them stuck up and untalented. He claimed they only make the top three because they were kiss-asses. The number three pilot, Logan, would come down frequently to swap rumors with Alloy. They were… friends… maybe? It was really hard to tell. Alloy would insult him to his face, and he would laugh and agree with him. Alloy would always be pretty cheerful after. In general Alloy was a piece of shit, a loudmouth, and an asshole. He was the number four Alpha pilot. He was also my commander.

And he was loved all the more for it. Say what you will, but Alloy was a celebrity in his own right. Oldest Alpha pilot, he had more missions under his belt than anyone. Got them more than anyone else too. Our unit was always being given work to do. I think it was supposed to be a punishment, but most of us enjoyed the busy work schedule. It kept things interesting, and the extra experience made us the best. Alloy complained about it, but he also never changed his behavior, so I privately think he liked it this way.

He also wouldn’t let us take shit from any other unit. First to insult you, first to defend you. He would go on tirades about doing the right thing too. Uphold the law. If anyone else in the military wasn’t doing that, he would get them put on shit detail. Didn’t matter if you weren’t under his command. You would find yourself reassigned to Logan’s unit cleaning up his Alpha, the Leviathan. Its propulsion system kicked up a lot of dust. The job took literal days.

Alloy piloted the… Alloy of Justice. Real imaginative I know. We tried getting him to change it, but he said he wouldn’t until they forced him. So basically, he was waiting for his ranking to go up. Considering someone making top three was treated like a holiday complete with a public speech for the Crossroads, that was probably not going to happen. The military did not need this guy getting a chance to broadcast his thoughts city-wide, especially when his thoughts were that everyone else was a series of expletives.

One day he called me to the firing range and handed me a gun. The 12 coil 9mm pistol. I had an idea what he wanted me for, but there wasn’t any point arguing. I emptied my first magazine at the target, and the sides of my barrel glowed blue as it warmed up.

“Reload.” I complied. “Fire.” Three shots in and the coils on my barrel had fully shifted red. Charge time was how long it took to fully activate GEL and caused that signature blue to red shift. He looked at me in silence as we finished up and returned the gun to the armory.

Finally, he pulled out a tablet and turned it on to recite data from a report back when I was seventeen. “Volume: forty-three liters. Time delay: four seconds. Density: one hundred percent. Charge time: fifteen seconds. Accuracy: zero point twelve.” He looked up and at me, “Outside of accuracy, your GEL compatibility is pretty high.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, when are you putting in for Charlie pilot?”

“I am not.”

He placed his tablet in his back pocket. “Why not?”

“Low survival rates, sir.”

He scowled. I had an idea what brought the sudden interest as well as why he looked at my scores. We recently ran a mission where we were hired by N. O. Technologies for a refined GEL transfer from their refinery to the central pillar. During the transfer one of the public transfer vehicles malfunctioned and to make a long story short I had to start up and move the truck out of the way fast. I started it fast enough to be a pilot.

I hear that back when vehicles ran on standard fuel and batteries you could start them up in seconds. GEL powered technology was dependent on its operator’s compatibility. For most it would take a few years of dedicated training to start up the truck that fast, which is why standard operating procedures has you warm up for two minutes. I happen to have a knack for it, and don’t need to warm up.

Volume values are pretty self-explanatory. It’s how much GEL you can control by volume. Alphas require a minimum eighty liters. An Echo requires a single liter and is what the truck is rated as. Time delay is how long the GEL will follow your orders. When I let go of the truck controls it takes a few seconds to power down. Some people can make it take a full minute. Fewer still can make it take longer. Density is the percentage of GEL that you can activate. Low density means it takes more GEL for the operator to do the same thing. Charge time I already covered. Finally, is accuracy. That is how well you can order GEL to do things without computer assistance. This one is pretty important since computers are so damn expensive, and it takes a lot to do the same thing with GEL as a person. Computers are the lifeblood of humanity, and as a result our ability to build them is very limited. We’ve eaten up too much of our resources over the millennium to be able to keep making them. Plus, Atlantis cranks them out at a reckless rate for their AI and cybernetics. It is possible to manufacture the components we need, but it eats up enough of our limited resources that it’s better to find the raw materials. Point twelve GEL accuracy is literally shit, though it is enough to drive a truck. I have practiced raising it, but I haven’t tested it since I hit adulthood and I am probably still short of the Alpha requirement of zero point eight.

Alloy wasn’t about to let this go, but I was saved by the appearance of Logan, who hailed us with a whooping sound and wave of his hand. He greeted us when he got a bit closer.

“The fuck is your fat-ass doing here?” Alloy growled. Logan is not fat. I couldn’t tell if he was being his normal prickly self towards Logan or irritated about me.

“You asked me to come by,” Logan paired with a jovial shrug.

“That was an hour ago. Go away.” Alloy walked away from the two of us without another word. Guess that answers my question.

Logan looked at me and asked, “Did something happen?”

I don’t like having to talk to other commanders. I am pretty low on the totem pole, and in general I like keeping my head down. Being asked a question directly from a commander meant that keeping my mouth shut like I normally do would not play out. That meant I had to answer his question, which also meant telling him I was eligible for training to become an Alpha pilot, something there is only ten of. As in ten very special people that everyone pays very much attention to. The exact opposite of a low profile. For the first time I cursed being related to Juliet.

Instead, I opted for, “I do not know, sir.” Nailed it. Logan looked back at Alloy in contemplation before shrugging.

After that my life took a turn for the worse. Alloy is stubborn, and while he couldn’t force a job change, he could force me to be exposed to what he wanted me to do. This manifested itself by me being called out by him to “assist” with Alpha maintenance. Oiling up joints. Running washes through its thrusters. Changing out gaskets. All of it a pain in the ass, and all of it with Alloy standing nearby talking about piloting to whoever would listen but always in earshot. How to use its radar. Priority targeting, tactics, etc. One of the actual mechanics asked why he was talking about that with engineering. He made up the excuse that all military personnel should learn strategy. When he did leave the engineering guys would let me go, baffled on why they needed an “assist” from a driver.

And then it escalated. He had me reviewing field reports, standing in meetings I had no business being in even as his assistant. Don’t get me wrong, commanders are allowed to select a yeoman. Why did it have to be me, though? I clearly had no interest.

Of course, Logan found out. Hard not to notice the third wheel when your rumor mill buddy starts dragging my ass everywhere. I don’t know if it was his or Alloy’s idea, but one day he brought the damnable test sphere.

Logan didn’t even acknowledge Alloy like he normally did. “Hey kid, got a moment?”

When a commander asks if you have a moment, you answer with, “Yes, sir.” I honestly don’t know why he asked, it’s not like Alloy would let me worm my way out of it.

He reached into his pocket and held out a cube made of azure putty. My stomach turned and lurched. I had avoided this thing like the devil.

The sphere test. One of five to determine your GEL compatibility which directly affects your job when you come of age. Some jobs like security transporter don’t really need accuracy. Others, such as surgeon require high accuracy. All you had to do was order this GEL infused putty to make a sphere within ten seconds. There was very little GEL present, and the putty itself was very stubborn, taking several kilograms of force to manipulate. An examiner would take measurements and depending on how close you got showed how accurate your control was. The last time, I was able to round the corners out a little.

Logan smiled and said, “Go ahead and make a sphere.” My instinct was to sarcastically roll up the ball physically using my hands. I squashed the invasive thought and looked down at the potential sphere. It’s important not to think about it as a cube, or at least that’s the advice they give.

Sphere. Round. Ball. I focused on those thoughts and directed it at the cube that I held upon my flat opened palm. The corners started to round, and the edges softened. The plains of the cube bowed out as it tried to assume the form of a ball and cracks opened up at the edges where the tough putty parted.

“Time. Let me see it.” Logan took the ball-like abomination and raised it to his eye as he rotated it around and inspected it. He lowered it and started tossing it up and down in the air with a wiry smirk on his face. He was baiting Alloy, who had been watching intensely.

Alloy broke first, “Well, how did the ice-bitch do?” He’d taken to calling me that. It’s also what he called Juliet, and it did cause confusion.

Logan played it up, “Juliet busted a brewery without trouble, surprised you were tracking that.”

“The other bitch, asshole.”

“Why are you asking me how you’re doing?” Logan wasn’t even being clever, but Alloy made it too easy to jerk his chain around.

“For fuck’s sake. How. Did. The. Test. Go. The one you just conducted. In front of me. You fat paper weight.”

Logan shrugged, “I don’t know, I didn’t bring any measurement tools.” He tossed it in the air and Alloy’s hand lashed out and caught it in midair. Unfortunately for him, Logan had anticipated him, and it had already returned into a cube

“You give these exams to Charlie applicants all the time. Certainly, you can estimate it?”

“Probably. Anyways you got any juicy gossip?”

“I don’t do gossip.” I rolled my eyes. I’m ninety-nine percent sure he believes that. His conversations with Logan prove otherwise. Logan caught me out of the corner of his eye and turned back to me.

“Ooh, is someone showing a personality for once?”

“My apologies sir, I’ll refrain from such outbursts in the future.” Screw it. Clearly these two guys don’t care about appearances so a little dry sarcasm can be allowed through. I did forget that Alloy has no talent for subtlety, however.

“What outburst?” He looked at me and then Logan. “Wait, what outburst?”

Logan laughed and started walking away, “Catch you guys later, I have a meeting with Industrial Solutions.” I wondered for a second what his meeting with the corporation would be about when I felt a buzz from the tablet that Alloy had taken to making me carry.

I pulled it out and saw that Logan had sniped me a message, ‘0.3-0.7’. The cracks would probably put me on the lower end.

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Alloy was busy cursing and chasing after Logan. I took the chance to slink back to my truck. I wouldn’t be hard to find, but at least I could get a break from the administrative busy work he had taken to tasking me with.

I was woken that weekend by a loud knocking on my door. I swiftly put my clothes on and went to answer the door. I couldn’t imagine what could have happened to warrant me being woken up at, I glanced at the analog clock on the wall to check. Two in the morning. I slid the door open and saw Alloy standing there.

He was clean shaven and was wearing, for once, the commander’s office uniform, black apparel with an insignia on the chest indicating his rank and name. In the past four and a half years I’d worked for him he had never once worn it. He would always wear coveralls or something else at half mast, sometimes with, sometimes without, a tank top. It was pretty much his signature look, and he was only able to get away with it because of his rank and talent as a pilot. If he was actually dressed formally, something serious was about to happen.

“Good morning, sir.” I’d have asked what was going on, but it wasn’t like I was going to get a straight answer being direct with this ornery man. My partner called over to see if everything was alright.

“Its fine Caroline,” Alloy responded. I didn’t bother asking how he knew her name, he probably looked it up on the way here. “Military business.”

I could feel Caroline’s eyes peeking at us behind me. Alloy addressed me, “Get in the office uniform. Make it quick, we have work to do.” The lack of an explanation surprised me, he normally overshared everything as part of his efforts to make me go pilot.

An hour later I was sitting in a briefing room with Alloy. There were a handful of other commanders as well, including Logan who looked exhausted and was still in his flight suit. He was covered in dust and sweat, so I figured he had not washed up from the day’s mission that should have ended at midnight. In addition, there was a couple of brigadier generals in the room, who the commanders reported directly to.

One of the brigadier generals called Logan forward to explain what was happening. “I’m going to keep this brief. We captured an Atlantean combatant tonight during an Olympus scavenging job. Alive. For one reason or another his suicide chip didn’t detonate. The Five Star wants him interrogated and wants information to sell to the corporations, pronto. Right now, he’s relatively disoriented, so we’re trying to push the advantage. The problem is we haven’t interrogated anyone in fifty years, and the only commander who bothered getting qualified was Alloy of Justice.” The room of eyes shifted to stare at Alloy. I kept my gaze fixed on Logan, who continued, “The mission is simple. Get him to cooperate. Find out what he knows, with a focus on three areas. First, Atlantis’ armaments, location, and current state of the city. Second, why have the Atlanteans been increasing their scouting parties? Normally they hire us for security detail, but lately they’ve been refusing cooperation for the increased activity. Third, why didn’t his suicide chip go off?”

The briefing went on for a few more minutes while they caught everyone up to date on the details of the capture. The Atlantean was the only survivor out of ten, a pretty small party. They then explained the intention was the other commanders would provide any support that Alloy requested. Finally, they opened the floor to Alloy to explain what he was going to do and what he needed.

Alloy addressed the commander in charge of evidence and the armory, as well as anything else that needed locked up, “Get me two glasses and a bottle of confiscated drinking alcohol.” He then motioned me and went to leave the room.

The one general who had called Logan earlier now stopped him with, “Hold it, you didn’t explain what your plan was to get him to talk.”

Alloy responded, “Just going to sit and talk with him.”

The general sighed, “You better succeed.”

“I always complete the mission.”

With that we were walking down the hallway headed to the stairs leading to the prisoner’s room. There was only one room for holding captured Atlanteans. We didn’t have a prison like the days of old. If someone broke the law they’d be punished through loss of social services, all the way up to food. Become a big enough detriment, and you’d be left behind to starve. It kept crime low when your survival depends on being law abiding.

The exception was a single room designed for detaining a cybernetically enhanced human. We kept it just in case we ever caught one like we did today. They’re way more dangerous than your standard human. At the same time, they were an indispensable wealth of intel. The room was to keep them from causing havoc by breaking out, as well as to keep them from killing themselves. The Atlanteans were a decadent people. Everything they did was excessive. Bunch of Carpe Diem, YOLO, self-centered pricks. They figured that humanity’s days were numbered, so they might as well enjoy life. With that said the quality of life in Atlantis was supposedly unpleasant. Crime was rampant, and their overlord, be it man or AI, was theorized to have the power to kill any of them instantly with their suicide chip.

We got to the one-way viewing window of the prisoner’s room. It had four turrets in each corner trained at the man. They weren’t high caliber enough to pierce his skin, and they didn’t need to be. Each bullet was a high-capacity capacitor designed to send enough voltage in his body to fry every cybernetic he had. At best, he’d be a paraplegic afterwards. He’d probably just be dead.

Alloy took a seat. “Now we wait on the alcohol. Tell me what he’s running for cybernetics.” I opened my tablet and started looking at his loadout.

“Sir. He has standard combat enhancements. Armored dermal implants, muscle fibers replaced by nanofibers, and enhancements for all his senses, including taste.”

“Taste?”

“Says here he can taste the air to detect things.”

“What is he, a snake? Continue.”

“His cranium bones have been reinforced, as well as his weight bearing bones. Fine motor skills have not been changed. The man has no agility modifications. As for nonstandard enhancements, he has two for his genitalia, his liver has been replaced with a biomechanical replacement, and he has twenty-eight tattoos starting with…” I was cut off.

“I don’t care about the tattoos. I can see half of them from here.” Alloy went silent, then spoke, “What do you think?”

“Sir, please clarify the question.”

Alloy leaned forward and looked down at the prisoner intensely. “What do you think of this situation. Is it a trap? Is it a blessing? What do you think we can get out of this.”

I paused to gather my thoughts, “This is a rare chance to see what the Atlanteans are like. We could walk away from this with a huge edge over them. I doubt this is a trap. Suppose he was a living bomb. A direct attack would lead to open war, and our records show that we have maintained a constant and steady military advantage over them. They’re too disorganized and most of them don’t even like their own social system. No, they would not attack using him as a trap.”

Alloy nodded and then smiled, “Sounds about right to me. So, let’s make him sing like a canary.”

“What is a canary?”

“I have no fucking idea.”

“Then why would you say that? Sir.”

Alloy looked annoy, “I don’t fucking know, the course I took said my job was to make him sing like one.”

I waited for him to look back at the prisoner before rolling my eyes. Alloy was a cantankerous asshole sometimes. He became silent after that, looking in thought. I imagined he was trying to remember everything he could from his qualification. It had probably been years since he dusted off any of the cobwebs in his mind where he stored the information.

Eventually someone did arrive with the bottle and glasses. “’Bout fucking time.” Alloy took it from their hand and gave a head jerk insinuating for me to follow. We took a half flight of stairs and rounded a door where a guard was standing. After some confirmation he let us in the room.

The Atlantean was doing pushups on the ground. The room contained a bed, a toilet, a table, an open shower, and three chairs. All bolted down. Alloy said, “Take a seat.” He sat in one of the two chairs facing the one on the other side, placing the glasses and bottle down on his side. I opted to stand near the door behind them. I opened my tablet and used the access I had been given to stream the view of the four turrets’ cameras. They were all aimed at the prisoner’s head.

The Atlantean settled into his seat, “Hey look at that, finally some company. Just so you know, my safe word is pizza.” He smirked behind the table. He was naked, largely in part because we didn’t have any clothes to fit him. He was larger than human with his cybernetics, probably a meter across the chest and standing almost two and a half meters tall. The Atlantean operators we communicate with when coordinating trades were much smaller. Combatants though are all designed to be able to fight with Charlies, and while Charlies are more effective, the Atlanteans have numbers on their side and are more maneuverable with their smaller size.

Alloy ignored his comment about safe word and pizza. I don’t know if he knew what either of those two terms meant, I sure as hell didn’t. “My name is Alloy of Justice. First order of business is what is your name?”

The Atlantean started chuckling, “Alloy of Justice? What the actual hell? You some sort of idiot?”

“You ever see an Alpha with a pair of piledrivers?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m the idiot who pilots it.”

The man stopped smiling. Alloy’s current kill count of Atlantean combatants was well over a thousand. Sure, we normally avoided combat, but when Alloy stepped into his Alpha, there were no survivors. I imagined that he was seen as an angel of death by others.

“Kristoff. Spelled KR1570FF.”

I opened a different application on my tablet and wrote down the information. “Writing this down?” Alloy asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Alloy continued the interrogation. “So let me explain your situation. Your old life is over. See those four turrets? Each contains a bullet that will fry your cybernetics leaving you a cripple. If you try to escape, try to hurt any of us, you’ll find yourself unable to move while we perform a vivisection to see what makes you tick. Even if you did manage to escape you are on the bottom level of, what do you guys call us? Tartarus?” Kristoff flinched, “You’d have to climb your way through a heavily armed city. Even if you managed to do so, we maintain a three-hundred-kilometer exclusion zone radius. You would have to get out of that to even get help from one of your people. Without food or water. There is no way home for you. There is life as our prisoner, and death for every other route. Do you understand?”

The man’s eyes hardened, and his sclera turned black as his cybernetics focused in on Alloy’s face. “Crystal.”

“Good. Now let’s discuss your new life. Right now, I’m supposed to extract information out of you that we both know I’m not going to get. At least for now. So right now, I want to establish our relationship. Do you have any questions?”

The man looked Alloy dead in the eye, and then glanced at me. I stared icily back without blinking. He returned his gaze to Alloy, who waited patiently. “What type of relationship are you talking about?”

“A mutually beneficial one. Give and take. Within reason for both parties involved.”

“What do you mean?”

Alloy opened the bottle and poured some of the spirit into each glass. He slid one towards the man. Kristoff picked it up, smelled it, raised his eyebrow in surprise, and sipped some of it. “I hear that alcohol is legal for consumption in Atlantis. It isn’t here. Even so, we have illegal distilleries and breweries that pop up all the time. We bust them and confiscate it. Normally the stuff gets flushed and reprocessed for medical use or whatever. I consider that a waste.”

Alloy picked up the glass and gave it a smell before wrinkling his nose, “Never tried the stuff myself, but I imagine to someone with a custom biomechanical liver he would love to get his hands on a steady supply.” Alloy took a sip, and then coughed.

Kristoff laughed, “It’s strong stuff. Maybe a little too strong for your first try.” He took another sip. “Not the best quality, but there is a fire to it that makes up for it.” He looked at the alcohol and then back to Alloy, “I don’t plan on talking though.”

Alloy wiped his mouth, “That’s fine. For now, I’ll leave you with my first question. Answer it and we can negotiate what you get in return, though my offer for now is our confiscated alcohol. Why didn’t your suicide chip go off? Let the guard know if you’re ready to talk.” Alloy stood up and made to leave the room. “Keep the bottle as a sign of good will.”

I stood aside as Alloy exited and followed suit, letting the door shut behind us. As we passed the guard Alloy said, “Set the lights to a standard Circadian rhythm. It’s time to let him sleep.” We went back to the viewing room. The cell was now lit with red lighting. The man was still sipping from his glass and had pulled Alloy’s still-full glass closer to him. The bottle had been recapped. Alloy took a seat and relaxed back as if to take a nap.

“Sir, may I ask what we are doing?”

Alloy closed his eyes and steadied his head by placing his hands behind it, “About to take a nap.”

I didn’t press him for more. Personally, I was tired too and took a seat next to him. As I closed my eyes, I wondered what the point of giving him alcohol was and how it was supposed to help. I was under the impression that interrogation was normally a long-drawn-out thing to wear the person’s mind down. I also thought it was a bit more aggressive than the way Alloy had acted. He hadn’t been friendly per se, but he was a hell of a lot more polite than I had ever seen him treat anyone before. Also, what was the point of… pressing… the…

I woke up with a jump to the sound of someone loudly asking, “What are you doing commander Alloy?”

It was the brigadier general from the brief who had spoken. His arms were crossed, and he looked pissed. Somehow Alloy had not opened his eyes, or even moved from the last time I had seen him, “Taking a nap.”

“You’re supposed to be interrogating the prisoner. I came down to check on the progress and find you here neglecting your duties.” His voice slowly raised as he spoke. I really did not want to be in the room for this but did not see a way to excuse myself.

Unperturbed, Alloy said, “I am interrogating him.” I looked back into the cell. The man had finally gone to sleep in his bed. Interrogating him my ass, anyone could tell that we were not doing our job like Alloy was supposed to be.

The general’s voice had turned into a hissing whisper as he contained himself like a stick of dynamite about to explode, “And how, pray tell, do you figure that?”

“First, I took away any hope of escape. Second, I made myself out as his only hope of things getting better. Third I associated myself with a night of good sleep and decent treatment. Now we let it simmer.”

The general took this into consideration, “So this is a strategy, then.”

“Yes, sir!” The enthusiastic response dripped with sarcasm. During all this Alloy never opened his eyes.

The general closed the door to the viewing room and quietly took a seat to peer into the cell. Alloy seemed to take the sound to mean he had left. “What a douchebag.”

The general stared at him, “I’m still here.”

Alloy’s eyes opened wide and lost composure as he looked at the general, “And you’re still a douchebag!” I was asked to leave the room and had the pleasure of listening to them shout inside.

Alloy had hygiene kits and fresh uniforms brought to us. We showered and slept on-site. It was two days until we were asked for by the prisoner. When we finally were requested, Alloy said we would wait fifteen minutes so, “we don’t seem desperate.”

It was the same situation as before, me with the tablet standing behind Alloy who took a seat. Kristoff seeming content to stand. I wasn’t sure who seemed more in control, the behemoth towering and looking down on us, or Alloy who had a relaxed air about him and only glanced up a few times during their conversation.

Kristoff started, “I first want to negotiate my terms.”

“We won’t be adding more than the alcohol if that is what you are asking.”

“I don’t care about the alcohol,” he snapped, “I want some actual fucking food.”

Both me and Alloy stared at him dumbfounded. “What?”

“I want you to synthesize me some steak, broccoli, anything. That prison paste tastes like piss.”

Alloy turned and looked at me, “Do you know what that is?”

“No, sir.”

It was Kristoff’s turn to be dumbfounded. “Are you fucking joking.”

“You eat the same dietary paste as the rest of the Crossroads.”

Kristoff went still and said through gritted teeth, “You. Eat. The. Same. Paste. Every meal. The sweet and salty shit you are giving me.”

I could feel Alloy’s fuse running short. Still, he remained cordial, “Yes.”

“What is wrong with you people?” Kristoff said before sighing. “Fine, give me the booze, it’ll at least wash my palette. Also…”

Alloy interrupted, “We aren’t adding to the deal.”

Kristoff continued unabated. “Also,” he emphasized, “I want some clothes.”

I kept my mouth shut. We were already working on the clothes it was just custom ordering clothing was not something really done here often. Alloy agreed.

Kristoff nodded and took a seat. “You want to know why my suicide chip didn’t go off? Let me ask you something so I can answer your question better. Why do you think they go off?”

“Two theories. One is your people believe it’s better to die than be captured alive. The other is they are activated remotely.”

“Wrong on both accounts. You better believe none of us would activate that on purpose. The chip contains a drop of GEL that is exposed to your brain when it turns on. Do you know what raw GEL does when it touches gray matter?”

“Our autopsies show it liquefies the brain.”

“Oh, that’s just the final result. First it paralyzes you. Your brain doesn’t know what is happening, but it knows it’s bad. It fires off every pain receptor it has to try and get your body to make it stop, but there’s no motor control anymore. Instead, you slowly lose consciousness while your brain gets turned into mush by the out-of-control GEL. I would rather vaporize my own head than experience that.”

Alloy nodded, “So if not suicide, then why does it go off?”

“The chip has a built-in loyalty AI. Thing is fanatically anti-Olympus and anti-Tart… I mean Crossroads. Doesn’t really care how we feel about Atlantis, but it will never allow us to be used or captured by the enemy. They place one in each of us in the womb. Real nasty like. And of course, you can’t protect your children because the chip views that as pro-the-enemy. So, your mother gets a surgery before you're born, and you become a loyal Atlantean from that moment on.”

Alloy soaked in the information while I wrote it down. “So back to the original question. Why didn’t yours go off?”

Kristoff shrugged, “Malfunction probably.”

Alloy cocked his head, “For the first time in decades. How did it take so long for one to malfunction?”

“We get annual examinations and software updates. If we don’t, the chips go off. I… might have gone cheap on the software update.” A look of concern passed over his face and if his cybernetics allowed him to shudder, he probably would have, “To be honest, I don’t know if and when that thing might kill me.”

Alloy looked at him coolly, “Can we remove it?”

He shook his head, “We both know you don’t have cybernetic docs. You fuck it up and I am dead. No, for now I try not to think too hard about it. Also, you call this the Crossroads. I am hoping avoiding the T-word will keep it from realizing what is going on.”

Alloy looked up at the ceiling while he mused aloud, “So you might just be a ticking time bomb. Very well.”

He looked back down at Kristoff, “I think that’s enough for now. I don’t want to ask you anything about Atlantis itself directly until we know the chip is neutralized. Instead, my next question is why Atlantis has increased its scouting parties. I’ll let you mull over what you want in return.”

It would be two weeks before the next time we spoke. The Five Star wanted results and was beginning to get impatient. Atlantis had ceased trade negotiations with us and increased scouting parties again. That meant we would have to start producing our own GEL, which would eat heavily into our resources. It was more efficient to make that under the natural pressure of the ocean. Also, Alloy spent most his time chilling in the viewing room and had shirked all his commander duties to Logan, which did not look good.

The Five Star finished lecturing Alloy and turned to the viewing window, “We need intel now- Um… wait, what is he doing?”

I answered for Alloy, as I had a feeling he was going to be unnecessarily crass and make things worse. “Masturbating, sir.”

“… can we get him neutered so he… stops.”

Alloy took that one, “If you want him to never talk to us again.”

Two minutes later we were entering the room.

Kristoff scrambled to put his pants back on, “Hey! Fuck! Could you knock!?”

“I’m sorry Kristoff, but we need answers. Now.”

After some cussing we were back to our normal locations during the interview. Kristoff asked, “How would you like it if I interrupted you while you were jerking it.”

“Don’t know, I’ve never done it.”

Kristoff looked at him like he was growing a second head. “What?”

“Kristoff, the scouting parties. We need answers.”

“No, I need answers first. You,” he pointed a finger at me, “you’ve… you know. Done it.”

I dryly responded, “No, Kristoff. I have not.”

He looked back to Alloy, who then explained, “We’re spayed and neutered here in the Crossroads.”

Kristoff deflated a little, “Wait, how do you breed?”

“We’re grown in vats.”

“Sweet Lord, the test tube babies rumor was true.”

There was an awkward pause. Alloy broke the silence, “Kristoff. Atlantis has broken trade negotiations. Their scouting parties are up a thousand percent. We need to know what is going on.”

Kristoff shook his head. “I’m not risking it with the chip. Hell, I might have done it for a prostitute, but now that’s off the table.”

Alloy didn’t budge. “Then that leaves surgery.”

“If you even try, I will fight. I would rather be crippled, plus with my taste enhancements if you did fry me, I would lose the ability to talk. Good luck getting anything from me then.

Alloy was quiet. They had reached a stale mate. And it broke him. “Fucking singing canary my ass. Do you know what a canary is? I do, had to look the dipshit up so I didn’t look like an idiot. Fucking bird. I didn’t even know birds could sing. Apparently all the insufferable fucks could, which makes the damn expression make less sense!” Kristoff was caught off guard, not that Alloy was giving him an opening to speak.

“Fucking fucker’s fucked. Ice bitch! Suggestion! Now!”

I didn’t even react to the outburst, while Kristoff was surprised, I had been desensitized to it, “We could try heavy anesthetics, Kristoff. That way at the very least if we failed you would die painlessly.”

“No, not a chance in hell.”

“Kristoff,” I held his eye steadily as I brought up a spreadsheet on my tablet and showed it to him, “I worked through the logic. That is your best chance not to die by that chip. Right now, your option is to pray that the thing is neutralized while always chancing it going off any day. Alternatively, we remove it guaranteeing it won’t. At the very least if we put you under you still won’t die feeling that pain.”

He held my gaze, “I won’t do it.”

“… Kristoff. Think about it, you’re more imprisoned by that chip than this cell. Let us help you. Even if you won’t talk to us after, we can at least put your mind at ease.”

“Or,” Alloy added unhelpfully, “we can all go up shit creek.”

Two days later we were continuing our interrogation. “How does your head feel?” Alloy asked.

“A little numb from the pain killers,” Kristoff rubbed around a bandaged part on the back of his head. He was not supposed to fiddle with it while he healed.

“Good. Kristoff, we would like to continue our negotiations for answers.”

Kristoff shook his head. “There’s nothing to negotiate. I owe you this at least. They’re looking for El Dorado.”

I wrote it down while Alloy was taken aback, “Oh… uh… why?” Neither of us had ever heard of El Dorado.

“The thing is what’s called a time capsule. They used to be used for preserving things for the future. Normally sentimental. El Dorado is different though. Contains raw elements preserved for whoever finds it. It’s supposed to clear a path for the future of whoever finds it. To give you an idea of how valuable it is it contains a ton of gold. That isn’t hyperbole. A literal ton of gold.”

Alloy and I looked at Kristoff in disbelief. Even when we traded with Olympus, we would trade a hundred five-liter canisters of GEL for just an ounce of gold. The idea that there was a ton of gold out there, just waiting to be found was ludicrous. But more importantly, “You said there were other elements?” I asked. Alloy turned to look at me as I was not supposed to ask questions unless he ordered me. He had rubbed off on me and I was ignoring protocols.

“That is correct.”

“What are they, and how much?”

He began listing. Five tons of silicone. Half a ton of platinum. Four tons of gallium. Germanium. Tin. The list went on. All more than anyone could ever see in lifetimes. I couldn’t believe it. Alloy didn’t seem to fully understand the implications, but he knew enough to know it was a game changer.

Alloy took charge of the interview again, “Sounds amazing. Also, too good to be true. Why would Atlantis buy into this nonsense?”

“’Cause we had another time capsule in our city. No one knew, but when the time came a vault popped open that we thought was a statue. It had pictures and information on where to locate the coordinates.”

“It didn’t contain the coordinates itself?”

“No, but it did contain a key for its encryption. All that was left was finding the coordinates, unencrypt them, and go pop it open.”

“So, they’re looking for the coordinates then?”

“They won’t find it.”

“Why not?” Kristoff fell silent and refused to answer. Alloy repeated his question but nothing.

I read the writing on the wall and answered it for him, “Your unit found it.” Alloy looked back at me and then Kristoff, who did not deny my conclusion.

Alloy cursed, “And we killed your unit. Fuck.”

Kristoff started to speak, stopped himself, and then continued, “I have a copy of the key and coordinates.”

“Well why didn’t you say so sooner?”

Kristoff held up a hand, “I’m not giving them for free, and there’s no way you are forcing the information out of me.”

“… What do you want?”

“My freedom.”

“You know I can’t give you that.”

It was Kristoff’s turn to curse, “Shit man. I’m not asking to be sent back to Atlantis. I just got that chip removed; you think I want it reinstalled? Even so, like hell I am spending the rest of my days in this cell. Even if it’s just a single, I don’t know… Level? City block? Not sure what the Crossroads layout looks like, but anything is better than this cramped little room!”

Alloy tapped his fingers on the table. “Excuse us.”

We stepped out and Alloy confronted me, “Alright, why did you get so excited, 33?” He said my name. That meant he was serious, not that it ever changed my behavior.

“Sir,” I said, “a ton of gold would change everything.”

“Don’t bullshit me. You could’ve kept your mouth shut if that was it. There is something more and I know you well enough to see that you’re hiding something woman.” I gathered my thoughts before responding, “See, your jaw twitched. You’re excited.”

“Sir, do you recall Olympus’s goal.”

“Well yeah, waste our resources clearing the path to space so we can all die before getting there.”

“Sir. This El Dorado. It has enough materials to create computers to track all the orbiting debris and build aerogel nets to capture it. It also is enough that they could upgrade every Atlantean to be strong enough to take on your Alpha. Single-handedly. This could literally either save humanity or destroy us depending on who gets their hands on it.”

He looked at me, and his eyes slowly widened. “Fucking what!?”

A few hours later and the Five Star was looking at the three of us through the viewing window while we conducted the most important negotiation in history.

Alloy started, “So here’s the deal. We can’t let you roam free. If you escaped and got that information back to Atlantis it would lead to open war for the first time in centuries. Despite that, I can still guarantee your freedom if, and only if, we get to El Dorado first. If your info proves valid, then you’ll become an official citizen of the Crossroads. My superior officer, all the way up, has given the go ahead and gotten approval from the corporations and contractors.”

Kristoff crossed his arms and weighed the offer. Finally, he said, “This part is going to suck. Oh, and I should warn you, it’s in an unsurveyed lake.” This was when we found out that his biomechanical liver was not strictly for alcohol consumption.

Kristoff’s mouth opened and he gagged as he lurched over the table and spat out a cord. The thing dangled from his mouth and was covered in a slimy… black… goo. He fiddled with the end of the cord. I was barely able to hide my reaction, but Alloy’s mouth hung open in disgust. Kristoff pulled a data port off the end of the cord and handed it to Alloy who took it gingerly with one hand between his thumb and pointer finger.

Finally, with a terrible gagging and slurping noise the cord retracted back into the mouth, and I watched as the black gunk splattered across Alloy’s gaping face. He hurled, “It got in my mouth! It got in my fucking mouth!” He hurled again.