Alex opened his eyes. The metallic sound of his alarm clock was one of the few things he could still have from his old routine. He got up pretending not to see the disheveled man with violet eyes who looked at him with disgust and an incipient beard like a homeless man reflected in his refrigerator. He grabbed a beer and a frozen pizza, eating on the way back to his room as he changed into a faded and stained work jumpsuit with poorly repaired patches.

After going through what he refused to accept was his new routine, he walked to the City Dump wastewater treatment center. A holographic earpiece displayed the latest news about a battle in the Kuiper asteroid belt, with a young pilot clearly newly promoted to captain explaining his victory over the rebels.

Alex didn't want to see any more, and he switched to other news while the black sky filled with pollution clouds filled his view. "Today would be two years," he thought to himself as he walked past houses made of scraps of buildings, skyscrapers, discarded cars, and any trash that could be put together to create the structures that formed the road he had to walk every day to check in at the treatment center.

Alex noticed a red neon sign showing a woman spreading her legs as he took a shortcut around a corner. In the house where the sign was, two men who looked more like mangy hominids than humans, given their unkempt appearance, were having sex with a woman who was easily three times their combined girth.

"Hey little guy, don't you want to come have some fun? I promise you'll have a much better time than down there."

A prostitute with her face brutally disfigured called out to Alex, her gaze fixed on his work jumpsuit. He knew the call was more of a joke than an offer. Alex was sure that if he accepted, she wouldn't refuse, but she was clearly more interested in distraction from apathy and desolation than in finding clients.

After a 15-minute walk, Alex arrived at his new job. He marked his shift entry on the exterior building's touch screen, without looking at the offices. He took the helmet that emerged from a slot. Of course, the building was made of trash just like everything else in this city, although he had to admit it was high-quality trash. The front wall even looked like heat-resistant plastic like the one used in transport shuttles, where this piece probably came from. Checking his helmet, he noted the sector he had to go to today and walked back through the compacted garbage streets that formed a labyrinth in search of his workplace today.

"Hello Alex, is it my turn with you today?"

A young man, so short in stature that anyone would mistake him for a child, even more so when he had a beard drawn on his face with what Alex believed must be grease from some engine, pushed a manhole cover while speaking and came out to walk alongside Alex.

"Good evening Tor, and today I've got shift 121, so if you got the same then, yes, we're on together today." Alex used a somewhat sarcastic tone with his friend. "I knew today would be a lucky day, today the pollution is only gray instead of yellow, there's no way I'm wrong."

Alex gently shook his head about his friend's incorrigible superstition, as the two young men walked at a leisurely pace through the streets. The sound of metal clanging, heavy machinery, fumes, welds, and street fights was the background noise to which Alex had become accustomed.

Along the way, Alex began to do what was now an attempt to escape his reality, checking the latest news about the WTO. Some lucky guy had finally figured out how to advance to an intermediate level, and the sponsors had jumped on him like piranhas on bloody meat. The lucky one had gone from living in a third-rank state specializing in food supplies for the planetary federation, to living in a star city, the very capital of the federation.

"You know, if you cut your hair, trimmed your beard well, I could even believe you're that lucky guy."

Alex pretended to be calm, consciously not stopping or altering his pace, and looked at Tor, "Why would you think I could be someone like that?"

"I don't know, maybe because you've clearly received some education, maybe because you appeared out of nowhere exactly 2 years ago, or wait, maybe because one Alexander Lightning was tried for helping a murderer escape and obstructing an investigation."

Tor stopped in his tracks while showing a holographic image on his earpiece of a 2-year younger Alex being led out of a courthouse, surrounded by a pack of journalists. Alex felt his old instincts awaken as he analyzed the image, the information Tor had told him, his tone of voice, his expressions, and even his body language. "Here we go again," he thought to himself as he began to walk, not wanting to talk about it.

"Hey, don't leave me hanging, what happened? Why did you help a murderer? Are you here because you escaped from jail?"

Ignoring the annoying kid behind him, Alex finally arrived at the sector he was supposed to work in. Without a word, he jumped down a manhole, turning on the light on his helmet. In the narrow, foul-smelling passages filled with viscous, potentially toxic liquids, he found what he had come to look for, a recycling robot lying in the sewers. With expert movements, he performed a quick exterior diagnosis, concluding that the unit was still in working condition. He started to examine the internal circuits, but the thoughts of what had happened 2 years ago wouldn't leave him during the remaining hours of work.

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Alex remembered that day as he worked. His life had changed suddenly in a single day. After trying to find out what had happened and explaining how he knew things before anyone else could digest anything, his words were used to accuse him of knowing that his father would kill his mother. Then, after reviewing the evidence of what had happened in his house, he tried to prove that his father wasn't the culprit, that it was an attack on his family. He was arrested for obstructing justice.

After 2 months of searching for his father throughout the solar system and not being able to find him, he was convicted of allowing a murderer to escape and his citizenship rank was reduced, sending him to this cemetery city, City Dump.

Actually, technically it was a state in itself, and he was in its capital, the entire state was a floating island on the ocean of trash, and his job was to repair the recycling robots that were responsible for healing the consciousness of the few wealthy people who had it, thinking that with that they would solve more than 200 years of aggressive destruction against the planet.

Alex stopped wallowing in the past and continued working, sometimes he would find some scavenger taking shortcuts through the sewers, looking for some waste he could use, even one would offer him some exchange, spare parts for drugs, passes to brothels, or other junk, in short, a normal day in his new life. 12 hours after starting his job in the sewers repairing the recycling robots. Alex left somewhere 2 kilometers from his entry point with 3 robots in tow, which were irretrievable trash according to the center's standards.

"Excuse me, yes. I don't want to interfere, but I consider you my friend, and really nobody knows anything about you, so... look Alex, if you don't want to talk about it, I won't touch the subject again, I even have a surprise for you as an apology."

At the moment Alex was leaving the Tor sewer, sitting on a pile of 7 or 8 recycling robots, he spoke in that repentant childlike tone that he used to use when he had gotten into trouble and wanted his help. Alex sighed to himself, counted to 10, and slowly placed his robots to one side, while he began to check Tor's, there was nothing he hated more than wasting time, and this would waste a lot of time.

"You should already know that if you bring all this back, they won't pay you anything, you should at least try, even a little, to study the center manual, at least you could save me time. And no, I don't want to talk about what happened, all you need to know is that everything was taken from me, unjustly judging my father."

Alex discarded 2 robots as unsalvageable, while repairing the remaining 6, if there was one thing he had to acknowledge about the boy in front of him, it was that his luck was amazing, the repairs were easy to do, but the damaged parts were hard to find, the worst thing was that with his luck he usually found all the damaged robots in the same place, saving him time searching for them in the labyrinth of the sewers. After a few minutes of work, he raised his gaze to see his only friend since he had arrived at this cemetery.

"And well, what's that surprise?"

"You're going to love it, but let's first take the robots to the center, it's on the way to everyone's house anyway."

Tor and Alex, after finishing their work and claiming their payment, went back into the sewers, this time in the direction of Alex's house. - When I found them, I started moving them towards your house, I put them here because otherwise it's possible that we'll get into trouble. Alex raised an eyebrow at that, but continued walking, he knew the boy wouldn't tell him the "Surprise," so he had to see it for himself. Soon they arrived at an intersection, where the sewers fell a level, leaving a wide, relatively dry vault in the middle. There, two Cosen Boxes were in the middle of the vault.

Alex didn't need to get close to inspect them, they were clearly damaged; holographic glass destroyed, probably by a blow from a blunt object, made of wood by the splinters in the seat, sensors almost useless due to cuts in the lower plastic, probably by a kitchen knife, by the size and shape of the cut... While Alex unconsciously analyzed the how, where, and why of what were clearly discontinued versions of the Cosen Boxes, probably the second or third generation, the worst thing was that it was now extremely difficult to find these models, so their value had increased thanks to collectors.

"Where did you get it? Who did you steal it from?"

"Whoa, Brother, I'm not that stupid to steal one of those things, I threw one of the waste ships away this morning, so I took it and brought it."

Alex didn't say anything about the implicit fact that his "friend" had used a "gift" he already had to apologize. Of course, he knew that he would have to repair the machines, but with them they could make enough money to get out of this dump.

The Cosen Boxes were not just pretty toys, in reality their most important ability was in their practically infinite storage capacity and massive processing power. So, if someone wanted to get a decent job nowadays, they would study in one of these, and then their work would be done from these same machines, or in other words, for Alex this was a ticket out, he could change his appearance by altering the machines and get a good job.

As Alex began to think about how to get out of this dump, he started to inspect in detail what he hoped would be his future, after inspecting the two Cosen Boxes more closely, Alex checked each one and started to take notes on all the damage and flaws he could observe, it was clear to him that this would take him a lot of time, and the replacement parts were not easy to come by in this place, or better yet, it was not cheap.

"Hey bro, now that you'll be fixing this, why don't you move to my house, so I can help you and all."

" NO WAY! " The voice of Alex echoed between the walls of the vault, with clear indignation in his tone, he would NEVER allow the shameless vagrant to live with him.

Soon the hours passed, and the two friends dedicated themselves to cleaning, organizing, removing and dismantling the Cosen Boxes, Alex had to check the systems of both machines before doing anything, if that part didn't work they would just be wasting their energy, he went up to his house which was literally above his because this vault was under his house, he brought up tools, parts he had traded or directly stolen from his job.

While Alex was dedicated to the more technical parts, Tor began to "redesign" the vault using the junk on the surface and debris inside the sewers, giving it the appearance of a poorly made and dilapidated room, but a room nonetheless.

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Star City, Capital of the planetary federation.

In a huge room, with predominantly light and metallic tones on its walls and furniture, 7 people were sitting at a round table while watching a hologram that showed images of a young warrior with a silver armor and a sword that was easily 2 times the size of the young man, facing a monster with multiple heads, green skin, and about 8 meters tall.

"So these aliens forced him to fulfill the tasks of Hercules? Does this mean that Zeus or his son was on Kaloz?" A strident tenor voice filled the room from the fattest and best-dressed man among those present.

"Really, we don't know sir, unfortunately Raegan Lightning left no records of any of his encounters, after what happened only ashes remained of what he might have kept, and his son after being taken to the truth room didn't know anything in reality. And we still can't confirm about the mythological gods."

A growl made it clear that he didn't like all of this, and immediately all eyes turned to a single man. He was bald, his dark skin, and red-eyed tones spoke very clearly of his ancestry and why he was in this room.

"It's been 3 years since the first contact, and we're still as ignorant as newborn babies. We can't afford to be blind, intensify all the projects we need results immediately, I don't care how many corpses are needed."

"Yes sir," said the other men present in the room in unison.

Next Chapter ... Chapter 3: Cryptogram