Today marked my eighteenth year, the day of my Placement Ceremony. My fingers trembled as I adjusted the regulation silver cuff around my wrist, its embedded tracking chip pulsing blue against my skin. Outwardly, I maintained the perfect posture and vacant smile expected of S-rank candidates, but my stomach twisted into knots beneath my pristine white uniform—would I find the courage to execute my plan when the moment came?
"Crystal," a honeyed voice echoed through the sterile corridor, fracturing my spiraling thoughts. I turned to see Kim approaching, her regulation boots clicking against the polished floor, auburn hair pulled into the severe bun required of all administrative personnel. Her eyes, artificially brightened by mandatory enhancement implants, crinkled at the corners as she reached me. "Are you prepared for your Placement Ceremony?" she asked, her face stretched into that government-approved smile that never quite reached those enhanced eyes.
"Yes... and no," I replied with a stifled laugh that caught in my throat like a trapped bird.
"Don't be nervous," Kim chirped, her artificially whitened teeth gleaming under the Hub's cold blue lights. "Life at the top is absolutely grand. We're going to have so much fun together in the Elite Quarter, and..." She leaned closer, her breath smelling faintly of regulation mint supplements. "I talked to my Troop Head. He said we can get you fitted with your bio enhancements immediately after the ceremony. The ocular upgrades barely hurt."
I studied my once overly emotional friend, trying to find traces of the girl who used to cry at slightest inconvenience. Her eyes—were they once hazel or green?—now glowed an unnatural sapphire, pupils contracting mechanically as they adjusted to the light.
"Kim, I'm... I'm not sure I want to be a Peacekeeper," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the hum of the ventilation system.
Her enhanced eyes flickered rapidly, irises expanding and contracting like camera lenses seeking focus. A tiny red light pulsed at the corner of her left eye—recording mode activated.
"Crystal," she hissed through her perfect smile, fingers digging into my forearm, "the best place for you is at the Grand Master's feet. Don't tell me you're thinking—"
The speakers overhead crackled to life with a piercing whine that made everyone in the corridor flinch. "ATTENTION ALL PLACEMENT CANDIDATES!" boomed the synthetic female voice that haunted my nightmares.
I found my place in the lineup and braced myself for the spectacle to come. The circular stage dominated the center of the amphitheater, its polished white marble gleaming under the harsh blue spotlights like freshly bleached bone. Peacekeepers in their silver-trimmed uniforms marched onto the stage in perfect synchronization, boots striking the stone with military precision. Kim stood at the front of their formation, her enhanced eyes methodically scanning the crowd until they locked onto mine with predatory focus. Next came the Speaker, a tall but unnaturally thin man whose body seemed stretched like rope. His nose protruded from his gaunt face like a bird's beak, crooked where it had once been broken and imperfectly reset. When he tapped the microphone with one skeletal finger, the feedback shrieked through the hall like a dying animal.
"My dear friends," the Speaker announced, his reedy voice echoing through the amphitheater, "we gather for another grand Placement Ceremony." He extended his spindly arms wide, bones visible beneath paper-thin skin. "Before we begin, our Great Grand Master has words for us." The massive screen behind him flickered to life with a static hiss. There he sat—the Grand Master—more machine than man, a grotesque fusion of synthetic parts and withered flesh. Tubes snaked from his temples, and a metallic exoskeleton encased what remained of his torso.
"My children," he intoned through lips that barely moved, "I'm so pleased to witness another group of young ones thrust into adulthood." His artificial voice modulator gave each word an unsettling resonance. "Remember, we are one mind, one being—cogs that need each other to continue our work, no matter how big—" he paused, his mouth stretching into an unnatural grin that revealed teeth too perfect to be human, "—or how small." His smile widened further, triggering a wave of nausea in my stomach. Cheers and applause erupted behind me, echoing off the amphitheater's domed ceiling. I risked a glance at the orchestra pit—a line of child prodigies, each one hunched obediently over shining violins and synthesizers, pounding out triumphant chords on machines that looked more like medical equipment than instruments. For a moment, I imagined the place empty, stripped of its hollow celebration. The thought bolstered me: I could almost breathe.
The first names were called, one by one—future Enforcers, Biochemists, Data Sifters—each candidate snapped to attention as the Speaker intoned their designations. Every selection was followed by the sharp, metallic click of a new implant as the initiates registered their obedience beneath the Grand Master's gaze. My heart accelerated, a double-time rhythm just beneath my sternum. I knew what was expected. I knew the fate I was supposed to accept.
When the Speaker called my name, the world shrank. A narrow pillar of cold light, and I stepped forward on autopilot, one foot after the other, heels echoing my secret. All the faces in the darkness above dissolved into a single, monstrous gaze. My heartbeat wasn't in my chest anymore; it was in my tongue, in my knees, in the burning grid of implant nodes trailing the inside of my right thigh. Kim's hands materialized at my shoulders, guiding me like a show pony to the Speaker's podium. I thought she'd hiss instructions, but her palms only squeezed—urgently, then gone.
The Speaker towered over me, and up close his analog breath smelled of plastic tubing and dying batteries. "Crystal Sol," he crooned, eyeing the transfer file on his slim tablet. "You are ranked first in your cohort for tactical improvisation, resilience, and—" he paused, index finger tapping the screen, "—exceptional noncompliance."
The audience's laughter, on cue, was sharp and metallic, cold as a bin full of recycled parts. I smiled, tight and bright, as my right hand curled to a fist at my side.
"Do you accept your role for the good of the Collective?" The Speaker's voice bored into me, sharper now, hungry for any sign of deviation.
The blue lights burned my skin. A thousand eyes, real and machine, drilled through my uniform's thin cotton and into the secret I'd spent every night rehearsing in the mirror—a secret that began as a dare, then solidified to iron.
My mouth had gone so dry it felt soldered shut. I imagined the words, creamy and dangerous on my tongue, then let them fall. "I accept my Placement. For the good of the Collective." Bow, pause. "But with your permission, I'd like to submit a request."
A ripple. The Speaker stared, his LED pupils flickering, as if a script page had jammed. "A… request?" The room flexed, not with laughter now, but with the hush that comes when the animal senses a gun—"Please, continue," the Speaker said, almost soft.
I steadied my voice. "I want to be placed at the Vein 9 mining operation." Each syllable was a coin dropped down a well, the echo ricocheting through the silence of the amphitheater.
Even Kim couldn't shield her shock. Her lips parted, enamel briefly visible before she thought to close her mouth and resume the smile. Vein 9 was a drop-point for disciplinary transfers. The mines at the edge of the city were a purgatory of dust and pneumatic drills, a place for burning out troublemakers and agitators. I watched the Speaker's face, dead as a wax effigy, then marveled as a pulse of genuine amusement ticked in his jaw.
"An S-rank," he said, drawing out the S like a snake, "amongst … the filth?" A chuckle slithered through the amphitheater, more nervous this time. "Exile by choice. Admirable—or perhaps, strategic?" Another moment of stilted, simulated laughter, then the Speaker inclined his head toward the glowing screen where the Grand Master sat enthroned in a tangle of wires.
Through the latticework of synthetic veins and cranial ports, the Grand Master's eyes—two polished orbs, pupil-less and ancient—fixed on me. "Vein 9," his voice rumbled, spiking every speaker into tinny distortion. "A fine place for a curious mind. I grant the request." He offered a thin-lipped smile. "May you bring the Collective great returns."
The ceremony resumed, but the attention remained—a prickle at the nape of my neck as each new candidate was called, eyes darting back to me like moths to a lantern, sizing up the anomaly in their midst. Kim met me from the lineup with something sharp and helpless in her face. I recognized it: the look of a moth who'd been promised a maple syrup sky and been handed a gaping, hungry jar.
The rest of the ceremony passed in a fugue of ceremonial speeches and piped-in propaganda, but my mind orbited only three facts: Vein 9, the thing hidden in my sleeve, and the question Kim would hurl at me the moment we left the arena. I was right. The instant the crowd was dismissed—ceremonial bands playing what sounded like an anthem caught in a meat grinder—Kim dragged me into the nearest privacy alcove, her grip vice-tight and more than a little desperate.
"Are you suicidal?" she hissed, pressing me to a wall tiled with recycled smart-glass. Pixels in the grout flickered disapproval. "Or is this another one of your stunts? Crystal—they'll eat you alive in the mines. You're not built for that.
She looked at me, her eyes narrowing to slits of disbelief under the harsh fluorescent lights that made her skin appear almost translucent. "You mean to tell me you actually want this? Trading sterile corridors and climate control for rock dust and darkness?" I watched her fingers twitch at her sides, a nervous habit she'd never managed to correct.
"I just need something real, Kim. Something I can touch that isn't sanitized and programmed," I said, tracing my finger along the cool metal wall beside us.
"You mean be near them—those filthy degenerates?" Her voice dropped to a disgusted whisper on the last word, as though even speaking of the miners might contaminate her.
"Kim, they were once our friends too, before—"
She cut me off with a sharp gesture, her platinum bracelet catching the light. "Before they got sent to the mines as punishment! As a correction!"
"A punishment they didn't deserve," I insisted, feeling heat rise to my face.
"They almost got you killed!" Kim's eyes traveled slowly across the jagged scar that ran from my right eye to just below my cheek, a pale lightning bolt against my skin. Her expression softened momentarily, revealing the concern beneath her anger.
"You know that's not true," I said, voice barely above a sigh. I felt the old wound ticking under Kim's gaze, a twin ache to the throb in my chest. "Accidents happen in the mines all the time. No one even tried to find out what really happened." I wasn't telling her about the files I'd found, the way each report had been doctored, the names redacted in machine-black blocks. How could she understand? She'd been manufactured to obey.
Kim pressed her lips together until they bleached white. "You always have to rebel," she said, her hands curling atop each other like hungry spiders. "Always skeptical. Crystal, I don't get it—don't you want anything for yourself? Something beautiful, easy? Why this?" She tipped her chin toward the blue directory KIOSK on the wall, which now displayed my new assignment in crisp, impassive letters: C. Sol — Vein 9. Reporting: 0600.
"We're not kids sneaking through maintenance tunnels anymore," Kim said, her voice as flat as the recycled air between us. "I can't—won't—risk everything just because you've found some new forbidden zone to explore. You must know that."
"Then this is goodbye, I'll miss you." I touched her hand—cool and stiff as porcelain—before turning toward the exit tunnel. The corridor stretched before me like a throat, its brushed metal walls reflecting fractured versions of myself as I walked. Kim's gaze burned between my shoulder blades, a heat signature I'd recognize anywhere, even as the distance between us grew. The tunnel curved, its lighting strips flickering in that telltale pattern that meant surveillance was active. Near the exit gate, a silhouette materialized—broad-shouldered and slouching against the frame, features obscured by the harsh backlighting.
"Well, well!" The voice was gravel wrapped in silk. "When I heard an S-class chose to D-class themselves, I didn't think it'd be our little Crystal."
"KAI!" His name burst from my throat like a prayer. My body moved before my mind could catch up, feet propelling me forward across the polished floor toward the silhouette I hadn't seen in three long years. But as my arms stretched outward, fingers nearly grazing the worn fabric of his jacket, a second figure materialized from the shadows. A calloused palm slammed against my cheekbone with enough force to send me sprawling onto the cold metal floor, the taste of copper blooming in my mouth.
"Charlie, that was Real fucked up," Kai said, his voice a familiar melody beneath the harsh fluorescent buzz. "Crystal, are you okay?" Kai crouched beside me, his voice dropping to that soft register I remembered from before the Separation. His calloused fingers hovered near my face without touching. "Charlie, look what you did—there's blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, You split her lip to."
I spat a mouthful of blood at Charlie's boots, watching it spatter across the polished metal like arterial spray.
"You never fucking change, do you, Charlie?" His stern look twisted into something feral—not quite a smirk, but the baring of teeth.
"What can I say?" he growled, looming over me. "When I see some S-class idiot charging at us like a suicide mission, instinct takes over, Pure reflex." he said with a smirk.
"Fight or flight, Crystal. You triggered the wrong one."
Maybe I should've said something clever, but my tongue was heavy with blood and adrenaline. Instead, I just let my eyes burn holes through Charlie's chest as he squatted to my level, knees popping audibly. For a flash, he looked almost guilty, but then the familiar mask—grinning, invincible, dangerous—slid back on.
"Look at you," he said, voice syrup-slick and mocking, his eyes traveling from my regulation boots to the blue-black bruise already forming on my cheekbone. "All grown up, all pretty. Didn't think you had it in you, Sol." Of course he used my last name, drawing out the single syllable until it felt like sandpaper against my eardrums. Kai shot him a glare that could have melted steel and reached out, his thumb gently brushing the blood from my chin. The touch surprised me, tender as a moth's wing against my skin, warm where everything else in this corridor felt cold and sterile. Charlie's face darkened to thundercloud gray as he lunged forward and seized Kai's wrist, twisting until the tendons stood out like cables. "No intimate touching allowed," he spat, each word precise as a knife thrust.
Kai didn't even flinch. If anything, his lips curved upward—that same crescent-moon smile I'd memorized years ago. "That's funny," he said, calmly prying Charlie's fingers from his wrist one by one, "seeing as you spent half your life trying to beat me to her doorstep."
Charlie's jaw tightened. His eyes darted to mine, then away, the tips of his ears flushing crimson against his dark hair. He cleared his throat twice before muttering, "We need to get her shit from Sector 8," then pivoted sharply, boots squeaking against the polished floor. "and then take her to her new a-bode," he added over his shoulder, stretching out each syllable like he was testing the word's breaking point.