The Machine God

Chapter 247 - The Elite Course

Chapter 247

The Elite CourseAlexander stepped through the doorway that led into the Fort’s central courtyard.

The courtyard was fifty meters square, the interior walls of the surrounding building climbing four stories to the station’s ceiling on every side. Scaffolding covered most of it. Construction materials were stacked in neat rows along the edges. The bones of what would eventually be a park occupied the space, though right now it was bare decking and exposed utility conduits.

At the heart of the courtyard sat a squat, reinforced building with a single door. Two guards flanked the entrance.

Alexander’s senses found the third. A superhuman signature, seated inside the secure building where the permanent Doorway was kept. The man glanced up through the reinforced wall. A subtle probe of power followed, then a nod in his direction. Alexander returned it.

Sentinel Security Solutions had so far proven worth every credit. He’d have to discuss the possibility of hiring them on a permanent basis.

Later, though. For now, he turned his attention to the welcome party.

They were arranged in a loose semicircle around the courtyard entrance. Thirty-odd teenagers, mostly girls. Some stood with arms crossed. Others fidgeted. A few sat on stacked construction materials, legs swinging. One was braiding another’s hair.

At the center of the arc, standing a half-step ahead of the rest, was a girl Alexander had never met but recognized immediately.

Ash Sheridan was taller than Annie now, which apparently hadn’t been true a year ago. Ginger-red stubble covered her scalp where the dyed black hair had been shaved away. She had Annie’s jaw. Annie’s freckles. And Annie’s eyes, though where Annie’s carried warmth even when she was furious, Ash’s carried calculation.

She stood with her weight on one hip, chin raised, watching Alexander warily.

Behind him, Annie had gone quiet. The grin had faded the moment she saw her sister.

He couldn’t blame her. Ash was obviously about to make a mistake.

Alexander let his Will settle over the courtyard. He didn’t press down on them or shape it as a threat. Just let his presence expand, filling the air with the ambient weight of a Tier 2 Will backed by a Divinity most of the world didn’t know about yet.

The effect was immediate. Conversations died. The girl braiding hair stopped mid-strand. Two kids who’d been whispering went silent. A boy near the back shifted his weight and looked at the ground.

Ash didn’t move. Her eyes narrowed, and her shoulders tightened, but she held her ground.

Alexander approved.

He walked to the center of the courtyard and stopped, five meters from Ash. Annie came up beside him. Bill hovered a few steps back, hands in his pockets.

“So,” Alexander said. “You must be Ash.”

“And you’re the Machine God.” She looked him up and down. “Thought you’d be taller.”

A few nervous laughs from the semicircle.

“I get that a lot.” Alexander glanced at Annie, then back. “Welcome to the Fort. I hear you’ve been making yourselves comfortable.”

Ash’s chin lifted a fraction higher. “We’ve been trying. Hard to get comfortable when your people lock up three of mine.”

Alexander didn’t react. He turned to Bill. “What happened?”

Bill stepped forward. “One of the girls shoplifted from a vendor on the concourse. The other two picked a fight with a superhuman in the commercial district. Threw Grimnir’s name around like it was a shield.” He paused. “Jasmine and the security team handled it. The three of them are in a holding room off the security barracks.”

Alexander nodded. He turned back to Ash. “Did you tell them to do that?”

Ash held his gaze. “They were bored and broke.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Silence stretched between them. The courtyard had gone very still.

“No,” Ash said. “I didn’t tell them to steal or start fights.”

Alexander turned to Bill. “Send them back to Whitmore.”

The words landed like a slap. Several kids flinched. One girl stepped forward, mouth opening to protest, then caught the look on Alexander’s face and stepped back.

Bill nodded, but he didn’t leave.

Ash’s jaw clenched. She started to speak, and Alexander watched her eyes flick to his expression, then to Annie, then back. Whatever she saw made her swallow the words. Her hands balled into fists at her sides, but she said nothing.

Alexander let the silence hold for a beat. Then he moved on.

“I understand you want the serum.”

Heads came up. Eyes sharpened. Even the kids who’d been studying the floor were suddenly paying attention.

Ash straightened. “We do. All of us.”

“Then you’ll earn it. Grimnir has rules. Study programs. Physical training. Evaluations. If you pass the tests that my people put together, you get the injection.”

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“Tests,” Ash repeated. The word came out flat.

“Tests,” Alexander confirmed. “Designed by Annie, Augustus, and Talia. The same program every recruit goes through.” He shrugged. “Of course, your other option is to awaken naturally on your own. Whenever that happens. I doubt most of you could survive the training required to pass our tests anyway, but you’re all welcome to try.”

He said it to the group, not just to Ash. Let it hang there.

A voice called out from the back of the semicircle. A boy, maybe sixteen, skinny, with sharp eyes. “If we pass, you give us your word we get the serum?”

Alexander looked at him. “Yes.”

“How do we know the serum even works?”

“The entire crew of my starship just received their injections after completing the training.” Alexander paused. “Every single one of them awakened a power.”

The murmuring started immediately. Kids glancing at each other. Quick, furtive calculations behind young eyes. Alexander could see them doing the math against everything they’d heard about serum success rates.

He let them.

Ash crossed her arms. “And what about where we’re living? We’ve got barracks rooms with nothing in them. No credits. Nothing to do except sit around and wait for your people to tell us where we can and can’t go.”

“Bill,” Alexander said without turning. “What’s the status on their accommodations?”

“Barracks are temporary. The residential wing isn’t built yet. We’ve got basic provisions covered, but there’s no budget allocated for personal allowances.” Bill scratched his jaw. “Jasmine flagged it earlier. Said it needed your sign-off.”

“She’ll have it today.” Alexander turned back to Ash. “Anyone who starts the training program will get an allowance. Enough to cover the basics. If you want more, contribute. The Fort needs runners, lookouts, warehouse hands, kitchen staff, and cleanup crews. It might not be glamorous, but if you pitch in, you’ll get paid.”

“So we work for you,” Ash said.

“You work for yourselves. If you want to take advantage of our training program, then the allowance is yours. If you don’t, a door back to Earth can be arranged.” He gestured back the way he had come. “Nobody’s keeping you here.”

Ash didn’t respond to that.

From somewhere deeper in the Fort, a voice echoed across the courtyard. “Food’s up!”

The effect was instantaneous. The semicircle broke apart as kids turned and started moving. Some headed off immediately. Others lingered, glancing between Alexander and Ash before drifting away in small groups. A few thanked Annie and Alexander as they passed.

Near the back, the sharp-eyed boy who’d asked about the serum caught Alexander’s gaze and gave a short nod before following the others. He had a feeling he’d be learning the kid’s name soon. Beside him, three older kids peeled away from the wall they’d been leaning against. Zane, Zara, and Allie. They’d shown up for the ambush, but hadn’t said a word the entire time, clearly content to just see what would happen.

Zane raised a hand to Alexander in a lazy wave. Zara did the same, but it was definitely for Annie.

The courtyard emptied.

Ash remained. She stood in the same spot, arms still crossed, staring at the ground between her feet.

Annie glanced at Alexander. He gave her the smallest shake of his head. She stayed quiet, though her concern was visible.

A full minute passed.

“The three who got locked up,” Ash said. Her voice was quieter now. Stripped of the performance. “I told them to see what they could get away with. See how your people would react.” She looked up. “It was my idea, even if I didn’t know they’d do that. They shouldn’t be punished for following my orders.”

Alexander studied her. The bravado was gone. What was left was a seventeen-year-old who’d been running a group of kids through survival situations for long enough to think like a leader, but not long enough to understand the cost of bad calls.

“I agree,” he said. “It was your responsibility.”

Her shoulders tightened. Bracing.

Alexander turned to Bill, who was still standing nearby. “How bad was it?”

Bill considered. “Jasmine handled it. This time it was just kids being stupid, but next time they might piss off the wrong person. Supes on this station don’t all have a sense of humor about people getting in their face, kids or not.”

Alexander nodded. He turned back to Ash.

“They can stay.”

Her eyes came up. Surprised.

“On one condition. You keep them in line. All of them. Every single one. Because if any of them break Grimnir’s rules again, you go back with them.”

Ash glanced at Annie. Annie’s face gave away nothing.

She looked back at Alexander and nodded. “Okay.”

“And you start training tomorrow. Unlike the others, you don’t get a choice.”

“Training?”

He turned to Annie. “Give her the elite course.”

Ash blinked. “What’s the elite course?”

Alexander grinned. He walked past her toward the corridor leading deeper into the Fort.

He didn’t answer.

Behind him, he heard Annie finally speak. Quietly, just to her sister.

“You did good, Ash.”

A pause. Then, even quieter: “Is the elite course bad?”

Annie’s laugh echoed off the bare concrete walls.

***

Alexander stepped into the workshop and let out a long breath.

The room hummed with activity. The fabricators along the right wall were running, feed bins cycling through material as components dropped into collection baskets below. The automated ceiling arms moved between stations, lifting finished parts from the output ports and ferrying them to designated slots along the far wall, where drone components had been stacking up in his absence.

On the far wall, the display screens cycled through data feeds, but it was the center screen that drew his attention.

The MGS schematic rotated slowly beneath a cluster of notification flags. He counted them. Four successful simulation results, queued for review. The quantum supercomputer had been grinding through proposals while he was gone, and for once it had found some promising results.

He dropped into the leather chair, and for a moment he just sat there, letting the familiar sounds of the workshop settle around him. Fabricators humming. Ceiling arms clicking along their rails. The low thrum of the supercomputer’s cooling system behind the wall.

Then he reached into the ring.

Santiago’s cybernetics came out first, piece by piece. The concussive emitter. The cracked optics. The launcher assemblies. The phase-shift module. The mechanical heart. The spinal exoskeleton with its disturbingly organic filaments. The forearm nozzle assemblies. Each component found a place on the central island workbench, arranged in the same order he’d stripped them.

The Skipper came next, set apart from the rest.

Then the orb. He placed it at the far end of the bench, where it sat under the holographic projectors, smooth and featureless and still completely impenetrable.

Finally, the OACS. Five hundred pounds of dark gray military hardware materialized in the standing gantry beside the fabricators. Even offline, he could feel it waiting. Patient. Devoted.

Alexander spun the chair in a slow circle, taking it all in. Santiago’s impossible technology. The military’s finest combat suit. Four simulations that might finally crack the MGS design. A wall of drone parts ready to be assembled. And somewhere beyond all of it, a cataclysm approaching on a timeline nobody could pin down.

So much to do. So little time. He’d kill for the power to pause the world so he could work in peace for a bit.

He let the chair come to rest facing the OACS. Stared at it for a long moment.

Then he rolled up his sleeves and got to work.