For all their importance, they usually visited once a year to inspect his cubicle and make sure it was properly maintained. The visits had stopped three years ago. Kaelon wasn’t sure why, but since they hadn’t reported his growing collection of machine parts, he figured they still cared. He still remembered when they used to bring him a slice of flavoured nutrient cube back when he still needed a caretaker bot. Yet now in this moment, he felt differently. He didn’t know when he had forgotten their faces. Faces that were now as memorable to him as their backs of their heads, which was all he could see right now.
His mother glanced back at him with a reproving expression before shifting her gaze ahead. “The shuttle leaves shortly, we’d best hurry,” she said to his father. “We’re losing out on production time.”
Kaelon winced.
Looking at the ground, he noticed their brown safety boots capped in slightly dented titanium. His own shoes were made from a soft fabric, the grey shoes of a child, yet his expression brightened. This wasn't a time to be down, it was the day of The Exam.
.
He grinned to himself, regaining the skip to his step.
His father looked back at him, noting the hands in pockets. He frowned before turning away. They were making good time, so there shouldn’t be a reason to be so grumpy.
As they came to the gravity lift at the end of the floor, Kaelon’s mother swiped the panel to summon the lift. It was at this moment that Kaelon realised there was a growing distance between himself and his parents. It filled him with consternation.
“I’ve been studying the regulations!” he piped up.
Both turned and gave him a level stare before turning back to wait for the lift.
“I-It’s never too late to . . .”
Kaelon looked down at his shoes losing the confidence to speak further.
Neither his mother or his father turned back towards him.
The gravity lifts were the only way to get to the roof where shuttles could land. If they missed the shuttle, there wouldn’t be another one. It seemed that was all that mattered. The lift arrived with a hum and the door dematerialised, granting access. Both his parents stepped inside in unison and turned to face their son.
“Hurry up!” his father barked.
Kaelon flinched but quickly stepped onto the deck before the door rematerialised behind him. A loud hum sounded and they shot up to the techspire’s roof.
***
The shuttle that landed on the roof of Kaelon’s home spire was white with chrome embellishments. Not even the hovercars of Sector 11 were white let alone had chrome. Several other youths, many of whom Kaelon recognised from the service shafts, already stood in line to board. They whispered excitedly among themselves under the attentive gazes of their parents. Kaelon noticed mothers and fathers looking proudly at their child, constantly fussing over posture and the odd stray hair. He couldn’t help but feel jealous even if he dared not show it.
They were all here to go to the same place: The Iron Gate. No one would say anything more on the subject, everyone knew not to. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion.
Kaelon recited.
When it was mentioned, it was with reverence. Folk who even so much as whispered a rumour of what lay beyond it would quietly vanish in the night with a new person taking up their cubicle without explanation. Even Kaelon’s parents wouldn’t dare say much more other than when he was due for designation. Regulations were regulations.
The boarding door of the shuttle dematerialised, and a man in a white hooded robe stepped out. His face hidden by a frosted glass mask. He was a regulator.
The Regulator casually stepped to the side of the shuttle door and everyone fell silent, no one dared to speak. The silence drew on as the man surveyed them.
“Proceed,” he said in a strangely digital voice, marking off what must be names on an invisible list that only he could see. As the youths and their parents entered the shuttle, he tapped and swiped the empty air almost elegantly. Not once did he speak directly to a candidate or their parents.
A buxom woman with a pinched face, tried to praise her daughter in front of him, her husband glared at her until she fell quiet and turned her gaze to the ground, entering the shuttle quietly.
The Regulator did not respond.
Kaelon watched him intently, feeling some kind of affinity with this man well up inside.
The girl who was in front of Kaelon, looked back at him and gave him her best smile, her parents had to tug her along since she wasn’t paying attention. It seemed this wasn’t out of the ordinary for them give her father was rubbing his temples like he had a headache.
When Kaelon looked at her, she blushed. Kaelon looked away with disinterest.
The girl’s mouth fell open in shock but was quickly replaced by a scowl. Turning her back to him, she put her nose in the air. She turned around to pull a face, but Kaelon’s father turned towards her. That was enough to frighten her and she averted her gaze.
Kaelon smirked.
When it was time for him to board, Kaelon studied the robes of The Regulator noting that vertical lines of data streamed down his white hood. They looked familiar. Before he could try and read any of it, his mother grabbed him by the ear and practically dragged him inside before releasing him.
He rubbed his ear, making sure to keep his expression pleasant.
The shuttle interior was as pristine as it was white, but the seats were covered in a spiral of vibrant colours that looked garish. Kaelon had never seen fabric that wasn’t grey, brown, or white. It was unsettling. The air had a crisp scent like that given off by a medical droid, which were notorious for spraying disinfectants when you least expected it. Kaelon recalled getting sprayed in the eyes more than a few times before he learned to keep his eyes shut around them. Trips to the infirmary were his least favourite pastime, and he had to stop himself from instinctively shutting his eyes. Sometimes, he’d forget how unpleasant the experience was and looked forward to his next visit.
There was nowhere else save the streets and the service shafts for youths like Kaelon to explore. It wasn’t that folk weren’t permitted to travel, but that they had no means to do so. Hovercars were only for supervisors and officials.
Kaelon took his seat in the back with the other children and frowned at a boy who elbowed him. The boy didn’t seem to notice. Looking away, Kaelon could see his parents had gone up ahead and sat directly behind The Regulator so he couldn’t ask them about anything he was curious about. Kaelon smirked again since he realised that he didn’t need to. He discreetly made a pinching gesture, activating his holographic display. As he silently perused the database, his gestures were noticed by the other children who scoffed.
“Thinks he’s a regulator,” a boy whispered to another.
“What a child,” a girl who looked younger than all the other children remarked.
Kaelon ignored them. He prompted a scan of the seat, quickly navigating the interface. If he could see it, he could scan it. He’d done scans like these before a hundred times over, and it was second nature to him.
[The pattern and colouration reduces the visibility of stains . . . it is utilised in public transports that carry low-tier citizens.]
Kaelon wasn’t sure if he should feel insulted or not. Swiping the display away, he looked over at The Regulator. The man sat on a pristine blue chair and opposite him was another that lay empty that no one had dared sit in. Kaelon wished he had, he let out a forlorn breath.
With everyone seated, the shuttle expunged pressurised air as the boarding door rematerialised. Moments later, a digital voice carried throughout the cabin from all directions.
<
Kaelon knew it was due to audio modules that were the size of a fingernail embedded in the ceiling. His scan had picked them up and shown him a schematic. He snorted at the way the other children gawked about.
With a subtle vibration, the shuttle began to rise leaving them all with a sense of moving without moving. The white cabin wall, from the middle up, suddenly turned almost invisible, creating a continuous window. Everyone, save for The Regulator, looked out across a panoramic view of the sector as they rose above the fog. Dark techspires pierced it yet were unable to get anywhere near the false sky.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Kaelon couldn’t help but think that he’d be getting a new cubicle after all this. Only full-fledged citizens were given cubicles above the fog line. Kaelon liked the idea of that.
As they rose up, they could see the tips of the tallest spires and the octagonal skypanels above, gifting them with the half-light of the day cycle.
Kaelon had to stop himself from letting his jaw drop as he noticed a massive aperture above the spires. He was all too conscious that The Regulator could be observing him. To Kaelon, the test had already begun, and he was determined to do well. The aperture was impressive as were the thousands of the octagonal skypanels, some dark or flickering but most functioning properly.
The shuttle wasn’t the only one. Hundreds of other white shuttles rose up out of the same fog as they just had, all making a direct line for that aperture. As they zoomed silently through it, Kaelon’s mouth did end up falling open. Gasps sounding from the children.
Beyond the opening was a great hazy expanse illuminated by an azure light, which obscured their view. As it cleared, they saw that they were free of the aperture, which was set into a the inner curve of a monstrous structure along with many others of the same dimensions. Kaelon’s gaze caused incredibly long numbers to rapidly shift across his vision as his eyes continued to run scans. Both the sight and the numbers made Kaelon feel incredibly small. There was nothing in the database about any of this.
“It’s the orbital rings,” The Regulator said from across the cabin.
Kaelon stiffened as he looked up. No one else seemed to have heard the comment. A moment later, Kaelon noticed a fading holographic panel that indicated audio has been relayed. Unnerved, he slouched in his seat and lowered his head. A quick peek at The Regulator told him that the man had no intentions of explaining any further. With no way of asking without shouting across the cabin, Kaelon stewed in his own thoughts.
Staring out the viewing window, he was afraid to blink lest he miss something spectacular. How anyone could build something so monstrous was beyond him.
Streams of spaceships with polished silvery hulls, many times the size of their shuttle, created long lines of traffic through what must be the outer orbital ring. There were so many apertures like the one that they had just come from that he had already lost track of the one for Sector 11.
Between the sector apertures were clusters of mega techspires that made the biggest buildings in Sector 11 look like a joke. They were everywhere and everything was in motion.
Kaelon had no idea how the orbital rings were even able to move their sheer mass. None of it made sense.
The shuttles curved up towards another ring: an inner orbital ring. Unlike other ships, they didn’t seem to have to use any established space lanes and carved their own paths.
Kaelon smiled at the thought. He liked the idea that he got to experience some privilege for once.
As they neared the lip of the inner ring, a vast sprawling cityscape of elegant spires could be seen. They were beautiful just as the ships in that zone were. Many of the ships were like works of art, zooming across the expanse. Their plating gleamed and gave off brief flashes like a scattering of diamonds. The sight was breathtaking, and Kaelon gazed at them with longing—if he was capable of crying in that moment, he would have.
It was some time before he noticed they had shifted trajectory, homing in on a wide docking hub on the lip of the inner orbital ring. Kaelon wished they’d zip over that lip and explore the sights beyond it, but it was not to be. The shuttle seemed to come to a standstill as they waited for another ship, his scan of it revealing it was a tractor ship towing a sizeable asteroid towards a different bay. As it positioned the asteroid in proximity to the dock, mechanical clamps pulled it inside while droids with multiple arms swarmed all over it.
The shuttle swept into the other docking bay with barely a tremor as it landed on the gravity pad. Men and women in blue were engrossed in the displays of large holographic displays that anyone could see. Kaelon couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t just project holograms from bionic eye implants like he did. Everything was so public.
Some workers bowed their heads in conversation and appeared to use command gestures to direct droids of all shapes and sizes; others stood at curved consoles making rapid adjustments as endless streams of data flickered before them. It seemed that robots did all the heavy lifting.
Kaelon smirked as he imagined having droids of his own to command. While he had no idea who these people were or why they wore blue, he made a mental note of everything he saw. He could always look things up later after he became a member of the Binary Institute. He should have access then.
After they docked, they were escorted off the ship and through the docking bay in two lines. Down wide halls they went, some halls able to fit several men standing side-by-side yet seemed to attract very little traffic. This was different to the more crowded streets and narrow halls of the techspires in Sector 11 – even the air had less of a metallic zing to it here.
Eventually, they were taken to a large gravity lift that bore them down a dark shaft so fast that some of the children felt motion sick—Kaelon among them. One girl bent to vomit, but a sudden turn of The Regulator, homing in on the girl swallow it down instead. When they finally stopped, it was to face a pair of iron blast doors that looked heavily reinforced. There was nothing like in Spire 7164A-3 or anywhere in Sector 11 for that matter. No one ever mentioned—
Kaelon only knew that The Exam lay beyond it. Stopping a moment, Kaelon looked back up the dark shaft from which they’d come.
His mind raced as he began to suspect that there wasn’t just one Iron Gate. There had been hundreds of shuttles from their sector alone, which meant there must be at least hundreds of docking bays and hundreds of iron gates. He snorted, feeling cheated.
In that moment, the youngest-looking girl gave a frightened whimper, which made a boy next to her snicker. Ignoring them all, The Regulator stepped forward and with a double clap of his hands, the heavy gates began to grind open. It was a most intimidating sound. Kaelon looked at the deep rungs with suspicion. It was unusual for anything to make noise like that even in the assembly factories of Sector 11.
After a few moments, the gates rapidly separated with a loud boom. Only The Regulator retained his composure. A few children even screamed much to their parents’ disappointment.
The Regulator turned to face them all. “Welcome to The Regulatorium!” he said.
Beyond the Iron Gate was a bright expanse. As their eyes adjusted to the sudden influx of light, they could see a grand bridge tiled in white. They followed The Regulator across it, noticing that they had just come out of a tall white techspire. The very materials everything was made out seemed to illuminate their surroundings. They could see that their bridge joined onto a larger one, and opposite another white techspire joined via an identical bridge. All around them were brown-clothed parents and grey-clothed children being led by a regulator just like theirs. The white techspires rose up and joined in great curving arches a hundred levels up, arching over the wider bridge. Further up the main bridge were successive arching white techspires with shining golden lights, continuing endlessly and fading into a distant fog. Below the bridges, roiling white clouds too thick to see through.
Kaelon followed his group. This place felt almost sacred where even looking up caused dizziness, causing not a few parents to steady their child so they didn’t fall over.
All the regulator looked the same with their frosted glass visors although some were male and some female. A communal murmur could be heard as people spoke in hushed voices; it was like a chant that washed over them until their skin produced goosebumps.
The air here was the purest Kaelon had even breathed. There wasn’t even a hint of metallic taste to it. It just felt . Sector 11 seemed polluted in comparison.
Their group instinctively huddled together as they followed their regulator. Kaelon scanned his surrounds, but his readings were all just vast numbers. He was tempted to try and scan the lips of people in other parties to see if he could eavesdrop, but he thought better of it. They’d know as little as he did. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was leave a bad impression. There was too much at stake here.
Eventually, they reached a grand foyer that seemed to manifest through the fog only when they were crossing its threshold. Kaelon’s scan picked up readings of nanites in the air, which must be manipulating the water vapour. He hummed in appreciation.
The foyer was vast, with two huge white marble renderings: one a male regulator; the other a female one. They joined a massive line that funnelled the crowds between the two great statues, groups breaking off to head through one of some fifty golden doors. Each door dematerialising and rematerialising exactly as needed.
Kaelon noticed that while people went in, no one came out.
It was some time before they were lead through one of the large golden doors. Inside, was a smaller version of the main foyer less the statues. Many service alcoves were set into the chamber walls, surrounding a transport platform. In each alcove a sleek white droid was positioned. Each robot was remarkably humanoid despite being faceless, the torso bearing a hole through which a hand or arm might fit.
Kaelon watched a boy from another group being led to one of the droids. The boy put his forearm through, scrunching up his eyes. A moment later, a flash of lasers branded his wrist. Withdrawing his arm, it was unharmed save for a glowing band on his wrist that rapidly faded away. Keeping his wits about him, Kaelon made sure he was in the middle of the line of his group—the last thing he wanted was to miss out on an opportunity or to go first and make a mistake.
One by one, the children were prompted to put their hand into a cylindrical tube built into the torso of their droid. The first to go in Kaelon’s group was a boy who had cried for no reason. On closer inspection, the glowing mark was actually some sort of barcode made up of primitive binary code. It was strange, but didn’t remain visible for long.
The Regulator directed them with curt hand gestures. One girl—the one who had tried to flirt with Kaelon—put her forearm through the cavity, but there was no flash of lasers. Instead, the tube flared red for a moment and nothing else happened. The girl’s mother struggled to contain a sob; her father wouldn’t even look at her anymore. She withdrew her arm and questioned them, but no one answered her. With a curt gesture from The Regulator, the girl could only fall back and make way for Kaelon. Her expression was worried.
When Kaelon stepped up, he proudly put his right forearm into the opening. There was a flare of azure light, and he felt a flush of relief. The light continued for longer than usual, but he didn’t feel anything untoward. After a few minutes it stopped, and he removed his hand and stared at it. The light had yet to fade but instead of a barcode on his wrist, it was a complex looking mechanical configuration across the entirety of his hand and wrist. It faded away, moments later. He remained unmoving. Kaelon noticed his parents wore stoney expressions.
The Regulator gave three small claps with white gloved hands.
Kaelon was about to open his mouth to ask—
“What does it mean?” The Regulator interrupted. “You, my boy, are fulfilling a much-needed quota!”
Kaelon's mouth went dry. “What?”
“You’re indentured,” the man remarked. “You did accept the bionic eye implants at the infirmary of Spire 7164A-3, no? Well, nothing is free! Now, you get to pay off the debt by serving in the Gridlock Terminus.”
“Wha—”
“Don’t worry! You still get voting rights as a citizen,” the man’s digital voice sounded almost cheerful. “It is a important role.”
“Not the Binary Institute?”
“No,” The Regulator intoned emotionlessly.
Kaelon had no idea what to say or ask next. He looked to his parents. They’d been quiet for a while now.
His father patted his mother’s shoulder. “We can always apply for another one. We’ll get contribution points towards a new application even if this one is a slave.”
His mother nodded quietly.
I'm happy you've read your way to this point in where circuits meet swords! I just want you to know that I've been spending my time planning out and polishing what happens next. Don't worry, I will be releasing considerably more chapters soon – I just want to get it right for you.
Writing for you now,
Dante