Solar Year 12,674 (Chapter 1, part 1)

"I heard that the sky is blue," said a student in a white toga.

"Nah uh, it's green," her classmate replied. Noticing Lex's red eyes watching from behind them, the pair wrinkled their noses and lowered their voices.

"The clotmop looked at us."

"An Empyrean, gross."

Lex dug her elbows into the cracked plastic desk, jaw tense. All around her, other students pulled down rusty wirehelms to cover the top half of their heads, while cords of thrumming blue light snaked down from the ceiling to connect them to the public network.

At the front of their classroom, Mrs Agincourt's hologram flickered. Broadcasting from all the way Upstairs, the transmission grew hazy as it reached deep below the surface of Neo Mars and to Lex's school, Hera High.

Forcing herself to breathe slower, Lex readjusted the clingy grey toga along her bony body and pulled down her wirehelm. As the nest of circuits and iron swallowed her view, she plugged a cable into the back of her neck.

[ Simulation: start ]

Lex blinked and appeared within a tower of rotating gears. Two men sat on tall thrones, a crimson gear spinning between them. Lex found herself sitting on a steel chair, her sandalled feet sinking into soft silver sand, while the walls of machines clacked and cranked around her.

"Name?" said the zealot wearing the storm-eyed mask of Zeus and speaking with all the weight of Neo Mars.

"Alexandra Vulcan." Lex squinted as the simulated wind stung her eyes.

"Birth date and place?"

"12th of Scorpio, solar year 12,657." Lex twisted her family ring around her forefinger. Round and round. "Empyrean Republic." A fierce cold bit at her neck, Lex pulling up her thick cloth to protect herself against the bitter breeze.

The zealot looked aside to his mirror-masked partner.

"There's no need for an interrogation," said the man with the reflective mask. "We're just going to ask you the standard questions, and then you can go back to class."

The highborn's mask reflected Lex's nervous smile.

"For Floor Lord D'Quan's register, could you please state your address?" The highborn opened his palms outward like the temple statues.

"Second Floorer, Empyre District, 4th/9th street, Vulcantech."

Be patient. Don't let them rattle you.

"Have you ever been associated with a gang, cult or union?" the D'Quan servant said pleasantly. The Zeus zealot sat watching. Waiting.

Never show disrespect.

"No, sir. I have not." She stared into her reflection, her red eyes steady, as if the long days of staring into the forge had turned her stare to steel.

"Have you ever been associated with a rebel cell? Attended a dissident meeting? Donated to an unregulated cause?"

Never show fear. Fear makes protectors feel powerful.

"Never, Highborn. Wouldn't dream of it." If Lex had enough credits to do any of that she'd have spent it on droid parts already.

"Have you ever thought violently of Troezen or the Still King?��� he asked as if she could throw a solid punch without risking a heart attack.

"Gods be good. I'd never thought in such a manner," Lex said, a hand pressed to her chest, eyes wide. She hoped it didn't seem forced, but she'd never been much of an actor, unlike Bell.

"Alex," he said warmly. "Do you mind if I call you Alex?"

Lex shook her head.

"Excellent, you can call me Mr Karras. Alex, you know why you are here. We know why you are here. So, what have you prepared for us?"

She could imagine the highborn's picture-perfect smile, soft as lamplight. She felt the dark clouds gathering behind the Zeus zealot's mask. Lex was glad not to be alone with the priest, not when he could ruin her family's future with the tick of a box.

"My family sacrificed seven squib, seven squibrats and seven hundred credits to the Second Floor Temple of Zeus," Lex said and swiped the air.

Opening her HUD, she brought the receipt into the simulation to appear in the priest's waiting hand. She hoped she'd chosen wisely, especially after her grandma, Maggie, pointed out that Lex went to Hera High, and that it may be better to offer their prayers to the god of family, tradition and women, rather than the Sparkfather. But Lex had never been on good terms with Hera the Allmother, not after she failed to protect Lex's own.

"To prove my dedication to the Still King, I've memorised the periodic table, coded a custom API and built a humanoid droid that I direct-coded myself," Lex answered clear as filtered water and 'forgot' to mention the droid was built for battle. "I also have a Connection Coefficient of 148, which helped with the direct-coding." Her smug smile cracked through her stern mask, like the golden rays of sunshine breaking past the morning clouds.

"Well, uh, your CC is certainly very high." Karras nodded. "But perhaps you have some more … fitting accomplishments for a young woman?"

Lex's brows knit together. "I've also been practising the Troezen Enginestate Anthem." A foolish waste of time that was. "Knitting." She could not knit. "Cooking." Although she was terrible at it.

Karras relaxed his shoulders. Bell had mentioned they would like these things. Her ability to build killing machines was a skill that threatened what some considered the ideal mould of a Troezen girl.

Bell had said something else, but what had it been? What was the most important thing? The devilish detail was as difficult to remember as escaping Hades with no more than a hairpin and half a ream of dental floss.

"Perhaps we should start with the Troezen Anthem—oh?" Karras froze; Lex stiffened too. "My apologies, something has come up within the D'Quan family. The representative from the Second Floor Temple of Zeus will take over your interview from here. Good luck, I pray your mind is plasma pure." Karras nodded as if sure she had nothing to hide.

"Highborn, before you—"

Karras melted into a rainbow puddle of data and exited the simulation. That just left Lex and the Zeus zealot. The twisting gears brightened around her to shine like an interrogator's lamp and forced Lex to shield her eyes.

"You are of Empyrean blood." The priest spat as if Lex was a cockroach that had scuttled under his wirehelm. "There are over a million citizens in Undercity who'd give their right hand to make it Upstairs. Why should I choose an Empyrean over a good, gods-fearing Graexian?"

"I'm a roboticist apprentice to my grandfather, Brackus Vulcan, and we're no normal Empyreans, we were once highborn," Lex said, a fire in her belly. She cursed her restless nights, too worried to get a wink of sleep. But what was the most important thing? "I speak Graexian fluently, and I'm a true believer in the gods."

The priest stood tall, his navy-blue cloth regal and stitched with neon red lightning.

"The wrong gods. We call him Hephaestus the Forgeheart, you call him Vulcan. We call him Zeus the Sparkfather, you call him Jupiter. We call her Aphrodite the Blissweaver, you call her Venus."

"I don't," Lex said, an edge to her tone. "I was born in the Empyrean Republic, but I was raised here in Troezen and I use the gods' true names." Lex didn't mind praying to Zeus or Jupiter or the Sparkfather, for they were one and the same. Such was Empyre truth. "I pray like a good Graexian girl and study as the Still King directs."

"Perhaps. Let us find out." He turned and walked to the nearest wall of thumping gears. "With me, girl."

Lex shot to her feet and followed him across the trembling sands.