Lu finished his loneliness-themed assignment and uploaded it to the class drive, nervous to be graded and peer reviewed for the first time. He’d tried, in his own rebellious way, to present one of those illegal emotions through an otherwise innocent image. He’d drafted and redrafted, thought and questioned, and failed on his own, created a composition that was neither requisition nor directed by commission, and would in no way win even a half-hearted compliment from Pa. The proud anxiety sat around him like a cloud in the cafe as his leg bounced and he ate the small cake Adon had set on the table beside him hours ago. 

He thought of all the changes he might have made: line weights, color choices, the angle of the light from the lantern he’d added on a whim, wondering if some might interpret it as death guiding souls when he’d titled it Hope and meant it to be guiding the living out of that cruel smog of depression and filled every darkly contrasted shadow with creeping monsters stalking the lone wanderer as he fled toward the light. People would always see whatever they wanted in art, that had never bothered him like it did his classmates, taught to control their emotions and follow ARC standards while Pa gifted Lu lighters and told him to win first place no matter what. 

Adon stood apron-less over his table and Lu jumped up with a smile, his unease vanishing as he tossed his tablet in his bag and held out his hand. Adon took it confidently and they stepped into the crowded corridor, and jogged to the transport center where Adon let him call a private car up to Chrome so they could get there in time. 

They chattered the whole way, excited but hesitant, juggling futures and ideas, what-ifs and we-coulds, Adon incessantly reminding Lu that Aphro and Mess were his first priority, and Lu doing his best not to curse Aphrodite, though his struggle was detailed clearly on his face.

The CAPT building glowed iridescent in the glossy reflection of Chroma night lights, nothing like the brutalist test entrance. Adon inhaled, stretching his neck to take in the architectural marvel that was as much a tourist destination as it was the pinnacle of hope and dread for those Calderans who sat on the edges between the Mids and the Ground. Adon hefted his bag and straightened his uniform, turning to Lu, his face tight with apprehension. 

Lu gripped his shoulders with a proud shrug, “top ten, easy. You know you’re at least top fifty or you wouldn’t be here.”

“Top fifty percent,” Adon corrected. He attempted a smile, but his eyes fell nervously to his feet, “I thought the top fifty of each test slot got called in for a score meeting, but it’s just the top fifty percent of the entire block group, which is about ten groups.” His dread rose as he tried to clarify what he’d explained wrongly, “so if I didn’t get first in my block, there’s no way I could get top ten…” Adon pushed his hair back.

Lu blinked at him, “so then it’s even more amazing that you made the top fifty percent, isn’t it?”

Adon chewed his lip, nodding at his shoes. 

Lu lifted his chin, “you worked really hard, Adon. You deserve to be proud of that, no matter the outcome. And,” Lu smiled, tweaking his cheeks, “I’m sure you did amazing! We’re just here to find out how amazing. You’re just here to find out if you’re moving to the Mids at the end of the term, or maybe a little bit after that.”

Adon frowned, then nodded with self-convincing confidence, “yeah… yeah, there are retakes.”

“Yeah,” Lu confirmed proudly, though he hadn’t even considered retakes. Who would score high enough to get a private score meeting just to go and retake the torture test?

Adon’s phone dinged his meeting time, the CAPT Administration Building code transmitting to his pendant ID to let him in the building. He let Lu straighten his perpetually borrowed grav-suit coat and fluff his hair until he nodded approval, then Adon skipped inside to hear what kind of future he could afford to dream up beside Lu. He scanned his pendant, pushed through the heavy doors, and smiled at the receptionist, surprised at himself. Lu made him feel like he was allowed to be warm and cold whenever he wanted, smart and interesting and dumb and mean in all the ways other people didn’t notice or allow. 

She scanned his pendant a second time, struggling to figure out the old tech until he showed her how it had to be plugged in to recalibrate, then sent him following a pink line of lights down a gridded maze of hallways to a quiet office room designated for score meetings. Adon sat in an overstuffed chair, watching the wall of screens display program advertisements, then straightened as a large, smiling woman entered with a heavy binder and a steaming cup, greeting him with a knowing smile. 

“Well, if it isn’t our young Wells hero himself, you’re quite the legend around here lately, kiddo. We get one every year, but they’re not always so…pretty. Yours was the highest score to come out of the ground so far in my career and I’m proud to have you!”

Adon couldn’t help the smile despite being called pretty again. He didn’t point out that she seemed rather young to be using the duration of her career as a timeline, and let her think the solemn edges of his smile were from nervous excitement or pride, when it was only relief. She laid out his exclusive program options before reaching for the non-linear advancement apprenticeships, chuckling lightly as Adon reached for the Agriculture brochure with the confidence of someone who’d thought it over a million times already. 

She nodded observantly, scrolling through his record on her tablet, “I heard you were good with the green. Let’s get through this paperwork and get you checked into the program.” She patted the hefty binder, already typing in his information and reading off several binding contracts, possibly even more excited than Adon was as she notified him of all the ways his life was about to change without any of the obligated tones Heather used. 

Lu waited patiently , pacing around the long fountain of Chrome Park Center along the front of the building, watching couples pass, families set up open-air picnics that would choke Grounders back inside from stale, polluted air, his attention diverted from every thought by AI Entertainment’s massive billboards, covering entire towers with flashing advertisements for games, movies, music, and more. There were new AIE System headsets for immersive AR and VR capabilities, never get lost again slogans for new nav systems, comms adapters, and a never ending line of workers in grav-suits exiting the gravity tunnels and filing into the pinnacle buildings that were the hallmark of Caldera, the diamond city inside the volcano. He couldn’t help but staring at the city still rising above him, despite how high he and Adon had climbed out of the Ground just to get to the center, imagining decorating one of the shining condos with Adon, begrudgingly adding a room for Aphy and Mess in his head. He’d been to Chrome plenty of times, but it was his first time actually looking at it with curiosity and not contempt following Pa with carefully measured steps, the possibility of happiness leaking into the place only silence, denial, and dread had been. 

Chroma was built like a bubble, the entire inner-city district filled with filtered air, solar-lights, and a million transport centers so that, other than the gravity-tunnels, Lu felt like he was outside, when he was only outside the CAPT building, still inside Chrome. He liked the feeling of being out, apart, away from the skywalks, hallways, and corridors of the Ground, he felt…free. He watched people cut through the park plaza in every direction, unbound by gridded walkways or Sec-Off checkpoints, jealous until his curiosity nosed its way in and wondered suspiciously at all the flashing alert lights he began to notice. With so many people moving in and out from all the other districts, Chrome had no way of locking down hazards. It was not a diamond city, it was a vulnerable heart, and he suddenly felt very exposed. He pulled the mask of his grav-suit over his nose and settled on the wide edge of the fountain pool. He pulled out his tablet, trying his best to focus on the dozens of CAPT reviews Adon had sent him, memorizing Catastrophe event dates and The Suffering timeline, his knees bouncing as he glanced at the CAPT Administration doors every few seconds, watching for… Adon.They hadn’t had a conversation about titles yet, so Lu stopped himself from thinking my boyfriend, they could be a couple slowly, untangling themselves and each other from the muddy grip of the Ground, and instead thought of him as my Adon, which felt somehow more intimate, more important, more permanent, despite the thousands of other Asylum-ward citizens named Adonis Caldera. There might be a million Adon Calderas who were boyfriends, but there was only one who was Lu’s. 

He blushed at himself, kicking the fountain with a giddy giggle until a fully suited woman glanced over at him. Her smile was kind, but Lu was embarrassed by the attention and turned his focus back to his tablet, glancing at his phone and ignoring the messages from Benny. He’d skipped trainings for years. When he’d been determined to learn guitar, he’d locked himself in his room for months and no one had cared, now suddenly he got told off for showing up late and Pa threatened that he could kill himself if he wanted to leave? Lu sat back from his tablet, letting the pieces slowly snap together: it wasn’t that Pa cared about him now, it wasn’t that Pa knew Lu didn’t want to inherit his place, it couldn’t be. It was simply that Lu was a tool Pa was ready to use, and now expected to be laid out on the bench when he reached for it, the way Benny set out his greenhouse cart, or made Phaios prep the mechanic bench in their garage. Lu was a tool that kept misplacing himself, and Pa didn’t like it. But that was okay, because Pa replaced his lost tools easily, and he had another son he was more proud of anyway. 

Lu gave up on his worksheets, gazing at the CAPT building and daydreaming about his own score meeting and Adon’s proud smile when he did better than either of them expected.

He knew the news was good by the spring in Adon’s step as he exited the building, waving to the Sec-Off booth as the gate opened. He looked around for Lu until Lu stood and waved. Adon ran over, arms as wide as his smile. He jumped and hugged his arms tight around Lu’s neck, burying his face in Lu’s shoulder, spinning, his tears staining the base layer of Lu’s gravity suit.

Lu set Adon down gently, arms still around him, falling back against the edge of the fountain, eager for details, “good news?”

Adon nodded, bouncing and stomping his excited feet, ears bright red as he swung his bag off his shoulder to show Lu the certificate in the fancy leather portfolio. Third place, not top three percent, third. In the entire test group of thousands of kids. 

Lu scooped him up and swung him around again, careful that his award didn’t go flying into the fountain. They stood there giggling at each other, all their hypothetical hopes lining up into a series of tasks and to-do lists as they stared, unblinking and smiling until their cheeks hurt. 

“Excuse me,” a woman in a professional but drab grav-suit un-velcroed her hood, pulling off her mask, fresh out of the tunnels. She offered Adon a metallic card with a QR code and the AI Entertainment logo on the back, “I’m a union rep for the AIE actors Guild,” she pointed to the card as if it were self-explanatory, ignoring Lu’s impatient glaring sigh, “I’d love to scout you if you’re interested!”

Adon pushed the card back at her with a soft shake, “no thank you.” He fell against Lu, flattered by her persistence, but annoyed at her interruption. 

“But you really have so much potential!” She waved at his face. 

Adon’s smile fell into a sharp sneer, “I’m not good at acting. I don’t hide my thoughts well.”

Lu snorted because they both knew it was at least a little bit of a lie, he’d been smiling at asshole students for years, but it was true that his eyes turned cold and his smile filled with disgust that others ignored. 

The woman inhaled to protest, so Adon held out his glossy black portfolio, Lu gesturing to help present the award as Adon flipped it open to reveal the coveted CAPT-Achievement diploma, the metallic ink of his third-place victory glinting in the neon lights. Lu ceremoniously flipped to the following folio page with a blank stare while Adon tried to hide his dancing feet, revealing the prestigious welcome certificate, proclaiming his certified place in the Agro-department, making him Calderan royalty in-training. 

The woman swallowed and grimaced an understanding nod, “congratulations.” She flipped her card back into a pocket and stomped toward the ornate entrance to the AIE building. 

“Wow, pretty and smart,” Lu shook his head at Adon proudly, gawking at the hand-inked awards he hadn't gotten to investigate yet, asking every question the woman had interrupted until Adon’s phone buzzed.

“Hey Heather,” Adon answered, unable to hide the smile in his voice, though he was trying to play the inconsolable loser before delivering the news.

Lu watched Adon wilt, pouting because Heather already knew, then further, his brow creasing in concern until he hung up with a bitter sigh, “the woman’s loan makes problems.”

It took Lu a second to realize the woman was Adon’s mom. He pulled Adon to him, ruffling his hair and kissing his ear, “let’s celebrate.” He said it like a dare, a challenge rather than an indulgence. 

Adon hopped off the fountain wall, accepting Lu’s outstretched hand, his bounding energy returning with the warmth of Lu’s gloved hand in his. Lu had never heard Adon talk so much in a row, laughing at the ding of congratulatory texts from students as his score was publicly posted in the traditional announcement. Lu watched the video of Adon receiving his certificate seven times before Adon confiscated his phone. Lu leaned into Adon on the crowded public rail car as they descended back to Indigo, subtly sniffing his shoulder. 

Adon craned to smell his grav-suit, pulling his school uniform shirt from beneath it as well, “what, do I smell?”

Lu smiled, nodding and sniffing again with a whisper “like cake.”