No. 98109 - at least it's better than last year's sync number.

The wet towel in his hand blubs with impatient suds, waiting to be rubbed all over the mainframe windows. The slap it makes as he makes contact with the sonic annealed silicon tempered glass, is rather pathetic in comparison to the lascivious way all the suds were beginning to gather around the entrance to his sleeve.

No.

Don't do that. Suds are not sexy.

His own forehead makes the same muted thud, when he realizes how pitiful he must be. A lone janitor, fantasizing about the way the soap on his hands looks enticing to his neutered hormones.

Starlight twinkles beyond the glass, cackling at him as they dazzle from afar. Like everyone else in this blasted ship. How is it that in a ship that carries close to 100 thousand people, he always somehow gets the butt end of the proverbial stick of numbers?

It could be a conspiracy by the AI mainframe to prevent individuals of lower rank from entering the sync system, but Yngvir was a fellow janitor, only one sector down the hall and he always seemed to get numbers close to the hundreds. His worst number in the 17 years he's been in the sync was 399.

His Best Number was 72314. Not even close to the mid-tier.

He sighed, making the weakest of efforts to wipe his forehead print from the glass as it chirped out of hibernation state. Oh, god, he'd missed the end of the shift staring aimlessly into the sky. He scrambled to his feet, making a jolly mess on the floor when his boot caught the edge of the pail and tipped it over.

He cursed foremost his luck, then his clumsiness, then the gods themselves because why not toss them under the hull too. As he used the remainder of his dry sleeve to sweep up the dirtied water, the hairs on the back of his spine tingled, urging in their little screaming sensations, to run for his life.

Although his back was possibly the best half of him, he didn't think it wise to keep it directed at the threat, but honestly, he couldn't move his neck in that direction. Cricked it up last cycle during his anti-grav session.

The boots clicked towards him with a prowling menace that he could only describe as the old Earth documentarians would say, "a creature of the night". A saying that's long lost its meaning consider there's no difference between Day and Night on a giant space ship destined for no where in particular indefinitely.

If he could have shriveled up into a slug and then slipped into his bucket of slosh, he would have gladly done so as the air around him choked to a near vacuum as the brush of soft, woven fabric brushed past behind him. Once the steps were at the other end, he dared pick up his head to see the disappearing trails of Blackthorn.

Blackthorn, a codename given to the blitz pilot on one of the most famed Odyssian ships of all time. Youngest and possibly most ruthless of blitz pilots. Some say he was the reason his last navigator became a mindless wraith in the halls of the Winter sectors. Some also say it wasn't what he did that drove the navi mad, but the way he did it.

He shuddered as he lifted the bucket off the ground, his bad knee twisting awkwardly as he stood. The joints locked themselves as he tried to stand, his eyes squeezing to pass the wave of pain. He hadn't had time to react when a gentle hand brush against his shoulder and words murmured against the lobe of his ear.

Spots of light flickered at the edges of his vision when he came to, having already made it down the holovaters to the lower residential levels, clothes changed to civ sets and rags tossed into the recycler as proof he'd completed his daily duties. He stank of the olfactory neutralizers, which meant all he could really smell was nothing. Not even the food set before him, a mildly interesting mixture of grey and brown. Possibly an 'Old Earth' brew, known as gravy. Most likely protein powder mixed with enough vitamins to prevent scurvy and headaches.

Another tray clacked down next to him, and a heavy hand grasped the back of his neck, pulling him into a conspiratorial huddle over mashed protein chunks. "So, how'd you do?"

"No worse than last year." The words felt muffled in his ears, like someone plugged them. He shook his head, which Yngvir took to mean, please raid my body for my number slip. Yngvir found it in his front chest pocket, which was somehow the last place he looked, after the inside of his sleeve, down the side of his pants, and into the back of his collar.

The mash felt grainy today. Maybe they added supplements for the upcoming sync. Bolster their biological nutrient levels to ensure a successful sync. The blow against his back nearly returned his meal to the tray, twice digested. "Quarking hazes! Yngvir!" He hissed at his friend. His only friend.

"My Friend. My sad pal, I believe your days as a lonely Beta are over. Your luck has finally turned!" Hemlock glared at the man, trying not to be bothered by how objectively handsome and genial his friend was.

"You're not funny." There was no point in finishing this mash anyways. Wasn't really for the likes of him.

With another jab, the slip of paper was spread before him onto the tab, carefully unraveled by thick calloused fingers. "This, is your ticket to a non-neutered life."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, "I'm not in the mood for your jokes today."

"No, I'm totally serious. You're in mid-tier this time!"

"Mid-t--. What?!" He stared down at the ticket in front of him, rotated to the correct orientation, noted by the letters press-stamped into the paper. 

{ S Y N C # } It had been rubbed away by his sweaty hand probably, but the imprints were still faintly there.

He'd read his number wrong.

His number was 60186.

60,186 out of 100,000. Just barely within the bottom of the mid-tier.

He grabbed he DNA marked ticket, which inked red in his fingers. "Oh quarking hazes. I'm an idiot."

The hug Yngvir gave him felt more like a vice of pure and desperately choking hope.

Definitely too much for him to handle for the next 3 days while the rest of the numbers were distributed and the serum selection stations were set up.

No. 60186. His lucky number.