His nerves could have powered an entire sector for a quantum hour with the rate his heartbeat stammered. The sync queue lasted for 2 full cycles, during which an individual might wait with increasingly higher risk of heart disease wondering if they would make the sync cut.

Some people chose to remain Beta status during the sync, so there was still the chance that numbers past the halfway mark were able to make selections.

The queue wasn't a physical queue, but a time slot based queue. First half of the inhabitants go through selections on the first cycle, and the second half get whatever scraps remain. If there were any, selection processes began at the first hour mark of the second day, so you better be awake. In previous years, he spent it wallowing in his single bed chamber with only his solitude as company.

The first day of the queue, he spent scrubbing the same stain in the airlock passage for his entire shift. No use exerting mental effort on anything else but frantically fretting about the second day of the queue. Shift finally ended and the staring at the wall part began. There was an exceptionally intriguing segment of the panel in their dorm chamber that looked like a natural fracture. Actually, that had been where his head had smashed against the wall when Yngvir had one of his episodes.

Unlike the higher ranked individuals, those of similar pool grade had issues, or defects as the nurses might call them in their bodies or brains. Hemlock's was of a bodily nature, made obvious by the burn scars he didn't remember and the awkward twist of his right leg. Yngvir's was the latter. From time to time, he forgot all sense of sanity and rage overcame his being, thrashing about wildly in their small enclosed space. During those times, Yngvir didn't sense him has an individual or a person but an object. He was thrown about the same way one might throw a lamp, or the ration canteen provided to every janitor for their on-shift meal.

To this day, he's not exactly sure how he survived that particular episode. He only remembered lying on his side, wondering how his head had won against the panel of solid steel. The next thing he knew, he was in the medic hall, being untagged for dismissal. His injury had only cost him 3 cycles of pay, thankfully. Yngvir decided the only way to pay him back was to be his friend. Sometimes, Hemlock doesn't know which is better, the episodes or the bad jokes at his expense.

The chamber door decompressed and slid open soundlessly. Yngvir sauntered in, his vial swinging off his fingertips. "Here's to my 18th year of being me." The orange vial arched in the air, snatched by deft hands. "And guess who I landed as my sync pair."

He didn't need to respond for Yngvir to thrust his hips forward into his face. "Cassio the blonde sidebang bitch in medic."

Again, he didn't respond. Another one of Yngvir's long list of trophies. Woohoo. Congratulations for being an asshole every year!

Yngvir pounced his upper bunk, the steel bars graciously taking the abuse without complaint. "I almost thought he was gonna say no, but who can resist this smile?" A grin appeared, upside down over him. When he didn't react, it dropped lower, then closer, then so close he could feel Yngvir's hot breath against his nose. Hemlock punched him in the face, the knuckle finding register against his cheekbone, bringing Yngvir's confidence to its physical knees, sprawling against the wall of their chamber.

"Psion's Mercy!" But all Yngvir had was smirk, while his black socked toes wiggled against Hemlock's boot ankle. "Worried about your virginity, Hemlock?"

"Shut up, Yngvir." He muttered, crushing Yngvir's toe under his boot. Yngvir yanked his abused toe to him, but in a moment was back, crawling on all fours to him, then very solemnly folding up into a kneeling position before him, "You're probably going to pass out, since it's your first time loaded up with the hormones. It messes with your body the first time around. Make sure you find a sync pair before the day. I've heard it can be painful if you sync alone. Rubs you raw. Your hand I mean." The wide-ear split grin ruined any chance Yngvir had of being treated with kindness that day.

Although their chamber doors were pneumatically created to be impossible to slam, he did his best to stomp away angrily down their narrow corridor to the mess halls to wait out the first queue cycle in peace.

He was wrong.

The mess hall was even more raucous than his two person chamber. Several hundreds were crowded in the arena-like hall, littered with bench tables and spare chairs. The only time metric was the loud speaker system that was barely audible over the cajoling and negotiating of the first-day selectors for sync pairs.

Hemlock stuck to the walls and slipped out into the less populated side halls where the giant refrigerated storage units were located. The cool temperatures of the storage units soothed a part of his anxieties, though they weren't successful in completely numbing them. The stresses of the situation had driven his body temperature higher than comfortable, even in his meager union-instated civ wear. A simple pair of khakis and a semi-loose thermal tee, wrapped up in an all pleather harness for emergency securement to space suit autolock devices. The outfit of the most common of plebs on this galactic, floating, metal ship of humanity's last.

The frost on the inside of the windows curled in irregular patterns along the inside edge of the storage unit doors and he tried to inspect them closer, only to find himself tipping forward into an icy chamber when the pneumatic door hissed open. He must have triggered the pressure plate at the base of the chamber door. He was surprised it hadn't been locked from unauthorized access. Must be a glitch in the security panel.

He wandered further into the unit, peering at the illegible numbers and letters on the sides of giant utility blocks, stacked up against each other in a seemingly random order. A dim light glowed over head and he searched for an access route to the upper levels of the catwalk. He shivered at the coldness of the metal when he touched the edge of a block, but his hand contact lit a panel in the block, catching his attention.

It was a simple identity panel, luminated by a touch-sensor under the glass. It seemed on closer inspection, all the blocks were made of the same frosted semi-translucent material. The dim lighting concealing the contents inside. He pressed his fingers to the screen and swiped, trying to decipher the code of what was inside the block. There were images of constellations, planetary systems, but nothing that indicated what might be inside the block. His fingers itched to touch the lock symbol at the top corner, wondering if he might chance upon the passcode or something that might open the block.

"Curious?"

He whirled around at the sound of a rasping voice, made louder by the echoing of the cold unit. Hemlock's voice locked itself into a box at the recognition of the pale, ephemeral face.

Codename: Blackfeather. The crazed ex-navigator to Blackthorn, who retreated to the Winter sector… the storage sector.

"Is that what they're calling it?" The evenness of the man's tone didn't reflect his supposed mental failures. Nor did the serene expression as he stared back at Hemlock, black beady eyes locking into something deeper in his mind. Something had piqued his interest, because he kept staring into his eyes, despite Hemlock breaking eye contact long ago.

"Sir?" He felt weak even with the glass behind him.

"You're wondering what this place holds?"

"Sir, I didn't mean to intrude, the door just opened on its own." He was cut off by a slender hand that raised and cut his vocal chords. He choked around the pressure.

"I believe the first hour mark already chimed a bit ago. You're late," is all the wraith-like being said, as the pressure inside his throat faded and he could breathe again. He didn't need encouragement to sprint out the door, holding a hand to his throat. The feeling had been unbearable, yet, it made his body tingle in a way he'd not been able to understand. It was a new feeling. Something under his skin perhaps.

He dismissed it as he cursed loudly, and tumbled through the crowded passages to the queue point. He found his spot in line between a young, spritely type, of foreign background, based on the mottling of his skin into pseudo-scales, and a tall solemn character, with a bald head and deep skin tone.

The ticker in between his fingers felt like a feather in a raging storm. Eager to leave his fingers, only to vanish without a trace. The queue moved quicker than he thought. Oh Psion, what if they took all the vials before he got to it. The bitterness of being so close would likely drive him mad. He prayed he would not lose his mind over the sync. He prayed to all the gods in the galaxies to listen to him. To pity him.

"Next."

He hadn't even noticed what option the boy in front of him chose. His mouth dried when his foot stepped forward to the curtain station.

"The Alpha vials have all been selected. Would you like an Omega vial or pass this sync as a Beta?"

His mind boggled and his mouth spouted, "Yes!" and his body pitched forward before he could restrain his eagerness.

The medic only repeated with mild irritation, "Which is it?"

He stammered out his response, voice cracking under the pressure of the question, "Omega."

The medic didn't react and simply waved her hand to the right side of the tent. "Please take a vial on your way out."

His bad knee wobbled on his way over to the sectioned off area to the right. The dispenser was worn down with use, probably had been participating in the sync distribution longer than he had been alive. His fingers trembled as he pressed down the holding container, the lever underneath letting a single vial roll into the tub.

Behind him, a tall, dark man brushed past, not pausing to receive a vial. Hemlock gulped air down his lungs as he took the vial in his trembling hands and exited the tent. Another individual passed by the tent, disregarding the dispenser and choosing the null route. Beta.

Was it undesirable to be an Omega? Is that why they were all passing it by? He'd never been this close to the sync queue to know the stigmas of the choices. Besides, it's not like anyone particularly talked about it afterwards. It was a private affair after all.

He looked down at the purple vial in his hand and cradled it against his stomach. This was his chance to experience the sync at last.

Now the problem was finding a sync pair.