11 - Because of a Girl

Aurora blinked a third time. He must be joking. Or she must be dreaming.

“You need my help? Definitely a dream,” she muttered. “You sure this isn’t manipulation?”

Milo smiled faintly. The platform stopped at the base of a tall skyscraper, still gray, but this one had more windows. Inside, a dark blue and green carpet broke the monotony, splashing color across the otherwise sterile palette. The elevator zipped upward, smooth and fast, until it reached the penthouse. Aurora glanced around. The architecture up here was different, less rigid and rectangular. The sharp corners had softened into something more abstract, ambiguous.

Milo stepped forward and opened the door. Inside, they entered the hallway. To the side, his kitchen. Up ahead, a cozy fireplace within a library. Artworks, sculptures and murals gave the space character. Milo looked back before leading her in. She stopped, taking everything in with her breath. She touched the cold marble counter before crossing to the sofa in the library.

“You live here,” she muttered.

“I suppose it's the closest thing I’d call home,” Milo admitted.

She looked out the window, feeling the soft curtain. It reminded her of her room in the Crystal Palace. But instead of a sprawling, sparking utopia, she saw endless gray against the artificial sky of blue. She squinted around the room. It wasn’t opulent, but it had a rich, refined taste.

“Compared to the outside… this is different,” she tested.

Milo nodded. “This kingdom banned a lot of arts and books.” He gestured vaguely at the walls, as if the sterile architecture itself were complicit. “Stories made people feel too much. Music lingered in the chest. Paintings couldn’t be explained efficiently.” He paused, considering. “Apparently beauty was too worthless, distracting. Couldn’t have things that didn’t contain an exact answer, that demanded interpretation for meaning, a threat to efficiency.”

“So you’re telling me you brought me to your den of crime,” she said, looking at the ‘illegal material.’ “Lovely.”

But she couldn’t stop gawking at everything. She couldn’t help herself. Her fingers brushed over book spines, traced the stone above the cold fireplace. She paused at each sculpture, each painting, like they might explain something about him. Despite herself, she loved it here. More than the shimmering beauty of the Crystal Kingdom. More than the quiet woods of Blade. She got a sudden headache, her muscles felt like collapsing.

Her cheeks flushed. She hated that he saw. It had been a while since she felt unguarded, and now the weight of everything was crashing down.

“Did Josen do that?” she stammered, trying to distract him. Her vision unfocusing slightly. “Ban books and art and everything?”

Milo tilted his head, watching her—less surprised by her reaction than by his own. Then, as if slipping back into his role, he adjusted his sleeves and joined her.

“Once, we made things. Josen and I. Stories. Systems. Even a few dreams.” He shrugged, almost clinical. “But this was his kingdom. His sandbox. He earned the reins. I just stopped arguing when I saw what he was determined to build.” He paused..“He thinks order makes people better and that controlling them leads to a better society. I think it makes them disappear.”

“That man used to dream?”

A shadow of a smile touched his lips. “Of course. Then he put them in a box, filed them under ‘threats,’ and banned the box.”

Aurora nodded, seriously. “Makes sense.”

She slumped further into the sofa, the headache deepening between her eyes. “Good to know emotional expression is still classified as a threat… But hey, Milo? How long have we been doing this?” She hesitated. “Can you give me a break? Just for once?”

For some reason, being here. Slowing down the pace after everything, had made it worse—not better.

Now, in this still, warm place, everything caught up with her. The silence, the weight, the guilt she had earned. She blinked hard, holding back the sting of tears.

Milo didn’t speak right away. He looked at her, unreadable as ever. Then, he dipped his head and muttered, “of course.” He turned and walked away, disappearing into one of the side rooms.

The door clicked shut behind him.

—-------

That night she slept like she’s dead. No dreams, no memories, no nightmares.

But when she woke up, she jolted. On the edge, she saw Selus, staring at her, licking his lips. Then – nothing. Just the artificial light streaming through Milo’s curtains. She rubbed her eyes. I’m hallucinating.

When she entered the living room, she saw some new clothes folded and pressed on the coffee table.

If you’re ready, get dressed.

* M

She found him out in the lobby. She sat next to him, looking around. “Is nobody else here?” she stared at him in mock shock. “Don’t tell me you own the whole building.”

The ghost of a smile across his lips said everything. She slumped next to him. “So tell me what we’re dealing with.”

Milo nodded. She listened intently as he gave a brief history of the kingdom. Some of it she knew already – like the cyborg soldiers called Titans. He explained that human augmentation was experimental when he and Josen were children. Now, it was uncommon not to have one.

“They suppress your emotions,” he said. “Joy, rage, love—it’s not that they’re banned. Just... managed.” He rolled his sleeve up slightly. “It started with pain tolerance, then anxiety inhibitors, then cognitive filters. People stopped flinching. Then they stopped dreaming. Now they barely speak unless spoken to. And even then, their chips compute.”

He paused, eyes narrowing slightly. “And the worst part? They call that freedom. Chose to live their whole lives unfeeling. Because there’s no blood, no screaming, no pain. Just… silence. And they’ve learned to call living meaningless lives intelligence, peace.”

“Sounds like a perfect society,” Aurora retorted. “I wonder if they’d chose to actually live if they could… And… when exactly did you start disagreeing with your buddy?”

Milo looked at her thoughtfully. “Josen used to be… the idealist. Strange, right?” A faint smile pulled at his mouth, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “He believed people could be improved. He had a…rough childhood so he wanted to change things his way. He thought he could make people kinder, smarter, easier to manage. I just helped him along the way.” He turned away, as if the wall were easier to face than memory. “He built the cage. I helped design the locks.” He paused. “But somewhere along the way, I started wondering if the problem wasn’t people feeling pain, but controlling them.”

He glanced back at her.

“Josen still thinks clarity comes from obedience. I think it comes from pain, from discomfort.”

He shrugged. “One of us got civilized. The other didn’t.”

“Guess I’m stuck with the uncivilized one,” Aurora muttered. She paused then clenched her jaw as the image of the lab flashed behind her eyes. “And those people. The experiments?”

Milo nodded. “Magic users, from the outside. Sacrificed for ‘the greater good of humanity.’”

“Fantastic,” she said, fingers twitching. “Is it in your plan to free them?”

Milo hesitated. “Originally?” He paused. “No.”

Aurora grimaced.

“But…” He tilted his head. “If they wake, the kingdom cracks. If they die, it holds.”

A perfect compromise.

“So… yes?”

“Yes.”

She studied him. “You’re not just saying that?”

He shook his head. “But I still think Josen’s kingdom should fall. Don’t you?”

Aurora deliberated then nodded. “I’m with you. We destroyed three kingdoms, we wouldn’t be destroying the world if we left the fourth alone.”

Milo smiled. “Emotions aren’t illegal. So we start there. Make them feel something. Turn them against their chips.”

Aurora opened her mouth to argue.

“Because,” Milo went on, “if you free the magic users first, it’s war. He’ll unleash the Titans. Better to crack the system while we’re still in his good graces.”

Aurora closed her mouth, thought, then nodded. “Makes sense.”

Milo stood and offered his hand.

“Walk with me.”

She hesitated, but took it. He pulled her to her feet with ease. Then he led her on a tour of everything.

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Everything that mattered for that day, anyway.

—---------------------------

They started their walk in silence through the plaza. The streets were clean without a hint of litter. Nobody lounged around. Everyone milled to their day job. The air smelled like nothing. A sterilized nothing.

Aurora glanced sideways. Though tens of people were traveling on the plaza, the silence was eerie. “Well, you weren’t joking. There’s no crime,” she said quietly. “Not with these robots anyway.”

Milo nodded. “There hasn’t been crime in years. Not statistically, anyway.”

“Is that a joke?”

“Only if erasing thought, will, and memory doesn’t count as a crime.”

She thought of the silence. The smiles that didn’t quite reach their eyes. Then, she squinted at the artificial sky. “This dome…”

“Can keep out Cerceras,” Milo said easily.

Aurora turned, startled. He didn’t look away.

“Shit. Then we shouldn’t destroy it.”

Milo cocked his head. “Who said we’re destroying the dome? We can free them without destroying anything,” he said, composed.

Aurora blinked, then smiled faintly. “Right. Of course.”

They kept walking.

“Cerceras will come,” Milo said after a beat. “We’ll deal with him when he does.”

Aurora tilted her head. “We destroyed the Crystal Empire and burned the Fire Kingdom. All to stop him from feeding…” She looked up at the perfect false sky. “But these people—they’re safe. Protected. Isn’t this a detour?”

Milo didn’t stop walking. “We have two and a half weeks to kill before he spreads away from Blade. Should we just wait for the final battle in my penthouse and let the magic users die?”

She tilted her head. “Funny, why do I get the feeling we’re not the heroes in this story?” She studied him then—his stillness, his hands, the dark magic he could summon like breath. “Can you really beat him?”

Milo nodded.

“How do you know?”

He exhaled slowly. “Because I’m not just starving him.”

“...”

“When Cerceras fails to corrupt someone,” he said, “the power he used to hold over them—it doesn’t disappear. It moves.”

“Into you?”

He nodded.

“So…when I rejected him, the energy he spent trying to own me went into…you. Making you stronger.” She put a hand over her mouth. “Dear Ysalva.” She leaned forward. “Then, you stole his energy from everyone who resisted at Blade?”

He paused, studying his hands. “Not a lot did.”

Aurora swallowed. “So Cerceras swallowed Blade. He’s still feeding.”

Milo’s nodded, arms crossed. “For now.”

“But if he tries to move into the Crystal Empire or Fire Kingdom…”

“The power he exerted for every failure will come to me.”

They stopped walking, letting the silence press down on them.

“Do you want to replace him?” Aurora whispered.

“No,” Milo said. “I want to end him.” He paused. “But to do that, I have to become something he can’t corrupt.”

Aurora’s voice was barely audible. “And what if that corrupts you?”

Milo didn’t flinch as he shrugged. “Then stop me.”

Aurora stared straight ahead. She knew they were dismantling the previous kingdoms to prevent Cerceras’ rise, but she hadn’t realized they were feeding power to Milo. She looked at him, not sure if she felt betrayed or elated.

She shook her head. “Everytime Cerceras’ power enters into someone, they get tempted.” She leaned closer. “Does that mean every time someone rejects him you get tempted?”

He gave a ghost of a smile. Aurora gaped.

“You want to save the world, Aurora. I want to break the illusion that’s killing it. That illusion doesn’t die quietly.”

“It’s inevitable, I guess.” Aurora kept looking straight ahead, wondering what could possibly tempt Milo.

“Come on, let’s go.”

They turned a corner. Ahead loomed a massive gray structure. Like every other building, it had sharp corners – another perfect rectangle. People milled in, walking in lines. Steps almost in sync.

“What is this?” she asked.

“The Nutrition Hub,” Milo confirmed. “Where they get their refills.”

Inside, the ceiling was low and flat. Though there were dozens of lines there was no real movement, no noise. Each person waited in eerie silence. “This is…creepy,” she whispered. “They’re really not talking?” Machines lined the walls, dispensing tan fluid into clear portable canisters. The citizens plugged the tube into ports near their spines.

Aurora watched as a child approached the counter with his mother. The fluid filled his canister. He turned as if rehearsed as his mother plugged it in with practiced ease. Aurora watched another person plug in their canister. Then another. No one lingered or chatted. There were no tables, no warmth. Just intake.

Aurora folded her arms, suddenly cold. “I can taste the efficiency.”

Milo smiled and gave a small nod.

“They don’t even miss eating, do they?”

“They forgot what food tastes like.”

Aurora turned around to him. “Then that has to be a part of our plan.” She turned back to the people. “And what about birthdays? Dinners? Eating with family, friends?” Her voice rose, despite the realization she also had done none of those things. She chuckled, the next words hitting too close to home. “What do they celebrate?”

Milo turned. “Completion milestones, advancements toward productivity.”

She nodded. “I guess that’s more than me.” She stared at him. He stared back. “And they’re okay with that?”

He shrugged. “We’ll have to see.” He stepped off. “Come,” he said. “Time to see my old friend.”

“Dear Josen? Oh goodie.”

—-------------------

The final platform hummed to a stop before a massive steel door. No guards. No keypads. Just a scanner that pulsed with soft blue light. Aurora followed Milo, hesitating slightly behind.

“Remind me why we’re here again?”

“If you want to take him down, you should see how Josen operates.”

She nodded as if that made sense as they moseyed into the Kingdom’s most important building. Everything really is a gray rectangle, Aurora thought as they passed the hallway. A sad, gray prison. Milo stepped forward, scanned his I.D., and the doors parted with a hiss. The room beyond was colder. Screens of blue, black, and green breaking up the monotony.

Aurora stepped in slowly.

This room’s not a sad gray box. It’s a sad, gray circle! Round, windowless, quiet. Floor-to-ceiling screens formed a full circle, each flickering with a different quadrant of the kingdom. Some showed street footage. Others displayed biometric graphs such as heart rate, dopamine levels, and neural synchrony. Data of a few thousand people organized in different graphs, labelled as numbers.

What the hell?

“What… is this?” Aurora asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Milo stepped toward the center, approaching Josen, who stood beside a circular console rising from the floor.

“This,” Josen said calmly, “is where I make sure no one suffers.” He looked at Aurora as if to add idiot.

He gestured to one of the screens. A woman stood in a long queue, swaying slightly. Her dopamine levels dipped—just enough to trigger an automated release. She straightened. Alert. A faint smile flickered across her lips. The warning triangle vanished and the camera focused on someone else.

“She was experiencing anticipatory fatigue,” Josen explained. “The system adjusted her reward threshold. Now she’s calm again. Functional.”

“Yeah, because people are machines!” Aurora muttered under her breath. She turned slowly, taking in the full circle of surveillance. “But you’re right about my intelligence. This place makes me feel stupid.” She rubbed her eyes, like a kid who didn’t know what neural synchrony or anticipatory fatigue meant.

Red pulses marked elevated heart rates. Blue ones tracked mood baselines. Every district. Every person who had a chip, anyway.

“Wow,” she exhaled, taking everything in as they spied on society’s constituents. “You make me feel less like a creep watching this. You’re really doing this.”

Josen didn’t turn. “I’m maintaining peace and order.”

She blinked, then looked at him. “No one dreams here, do they?”

Josen finally looked at her. “Dreams cause instability. Hope leads to comparison. And comparison to discontent.”

“But isn’t that—” She stopped. Her voice was tight. “Isn’t that what makes us human?”

He tilted his head. “No,” he said. “It’s what makes you irrational.”

Aurora rolled her eyes, smiling. He pressed a button. A chip ejected from the console with a soft click.

Aurora stared at it. “You’re kidding me.”

Josen nodded, almost fondly. In his fingers, a small, metallic control chip. “You’ve disrupted two kingdoms. Induced emotional volatility in others. If you want to stay in mine… you’ll wear my tools.”

Aurora stepped back, looking at Milo. Her eyebrows raised with a mixture of mock and real concern. “Is he going to force me?”

Milo sighed, stepping in. “I brought her here to learn, Josen. Not to vanish.”

Josen stepped forward. “That’s what makes it so disappointing.”

As they continued talking, she saw a silver device in the corner of her eye. Two small metal devices gleamed, half-buried beneath papers. One was a flat metal circle. The other curved slightly, paired with its twin.

“What is that?” she asked, casually.

Josen didn’t even glance up. “Titan emergency controls,” he said sharply. “Fail-safes. If someone hijacks the command core,” his eyes flicked toward Milo, “and sends the Titans after me, those ensure they die the moment I do. So an enemy doesn’t get further control of the Titans.”

He shrugged. “We like to keep a safety on our most dangerous weapons.”

Aurora nodded, as if it were nothing. Just another piece of the machine. But when Milo leaned in to challenge Josen further—Aurora slipped away. She crossed the room without sound, fingers brushing the smooth metal.

She took the smaller device and walked calmly toward the bathroom.

Inside, the air was cooler, sharper. She locked the door. It took her less than a minute. If my emotions lead me to…a grave mistake… Aurora thought about Karl, about Milo, about her… The circle was meant to sit flush against the body. She slid it beneath her shirt, fastening it just below her ribcage. Lucky for her, it was adjustable. Sturdy but not bulky. The curve followed, just enough to anchor it.

The second piece she tucked into her pocket.

“Just in case,” she whispered to herself, the cold metal against her skin. This is just another failsafe against Milo, she reminded herself. Maybe Josen’s on to something about emotions and impulsivity. She was surprised that she was able to move so smoothly on pure instinct. Even more surprised she was able to pull it off without the boys noticing. She crossed to the mirror. Her reflection stared back. Not wide-eyed, not panicked. Just… ready.

She unlocked the door and stepped back into the core.

Milo turned mid-sentence, eyes flicking over her. He seemed curious, suspicious, maybe. But he said nothing.

“Ready to leave?” she asked lightly. “I think the tour’s over.”

Milo nodded, arms still crossed. “You’re not going to wear that chip.”

Josen rolled his eyes—subtle, practiced. But Aurora could feel it: the thread between them pulling taut. A friendship straining. Maybe breaking.

Because of a girl, she thought wryly.