VIM’s growth was stalled in the last few weeks, so the media team was being borrowed by the R&D wing of El Viento Securities. It was usually off-limits to everyone but the scientists and owners, Vincenzo had his all-access badge and a need to see where the money was going.
He found a man arguing with a mannequin in the hallway.
The man was young – late twenties – wearing a lab coat that fit him a little too perfectly, like a costume department’s idea of a scientist. He had dark, intense eyes and the kind of stillness that made people uncomfortable.
“No, no,” the man was saying to the plastic dummy. “You’re not selling the restraint. You’re selling the hug. It’s not a life sentence; it’s a new life path.”
Vincenzo stopped, leaning against the wall. “Rough crowd?”
The man spun around. His movement was fluid, almost too smooth. He blinked once – slowly – and then a mask of professional charm slid into place.
“Vincenzo Viento,” the man said. “The Face. The Voice. The Golden Son returning to the source code.”
“And you are?”
“Grey Elwin. Senior Technology Demonstrator. Public Facing Showman. Currently rehearsing for the second act of the American Justice System.”
Vincenzo raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know the justice system had a second act. I thought we just kept rebooting the pilot.”
Grey smiled, a tight, practiced expression. “We did. Until this morning. Didn’t you get the memo? The death penalty is officially cancelled. Show’s over. Writers’ strike.”
Vincenzo frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The ban,” Grey said, gesturing with long fingers. “El Viento Heavy Industry’s lobbyists have been busy in D.C. As of midnight, federal execution is off the table. Cruel and unusual. The state can no longer take a life.”
He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Which creates a vacuum. A narrative void. What do we do with the monsters if we can’t kill them?”
Vincenzo looked at the man. He was strange. Intense, literal, vibrating with a frequency that felt alien. He reminded Vincenzo of a character from a show he’d watched years ago. The weird one who saw life through TV tropes because reality was too messy.
“Let me guess,” Vincenzo said. “We sell them a box.”
“We sell them THE Box,” Grey corrected. “El Viento Altruistic Prison System. EVAPS.”
Grey pulled a small, heavy object from his pocket. It looked like a link of chain, but it shimmered with an iridescence that hurt the eyes.
Grey held up the link. It didn’t look like steel; it looked like liquid caught in a freeze-frame.
“Xeno-Tungstanium,” Grey said. “Marketed as XTC. The official story is that we synthesized the alloy, Vincenzo. Truth is, it’s mined from the deep-layer foundations conspiracy theorist scream about.”
He tapped the metal. It didn’t clang; it hummed, a low frequency.
“It’s programmable matter. Smart-metal. Ancient durability meets modern convenience.”
He held the link up. “XTC is cast with a fixed parameter set. Dimensions, tolerances, limits. Once those values are set, the metal never deviates. No motors. No feedback. No correction.”
“Sounds like something those conspiracy theorists would lap up,” Eldorado scoffed.
Grey’s eyes didn’t waver. “Those conspiracy theorists lack the lens to appreciate the potential. Most are just magical thinkers. It’s just… a relic from the past for them. This metal? It uses the same harmonic principles found in proposed leaked government files. The ‘Spark and Tartarian nonsense’ you mocked on your stream the other night?”
Grey tapped the metal link against the wall. It didn’t clang; it sang a low, unnerving note.
“It’s the strongest substance on earth. And we’re using it to build cages that last longer than the monsters inside them.”
Vincenzo’s eyes darted between the metal to Grey. He saw something there. Not just intelligence, but a desperate need to be part of a story. A sidekick looking for a lead, a Jessie Pinkman looking for his Heisenberg.
“You’re on your way to announce this?” Vincenzo asked.
“Main stage. Ten minutes.”
Vincenzo pushed off the wall. He straightened his jacket, then reached out and adjusted Grey’s lapel.
“Lose the ‘It’s not a life-sentence’ line,” Vincenzo said. “Too villainous. Call it ‘Safety.’”
Grey stared at him, seemingly processing the direction like a computer downloading a patch. “Safety. High concept. Broad appeal. I like it.”
“And Grey?”
“Yes?”
“After the show,” Vincenzo said, flashing his signature grin. “Come see me. I think you and I could do some interesting world-building together.”
Grey nodded, his face blank, but his eyes burning with something that looked terrifyingly like gratitude.
The siege didn’t happen with a bang; it happened in the slow, suffocating silence of three weeks without a cleared invoice. Months bled together, turning the firm’s “administrative billing freeze” from a nuisance into a lifestyle, while the sudden cut in clinic hours had left Amelia with more free time than rent money.
The morning sun hit the living room floor, illuminating dust motes and the accumulated evidence of a month effectively spent hiding out together – her cardigan permanently draped over his chair, his spare key now living on her ring, and a stack of takeout containers that chronicled twenty days of trying to ignore the tightening noose. It should have been a good morning. Chase was drinking coffee that finally didn’t taste like office despair, and Amelia was sitting on the counter in one of his shirts, the only asset in his life that wasn’t depreciating.
“So,” Chase said, leaning against the fridge and watching her. “I did some math. Dangerous, I know. But the facts don’t care about our feelings.”
Amelia blew on her coffee, looking tired in the way that comes from a month of calculating every purchase. “Should I call a lawyer?”
“I am a lawyer,” Chase said. “And my professional opinion is that paying two rents in this economy, especially with the squeeze our paychecks have gone through, is practically negligent. Especially when my lease is up in a month and yours involves an aggressive hobo named ‘Raviolli’, and laundry basket obstacle course I’ve tripped over fourteen times since the reunion.”
Amelia paused, looking around his apartment. It was modern, clean, and – crucially – had central air and a dishwasher that worked.
“Are you asking me to move in with you to balance your ledger, Wright?”
“I’m asking you to move in because I like your face,” Chase said. “And because this place has a second closet. And because I’m tired of driving across town to kiss you goodnight.”
Amelia smiled, hopping off the counter. “Okay. But we’re keeping my coffee maker. Coffee outa yours tastes like sad corporate ambition.”
“Deal,” Chase said. “My place it is. Better location, better security, no Ravioli throwing bottle caps at me.”
Amelia nodded, but then she hesitated. A shadow crossed her face – not doubt, exactly, but a wince of remembrance.
“Moving,” she muttered. “I hate moving.”
“It’s just boxes, Ames. We hire movers. We drink wine. It’s easy.”
“It is never easy,” she said, her eyes drifting to the middle distance. “Do you remember the last time I moved? Junior year? Leaving the loft?”
Chase froze. “I… seem to recall I had a terrible flu that weekend.”
“You had a terrible lie,” she corrected. “I remember.”
The bittersweet memory hit Amelia.
It was the loft above Dix-City, the sketchy adult store that buzzed neon pink all night. She remembered standing amidst a sea of cardboard boxes, stressed out of her mind because the landlord was threatening to keep her deposit if the place wasn’t cleared out by the next day.
Christina had been there, packing dishes with aggressive inefficiency.
“You know,” Christina had warned, shoving a plate into a box without paper, “living with Tyrone and Elvis is going to destroy you. You love their whimsy now, but whimsy doesn’t pay the electric bill. It’s a trap, Amelia.”
She should have listened.
Ten minutes later, Amelia had walked into the bathroom to find Tyrone duct-taped to the door frame about three feet off the ground.
“We used all the packing tape!” Elvis had announced proudly. “Seeing how much tape would be equal to a web-ball…turns out more than you had.”
“My boxes!” Amelia had shrieked. “I need that tape for my boxes!”
Then there was Wilson Firestone. He had insisted on fixing a loose outlet cover to “help” get the deposit back. Instead, he’d pried open a paint can to touch up the wall, inhaled the fumes in the unventilated room, and started hallucinating that the outlet was a pig trying to push through the wall. The landlord had to drag him out by his ankles.
But the worst part was arriving at the new place.
Amelia had walked into Tyrone and Elvis’ apartment, exhausted, holding her last box of books. She walked to the second bedroom—the one promised to her.
It was gone.
In its place was a cardboard-and-sheet construction labeled PHANTASEA LAND.
“Where is my room?” Amelia had asked, her voice trembling.
“This is Phantasea Land!” Tyrone beamed. “It’s an ocean of possibility and a place where your fantasy’s come true!”
“Okay, but where do I sleep?”
Elvis pointed to a blanket fort in the living room. “We made you a blanket fort. It has a lantern.”
She had stormed out, crying in the hallway until they chased her down. They eventually compromised – giving her the bedroom and moving themselves into the blanket fort – but the emotional damage left its mark.
And through it all, Chase had been missing.
“I’m sick,” he’d texted. “Fever. Contagious. Dying.”
Later that night, Dean Starmer tweeted a video. It was Chase, perfectly healthy, standing in front of a green screen at the mall, reluctantly singing “It’s My Life” while the Dean danced around him in a Jack Sparrow costume. The Dean had blackmailed him into a “bonding day.”
“I was a hostage,” Chase said now, raising his hands in defense. “Dean Starmer threatened to expose my fake independent study. I had to sing Bon Jovi, Amelia. Do you know what that does to a man’s dignity?”
“You left me with Wilson while he was fighting a wall outlet,” Amelia said, poking him in the chest. “If we move in together, you are lifting the heavy boxes. No fake flus. No karaoke side-quests.”
“I promise,” Chase said, catching her hand and kissing the knuckles. “I’ll even tape the boxes myself. No Spiderman inspired antics.”
She laughed, the memory fading into the safety of the sunny apartment. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s do a fusion.”
“Good,” Chase said. “Because I’m really going to need my shirt from you from time to time.”
He reached for the remote to turn on some background noise, feeling better than he had in weeks. They had a plan.
“Maybe we can find a documentary about… I don’t know, otter” he said, grinning at her.
They had a lease. They had a future.
He clicked the TV on.
The smile slid off his face instantly.
On the screen, a press conference was unfolding. The banner at the bottom read: DEATH PENALTY ABOLISHED: A NEW ERA OF JUSTICE.
And standing at the podium, looking like a man selling the apocalypse with a smile, was a guy Chase didn’t recognize.
The chyron on screen said ‘Grey Elwin. He spoke.
“We don’t believe in ending life,”
“We believe in sustaining it. Responsibly.”
Behind him, a digital rendering appeared. A black cube. A chain.
“Introducing the El Viento Altruistic Prison System. The EVAPS. Punishment doesn’t need death. It just needs… permanence.”
Amelia shivered, wrapping her hands around her mug. “That is the creepiest thing I have ever seen.”
“It’s brilliant,” Chase muttered, horrified. “They lobby to ban the death penalty so they can monopolize the alternative. It’s not humanitarianism; it’s a subscription model for life without parole.”
On screen, Grey was explaining the protocols.
“Protocol Alpha,” Grey said smoothly. “Familial maintenance. The inmate is confined to a secure, unbreakable cell on private property. Their loved ones pay for their care. A chance to live out their lives in quiet dignity.”
“And Protocol Beta,” Grey continued, his tone smoothing into something almost instructional. “For cases without a viable support network. The individual is assigned to an off-grid containment zone designed to promote self-sufficiency and behavioral stabilization.”
A schematic replaced the cube: a vast stretch of forest rendered in reassuring greens, a single black anchor icon at its center.
“In partnership with federal wilderness conservation initiatives, these zones remain secure, remote, and ecologically balanced. The tether system ensures perimeter compliance while allowing the subject freedom of movement within a defined radius.”
Grey smiled faintly. “It’s not confinement. It’s security for the civilized.”
Chase stared at the screen, the shape of it finally clicking into place. “Wilderness abandonment,” he said quietly. “They’re bringing back exile.”
Amelia shook her head; eyes fixed on the chain graphic tightening around an ankle. “No,” she said. “They’re bringing back slavery. You don’t call it freedom when the leash weighs three tons.”
The camera cut to the crowd. Applause. It was polite, terrified applause.
Chase muted the TV. The silence rushed back in, but it felt heavier now.
“Okay,” Chase said, trying to force a lightness he didn’t feel. “Hypothetical. I snap. I become a menace to society. Which protocol do I get?”
Amelia looked at him over the rim of her mug. “Protocol Alpha. Obviously.”
“Really? You’d pay to keep a 10×10 cube of me in your backyard?”
“I’d put plants on it,” she said deadpan. “Maybe a bird feeder. You’d make a very cute pet, Wright. I’d feed you harmony scones through the doorway.”
Chase laughed, but it was thin. “I’m touched. Truly.”
“What about me?” Amelia asked. “If I turn evil?”
Chase looked at her. “Protocol Beta. Immediately.”
She gasped, swatting his arm. “You’d drop me in the woods?”
“With a three-ton weight? Absolutely. You’re resourceful. You’d probably domesticate the local bears and have them hunting in packs for you by Tuesday. You’d be running a forest empire like some Disney princess.”
She laughed, but the sound faded quickly as she looked back at the frozen image of the black cube on the TV.
“They own everything, don’t they?” she whispered. “The courts. The clinics. And now… the prisons.”
Chase didn’t answer. His phone buzzed on the table.
He glanced at it. A notification from the firm’s accounting department.
Subject: URGENT – Billing Freeze. Effective immediately, all discretionary accounts are locked pending an external audit by El Viento Financial Services.
He looked at Amelia. She was looking at her own phone, her face pale.
“Chase,” she said quietly. “My manager just texted. The new owners… They’re cutting hours. By forty percent.”
Chase felt the air leave the room.
The joke about the cage wasn’t funny anymore.
“Cages aren’t just places bad people are thrown in, Ames,” Chase said, his voice low.
He looked at the TV, where the El Viento logo spun in shiny, high-definition gold.
“Sometimes, the cage is the only shelter available.”
Amelia looked at her phone, the one with the bad news, and then at Chase’s phone.