The apartment wasn't built for four human beings, let alone three who could pass for moving vans in hoodies. Ceiling fan humming at a frequency that said please be kind, walls the color of rental agreements, air warmed by the last of the day's heat and Carmen's cookies—that's what we had. Alpha-01 took his usual post at the door, arms folded, attention pinned to the hall like a quiet promise. Alpha-02 stood by the window in his three-step offset, the cadence of his breath matching the traffic below. I sank into the futon's best impression of a couch and called up the system.
The HUD slid into place: clean, blue, precise.
Points: 3,000
Spartan-II Training Overlay (complete): 1,500
Summon Spartan-II (baseline clone): 500
My hands rubbed together of their own accord. Not greed—anticipation. Progression systems don't hand you joy; they hand you options. "Time to play Santa," I said, glancing at Alpha-02. "You waited patiently. You get the full Spartan-II package."
His posture sharpened like a lens tightening its focus. "Acknowledged."
System, purchase Spartan-II training for Alpha-02.
Ding.
Light moved over him—not a flash, not a sci-fi beam, more a veil that made the air decide it was part of a blueprint. His stance never wavered—Spartans don't sway—but his shoulders went tight as the overlay threaded itself in: neural-muscular optimization, bone density protocols (simulated adaptation), fire discipline in civilian environments, first aid (EMT-B), restraint escalation ladder, tactical doctrine (urban), legal/ethical framework with civilian priority highlighted like a law school case note. There was no pain—the system doesn't trade in that currency—but there was weight. The way a bridge feels heavier when it learns how much it can hold.
When the light finished, he exhaled once, deliberate. His eyes held a new edge, subtle as a honed knife. The room felt his gravity shift.
"And there it is," I said, unable not to grin. "Congratulations, soldier. Welcome to the big leagues."
"Understood," he said. A beat. Then, the admission for himself as much as me: "I feel stronger."
"You are," I said. "Now you can keep up with your brother—though he will never admit he needed the competition."
Alpha-01 did not react. If you hadn't been watching him for days you wouldn't have seen the micro-tightening of his jaw, or the way his hands found an easier balance—pride that disguised itself as posture.
"Leaves us with fifteen hundred," I said, flipping open Summon. "Let's put a bow on this. System, purchase one clone. Designation: Alpha-03."
Ding.
Blue gathered itself and found a man. He stepped free of nothing like he'd been waiting just offstage for his cue—same height, same athletic geometry, same buzzed hair. He blinked once, the way people do when they're landing inside a body that the world now insists is theirs.
"Commander."
"Welcome to the family, Alpha-03," I said, warmth riding on top of a thread of awe I refused to pretend wasn't there. "Youngest means hazing. I'll keep it mostly harmless."
"Acknowledged."
"You'll find I'm hilarious," I informed him. "We'll work through your skepticism."
"Understood," he said, which somehow sounded like I'll assess your data and get back to you.
Alpha-02 took half a step forward, not quite in front of him—mentor position rather than shield. "I will assist acclimation," he offered.
"I will accept instruction," Alpha-03 replied. His voice was crisper than 02's, a hair brighter. Micro-trait: he shifted his balance from the balls of his feet to full foot before initiating motion—a sprinter's tell. Filed.
The HUD ticked.
Points: 3,000 → −1,500 (Training-02) → −500 (Summon-03) = 1,000
"Not enough to train you yet," I told Alpha-03. "Overlay runs fifteen hundred. We're five hundred shy. Consider this your kiddie pool. We'll get you your sea legs soon."
He nodded, no disappointment in it. Patience looked good on him.
The room suddenly had corners I hadn't noticed before. Four men fill space differently than two. The air moved around shoulders, around breath, around intent. Claustrophobia didn't bother me. Responsibility did, sometimes, the way a well-fitted jacket can feel heavy if you mistake it for a burden instead of a choice.
"Neighborhood watch is working," I said, rubbing at the small burn on my forearm that the grease fire had kissed into existence, letting it remind me that the cost column is part of the ledger. "But points come too slow when we're just fixing hinges and scaring teenagers away from bullying. Good for goodwill; bad for scaling. We need a bigger board."
"Recommendation," Alpha-01 prompted. He trusts plans. Plans trust him back.
"Glad you asked." I stood, because plans feel better when they have legs under them. "It just so happens I know where the sky is about to drop a plot anchor. New Mexico."
Alpha-02 tilted his head a degree. The breath cadence accelerated two beats. "Reason?"
"Because a certain blonde man with a hammer is about to take a vacation there," I said, and it was difficult not to enjoy the sentence. "Thor Odinson. Prince of Asgard. Big muscles, bigger ego, currently pending disciplinary action by management. Daddy Odin is going to strip his powers and throw him earthward. He lands a human with a target on his back."
Alpha-03 accepted it as mission parameter, not mythology. "Objective?"
"We help him," I said simply. "We do the thing we do: keep civilians safe, keep the man alive, keep the mess under control. The system likes it when we help named characters—especially the ones who nudge history. Saving Thor from a bad day could be worth a mountain of points. Maybe enough to finish your training, rookie, and have change left over for screws and pizza."
"Acknowledged," Alpha-03 said. Not an ounce of starstruck. Good. Gods are still people when they bleed.
I dragged the ancient laptop onto the coffee table. It booted like it had a complicated relationship with life. The fan inside whined about obligations; pixels organized themselves reluctantly. I hummed softly while the login screen tried to remember who we were.
"All right, gentlemen," I said, "time to buy airplane."
Alpha-01 repeated it without inflection. "Flight."
"Commercial," I said. "Economy builds character. We are not billionaires. Stark doesn't know my name. Yet."
"Exposure risk," Alpha-02 noted. "Three large men traveling together. Pattern."
"Mitigations," I said, counting them off on my fingers. "Hoodies down. Baseball caps. We don't cluster in the terminal. We stagger boarding. On the plane, we look like brothers on a work trip. If anyone stares, we practice the superpower you both love: silence. If they push, we glare and go back to our pretzels."
"Glare acknowledged," Alpha-03 said, deadpan.
"Look at that," I said, delighted. "He's already onboarding the culture."
It took longer than it should have to buy the tickets. The laptop wasn't built for speed; neither was the airline website. The system did a quiet flex under the hood—Commander override on funding small-scale logistics—so my debit card didn't spontaneously combust. Four one-ways to Albuquerque, landing early morning. We'd rent something with ground clearance and unfriendly tires and point it at Puente Antiguo—the kind of town that looks like a movie set and is about to be treated like one.
"Done," I said, and leaned back. The futon squeaked its disapproval and then forgave me. "Tomorrow morning, we leave this beautiful shoebox and go stand near a god."
"What are Thor Odinson's capabilities without his power?" Alpha-01 asked, because tactics are anatomy plus context.
"Still tough," I said. "Centuries of fighting don't fall off just because father issues do. He's a brawler with instincts that won't turn off. But he's vulnerable. S.H.I.E.L.D. will scoop him up. People will poke at him. Pride will write checks that human bones can't cash. He'll get tangled. We cut tangles."
"Assist Thor. Gain points," Alpha-02 summarized, then caught himself and added: "Assist Thor to protect people."
I clapped him on the shoulder. "There it is. The ethics DLC is installing nicely."
"What if S.H.I.E.L.D. interferes?" Alpha-03 asked. Not fear—logistics.
"Then we smile," I said. "We play useful. Nick Fury is sharp; Phil Coulson is sharper in a polite way that can cut bone. We don't lie when we don't have to. We don't push unless a life depends on it. We bring daylight where we can. If helping Thor puts us on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s good side, that's gravy. If it puts us on a list, we make sure the line items next to our names read: non-lethal, civilian-first, keeps receipts."
They moved through light stretches, frictionless, the way men do when movement is both ritual and reassurance. The room filled with the kind of quiet you get before departure—an old animal's silence.
"Packing list," I said, because packing is how you tell your brain you intend to survive. "New Mexico is desert. Heat that doesn't respect your opinion. Sun that bites. Dust everywhere. We need: hats, sunglasses, sunscreen, electrolyte packets, chapstick, water—we'll buy cases there. First aid kits. Zip ties, duct tape, paracord, flashlights, battery banks, burner phones. No knives in carry-on unless you want to be very popular with the TSA."
Alpha-01: "We can check a bag."
"Yeah," I said. "But anything sharp in a checked duffel reads differently post-9/11 than it did in my last life. We keep it boring. Multi-tool without a blade? Maybe. Better plan: pack minimal; buy hardware locally. Support the New Mexico economy and avoid awkward conversations with people who wear plastic gloves and have a complicated relationship with my face."
"Understood," Alpha-01 said. He likes rules that have reasons.
"Cover story?" Alpha-02 asked, practical.
"We're installers," I said promptly. "Solar. Out in New Mexico for a short contract. Alternately: amateur astronomers chasing an anomaly. Even better: storm chasers. The skies out there love drama, and people assume weird equipment means weather, not mischief."
"Which one?" Alpha-03 asked.
"All three, depending on who asks," I said. "And we keep paper: a cheap clipboard with a fake work order; a print-out of a weather pattern; a star chart from the library. A lie sounds better when it wears stationery."
They nodded like men logging a route and its alternates.
"And before we go," I added, "we don't leave Hell's Kitchen without shoring it up. We don't make messes; we don't abandon our corners."
The next two hours became a goodbye tour that refused to call itself that.
Mr. Patel got a second camera installed, this one outside, aimed toward the corner where men like to do business they don't want on tape. I mounted it with a wedge and two concrete screws, did double cable management because I like clean lines, and handed Patel a sheet: steps to download, steps to share, steps to call the clinic. "If they come back," I said, "you're not alone."
He looked at the paper like it was a raft. "You're leaving?"
"Short trip," I said. "Urgent hinge repair in… Albuquerque."
"You will return."
"Count on it." I tapped the sheet. "Meanwhile, you call Carmen if you need us, and you call that clinic if anyone says the word schedule at you again."
He nodded, twice. "Thank you."
Mae at the diner slid coffee across the counter with a look that said she could smell out-of-state on me. "You boys look like men who are about to make poor decisions in a desert," she observed.
"We're packing sunscreen," I said. "And responsibility."
"Tell responsibility to tip better than you do," she said, and pointed at a pie I could tell, just by looking, would taste like advice. I left a tip that made my wallet wince and my ethics purr.
Carmen intercepted us in the hall with a plastic bag of food and moral authority wrapped in a cardigan. "You come back with the same number of bones you left with," she said, poking my sternum with a finger that has bullied worse men into good behavior. "And don't bring strangers who think they own the building."
"We bring souvenirs," I promised. "Chiles. Stories. No trouble."
She narrowed her eyes. "You are trouble," she said affectionately. "You just learned to wear a tie."
Mia from upstairs pressed a small Saint Florian medal into my palm—the patron of firefighters, the kind of city superstition that pretends it isn't prayer. "For the stove," she said, embarrassed by gratitude. "In case you find another one."
"I'll try not to," I said. "But thank you." I tucked it into my wallet, next to a library card I'd never return and a folded napkin with LINES written on it.
Back in the apartment, we made a pile of the allowed: hats (baseball caps, one trucker for camouflage), sunglasses (cheap; no one trusts a man in expensive shades), sunscreen (SPF 50 that smelled like coconut and regret), electrolyte packets, chapstick, two first aid kits (one car, one pack), three battery banks, a coil of paracord, a roll of gaffer's tape (sticks better than duct tape when the sun is mad), three flashlights (AA, because you can buy those anywhere), and a cheap EMT shears that the TSA would forgive if it had a nice day. We added burner phones and wrote the cover names on sticky notes because lies are easier when even your pockets cooperate: Shane Harper (me), Alex Harper (Alpha-01), Aaron Harper (Alpha-02), Avery Harper (Alpha-03). Harper sounded like a man who installs solar and doesn't own red leather.
"Roles," I said, because division of labor is the difference between team and crowd. "Alpha-01: tactical lead. You set the outer perimeter and keep the line. Alpha-02: medic/engineering. If something breaks, you fix it. If someone bleeds, you stop it. Alpha-03: logistics/recon. You get us places and keep us fed. You're also our liaison for civilians—if someone needs a friendly face who isn't terrifying, that's your job."
"Why me?" Alpha-03 asked, not offended. Curious.
"Because you have the sprinter's ready-set energy instead of the statue's gravitas," I said. "People talk to energy when they're scared."
He considered that, then nodded once. "Copy."
"Comms," I said. "We're not going to wear radios to a Denny's. Code phrases. If I say, 'The weather looks bad,' that means eyes up—S.H.I.E.L.D. proximity, potential surveillance. If I ask, 'How's the slice?' I'm talking threat level: pepperoni means low, sausage means medium, anchovy means bad idea."
"Anchovy," Alpha-02 repeated with a faint grimace that I chose to interpret as personality.
"Check-ins every two hours unless we're in motion," I added. "If we separate, we don't go out of sight without telling someone. If Coulson shows up and says please come along nicely, we do—provided the room they're offering doesn't have a drain in the middle of the floor."
"Understood," Alpha-01 said. He, too, appreciates drain awareness.
I tossed a couple of paperbacks into the duffel because airports make readers of all men if you let them. I added a spiral notebook and a sharpie because there's something obscene about going to a desert without paper. I wrote LINES on the inside cover again, thick, dark:
We do not escalate when a flex will do.
We do not make messes we expect other people to clean.
We do not turn people into point drops.
We do not show up where cameras want us; we show up where people need us.
We pick our battles—and sometimes the battle is a parking ticket.
We protect the timeline only insofar as it protects people.
We treat Spartans as people. (If I forget, they remind me.)
"Say them back," I said. Alpha-01 did, crisp. Alpha-02 followed, cadence smooth. Alpha-03 took his time and made each sentence a promise he understood before he let it out of his mouth.
The system hummed like approval without applause.
Training (Alpha-02): 4% → 9% (overlay integrating)
Training (Alpha-01): 14% → 15% (ongoing)
Training (Alpha-03): 0% (baseline optimization initializing)
Advisory: Long-distance travel increases pattern risk; reduce local presence → shift heat.
Advisory:S.H.I.E.L.D. background awareness +0.03. Maintain variance.
I checked my burn again—pink, petulant, harmless—and let it stand for the cost column so the points didn't feel like permission. I've met men who mistake the scoreboard for a soul. I'm trying not to be one.
"Housekeeping," I said. "We need eyes on Hell's Kitchen while we're gone, which means humans and hardware. Alpha-03, run two more cameras to Mrs. Fong and the bodega on Tenth. Alpha-02, print the camera manuals and teach two people how to use them like you're explaining a toaster. Alpha-01, walk the block one last time. If anything feels off, we fix it before we get on a plane."
They moved. It felt like sending astronauts and plumbers at the same time.
While they worked, I sat with the notebook and tried not to turn Thor into a loot drop. It's a bad habit—the system whispers multipliers, and your brain, the same one that loves a sale at a hardware store, starts doing math on people. Thor isn't a bonus. He's a man who's about to get humiliated in front of his family, and if he lives long enough to laugh about it later, it'll be because the people in his radius treated him like a person and not a quest marker.
Name the dangers so you see them: S.H.I.E.L.D. wanting to fold us into a box and stick a label on us. Fisk noticing our absence and applying pressure while we're gone. Public spectacle tempting my stupid show-off reflex. Mjölnir becoming a crowd magnet in the desert and turning a perimeter into chaos. Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis and Erik Selvig doing science that doesn't need my interference, only my protection if the world gets rough.
The door clicked. Alpha-01 returned from the walkabout. "Block is quiet," he reported. "Patrol car at Eleventh. No tails."
"Good," I said. "If you ever think we have one, remember one of my favorite hobbies from my last life: losing salespeople in big box stores. We change aisles without pattern and make them find us the hard way."
He didn't smile, but he took the lesson and wrote it somewhere deep.
Alpha-02 laid two printed manuals on the table, neatly stapled, tabs on the margins. Micro-trait: he taps the stapler twice after he uses it. He handed one to Alpha-03, who ran the cameras to Mrs. Fong with a steady haste that made me think we could trust him with schedules.
By the time night polished the windows, our little empire of screws and favors was in as much order as we could make it. I texted the clinic number—*Wednesday check-in, Mr. Patel (extortion case)—and got a terse "Received" with no emoji. I took that as faith.
We ate Carmen's food—rice and beans that tasted like someone loved you through a stovetop—and let our bodies remember that fuel is how you show gratitude to muscle. Alpha-03 aligned the dish rack with the counter's edge and tapped it twice. Alpha-02 hummed his three-note line under his breath without realizing he was doing it. Alpha-01 took the door again and let the building know we were leaving but not gone.
"Question," I said, twirling a pen, because interiority doesn't show up unless you invite it. "How do you feel about flying?"
Alpha-01: "I prefer trains. More exits."
Alpha-02: "Unfamiliar. Acceptable. I will learn safety procedures."
Alpha-03: "Window seat."
I blinked. Then laughed. "Look at you—preference."
He tilted his head, as if surprised he'd said it out loud. "Sky is good," he offered.
"Sky is good," I agreed. "You can have the window."
We checked the duffel twice, then a third time because forgetting feels like a moral failing when the trip is important. Burners charged. Notebook in. Pens. Cash. Two baseball caps (Mets and Yankees—neutral choices in some wars, provocations in others). Chapstick again, because deserts eat mouths.
On the futon, staring at the ceiling cracks that looked less like continents tonight and more like routes, I pulled up the system one last time.
Points: 1,000
Spartan-II Training: 1,500
Summon Spartan-II: 500
Advisory: Upcoming Story Anchor: Mjölnir impact / Puente Antiguo.
Advisory: High-value named characters likely present: Thor, Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, Erik Selvig, Phil Coulson.
Advisory: Ethical multiplier increased when scientific work is preserved from disruption or appropriation.
I let that last line settle in. I know S.H.I.E.L.D.. They file the world into shelves and call it protection. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's theft with a badge. Jane is going to find something that belongs to science and to Thor. Our job isn't to own it. It's to defend the work while it sits in the path of power.
I closed the HUD and the notebook and my eyes in that order. The building shifted in its sleep. Alpha-01 watched the hall like time owed him rent. Alpha-02 stood in the window, three-note hum barely there, desert already rehearsing in his chest. Alpha-03 checked the locks in a pattern he'd learned ten minutes ago and would execute forever unless I told him otherwise.
"You do not appear displeased," Alpha-01 said into the near-dark, voice only loud enough to reach me without crossing the room.
"You're right," I said, turning the Saint Florian medal over under my thumb. "This is the most fun I've ever had."
I meant it. Joy is a cost, too—you pay for it with responsibility. You pay for it by writing rules on napkins and meaning them when the world invites you to cheat.
"Tomorrow," I said to the ceiling, to the fan, to three men who could lift my life and carry it, "we babysit a god."
Alpha-02: "We assist a person."
"Right," I said, smiling into my pillow. "We assist a person."
Sleep found me quickly, because intent sleeps better than adrenaline. The city breathed. The fan settled into a pleasant purr. Somewhere a Yankees game in the next apartment over narrated someone's dream. Matt Murdock lay awake two neighborhoods away and listened to the city's newest rumors knot themselves around our silhouettes. Peter Parker forgot to set his alarm and would still wake up exactly on time. Wilson Fisk approved a budget line that would make someone else's night much worse next week. Phil Coulson set a file labeled ALBUQUERQUE—UNUSUAL METEOROLOGICAL on top of a neat stack and went home in a suit that didn't sweat.
We were packed for gods.
And for people.