Chapter 30: Two More Brothers
The Alpha Complex woke me before my alarm ever could. It wasn't the skyline or the sunlight—New York's glow can scald or sulk depending on the day—but the sound of a building learning the tempo of nine soldiers. The first basement spoke in iron: plates kissing sleeves, bars settling into rattling rests, a steady clink that said work is prayer. Two floors below, the range answered with measured punctuation: pop, pop, pause—discipline measured in groups the size of a quarter. The scent came up the stairwell with the noise—coffee, gun oil, and a skillet film of fried eggs that somehow migrated from the lobby hot plate to the top floor.
I yawned my way down the stairs with a mug, bare feet slapping cement. "Morning, machines," I called into the hum. "Your favorite human has arrived."
Alpha-05 glanced up from a squat rack where he was scripting 09 through depth and control. 05 has a coach's patience; he marks increments the way metronomes do—and-2-and-3. "Commander."
On the mat, Alpha-07 ground out push-ups with Alpha-04's boot a polite weight between his shoulder blades. Sweat mapped clean lines down 07's face, not an ounce wasted on drama. He didn't look up. 04 watched the elbow angles like sin.
"Dedication," I said, smirking. "Somebody remind me never to arm-wrestle you."
No one volunteered; I took that as agreement.
I made a lazy circle through our daybreak ritual. 04 has a disease where he aligns anything that can be aligned—mats at perfect right angles, tape rolls facing out like saluting buttons. 05 clicks his tongue once at the beginning of a set and never again—a downbeat nobody misses. Alpha-08, who should have been a librarian in a kinder universe, polices the brass on the range into neat lines between strings—three and three and three—like he's teaching the floor to count. Alpha-09, newest of the rookies, keeps his chin tucked too tight until 05 taps it up with a knuckle; 09's a carbon-copy of a carbon-copy until you make him choose, and then you see a preference: left-foot lead even when he thinks he's right-dominant. I store that away. Preferences become tactics.
After a lap with my mug and a few complimentary heckles, I clapped and leaned on a rack. "Plan time. We're splitting the difference today. Veterans and a freshly minted Spartan go earn us some good will and better points. The rest of you stay here and let 04 and 05 turn the rookies into something nobody wants to fight. Split focus, double progress."
Alpha-01 stepped out of nowhere like he'd been having a conversation with the wall and won. "Assignment." 01 has a ritual of tapping two fingers against a frame whenever he changes rooms. Doorways keep secrets; he greets them all.
"01, 02, 03—you're out. Midtown to the river, light on your feet, heavy on your judgment. Take 06 with you for road time."
06 straightened like a bell had rung only he could hear. Yesterday's glow still clung to him—fresh Spartan-II polish, the edges sanded to performance.
"04, 05—you're my drill sergeants. 07, 08, 09—congratulations, you're today's victims. Expect clarity. Also pain."
They nodded in unison. 09 looked a hair stiff. Adorable.
"And me?" I sipped and made a show of stretching like I had hamstrings left. "Floating—the usual: some training, some oversight, all comedy relief. Everyone wins."
They moved like a watch opening—springs uncoiling into their lanes. 01, 02, 03, 06 took the garage stairs in a double-time that barely bruised the air. 04 and 05 gathered the rookies with a glance: mat, rack, ear protection—now. Watching them split always feels like sending kids to school—you trust the work you put in yesterday to keep them from being foolish today.
"Begin," 04 said, and circled 07 like a hawk choosing where to land. Guard up. Strike. Reset. Faster. No shoulders. He didn't need to bark; his silence does the disciplining.
Sweat pooled under 07 by the sixth circuit. His fists hit the pads with an honest meat-and-bone thud, each time a centimeter more correct than the last. Across the room 05 slid 09 under a barbell and set his hands one finger-width narrower than instinct. "Steady. Controlled. Hips under. Don't romance the negative." The bar moved like a metronome, clean on the way up, on purpose on the way down. On the range, 08 widened his stance under 04's narrowed eye and turned paper into lace. He policed his own brass like a compulsion, and 04 let him—habits that clean up after themselves are the cheapest to keep.
I couldn't help myself; heckling is cardio. "07, are you swatting flies or hitting a man? Find some indignation, please. 09, careful—dent the floor with that bar and you're patching concrete with your teeth. 08, try for the target, not the decorative border."
I got the silence I deserved—unbothered, every word. Beautiful.
By mid-morning I did a lap on street level, not because they needed me (they didn't) but because New York is a better teacher than any coach and I like to see my men learn in the wild.
Alpha-02 has a tell nobody sees: he adjusts his watchband when he's about to shift from observe to act. I watched him do it from half a block away as a man with wallet intentions angled toward a mother juggling a stroller, iced coffee, and the impossible physics of toddler negotiations. 02 didn't hurry; he arrived. Two fingers around a wrist, a pivot, a handoff to 01 who was suddenly there to be gravity. The whole move took as long as it takes to think huh? The woman said "thank you" in a breathless language I don't speak and 02 gave her the exact nod that says you were always safe even when you weren't. That nod is public service.
Alpha-03 handled doorways like colleagues. I trailed him through a bodega dispute—voices high, hands low, escalation flirting with the idea of becoming work—and watched him transit the threshold without triggering the wrong animals in the human brain. Palms visible, chin neutral, weight on the balls of the feet. He breathed four in, four out—box breathing turned into moving prayer—and the shop owner's shoulders lost the urge to point at the ceiling. 03 didn't say much. He took space until everyone else's space felt larger. When words finally came, they were ordinary: "We all want to leave this room proud." Which is magic disguised as common sense.
Alpha-06 almost ruined my day by being the kind of story heroes get their backs broken writing. A plastic-bag robbery—sweet summer child thought a deli till and a pocketknife was a plan—soured fast when 06 rounded the aisle and filled the thief's world with no. The kid's hands trembled; the knife flashed idiot-bright. 06 didn't crush; he reframed. Weight shifted to the left, shoulder low, a knee not exploding a kneecap but erasing the angle that made the knife dangerous. The blade clattered and 06 put a hand gently on the kid's shoulder—human contact softer than it needed to be—and said, "Hey. Not today." The deli owner handed me a box of cannoli like his grandmother had baked it five minutes ago. I let 06 take one. Rewards matter.
By noon, my phone buzzed—Coulson. Text only. Everything we've seen stays this clean and I sleep on a Sunday for the first time in a decade. – P.
I sent him an emoji I maintain is a thumbs-up even though he reads it as trouble brewing. Boundaries are important.
When the patrol element returned to the garage just after one, they were flanked by a parade of zip-tied mistakes—three thieves, a pair of men who believed a crowbar is a skeleton key, and one tourist mugger whose day had gone extraordinarily not according to plan. The loot—two bags, one backpack, a handful of watches that desperately wanted to be real—landed on a workbench with the soft thuds of consequences. 01 led the line with the same calm that starts storms and ends them.
I clapped slowly. "Gorgeous. NYPD's going to start sending us Christmas cards."
"Patrol complete," 06 reported, voice cleaner, edges lined up. He's finding cadence. Cadence builds trust.
"Not bad for your first full day as a full Spartan," I said. "Didn't even trip over your boots."
No reaction, of course. But 02 gave him a single nod. From 02, that's a standing ovation.
The System kissed the back of my skull with a pleasant tone.
Ding.
Points earned: 1,000.
Reason: Multiple captures, assists, de-escalations (citywide).
Public sentiment (local): Warming.
Risk (Legal/PR): Steady. Maintain door etiquette. #NineInTheCity trending at low heat.
"Music to my ears," I said, and tucked hands in pockets because if you don't act casual about cosmic slot machines, they get shy.
We regrouped in the first basement—the place we lace reward to work.
The blue overlay settled in my vision when I called it.
Points available: 1,000
Spartan clone: 500
Spartan-II training: 1,500
I rubbed my hands until friction almost bought me a second coffee. "Two-for-one special. System: summon new clones, designations Alpha-10 and Alpha-11."
Blue light outshone the fluorescents, clean as a weld bead. It coalesced the way a thought becomes a plan. I don't pretend it's normal—making people—but this world does not reward small tools. The light thinned, then cleared, and two new towers of potential stood at attention—raw stance, clear eyes, a breath held by a choir.
They saluted together. "Commander."
There's a beat I never skip. The joke armor slips—just a fraction—and something like gravity tugs. I am many things—liar, choir director, problem with good hair—but I am also responsible for the people I make.
"Welcome to the family," I said, letting warmth live in the sentence like heat under steel. "You're Ten and Eleven. You'll be terrifying in no time."
Their faces didn't change, not really; it takes weeks for quirks to choose a home. But 10's left foot was already a half-inch forward, ready to drift. 11 hummed a single note he probably didn't notice—barely audible, a tuning fork in human shape. There it is: micro-traits announcing themselves like shy neighbors.
I pointed across the mat. "Ten goes with 05; Eleven with 03."
05 inclines, the patience of a metronome. "Acknowledged."
03's nod is shorter, a line drawn with a pen that never smudges. "Confirmed."
"Reasons matter," I added—for me more than them. "05's a builder. He won't sand skin off just to smooth wood. 03's a sharpener. He'll teach you how to cut without bleeding."
They stuck to their mentors like magnets. Adorable. Terrifying. Both can be true.
We folded 10 and 11 into the afternoon carousel. 07 boxed until his knuckles took on that proud strawberry that says I met a pad and took nothing from it. 08 chewed through magazines until the paper on his lane looked like someone had taught snow to peel. 09 lifted until gravity had to invent a rule to accommodate him. 10's footwork betrayed his left-lane bias; 05 didn't fight it—he trained the drift into a tactic, teaching him how to trap an opponent's lead step. 11's hum returned between rounds; 03 turned it into breath work—four counts on the tone in, hold, four counts out, hold—until 11's shoulders learned how to lower on command.
Between sets, I floated. Alpha-04 corrected 07 with a thumb to the hip rather than a word and 07's guard stopped chasing his own elbows. Alpha-05 redirected 09's bar speed with nothing but eye contact and somehow gravity listened. On the range, 08 took a half-second extra on his first shot each string and shaved a quarter-inch off his last three. Yes, I saw. I see all my people when they're working. It's my favorite vice.
We called a break and I passed bottles like communion. "Not bad, rookies. You're still rough enough to scrape your commander if he hugs you, but sharper than yesterday. Keep going and you'll embarrass me less in public."
Alpha-04 looked at me. "Commander requires conditioning."
"Oh, I'll keep myself alive," I said. "You machines handle the heavy lifting. I'm the charming one."
04 stared.
"Okay, I'm the loud one."
05 deadpanned: "Correct."
The afternoon brought a small complication, because the universe gets itchy if you're having too good a day.
Two floors up, near the stairwell, a city inspector in a jacket the color of compliance stood braced against a clipboard. A neighbor—second floor, Mrs. Hernandez, who waters her plants like they owe her interest—had called to "just make sure the fitness center doesn't collapse in on itself." Her delivery of empanadas the night before suggested she wanted us here more than not. People are complicated; I love that.
"Good afternoon," the inspector said. He made it almost friendly. "I need to talk fire code, occupancy, and sound levels."
"Great!" I said, because telling the truth quickly looks like confidence. "Basements are split—one gym, one range. We have ventilation, sound baffles on order, and a noise plan. Occupancy rotating, not stacked. We're not running a nightclub; we're running discipline."
He blinked at discipline, which is not a word buildings usually claim. I guided him through anyway. 04 ensured mats were state-of-the-art and placed like we'd read the manual (we did). 05 produced a log sheet of rotations that looked bureaucratically delicious. 08 showed the brass buckets and a posted ROE placard that said no live fire during quiet hours; no unsupervised shooters; ear protection mandatory; no exceptions; no funnies. The inspector made notes with the intensity of a man who saw his own reflection in a clipboard.
"Your neighbors will want assurances," he said finally.
"We'll host an open-house," I said. "Cookies. Tours. Promise we're not a cult."
He almost smiled. "You have permits for the range?"
"We have lawyers," I said. "They like permits. They collect them."
He left with fewer questions than he arrived, which is theft from entropy. S.H.I.E.L.D. would see the report in an hour and send me a thumbs-up in the form of a not text. Coulson likes to communicate via absence of scolding. It's very paternal.
Back on the floor, 07 and 11 ran a mirror drill under 03's eye—one led, one echoed, both learned how to be readable without becoming predictable. 10 worked a corner trap with 05, drifting left on purpose now, turning a flaw into a map. 09 did a finisher set under 04's boot—a tradition, not a punishment—and didn't wobble on the ascent. That matters more than the plate count.
Down the hallway, the elevator dinged and the delivery guy from Slice of Heaven took one look at eleven Spartans in the lobby and ran the last ten steps like a gazelle that respected gravity. He set the stack of pizza boxes on the table and blurted, "No tip necessary!" before I could fish cash from any pocket.
I caught his sleeve gently, laughed. "You survived the approach. That's worth twenty."
He processed that we were human long enough to take the bills, then left fast enough to be a cameo. Fear is a rhythm; I'm learning how to break it into new songs.
We spread dinner like blueprints—slices laid out, soda cans sweating into rings on the table, garlic knots sacrificed to the gods of carbohydrate mercy. Mrs. Hernandez knocked, scolded me for answering without shoes, and shoved a tray of empanadas at my torso. "For your boys," she said, narrowing her eyes at 07 until he took an extra and said "Gracias" with the best diction I've heard him spend. She left muttering about good posture like she'd just adopted a platoon.
I leaned back in a folding chair that didn't deserve its fate and watched eleven soldiers eat like force multipliers. Veterans calm. Rookies ravenous. Alpha-01 by the door as usual, sentinel without making drama of it. Alpha-02 ate as if fuel had an appointment and he was on time. Alpha-03 folded his slice in half with the precision of a symmetry proof. Alpha-04 wiped his hands before touching anything that wasn't disposable because grease is an opponent. Alpha-05 tapped a quarter rhythm on the tabletop before taking the first bite. Alpha-06 placed his plate exactly three inches from the table edge and then forgot to move it. Alpha-07 rolled his right shoulder once and then remembered not to. Alpha-08 stacked the empty boxes into a perfect square and then ruined the perfection by laughing when 09 added one misaligned on purpose—not out of disrespect, but to say we don't break because we're neat; we're neat because we don't break. Alpha-10 drifted left even while sitting, and Alpha-11 hummed that one note under his breath so quietly only 03 and I caught it.
"Two weeks ago," I said, raising a can, "we had one Spartan. Now we have eleven. At this pace, I'll need another building. Also a city permit for admiring ourselves."
"Expansion possible," 01 said, because he thinks out loud to keep me honest.
"Don't tempt me," I said, and meant it.
The System chimed again—not with points, but with a note I hadn't asked for.
Advisory: Public attention curve increasing. NYPD union chatter—neutral to wary. S.H.I.E.L.D. tag: ACTIVE MONITOR.
Recommendation: Community presence events reduce variance.
Suggested action: Open-house (restricted areas closed). Invite: local precinct, neighbors.
"Tomorrow, we'll do cookies," I said into the room, and 05 understood how much that costs me. Sugar diplomacy isn't my brand, but New York keeps receipts. We'll pay some with pastry.
After dinner came cleanup because empires fall on dirty forks: rookies scrubbed, veterans stacked, I stole the last garlic knot and pretended it had an alibi. We taped a new ROE addendum by the range door—no minors detained unless immediate danger; Commander notified immediately—and 04 fussed with the corners until the placard looked like it had always belonged there.
We sorted bunks on four floors: veterans with their own space and quiet and rookies paired with mentors so sleep could learn their names too. 10 and 05 got a room with a view of a brick wall that keeps secrets; 11 and 03 got the corner with a sliver of skyline that makes even insomnia feel generous. 07 gave 08 his pillow because 08 had decided pillows are frivolous and I told him being miserable isn't a virtue. He accepted the logic with the reluctance of a monk considering a couch.
Night pressed its face against the windows and fogged them with city breath. I took the roof and the air that lives above sirens. Manhattan hummed a million deals below: some honest, some desperate, some mostly harmless.
01 drifted up like a rumor and stopped one pace back and left—his spot. The skyline stitched itself shiny; out east, clouds massed over the water like gossip. A helicopter traced a line between midtown towers, and far below, a pair of teenagers laughed inside a hoodie.
"Eleven Spartans, one fortress, and a city that has no idea what hit it," I said to the lights.
"Progress sustained," 01 replied.
He doesn't ask questions out loud, but I answer the ones he would.
"We're going to keep the points consistent," I said softly. "When we can train, we train. When we can't, we grow. We keep it clean. We keep it public. We make the neighbors bring us empanadas because they want us here, not because they're afraid to make it otherwise."
01's eye line didn't move. Watching is his art. "Boundaries."
"Yeah," I said, looking down at my hands and every decision they've signed. "I've got them. Few, but they're mine. We don't kill. We don't kidnap. We don't pretend people are problems just because solving problems is fun. If Fury comes back with that look he wears like the last good coat on Earth, we have answers that don't taste like lies."
A beat. A breeze. Somewhere, a saxophone decided windows were loud enough to be an audience.
"Understood," he said, and tapped a knuckle twice on the roof hatch because doors deserve rituals even when they're horizontal.
My phone buzzed again. A message from an unknown number that wasn't unknown. Nice work with the inspector. Keep it neighborly. — P. Coulson signs like a man who knows you'll delete the text and keep the meaning.
I pocketed it and checked the System out of habit. It hummed obligingly:
Points available: 0
Team: Trained — 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06 | Rookies — 07, 08, 09, 10, 11
Public Sentiment: Warming (Alpha Complex neighborhood)
Risk: Manageable (observe fire code, open-house recommended)
Upcoming: Industry Expo (Stark-adjacent) chatter +2; vigilante rumor density uptick in Hell's Kitchen
"Looks like the city's already planning our next date," I said to 01 and the breeze. "Expo season, rumor season, maybe Stark breathing at Pepper over a show floor that smells like money. And Kitchen heat rising, because Matt never quits."
01 didn't answer. He doesn't do prophecy. He does today so thoroughly tomorrow gets embarrassed.
I finished my can of soda—the kind with bubbles and no vitamins—and watched a window across the way turn from blue to black. Someone went to bed. Someone else went to work. Somewhere, a door closed without anyone hearing it. That's the sound I chase.
Back downstairs, I drifted the floors like a tide: 04 walking 07 through a cooldown with sleeves rolled and exactitude dialed down to human. 05 showing 10 that footwork is dancing minus the arrogance. 03 sitting on the floor with 11, both of them breathing that one note so quietly the range's ventilation fan became percussion. 08 shaping brass into a triangle because circles were boring now. 09 pausing at a window to watch headlights like migrating stars and not pretend he wasn't thinking about the math of crowds. 06 turning a cannoli box into a trash bin target from across the room because sometimes men need to be boys for ten seconds.
"Lights out in twenty," I said to nobody and everybody. "Open-house tomorrow afternoon. If anyone bakes, I'll say nice things about you in public. That is not a threat; it is a promise."
They smiled by not arguing. For Spartans, that's a parade.
In my apartment, I collapsed onto a couch that had forgiven me lesser men and stared at the ceiling crack I'm not ready to fix. The city breathed. My family—yes, family—took up eleven sets of air the way cathedrals do: carefully, like it's a loan to be repaid with interest.
I let the grin in. "Eleven Spartans, one fortress, and me," I said into the quiet. "We're going to make this place better, one zip tie, one doorway, one open-house cookie at a time."
The building settled, iron threaded through concrete. Somewhere above the lobby, 01's footsteps moved once, then stopped. On the range, a single shell casing finally gave up its argument with gravity and lay down.
"Progress sustained," 01 had said.
He was right.
Tomorrow, we'd prove it again.