Fine Print

Posted on Mon Jun 1st, 2026 @ 11:44am by Captain Shepherd & Junior Officer Circe

1,006 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Crossing Styx
Location: The Docks, Zion
Timeline: Date 2226-02-04 at 0730

Underground, where the light doesn’t reach, morning is hard to distinguish from any other time of day. But in Zion, the last human city in existence, a resident could tell based not only on the clock but on the bustle of adults going to their jobs and children scurrying off to school. The activity of the subterranean enclave was a living thing, and her corridors, bridges, and markets were teaming with bodies.

A tall man with a slender, athletic frame and a quiet bearing stepped out into the hall and closed the door to his dwelling. A flurry of eight-year-olds rushed past him, acknowledging him with little more than a glance as they headed to their nearby classrooms. He barely responded to their high-energy movement, falling into a river of people his own age heading to one of the lifts. There weren’t many families on the uppermost living levels — they typically lived in larger dwellings closer to the bottom of the city. Here, it was notably cooler and quieter, and most people were childless married couples or single people like him.

“Good morning, Shepherd,” came the sweet voice of his next-door neighbor. She was a curly-haired woman with fair skin and a plain but intensely genuine smile. She was in her late forties but had a pace and voice that made her seem older.

“Marine,” he said in a low, soft voice, glancing at her as they walked. He didn’t return the smile, but a kindness in his eyes stared back at her in silence. He had a way of communicating nothing but well-meaning thoughtfulness in both the calm and hectic moments of his life. It seemed strange to some that such a peaceful, sober man was considered a radical by many in Zion.

The lifts of the city were massive, open elevators that could hold dozens of people. They moved quickly up and down the length of the cylindrical city, but journeys on them took a while because they stopped several times to let people on or off, and furthermore, the city was 130 levels tall. He entered the lift with a sure step and was packed in with bodies like sardines, skin touching skin; this was the Zion way as much as anything else. After several minutes of movement and stopping along with loud, amiable “good morning’s” and friends and family catching up, the lift finally arrived at its final destination. By that time, it held exclusively military personnel and there was much more room to move around without bumping shoulders.

The Docks were the topmost section of Zion. They served as her gateway and only access point. They were also the headquarters of the military High Command and the Zion Defense Force. It was always bustling with people who had accepted the protection of Zion as the most important and fundamental goal of their lives. As usual, Shepherd felt like an alien among them, engaged in the same work, but with a much different focus.

He stepped off of the lift onto solid metal ground and moved with a sure pace down the main gangway. He had walked these paths as a cadet, a pilot, and a First Mate, but now he walked them as a newly minted captain of his own hovership. He came here daily, taking it upon himself to supervise the build team while he picked his maiden crew. They were to be people after his own mind who shared his goals in particular.

The Styx wasn’t a behemoth like Colossus, the ship where he had served as first mate, but rather was a midsized ship, the thirteenth vessel in the small fleet, and the only ship built new in Zion in the past decade. Of course, she didn’t shimmer or shine, being made of recycled metal, but she didn’t rust either. As he approached the ship on its berth, he raised his head a bit higher. This was his chance to pursue his ultimate goal: total liberation of humanity from the Matrix.

As he stepped onto the ramp that led to the ship itself, he noticed someone there he hadn’t seen before. She was young with dark brown hair, piercing blue eyes, and a very attractive face. Any other man’s eyes would have lingered, but Shepherd only showed a sober curiosity.

“Junior Officer Circe Gunner reporting as ordered,” she said, half a sigh in her voice as she approached him with a paper in her outstretched hand. It was obviously a transfer order, and Sheppard took it without any fanfare.

“Operator on the Styx,” he said, his brow furrowing in a rare display of confusion. “On whose orders?”

“Read the transfer,” she said with more bite than was appropriate, reaching forward and tapping the paper in his hand like he was too stupid to know what she meant. “Orders come directly from Commander Flint.”

Flint. Of course it was Flint. They didn’t see eye eye and they hadn’t since the moment Shepherd was liberated from the Matrix. Their feud was public and well-known to all of Zion. Still, he’d hoped the man wouldn’t have the nerve to do this.

“There’s been a mistake. I was told by the Council I could select my own crew,” he explained, looking down at the paper again hoping it was some kind of error, but knowing it was quite intentional..

“And he was told by the Council last night that he could pick your Operator,” she said with a smirk that suggested she may have been selected specifically to be a problem to him. “Not my problem. I’m just doing what I’m told.”

"That's what I’m concerned about,” Shepherd said, before turning immediately and heading back the way he came, this time with fire in his step. He knew how to raise hell when the time came, and for him, having one of his enemies' minions running his ship was a direct call for some hell raising.

 

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