“Why are we called by numbers?” One-six asked his mentor pilot.

The older pilot looked over and thought for a second. “Because it’s more efficient that way. There’s no need for special names besides from numbers. That number is not a label put on you, it is not a serial code, it is simply your name given to you by the Council when you were… born.”

“I see…” One-six mumbled.

"I thought I told you not to think about that too much."

"I'm sorry..."

“One day you’ll come to understand why we are called by numbers, and someday you’ll come to understand why they don’t give us wordy names.”

“Why?” One-six asked curiously.

“I can’t tell you, I’m not very sure either,” the older pilot replied. “I’m reaching my retirement age soon, and you’re still twelve. I’m sure there’s plenty of time for you to find out for yourself. Maybe if you have the chance, go talk to a person from New Asia.”

“But aren’t they our enemies?”

“And? What difference does it make whether they are our enemies or not?”

“You’ve shot down dozens of them during your time of service, though,” One-six argued. “We’re supposed to kill them aren’t we?”

“Is that what you truly believe? That your only purpose is to kill your enemies?” His tutor asked. “Doesn’t that just make you a tool? A piece of equipment no different than the planes we pilot. Made for one purpose and nothing else.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Never mind.”

“Bu…”

“I said never mind,” the older pilot snapped. “Forget this whole conversation. Fuel is getting low, we should start heading back now, you performed well today.”

*****

“So this is what our city looks like?” Two-six asked half to herself as they strolled down the brightly lit night street of Europa.

It was raining slightly, and the streets glimmered in the ghostly white street light. The uniform, towering skyscrapers lined the edges of the road like a forest of steel and concrete. Broad roads propped up on thick columns of steel twirled and dove through the gaps between building like tendrils of light.

“I guess,” One-six replied. He wasn’t sure if the city actually looked like what he expected, since he didn’t really have much of an expectation to begin with.

“What do you think these buildings are for?”

“Whatever functions a city needs to do probably.” One-six answered, looking around in awe at the sheer scale of everything.

“Where do you think the people live?” Two-six kept on asking.

“One of these buildings probably.”

A car sped past them with a high-pitched electric whine, and gently came to a stop before an intersection of two roads. A few similar vehicles sped past on the other road, and after they passed, the stopped car started up again and continued speeding off into the distance.

He'd seen these cars before, they drive through some of the more central areas of the base every now and then.

They arrived at a busier street, where many many cars drove side by side. Sometimes they overtook each other, sometimes they drove side by side, sometimes they slowed down to let another pass in front of them.

“Those cars must be computer controlled.” One-six analyzed. “They move far too collectively and synchronized to be human controlled.”

Two-six observed the vehicles too, and soon came to the same conclusion. “Do you think we can travel in one?”

One-six observed them for a moment longer. “Sure, why not? But how?”

“Like that,” Two-six tapped him on the shoulder, and pointed at a man standing in the distance.

The man waved at one of the vehicles then just stood around aimlessly. Soon a vehicle slowed down and pulled over next to where the man stood, the silver doors lifted open and the man stepped inside. Then the vehicle pulled back onto the road and sped off among the sea of moving lights.

“Maybe if I just…” Two-six muttered to herself, raising her hand like the man did and waved at a passing car.

The car quickly turned and came to a rapid stop right besides them, the door lifted open, and a spacious inside with a wide seat greeted them.

“Guess this one just happened to be empty,” Two-six said. “Come on, climb in.”

One-six followed Two-six cautiously, bending over and carefully squeezing himself into the black cavity of the vehicle. He settled himself down in the seat, which felt like a cloud compared to the hard ejection seat he usually sat on in his fightercraft.

“Now what do we…” One-six began to ask, but a soft female voice cut him off.

“Hello, code one-six and code two-six of the fifteenth stealth fightercraft squadron, where would you like to go?” The voice asked through a crisp clear speaker.

“Umm…” One-six hesitated, he really had no idea what to say.

“Somewhere interesting,” Two-six cut in.

“Understood. Now heading towards: no. 212 Merkel street Sky Restauraunt.” The voice replied.

There was barely a single sound as they smoothly accelerated up to speed and joined in to the sea of other vehicles. The streets lights flickered by like little shooting stars as they sped down the highway. They got up onto a bridge which took them above the tops of most skyscrapers, allowing the city to pan out below them.

They were probably fairly deep inside of the city, as the maglev ride to the main station had taken quite a while. He wasn’t sure where they were being taken, and again a feeling of anxiety welled up inside of him. But it was soon overcome by the awe of the cityscape before him.

He has seen the city outside through the windows within the base countless amounts of times, but none of the windows went high enough over the tops of the buildings for him to see this much at once.

The entire way neither spoke up, both too mesmerized by the view out of the heavily tinted windows. When they arrived, it took One-six a moment to realize that the vehicle had pulled over and the doors were opening.

“Where are we?” One-six asked.

“I have no clue.” Two-six replied.

In front of where they stopped is a massive cylindrical building with a wide disc at the top. It appeared to have windows all around, which One-six assumed was to allow observation of the entirety of the city. The wide glass doors at the entrance opened automatically as they stepped near.

“Do we go in?”

“Sure.”

The elevator took them up straight to the top, where they stepped out into what appears to be a cafeteria. But because of the time of night, there was not a single person there.

“Are the people not as active during the night?” Two-six asked.

“Probably because they don’t need to fly night missions.”

They walked over to the edges of the wide disc shaped room, and pressed their faces against the glass to see outside through the reflection of light. They could see the towering walls surrounding the city and the networks of brightly lit roads connecting every place. At the center of the city there seemed to be a larger than usual building, and appeared to the the tallest in the entire city. One-six assumed that it's the central governing building, where the Council lives.

“So this is what we’ve been fighting for this whole time?”

“Yeah…”

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“It sure is.”

It must have been hours that they stayed there, just looking out at the city below them. Because soon the horizon was beginning to turn a pale yellow.

“We should go.”

“You’re right.”

They hopped into another vehicle and rode all the way back to the maglev station. Then they rode the maglev back to their own base. But there the guard stopped them.

“I can not let you two into the base.” The guard said.

“We’re part of the squadron.” One-six replied.

“Doesn’t matter.” The guard shook his head, “You are not on the list of permitted arrivals, therefore you will not be permitted to enter.”

One-six opened his mouth to argue, but the guard stretched out his hand in front of him.

“I will use deadly force if necessary.”

One-six stopped and stepped back slowly. If the guard was to use deadly force then if they were not killed they would definitely be reported. Spying was a big problem during war time and he knew that anything can be taken as a sign for suspicion.

Even though the entirety of the base has complex camera systems which can recognize intruders instantly, there was almost always a human on guard duty as a last line of defense.

He nudged Two-six and signaled for her to follow him. They walked away from the checkpoint until they were out of sight from the guard.

“What do we do now?” Two-six asked.

“How long do we have?” One-six asked back.

“At most two hours.”

“Well then we better find another way in.” One-six said, anxiously thinking for a way to enter without being detected.

“We could try the vents,” Two-six said, pointing up at a metal grill high above them. “They should lead through the entire complex.”

“No that’s too risky. It’s too easy to get lost in there and it might not even lead across the checkpoint.”

“You have a better plan?”

One-six fell quiet. “Fine. Let’s go.”

He dropped down to his knees and signaled for Two-six to step onto his shoulders. Although they are pilots, they have received some training on moving through urban environments in case they need to perform spying missions. They know how to scale up high walls with a team of up to four people. The vent was high enough that a single person would have a lot of trouble climbing into it, but it would not be too much of a problem for two.

After Two-six got up, she removed the grill as quietly as possible, and reached her arm down for One-six to grab and climb up with. Once they were both inside the vents, she carefully replaced the grill on the entrance.

There was a fair amount of wind and dust being drawn through the vents, enough for them to have to squint their eyes to not have them dry out too much. There was also a complete lack of lights, which forced One-six to use the little emergency flashlight which he brought with him.

They scooted along down on their elbows and knees, taking care not to bang the metal too much. The thin metallic structure of the vents meant even the tiniest of noises were ear-piercingly loud and traveled very far. After a while they arrived at a chamber where the vent split up into four routes.

Two of the routes were the same rectangular tunnel, while the other two were circular concrete tunnels significantly wider than the vents they are in currently. One of the circular tunnels were covered by the grill, while the other was completely open. There was also the loud rumbling of what One-six assumed was an industrial fan.

They dropped down from their vent into the chamber. It was now clear that the circular tunnel with the grill covering was the one leading to the fan as significant amounts of air was being drawn into it.

“I think the big one leads to the main hall of our base,” One-six said, having to raise his voice a little above the rumbling. “Even if it doesn’t it probably leads to somewhere important.

Two-six nodded, and they proceeded down the cylindrical tunnel. The light they had was not powerful enough to illuminate the tunnel all the way to the end. And for all they know the darkness ahead could be endless.

After what felt like twenty or so minutes of walking, they began to see a dim red glow at the end of the tunnel. The glow also seemed to be flashing very quickly.

It soon became clear the glow was emanating from a huge chamber ahead of the tunnel, and the flashing was in fact caused by the blades of a rapidly spinning fan. They had to put their arms out in front of their eyes in order to block some of the dust being thrown up by the fan.

“Hey I don’t think this is the right way,” Two-six muttered.

“Let’s just take a look.”

As they approached the end of the tunnel, it soon became clear they hadn’t gotten to where they wanted. The plain white walls of their military installment were no where to be seen, instead the walls of the chamber ahead was a pitch black.

They got up to the fan and grabbed hold of the mounting fins of the fan motor and stood on tiptoes to look into the chamber. The chamber is fairly vast, with a ventilation channel on the opposite wall which seemed to be blowing air towards them. The chamber is roughly square-ish and just about large enough to fit their fightercraft which spans almost thirty meters from nose to tail.

“What are those?” Two-six asked, pointing at two large, very industrial looking cylinders on the opposite wall. Both had large pipes leading out the top and heavy hatches at the front.

“Looks like some industrial burner or furnace,” One-six risked a guess. “Perhaps they use it to…”

There was a loud clunk, and a significant amount of rust flakes and dust drifted up and was ingested into the fan from below. A loud metallic screeching followed.

Two-six had evidently breathed in some of that dust and was coughing violently. One-six quickly moved over and put a hand over her mouth.

“What are you…” Two-six pulled his hand aside and began, but One-six cut her off before she could finish. He put a finger to his lips and gestured for her to be quiet.

There was movement from below and faint voices, but the screeching was too loud for them to be heard clearly.

Then there was another clunk, and the metallic screeching stopped.

A filthily dressed man walked into the chamber from below them and tapped a few buttons on a control panel in front of the furnaces.

One-six and Two-six dropped down to their knees and peeked their heads just high enough over the edge to get a glimpse of what is going on.

“First end-of-the-line batch in a week huh?…” The first man said.

“Yep, sure is a lot less than before,” Another man with a clip board answered, also walking in from bellow them into the chamber.

There was the sound of wheels on a dusty floor, and a cart full of something drove in behind the man with a clip board. Another person walked in from behind the cart, dressed in an airforce uniform.

The first man saw him and saluted. “Captain Steiner.”

One-six furrowed his brows. He did not expect Captain Steiner to be at such a place.

Captain Steiner saluted back, then proceeded to ask the man. “Is the incinerator ready?”

“Yes, sir,” the man answered.

As the cart rolled further and further forwards up against one of the furnaces, One-six was able to more clearly make out its contents. It was lumpy and uneven and a pale white color with dashes of red here and there. Then he realized.

They were bodies.

In fact, the bodies of their seniors who had just retired yesterday.

“Batch seven-zero-two, slated for incineration and recycling.”

Then the doors on the furnaces swung open, revealing the white-hot flaming hellfire within.