When Mike came into the reception room Julie was talking to one of the members of his squad. Actually the squad member was doing most of the talking and he was saying far too much. Julie waved him over. "Hey Mike, Jones was just telling me about your upcoming war games."

"Really?" Mike asked. "Because I wasn't aware that you had security clearance for that."

Julie smirked and Jones blanched. "Gotta go, wouldn't want to intrude on your date."

"It's not a date; that would be inappropriate," Mike muttered as Jones left.

"Seriously?" Julie asked.

"I'm your mentor; you're supposed to be able to come to me with your problems. How could you say, ask about how to deal with a guy in another department who keeps hitting on you if I was the guy?"

She burst out laughing. "Oh you really are too good to be true. I bet he never considered that."

Mike was temporarily mystified. "Are we talking about Jones?"

"No, I was referring to, um, Tooley." Another giggle came out.

"Is that the intern who keeps glaring at me? If you want I could explain to him. . ."

"Not unless you actually want me complaining about a guy in another department who keeps hitting on me." Julie said. She leaned back on the couch still looking amused.

Now that was settled, "What did you mean by too good to be true?" He asked.

"You're too nice," She protested. "It took me a while to figure out it wasn't an act."

"That almost sounded like a compliment. You ready for our rematch?"

Later on the tennis court the topic came up again. Mike was trying to be helpful. "You're overthinking your moves and that cuts into your response time. Try and just respond."

"See this is what I mean by too nice." Julie rolled her eyes. "You don't need to give me pointers; I'm not one of your squad members."

"I wish you were," He said. "You'd be a lot more help in the war game than some of the guys I've got."

"You know girls don't become cadets." Julie said.

Mike was surprised by the bitterness in her tone. After all her little digs about the academy he'd have thought it was the last thing Julie was interested in. "Do you want to?" he asked tentatively.

She paused and thought it over. "I want options."

Mike looked at Julie over the top of the stack of boxes he was carrying. "I think getting your mentor to carry heavy equipment for you might be an abuse of the advising relationship."

"Whatever happened to 'let me know if you need anything'?" Julie said. She shifted her box to her hip and used her free hand to type the keycode into the storeroom door. "And before you ask I don't know why the storeroom is over 20 floors away from the department."

After they stowed the boxes they walked back to the freight elevator. Mike groaned. "We should just go over to the express. This elevator will probably stop at every floor on the way back up to 137."

Julie ignored him and walked through the doors as they opened. "I'm not in a huge hurry to get back to the lab, besides the elevators never stop at the 120s. Ever."

"Have you been visiting one of Chuck's boards?" he asked. "Because that sounds like the beginning of a conspiracy theory."

"No this is just observation."

Mike fidgeted as the elevator slowly climbed. When no one got on with them by floor 119 he said, "Well if the elevator isn't going to stop for the next ten floors we can check it out." He stretched up and popped the escape hatch in the ceiling.

"What are you doing?" Julie asked as he jumped and grabbed the frames of the hatch.

"C'mon, aren't you curious?" he said as he pulled himself up onto the elevator's roof. He reached down a hand and she barely hesitated before grabbing it. He pulled her up.

"Well that was anticlimactic." He said looking around. The elevator shaft was completely featureless. "There's nothing up here."

Julie pursed her lips. "Exactly nothing. There aren't even doors. They must have a separate elevator somewhere."

Mike noticed that the closest door was some distance above them. As He watched it got closer and closer and "Quick back through the hatch!"

They managed to get back in the elevator and have the escape hatch closed by the time they were joined by other passengers at the 132nd floor. Mike tried for nonchalant but wasn't sure he pulled it off. Julie looked like she was desperately trying to keep a straight face. When they got off at 137 she pointed at a dusty patch on his sleeve. "Well, that wasn't completely pointless. It looks like you managed to find the only dirt in Detroit Deluxe."

"Come in." Mr. Kane snapped. He was standing at glass wall in his office looking at the dark clouds outside. Even Kane-co couldn't control the weather yet.

"Major Sinclair said you wanted to see all the plans for war games sir." Mike said.

The older man turned. "Oh, yes. I did. What can tell me about how you've been preparing your squad Chilton?" Mike launched into an explanation and by the end Mr. Kane seemed almost cheerful. "You've done some great work with your team Chilton. It's so nice to deal with a sensible teenager for a change."

When Mike met Julie for lunch he was still in high spirits from the compliment. Julie on the other hand was sullen. He figured a bad mood was going around."You okay? You look down."

Julie sighed. "Oh, I just had a fight with my Dad last night." She pushed her food cubes around some more. "You know how parents want you be only what they think is best and don't care what you think about it."

"Actually, my parents died when I was little." Mike replied.

She gasped and immediately looked stricken "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking."

"You didn't know. It's okay," He paused. "I don't know what they wanted for me but I hope they'd be proud. And I'm sure yours will be proud of you whatever you decide to do."

Julie did not look convinced.

He was still thinking about the conversation when he got back to his barracks. Deluxe had never bothered him but maybe that was just because he was lucky enough to a square peg in a square hole. He thought of Julie who felt like she was being pushed to be something, of Chuck and his blueprints of cars, of the unknown artist who broke up the monotony of the landscape. Finally he wondered about his older sister. When Capri had said she'd had to leave, that she couldn't stay here anymore he'd assumed was running away from pain but maybe she'd been looking for choices that the city of the future didn't offer.

Authors note: I can see Kane trying to get Julie and his favorite cadet together. (It certainly lends a creepy implication to his "You could have had it all." comment.) On the other hand I can see Kane not letting his daughter date until she's 30.

Next chapter will be the last one. Thanks for reading.