A murmur rippled through the classroom as the Hyrat clone’s words sunk in; it was one thing to guess that they were here to find someone, it was another to hear it from one of their mouths.
Eyes flicking over his students, Olivier assessed each of them. Aside from the three students who had spoken of something they should keep quiet about, none of the other students seemed at all concerned that The Black Knot had seen need to send their most notorious members after them. Concerned they were there, but not for their own safety.
“I didn’t do anything!” one of the young men screamed, not at the Hyrat clones—who from what Olivier could see, through the unintentional blockade of students, seemed to simply be relaxing against the wall opposite his room—but at another student, who had been giving them the side eye. “I had no part in any of that!”
“Tell that to Marissa!” the girl, Norrayn Santoros, hissed, finally turning towards the group of increasingly guilty looking boys. One even glanced towards the window, apparently contemplating an escape attempt. Glared between the boys and the Hyrat clones, Norrayn’s hands clenched as she worked herself up into— “You know how there’s that weird drug going around that disables Censors?”
“Shut up!” another of the boys yelled, taking a step towards the girl, only to find himself frozen under a skill from one of the clones, his mouth opening, but no sound coming out.
“Go on,” another of the Hyrat clones said, his voice just as lilting, but significantly sharper, more serious than the one who had first spoken.
Swallowing, shifting her weight, the girl glanced away, looking practically anywhere but the clones, and Olivier couldn't just leave her like that.
“Norrayn, it’s okay,” he said, coming to stand beside his student, placing a gently supporting hand on her shoulder. “You can tell them.”
While he might not have much experience interacting with the clones directly, it wasn’t uncommon for them to be brought in as witnesses in cases. As a result, most law programs brought clones in regularly, just so students could find some amount of comfort around them—not that anyone was ever
comfortable
around the clones. They were strange, dangerous. Even during the brief time Olivier had spent with them, first as a student, listening to a pair of older clones explain some of what they did for The Black Knot, and later as an assistant on a case, preparing a clone wearing a face that wasn’t their own for questioning on the stand, they had seemed so
other
.
It were as though they didn’t belong in this world—and, he supposed, the fact that they were a long line of beings forced into existence through the replication of a single egg perhaps meant they weren’t meant to exist. The clones were both necessary for this world, and didn’t seem to belong in it. Probably, that was why he had never heard of them having children or families of their own. They could only exist within the vacuum of themselves.
Norrayn peered up at him, her bright blue eyes filled with tears before she nodded, and told him—she was refusing to look at the Hyrat clones or anyone else—that her friend Marissa had been drugged with a Censor locking substance that had been causing problems recently. While not a widely distributed drug, it had gotten into the hands of criminals and students alike. It had been generations since anything like a date rape drug had existed, thanks to how powerful Censors were, functions existing to call SecOps and other responsible adults in the area to anyone who grew so intoxicated they were at risk of being injured by themself or someone else, although Olivier knew of a handful of cases where extreme intoxication had disabled those safety protocols as well. Unfortunately, just as some people were wont to take advantage of someone so drunk their Censor was malfunctioning, some sought out a drug that almost seemed designed to allow such abhorrent things.
“I didn’t know it was them,” she continued, still refusing to look at the three boys, one of whom looked horrified, another angry, and the last ashamed, “but I know they were there that night, and when I heard them talking…”
“Did your friend not submit a ? Or did they block their Censor’s ?” the last clone asked, his voice almost soft—musical. “An CS update was pushed a few months ago, so incidents with the drug would be auto-ed once the Censor reconnected to the aether.”
Shaking her head, Olivier’s student muttered that she didn’t know. “I don’t think she submitted a to campus security, but I don’t know about her Censor.” While Olivier couldn’t blame her for not wanting to directly acknowledge the clones, the fact that Norrayn was answering them while looking at him was off-putting.
“Well~” the cheerful clone sighed—and was it normal for the clones to be so different? Wasn’t a large part of their existence reliant on being as similar as possible? Evidently, several other students were having similar thoughts, their eyes shifting towards the clones, curiosity and confusion written through them as the clone continued explaining that they’d have to look into the situation.
“Well, not us,” he continued, fingers waggling as he turned and waved to someone else, more clones—older clones—appearing a second later. “We’re not actually working.”
What?
Not actually working?
Then what were they doing there?
Olivier watched, mind turning over the fact that three clones were lingering outside his door for something other than work—seriously, the very idea that they didn’t
only
work, while logical, as everyone needed to rest sometimes, was so at odds with the robots the clones were often portrayed to be—while two of the older clones approached the trio of students still frozen in place.
“Valor,” one of them said, presumably to the original clone who had used a skill to stop their mouths and movement. A second later, the aether shifted, one of the boys making to run away. He didn’t make it far, another skill slamming through the world and forcing him to a stop. “Come along,” the man continued, turning and using {Follow the Leader}—a skill restricted to use by law enforcement to aid in capturing and controlling criminals and persons of interest—to lead the trio out of the room, the class making way for them, the second clone following behind, lest something disrupt the skill or someone attempt to free their classmates.
A third clone stepped towards him and Norrayn, nodding politely to each and introducing himself as Grenner Hyrat before asking if he could get a formal statement. “It doesn’t have to be here or now,” he explained, voice calm in a way that, were he not a clone, would have been soothing. As it was, Norrayn began shifting awkwardly once more.
“Perhaps later?” Olivier said softly. “We can arrange a time and place, and go over how the statement will be given? I can come with you if—”
“Yes!” Norrayn said, perhaps a bit too fast. “Thank you, Professor de la Rue.”
The Hyrat clone nodded, telling Norrayn it was for official records and evidence in potential legal filings. “If you are more comfortable, you can give your statement to your teacher. However, I’m sure he can explain to you the difference in each of our methods.”
Norrayn looked ready to immediately say she’d prefer Olivier do it, but he cut her off, telling both her and the clone that he would discuss it more with her later, his Censor automatically offering up a collection of meeting times to Norrayn. It was true that he wouldn’t make his student as uncomfortable as Grenner Hyrat—or whatever clone ended up questioning her, who knew if it would be this one, given how interchangeable they were—he couldn’t dig into her Censor the way a clone could. With him, Norrayn would need to tell him exactly what had happened, and if anything went to trial, a clone would need to pull exact memories from her Censor anyways.
On the other hand, the clones’ ability to hack Censors meant she wouldn’t have to relive finding out what had happened to her friend. They would simply place a hand to the back of her neck and pull, her memories sliding out of her for their eyes—for the court’s, if necessary. Comfort in one way over comfort in another.
Something told Olivier that regardless of the relative painlessness of a clone taking her statement, his student was still likely to choose reliving her memories of whatever she knew of her friend’s situation over spending even a second longer with the clones. Olivier imagined the clone knew that as well, although he didn’t appear put out by it. Hopefully, when they tracked down Norrayn’s friend, she would choose to let the clones into her mind, rather than relive the moments before and after her Censor had gone down, the unrecorded recollections that must surely have come after.
Then again, even in his few years of working on cases—first as a student assistant, now on his own or under a senior partner at his family’s firm—Olivier had already seen a fair number of cases involving people who had been traumatized by one thing or another. He knew well enough that just because she might not have to talk about what happened with the clones, that didn’t mean her mind wasn’t continuously shifting back to that night, to a blank spot she would never remember the exact details of.
Norrayn hadn’t said whether anything else had interfered with Marissa’s mind that night—whether anything worse had happened to her—but even if she hadn’t been drunk or high on something else—even if nothing more heinous had been done to her—that didn’t mean the transition from the perfect recall of her Censor’s recording of every moment to the imperfect memories of the mind alone wasn’t traumatic, nor the very fact that someone had drugged her.
Despicable. Hopefully, if those boys were the ones who had done that to her—and certainly, they had done
something
terrible, to be acting like that—they would be made to face consequences. The law let so many people go, the OIC System not the completely seeing overlord some people believed it to be thanks to blind spots and hacked Censors and this terrible drug.
Unbidden, Olivier’s eyes shifted away from the last clone’s retreating back, the three younger clones still hanging out in the hallway, to Emilia. The law let so many people go, yet also prosecuted people who didn’t deserve it.
He watched her for a moment, her light purple eyes lingering on Norrayn, now cocooned in the arms of several other students. As much as Emilia had become friendly with a number of her unofficial classmates, he didn’t think she was actually friends with any. It wasn’t like she lived on campus, and even if she always showed up for class prepared—he had no idea how, given his efforts to make sure she didn’t get the reading assignments—he had never seen her in any of the libraries with the study groups several students had organized.
She was, in the end, only here for him, and while it wasn’t for any reason that should mean anything to him—while he was proud of what he had achieved, so half-heartedly early in his career as he was, it was clear she was desperate and seemed to have latched onto him as her last hope—there was something about the usually vibrant woman being there for him alone that stirred his stupid heart.
Those beautiful eyes flickered to catch his. For a moment, they appeared just as empty as they had throughout class. Unfocused, distracted, upset. He wanted to ask about it, even if it was none of his business. Maybe… wasn’t this the sort of time people became friendly? They poked their nose where it didn’t belong, hoping for a conversation to start? For a friendship to form?
Olivier’s breath caught as the look in Emilia’s eyes shifted from empty to something almost… appreciative? Proud? Like she was supportive of him stepping up to help Norrayn?
Muscles twitching, Olivier almost stepped forward. Most of the class had disappeared while he stared at his not-quite student. If she were his student, it would be inappropriate to even have a friendship with her. Emilia wasn’t his student, and while she was almost a decade younger, it was all legal, and—
“Emmie~ come on~” the cheerful clone called, Oliver’s gaze snapping back to the hallway just in time to see the man flounce into the room and make his way over the Emilia—
Emmie.
“I made reservations for dinner,” the authoritative clone said, making his way over to her at a more sedate rate, while the third leaned against the door frame, giving Olivier’s bodyguard a blandly dark look. The clone scooped up Emilia’s bag and threw it over his shoulder, signing something to her.
Signing? It wasn’t BSL, which Olivier knew the basics of even without his Censor to translate for him, and it definitely wasn’t translating whatever the clone, and now Emilia, were signing to one another.
A brilliant smile split over Emilia’s face at something the clone near the door signed, sweet laughter erupting out of her as she let the cheerful clone haul her out of her seat. “Goodbye, Olivier!” she cheered as she was dragged off, leaving Olivier wondering what in the world he had just witnessed.
Arc 8 | Chapter 279: A Moment, Lost
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