“You need to breathe.”
A cool hand landed on the back of Halen’s neck, some Black Knot skill slipping into him and forcing his lungs to expand. It was similar to the one they had for Emilia—the one he had given Olivier, in case she went off on into insane ADHD land and needed to be pulled back to what little semblance of reality normally existed for her—but a little different, the flavour of it running through his body distinct enough for him to pause and assess.
“There you go,” Taelor said, continuing to force his lungs to move, although Halen was pretty sure it was the distraction of a skill he had never experienced before that was actually distracting him from the overwhelming panic that had consumed him.
He’d done a pretty good job, he thought, of not immediately panicking when Emilia’s contact information suddenly vanished from his Censor. Valor had been the only one to fall off the aetherstream, taking Rafe, Levi and a very pissy Leerin with him. They were okay, luckily—Halen knew that pushing themselves along the aetherstreams like this would be dangerous due to the lack of testing; it was a good thing that, despite the extra strain it was putting on them, he’d added in some extra defences, intending to test it over the next few weeks. Now, they were taking a moment to stop and breathe—there was no way any of them would have been able to climb back on the aetherstream while wondering if Emilia really was dead. There also would have been no point in continuing on to Lüshan if she was dead.
Well, Halen might have continued, if only to confirm with his own eyes that she was gone. Probably, he would have made sure to confirm Olivier was dead as well, some part of him unable to let the mission Emilia had died on be left unfinished. A few of her friends would have gone with him, he thought. Rafe, the triplets, Darrian… who unfortunately would have brought that parasite of a cousin with him—not on purpose; as far as Halen could tell, Darrian didn’t think Leerin should be with them anymore than the rest of them. Still, she had insisted on coming, and now, all she was doing as complaining.
The girl’s complaining was far away now, Halen having microsparked away to get himself under control while a few of them took a break to bathroom, eat, and recover their aetherstores—they’d been planning to stop for those things soon anyways, Valor’s accident had just made them stop a little early.
Halen’s eyes flickered to Taelor, who was now sporting a scrape over his cheek to match the one his youngest brother had gotten during the fall. It was superficial, glistening with healing cream that would allow it to seal up into barely more than a patch of red in an hour or two. Still, the triplets had to be identical, if they wanted to function properly. In the situation they would soon find themselves in, they definitely wanted to be able to switch between their individual and collective personality as needed, no questions asked.
Fortunately for them, when he’d first started coding the skill that was allowing them to move so quickly along the aetherstreams and slidelines, Halen had been prepared for the possibility that it would be used by clones. Ideally, he would have sold it to The Black Knot—normally, people outside of law enforcement didn’t need to cut their trips quite this short—so he had already considered that the users might be part of a clone pod, in need of retaining their status as
identical
even if they fell off or were attacked while travelling.
Hence, at the expense of a little more aether, the skill had an option of protecting clothing while using it. Leerin and Levi had both come out of their tumble with dirt marring their clothes, Leerin with a tear in her sleeve that even he had no skill to fix—although both he and Emilia had some to remove the dirt, neither of them could fix tears
that
extensive. Valor’s clothing, on the other hand, were perfect, as were Rafe’s. While the clones had skills for attempting to match up injuries to both their bodies and clothing, Halen knew they weren’t perfect, and in the Free Colonies, people were often more aware of shifts in the aether. In other words, a Free Colonier might be able to pinpoint aether lingering around any part of their person affected by a skill; therefore, avoiding having to match themselves with skills too many times was worth the little bit of extra effort on their part—and as 4Ds, it really wasn’t anything too strenuous for the clones.
At least… Halen didn’t think it was? He was also using the extra, clothing-protection skill, as were a few others. With her a higher D-Level, Leerin might not have been able to sustain it, but Levi should have been able to, and while he had escaped the fall without any rips, he also hadn’t had the skill active. Probably it was just Levi being, well… Levi. It was still odd, in Halen’s opinion.
“Did Coral send you?” he asked, leaning back into Taelor’s cool hand, the clone offering him a little bit of relief from the strain managing the skill for most of their group had put on his Censor. Cooling skills barely did anything, but the slight tingle was nice.
The unfortunate thing about the skill they were using to push their travel so fast was that he hadn’t really tested it out yet, and no one—not even the few people he considered friends or his handful of employees—had used it but him. Worse, perhaps, was that the few slidelines it could be used on—the ones that had been upgraded to have multiple lanes in each direction—weren’t technically set up for using it. Since slidelines didn’t allow passing, that meant he’d had to hack in and close one of the lanes on all the slidelines they’d used, so they wouldn’t ram into anyone—something that would be far messier than accidentally running into someone on an aetherstream because as much as he was pushing them faster on both, they had been moving far faster on the slidelines.
Still, running into anyone on the aetherstream wouldn’t be good either, and Halen had been forced to take the lead so he could gently nudge people they came across out of their way. It was terrible, and he
may
have
accidentally
sent a Dionese teenager falling off the aetherstream into a lake when they tried resisting his first few gentle pushes.
Ideally, one day, there would be a fast travel lane on both the slidelines and the aetherstreams—there were already a few lanes in the trans-Dionese aetherstream they were using, separated by strings of the technology that kept it from moving too much year by year, as ones left to nature did. Occasionally, they came to crossroads that were still in development, more of the technology working to pull the aetherstream down a new path. It was cool, if also far slower than Baalphoria's building of slidelines was… in cases where their government wasn’t complaining about cost, anyways. Once slidelines were funded, slideline construction was speedy. Getting the funding, however…
“Yes. Corrie was worried,” Taelor responded to his earlier question, which wasn’t really earlier; Halen was just bad about getting lost in his head, the world falling away for what seemed like minutes when it had only been seconds. Emilia did the same thing, although Halen liked to think he generally covered his distraction better than she did.
Taelor didn’t say anything else—didn’t ask if he was okay or what was wrong. Halen wasn’t stupid; he knew a few people had figured out he had feelings for Emilia that weren’t just the hatred many of them assumed it to be. Actually, he was amazed so few people had figured it out, especially considering how many suspected he’d had some part in telling Rafe that Warren had been the one to hurt her. Granted, he would have told
someone
about his suspicions of Warren even if he’d hated Emilia—and he knew both Codeth and Mikhail had also suspected something had happened with Warren and were preparing to tell
someone
before he disappeared.
Codeth, he knew, liked Emilia. Not in a
like
like way, but they were friendly enough. So, when Emilia had started acting weird around the time a bunch of the people at that party had been drugged, Warren acting odd as well and refusing to even discuss the upcoming school year and what sorts of pranks they would be playing on Emilia in those first, defining weeks…
Well, it hadn’t taken a genius to figure out that
something
had happened between the two of them. Then, when Rafe had started interrogating
everyone
about whether they’d been at the party? If they’d seen anyone heading off into the woods? Who had an alibi and who hadn’t? Then, Warren had lied—had said he was with Mikhail most of the night and claimed they’d left to party at the beach around the time Levi had started his post-drugging strip tease. While they had left, Warren had ditched Mikhail before they reached the beach. To say that Mikhail hadn’t been happy to be used as an alibi—to be asked to lie to Rafe when every fibre of his being had been radiating that he would kill anyone who lied to him?
Sometimes, Mikhail had no thoughts in his head. In this case, he at least had the sense to tell Halen about the lie. One
update
to Warren’s Censor later, one location of a blank spot in the guy’s memories—brought on by Warren requesting his Censor stop recording anything—and Halen was almost positive that he had done something to Emilia—that he was the person Rafe was looking for. To know that his Censor System hack had allowed Warren around the monitors that usually altered law enforcement of an assault? To know his skills had allowed Warren to accelerate the healing of whatever marks Emilia had left on him as she struggled to get free, so he wouldn’t have to go see Doctor Vickers? To know all of that—not to mention to now know that Emilia’s nightmares of that night still rattled the aether so powerfully that they left Coral shattering awake as Emilia’s emotions broke through her—and know it was all indirectly because of him?
Halen would never regret giving Warren’s name over the Rafe, nor did Mikhail regret avoiding Rafe—and therefore avoiding confirming or denying Warren’s alibi—and instead telling Halen about it. Mikhail already struggled with when to say things and when not to, and while he could be empty-headed, he generally had good intentions in his heart. Unfortunately, his brain to mouth filter was virtually nonexistent, and despite how sweet the guy could be, he did tend to cause strain in the people he interacted with.
As if summoned by thoughts of him, Mikhail’s loud voice could be heard telling Codeth that his attempts at using the new willbrand Simeon had given him were embarrassing.
“Why did you bring him again?” Taelor asked, blandly annoyed with Mikhail in the way most of the people who had known him since they were all children generally were. The result of knowing he was the way he was and there was little to be done about it, combined with the acceptance so many of them had for people who were
different.
All the acceptance in the world couldn’t erase how aggravating Mikhail could be, unfortunately.
Unlike Halen and Codeth, both of whom had become rather… disillusioned with their compulsory school friends over the last few years—longer than that, if they were both being honest—Mikhail still liked and associated with most of them. Halen was still part of all their group relays, although Codeth had left a few, but Mikhail still
liked
most of their terrible
friends.
Halen couldn’t even hold it against the guy, given he wasn’t the smartest person in the world.
Mikhail wasn’t exactly stupid, it just took him a lot longer to get things, and combined with a seemingly infinite amount of innocence and naivety, getting anything through to him was rather difficult. Eventually—in the next decade if Mikhail was lucky—Halen expected the guy to figure out his so-called friends—friends he had retained since childhood, friends whose parents had been friends with each other forever—were shitty people. Halen knew that just like he and Codeth would be happier if they were able to fully transition into being more part of Emilia’s side of the class, Mikhail would be as well. It wouldn’t even be hard; throughout most of their school years, he had slipped between their sides at times—he really was too innocent to ever be told he couldn’t hang out with anyone, too innocent to realize he was more a part of the
other side
of the class, and according to the line draw through their class, shouldn’t have been stepping over said line. Mikhail didn’t see the line, however, so no one held him to the ridiculous rule demanding everyone stay on one side or the other.
Unfortunately, for as nice as Mikhail could be, he was terrible at being a bit too honest, a bit too blunt. Usually, everyone was pretty good at letting whatever he said go, but with everyone so on edge, even the generally chill Codeth—who had been friends with Mikhail since before they entered school—might just kill him for being unintentionally rude. At the very least, Codeth
probably
wouldn’t kill him. If Mikhail said something so blunt to someone like Baylor?
No, if Mikhail did that, Baylor might just kill him. Halen didn’t want Mikhail to die—he would have a terrible time explaining what happened to Emilia’s father—but depending on how tense everyone was at the time, they might collectively decide to let Baylor have his way with Mikhail. Baylor wasn’t someone any of them wanted to get on the bad side of.
Still, despite his difficulties and how many problems he could cause, Halen had decided to let him come because when he wasn’t saying stupid things, Mikhail was sweet and kind. He was also skilled in a fight, and unlike some members of their group, never backed down. Still, Taelor was probably right in the words he wasn’t saying: they might have been better off leaving Mikhail behind.
The thing was, something had told Halen they would need him, and the last thing he wanted was to have the existence of the
will of the aether
proven to him by needing Mikhail, of all things.
.
!
Arc 9 | Chapter 387: That will not be how the will of the aether is proven real
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