Arc 1 | Chapter 15: Stop Scratching

“Are you sure nothing looks off?” Pria asked for the millionth, billionth time. “Has my skin always been this shade? It looks lighter to me. What about my eyes? Are they right? They didn’t look right when I was doing my makeup. Too… bright.”

Emilia looked towards her friend, assessing, searching for any shift in her physical appearance that couldn’t be chalked up to nerves. It wasn’t the first time she had looked, but this was serious. Serious concerns meant you looked, you assessed, you answered properly. “You look fine. Sweaty, but fine.”

Her friend fidgeted. She’d been fidgeting since they left the clinic. Even on a good day, during a routine visit, Pria was known to be twitchy for a while afterwards. Generational trauma, and all that. This had not been a routine visit. It had been horrible and stressful, and Emilia had been amazed when her friend had insisted she allow Payton to check her own injuries from the raid. Pria had sat there, suffering, scratching at her skin as though it felt somehow

wrong,

but refused to leave until her friend was cared for. Emilia had had to force down a well of tears for how loved she felt.

Payton had removed the patches, checked the skin and asked who had done them. Emilia had embarrassingly had to admit she didn’t know, but given her classmate a description of the student nurse. He had nodded—although he had given no indication of it he knew the girl or not—pressed more healing aether into her skin and then a layer of temporary skin over the bits that hadn’t completely healed yet. It had barely taken five minutes, but she had spent the whole time watching her friend grow increasingly uncomfortable.

By the time they exited the clinic, Emilia had made the executive decision that they needed to run. Pria hated running, but even she knew she had too much nervous energy inside her, just waiting to explode. It needed to explode out, and so they had run, giggling and panting and screaming through the stifling heat. She was pretty sure they had knocked over at least a few people on their way back to their dorm.

Needless to say, when they reached their dorm, they were disgusting, and they had both wobbled directly into the shower. Hers hadn’t been short, but when she’d emerged, Pria had still been showering. Even over the water, through a layer of moderate sound proofing, she could hear her roommate crying—screaming, really.

Emilia was going to make sure the man who had made her friend feel this way suffered. For a moment, she had contemplated handing him over to The Black Knot. Normally, Baalphoria’s most secretive organization focused more on violent crimes—terrorism, serial killers and the like. They’d also been pretty active during the war, doing things that definitely weren’t public knowledge. A knotter running wild in a town known for its party scene could fall under their jurisdiction. Knots created by drugs weren’t as stable as those created via knot therapy. They could fall apart or morph into something unexpected, something unpleasant and violent.

It seemed premature to bring them in, though, without knowing who was behind the knotter or how rampant the spread was. Plus, the clubs had their own ways of dealing with problems that affected them. She wasn’t going to leave it all to them—she wanted to

know

the people behind this got what they deserved—but she knew enough about the club cartel’s enforcers to know they could very well be a worse fate than The Black Knot. Assuming the cartel weren’t somehow involved in this. It was unlikely, but it would be stupid to completely rule out the possibility.

“Are you sure?” Pria asked again, long nails—currently a black and light-purple—dragging across her skin and leaving horrible white lines in their wake.

“Stop that,” Emilia said, smacking at the hand. “You’ll be sad if you break a nail.”

Her roommate huffed but slouched back into her seat, muttering about how everything felt wrong, itchy, sticky, like her insides were rotting away, and she’d never be able to have children now. Emilia had not known Pria had ever thought about having kids of her own, and she was pretty sure the skin issues were due to the heat, not the knot therapy.

She turned away from the other girl, looking out the bubble’s window. The round vehicles ran along preset routes throughout the country, ranging in size from those meant for a single occupant to ones that could seat a few dozen people—those were usually reserved for class trips. They were fast. Not as fast as the slide lines, but fast enough. Emilia had slowed theirs down, though, as they descended into Piketown.

Around them, the world was a haze of pink, no decontamination systems covering the steep cliffs of Mount Pike. She had never seen a pink tide this side of the Penns, touching the wildlife and plants of north-central Baalphoria. The animals and plant life of the Grey Sands, the Strats and even the southern tip of the Penns themselves, had adapted to be capable of withstanding the toxins in the pink tide’s vapours, to not wither in the sweltering heat. This kind of event—for as long as a week, no less—was going to have consequences. She could already see them. She could already see plants wilting and trying to hide. It was too dark now to see much of the mountain animals, but she imagined even during the daylight, when they should have been most active—long since used to the odd, metallic blue balls that rolled through their home—they would be quiet and hiding.

Her lips pressed harshly together. The pink tides were a natural phenomenon, yes. A quick search had her Censor informing her that there was evidence of pink tides reaching this far north once every few decades for at least the last ten thousand years. They weren’t usually this long, however. Not even close. A week of this? What would even survive?

“What you thinking about?”

Emilia’s eyes shifted back to her roommate. Pria’s eyes were filled with concern because, of course, they were. Pria’s empathy—her connection to the aether itself—was horrifically high, so high that even her modified Censor couldn’t spare her from most of what she felt. She hid the connection, more often than not. It was a pain, her roommate had told her once, to be able to look at someone and read all the little bits of their expression, body language, voice, energy. To feel the way the aethernet bent and twisted around them and their skills even when she was trying not to look. Exhausting. She could knot it away, but she wouldn’t. She drank and got high a lot instead. Not exactly the best coping mechanism, but Emilia wasn’t really in a position to judge.

Emilia motioned to the world outside their bubble. “You think any of this’ll survive the pink tide?”

Pria frowned, refusing to look away from Emilia. She hadn’t looked out into that dying forest since they’d begun their descent. “Probably not. There’s nothing we can do about it. Why bother worrying.”

It wasn’t a question, just a pessimistic statement. There wasn’t anything they could do, why even think about it. We are helpless. We are poor—well, technically she wasn’t poor at the moment. She also wasn’t as helpless as Pria thought.

“Yeah,” she agreed, prompting her Censor to speed up their ride.

The bubble pushed forward, the world around them beginning to blur as Emilia quickly fired off a message to one of the few people from her old life she still—on very, very rare occasions—contacted.

[

Em:

you have any portable climate units available?

]

The response was, as expected, almost immediate.

[

Rafe:

Why?

]

[

Em:

pink tide

]

[

Em:

don’t want local wildlife to die

]

Rafe took a little longer to respond this time, and by the time his next message came through, she and Pria were walking through the gloriously cool air of the hippest area in Piketown. Like Alver and… whatever the name of the bougie raid area had been was, this area technically had a name, but Emilia didn’t know it, and when her Censor tried to give her the name she resolutely ignored it.

[

Rafe:

Big area. You’d need more than one, and someone to manage them.

]

[

Em:

is that a no?

]

[

Rafe:

I didn’t say that.

]

Another pause. Pria was leading the way, apparently quite happy to take Emilia up on her offer to pay for dinner anywhere she wished. Every so often, her steps paused in front of a restaurant, her eyes glazing over as she looked up its menu, then she would continue on, apparently not having found whatever it was she was looking to eat.

[

Rafe:

Will you be there?

]

Emilia internally sighed. Rafe was… generally the most understanding about her wish to be alone. It was one of the reasons she was still in contact with him. That, and he worked for D-Tect and had access to all the wonderful devices and cutting-edge research she could possibly need. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t potentially take this as a chance to come see her in person. She did not need more of her past popping up in her present. Even reaching out to him was… a lot. Their interactions were usually limited to exchanging data and the occasional photo. An actual conversation? This was an act of desperation. She didn’t want all the cute little lollibobs to die, okay!?

[

Em:

probably not. it’s miserable here. too hot. gotta go… somewhere

]

[

Rafe:

Where?

]

[

Em:

no idea

]

Emilia added a little laugh along with that message. Rafe hated it when she sent sound clips with her messages, although the few times she’d asked him why, he hadn’t given her a reason. Technically, he’d never asked her to stop, but when they’d been younger she’d always teased him with it. Blowing her voice into his mind when she was around to see his reactions. She hadn’t been very nice to him, sometimes. He was just too fun to mess with.

[

Rafe:

I’ll send someone up. They were just saying they wished they could experience a pink tide. Perhaps it will make them happy.

]

Emilia was pretty sure that meant they’d pissed her old friend off, and he wanted to be rid of them for a week, send them on an assignment they had said they’d enjoy but were really going to hate.

[

Em:

thanks. i’ll send you some pics of the cute critters your generosity is saving!

]

She sent a little image of her virtual self blowing him a kiss. He sent back an obscene gesture.

[

Rafe:

Of your vacation, too.

]

[

Em:

sure, i’ll send you loads of swimsuit pics!

]

She hesitated for a moment before forwarding him a picture from when they had been teenagers. She was smiling, her tan so dark she internally cringed. Her bathing suit had been too small, leaving almost nothing to the imagination, although you couldn’t see much more than a yellow strap, what with her arms draped around Rafe’s shoulders. He was looking particularly unhappy, his light-brown hair dripping from her pushing him into the pool. Rafe never had been one for the sun, or fun, or people, other than her and Nettie. Rafe and Nettie had always been an odd combo, though. She certainly didn’t understand it, and she knew Nettie’s husband hated it, although she wasn’t sure Nettie and Rafe had kept in contact after the war—after she had left.

Rafe didn’t bother responding to her picture, although she did feel a shudder of something that felt like him glaring at her. Rude.

“How about this place?” Pria asked, having kept quiet as Emilia messaged her friend. They hadn’t explicitly talked about her messaging someone, but Pria could always tell—could always feel the vibrations of messages flowing through the aether around a person.

Emilia looked up at the restaurant they had passed a thousand times over the last eight years. It had always looked too fancy for them, in their messy college sweats or too tight clubbing clothes. They’d changed, after their showers, and gotten ready in record time—thirty minutes, to be exact. Now, they were dressed in the most sophisticated clothing either of them owned.

Emilia’s hair had finally been pulled back again, her high, silver-grey ponytail swaying happily behind her as they walked. Her makeup glittered gold, her black dress—another of the rare items she’d brought with her from her previous life—flowed loosely around her, tugging tight in just the right places so she didn’t look like she was wearing a bag. It reached down to just above her knees, a stark contrast to her usual short dresses, and shorts that barely covered her ass. Plus some gold jewellery and shoes. She’d contemplated heels, since she wasn’t planning on gliding anytime tonight—you could slide and glide in heels, it was just a massive pain—but in the end had decided on a pair of flats, just in case she had to kick anyone’s butt.

Pria’s own black dress hugged her curves deliciously, but not too obscenely. It was lacy, reaching across her chest and neck and falling to her feet. Pria claimed she couldn’t learn to glide, but the fact that she was able to walk in a floor length dress in heels would tell anyone she was full of shit. She’d pulled her own curls back into a pair of buns, standing proud on either side of her head with cute little wisps escaping them. Her willbrand, a metallic-black earring that wrapped around the upper part of her ear, was also now in place, and she’d also chosen gold makeup and jewellery—including some fancy hairpieces that wrapped around her buns and dangled down to her shoulders, jingling as they walked. Gold was a rare colour that looked good on both of their skin tones, and while they didn’t purposefully match often, tonight had just felt like one of those nights.

Any other night, the hostess would have looked at them like they most definitely didn’t belong in such an upscale restaurant.

Not tonight.

“Shall we?” Emilia asked, smiling down at her slightly shorter friend.

Pria smiled back at her, worries about knot therapy and knotters on the streets slipping away as they entered the restaurant.