Arc 8 | Chapter 289: Bully You, Just a Little

Honestly, Emilia knew Olivier hadn’t meant to make it sound like there was something about Simeon that needed to be fixed; she’d heard his own stance on various laws that were unevenly applied to or targeted at certain demographics—Dyads, those with irregular deviations deemed

dangerous

, the rare Free Colonier immigrant, and both ex-300s and low-devs being the main targets of such laws—to know that he felt they were too broad, too focused on perceived issues that were based on centuries of prejudice, purist sentiment, and the odd case where someone within those demographics actually committed a crime said laws

might

have been able to stop.

Emilia would have been shocked—drop-dead in the middle of the bathroom shocked—to learn that he could speak down to students who dared suggest the laws that placed lavender codes under government surveillance for the entirety of their lives, regardless of whether they’d ever actually done anything worthy of being monitored, could also believe an ECC Dyad needed to be

fixed.

Still, it seemed necessary to make sure he knew that, to her, this was the sort of talk that was liable to have her breaking someone’s neck. Seriously, if she had to kill the Drydens, she would not only

not

feel bad about it, she firmly believed the world would be better off without them. In the end, the main thing holding her back wasn’t laws or social constructs or her own morals—not that those weren’t relatively fucked after growing up surrounded by black knots and studying under the Blood Rain General; rather, it was the blowback to other Dyads that would occur if she killed them.

Regardless of whether she took credit for killing Simeon’s parents—they were all undecided on whether his older sister needed to die or not, if they went the murder route—blame would be put onto him by certain people, certain organizations, factions within the government itself. While Simeon might not face any legal repercussions should his parents die, that didn’t mean all Dyads wouldn’t gain more stigma. Dyads—despite there being a huge variety of them, all with different needs, no one was denying Dyads did need extra help in order to manage their excesses and deficits in genetic focus—were so often lumped together as

problems.

If people started killing their shitty parents because laws weren’t meant to protect them—or any other child who needed a little more attention that

normal

—it was almost inevitable that it would be added onto the collective list of Dyad crimes.

So, no, Emilia wouldn’t actually kill the Drydens or support anyone else doing so in their ongoing discussions of what to do if Simeon’s parents tried to extend their legal hold on him. To the Drydens, her friend—one of her oldest and dearest and sweetest friends—was a burden and an embarrassment. If they had to seize legal control of him in order to keep him from venturing into the world and

bringing shame upon them

, then they would. Currently, it was unclear if they would, and the laws regarding such things were vague, to say the least.

They’d talked about that in Olivier’s class as well. It was one of the few classes she’d taken seriously, going through every one of his required, suggested and optional readings despite already knowing quite a bit about the subject. Did he realize now, why she’d already known so much? Why she had come to class with a list of questions to ask him?

The problem was the Drydens could attempt to argue Simeon wasn’t prepared to leave their home—that he would die, fail to thrive, become a burden to the government. It wouldn’t matter that they had never had the patience to teach him those skills—and to be clear, Simeon did have a lot of life skills, learned from the clones’ lectures on being a functioning human, mostly, which they’d all attended because if the clones did anything well, it was preparing their youngest members for the world—nor would they be forced to show they were trying to give Simeon the skills he would need out in the world.

The stupid fucking government didn’t care about people like Simeon—like her and her siblings. They were a nuisance, a burden, a disaster waiting to happen. If a parent or guardian wanted to keep their problem child locked away for the rest of their life, the government wouldn’t stop it—wouldn’t even confirm their allegations of their child’s ineptitude at life were accurate. If parents wanted to give up their kids, no one was there to question it, nor were they there to make sure the caregivers they were given to did more than the bare minimum.

Then, of course, when the kids raised in those terrible homes grew up to be fucked up, too many of them turning to crime for it to be anything less than a result of those cruel homes—the same ones that had fucked up Emilia and her siblings, even if they’d only spent a few years within their cold walls—it was simply taken as proof that their parents were right to give them up, proof that parents should be within their rights to keep their children locked up, proof that the government was right to treat many of them as soon-to-be criminals from the moment they were identified as

different.

“I’m sorry,” Olivier said, soft and cutting through Emilia’s spiralling thoughts.

Barely more than a few seconds had passed, but her brain was running on overdrive, as it so often did when

something was wrong.

Something was wrong, and it wasn’t easily fixed. They would get Simeon out of that house, no matter what—Emilia hadn’t been joking or overexaggerating when she told her teacher that her friend would kill himself if left there much longer, if he were informed he would be trapped there for the rest of his life. The reality was, they might not be leaving Baalphoria behind just because of her charges.

Fleeing the country with an ECC Dyad who the courts had ordered to remain within his abusive parents’ care indefinitely would certainly be newsworthy, and privacy laws wouldn’t be protecting their identities as they were hers now. Oh well.

“I did not mean to imply your friend or any Dyad needs to be

fixed.

I simply meant that even if someone did believe that, it isn’t something that can be done. Even the various therapies that are touted as

miracle cures

are often abusive, traumatizing those who are forced to undergo treatments—although perhaps torture is a better word for the things I’ve heard they do.”

Olivier wrinkled his nose, and despite the fact that she very much did not want to know what those so-called therapists did, she was curious. There had been a few cases that had gone to court, she knew, the verdicts varied and uneven due to all the laws that protected Dyad parents and guardians’ rights to do whatever the fuck they wanted to their kids, as long as it was in the name of

fixing

or

controlling

them. The precise details of those cases were often sealed, however, and while The Black Knot did have access to them even they had told her not to look, and seriously? When a black knot looks queasy at what they’ve read, you don’t want to go near that shit yourself, which made Emilia wonder if Olivier had seen those files—heard those gruesome details—himself.

How terrible. Being a lawyer seemed difficult—at least, if you were focusing on the truly terrible cases, anyways, the ones that aimed to help the underdog… or defend the abuser, she supposed.

“There are some Censor functions that aim to help Dyads,” Olivier continued, startling Emilia, although she had no idea why.

Virtually all the functions out there for Dyads had been created or updated by her—there was no money in it because Dyads were rather rare, their needs so diverse that some of the functions Simeon used constantly had never been picked up by anyone else. If Olivier had a function she had created over a decade earlier, it shouldn’t be surprising that he knew about some of her other released. Somehow, it was still a little surprising, but also, perhaps this was her way to make him update his severely outdated function?

While she could use this as a chance to tell Olivier she was the hacker behind those functions—it wasn’t like she’d ever made much of an effort to hide it from people she knew, and she doubted Olivier would start spreading her identity around—and then innocently mention that she could totally hook him up with the newest, yet-to-be-released versions of her functions, she never had a chance to fully think through whether that was a good idea of not.

One moment, they were standing in the bathroom, herself just outside the stall door, Olivier looking down at her with soft, apologetic eyes, seemingly begging her to accept that he hadn’t meant to imply Simeon needed to be fixed—at least not on the whole ECC Dyad front, who knew what Olivier’s stance on trans people was, something else the Dryden’s wanted to take away from their child’s beautiful identity. The next, Emilia was bullying him backwards into his stall because someone was entering the bathroom, the stall door snapping shut behind them.

Odd that the system that controlled the stall doors would even close two grown adults in. Usually, only the systems in bars did that, where hooking up in the bathroom was more acceptable, if still somewhat frowned upon—stall sex was better than the alternative, much more public, options. Maybe this restaurant was pro-bathroom sex? Or rich people just had no boundaries?

“What are you doing?” Olivier asked, his voice holding that same strain she heard in it so often, usually when he seemed to be resisting throttling her. He’d had it earlier as well, when he’d been horrified that she’d admit to planning the Dryden’s murder. Now, it was probably more because she was pressed right up into him, the stalls not nearly big enough for the two of them to stand together.

Did this restaurant have family bathrooms? Surely, there was no way a parent could come into one of these stalls to help their child bathroom? Not that this was a particularly child-friendly restaurant.

“Your brother,” Emilia said, hoping the man would assume one of the triplets had let her know the younger de la Rue had been stomping off towards the bathroom. To be fair, Valor had let her know, she’d just also been watching the table through the security system, disinclined to be caught nose-to-nose with Olivier by his abhorrent mother—seriously! The woman had moved on from contemplating how to take over her cousin’s case to discussing how to encourage SecOps to push for charges on one of her firm’s clients because she wanted to

bleed him dry.

What in the world was wrong with the woman!? Emilia had met some pretty terrible people in her life, but somehow, Judith de la Rue just seemed to be flat out fucking evil???

“Yo? You in there?” the lawyer’s baby brother called from outside the door because they were still the only people in the bathroom. “Mother wants to know if you were able to shit yet.”

Emilia burst out laughing at that, trusting the stall’s one-way sound proofing to keep her giggles contained. Olivier made a sound that seemed half groan, half growl, which didn’t help her amusement.

“Is that what you said you were doing in here?” she asked, grinning up at him as they both ignored his brother, who was grumbling outside the door and claiming he knew Olivier was in there.

Olivier’s attempts to respond were cut off by a colourful curse from his brother—one that was not very nice and implied Olivier was solely responsible for their mother being insufferable.

“Look,

you

need to come back and deal with her. Father got a call he couldn’t refuse—not that I think he tried, fucking coward. I can’t deal with her—that’s not

my

fucking job. So fucking finish shitting—as though any of us actually believe you’re in here doing anything other than hiding—and get back out there. Fuck, you’re just as much of a coward as father is. Fucking grow up and get out there and fucking manage her!”

Holding up a finger to silence her teacher, Emilia turned, several skills splitting free of her before she smacked the button to open the door, Olivier making a strangled sound behind her, clearly not realizing she had erased his presence. That was fair—it wasn’t like she’d given him any indication that’s what she was doing, nor was it a publicly available skill.

“Look, you!” she hissed, rubbing at the fake tears sliding down her cheeks, her entire person having shifted slightly. She was too lazy to change her dress, but her hair and eyes had been transformed into something normal, her makeup altered to appear as though she’d been crying in the stall for a while. “I don’t know who you’re looking for, but he’s not here! And if your mommy is being such a bitch, leave! Or better yet, tell her off! You keep calling your father and what, I assume, is a sibling, cowards, but where if your courage!? You aren’t a baby—I’d bet you’re in your gap decade. I know not having mommy and daddy’s financial support would be hard, but if they’re that terrible, suck it up and figure out how to support yourself! AND! It isn’t anyone’s job to manage your mommy!”

Hand smacking into the panel again, the door snapped shut on the stunned man, his eyes huge, his mouth gaping, Olivier’s expression nearly identical when she turned back to him.

… oops? She’d treated Olivier and his brother the same way she would any of her friends—she generally had no qualms about calling people out on their shit, even if she often tempered her words for some of her friends, like Janie and Simeon—and well… that might not have been appropriate or appreciated.

Hopefully, she hadn’t just completely fucked up her chances of ever convincing the man to become her lawyer by offending him and his brother? And their mother, she supposed, but then again, she’d already done that and Olivier hadn’t seemed to care or disagree, so maybe, it wasn’t actually that bad? Maybe?