Arc 9 | Chapter 316: The Rare Law We All (Mostly) Follow

“What if he says no?”

“He will not.”

“But what if he does?”

“He will not.”

Emilia let out a long, dragging sigh as she levelled a glare at Lan’za. “He might. You don’t know him.”

“You have been well-behaved,” Lan’za noted as their group slowly walked along the upper walkway of the Huss’tra.

A few brave souls had risked—and it wasn’t a serious risk—a trip along the aetherstream that ran through the floor beneath the uppermost walkway, but most had been too afraid to even let a local help them traverse it. As a result, Olivier was still back with the main group while she, Lan’za, and Halen had effectively become chaperones for the braver of the students. Norrayn was one of them. J-name was not. Emilia applauded Norrayn for leaving her terrible friend behind, despite the girl starting to go off on

barbaric forms of transportation.

Olivier

might

have heard J-name saying such things, if the dark expression he had been wearing before Emilia was dragged away by Halen, lest she actually push the bitch off the wall, were any indication. So, yeah, he was already in a shitty mood, and yeah, she’d been pretty well-behaved, if one didn’t mention the whole being late thing… or the bringing another student to their knees and then having them removed from Seer’ik’tine by the clones—although according to the clones, Olivier had already decided the boy needed to leave by the time they arrived.

So… mostly well-behaved? Maybe Olivier would let Lan’za give her her reward, but also, maybe he wouldn’t.

“You could just do it without permission,” Halen noted, running a hand through his hair before his grooming skill activated and the slight gleam of sweat that had been clinging to the strands evaporated. Back to being obnoxiously attractive it was! The great Halen Mhrina couldn’t be sweaty or unkempt for more than a few moments!

It really was exceptionally hot, though. Lan’za was used to it, her genetic protection from the elements exaggerated thanks to her long-dead ancestors purposefully breeding better heat tolerance into the population—most of the southern, desert nations had engaged in similar practices at various points in their histories. Halen had apparently lost a little of that tolerance, either due to genetic spasms in his family tree or his non-Grey Sander ancestors. Still, he was tolerating the heat far better than anyone else, save her and Olivier—they were using skills to keep themselves cool, or, well, Olivier

had

been using a skill. His sweaty students had figured out what he was doing and started to whine and get

very

up in his personal space, attempting to steal even a few drops of the cool air hovering over him.

So, he’d cut the skill—better to be hot than have students pressing their sweat sticky skin to his.

A few of the students suspected she was doing the same, Emilia thought, if the yearning looks they had been giving her were anything to go by. One tight smile and threat that if anyone touched her with their clammy hands she’d push them off the Huss’tra later, and the covetous looks had ceased. Could she and Olivier—or Halen—have given them the skills they needed? Sure, but most skills required a little practice, and given how little these students actually seemed to use any skills—seriously, it was rare to even see them slide around campus—none of them had much faith that they wouldn’t fuck up their first few attempts. Therefore, no skills for them.

Making a note to check if there was anywhere on the ship that could be used to teach the class how to use skills without blowing themselves or the things around them up—not in a serious way, most skills just failed, gave the user a blistering headache or knocked them on their ass if it didn’t quite work—Emilia turned her glare on Halen.

“I think if I don’t get permission, he’ll send me home.”

“So? It’s not like you haven’t already been to basically anywhere he could take you.” Halen shrugged, a smirk tugging at his lips as he pointed out she’d probably experienced some of the justice of all those Free Colonies as well. “Are there any Free Colonies you’ve been to where you haven’t pushed the laws and gotten caught?”

“Yes,” Emilia sniffed, ignoring the way Lan’za said

no

with far too much confidence.

“Really?” her terrible, mean, teasing former classmate asked, smirk shifting into a full on cocky ass grin as his eyes racked over her. Suddenly, for the second time that day, his hand was brushing through her hair, sucking off the sweat even her cooling skills hadn’t been able to negate. For a moment, his hand lingered at the back of her neck, almost as though he were about to pull her in for a kiss, his eyes even daring to flicker down to her lips before he let her go.

Seriously, what was happening? Was this the real Halen Mhrina? Or had he been replaced by, Emilia didn’t know, a robot with some AI installed or something? There were some pretty sophisticated AIs out there, but none were quite so…

human.

Various laws meant to keep AIs from taking over the planet existed; they were some of the few international—and true international, even reaching into other continents that theirs rarely interacted with—laws that basically everyone actually followed.

There was some speculation that The Core wasn’t following that law—that their AIs were why they had largely pulled out of international affairs—but who really knew. Plus, The Core had been effectively in lockdown for generations. If they did have human-like AIs—or worse, AIs that exceeded humanity—no one had ever suffered the consequences of it.

Let them be

—that was the majority opinion of the continent, and it wasn’t like any of the nations from further away were liable to try and blow up The Core for

maybe

violating the law either.

Now, the few nations who weren’t quite so insular and had risked developing AIs that mirrored or challenged humanity? Yeah, they were gone. With the exception of one, they’d all been blown up once other nations realized what they were doing. The world just knew AIs were too dangerous—that if they were let loose on the world without any controls, humanity wouldn’t stand a chance… in theory, anyways.

The only exception to the

you fuck with human-like AIs and your entire nation is going to be disappeared into the aether

rule had been complicated by the fact that the nation had built a system that kept the AIs contained. Something about how they couldn’t get out of their containment and could be destroyed without much effort meant the nation had been let off with just needing to destroy said AIs, but even then, they’d somehow managed to talk their way around that. Shortly after, the Free Colony had retreated from the diplomatic scene. As Barinia was a moderately sized island far off the western coast, no one had really cared. They still traded with the mainland a bit, but they seemed perfectly content to exist by themselves, way off in the Zereth Sea.

Again, nothing had ever come of those AIs. Either they remained contained, actually been destroyed at some point, or they’d escaped confinement and taken over Barinia, only to never bothered going further. Emilia supposed they could be biding their time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike… but who knew. This had all been centuries ago, and mostly it had just confirmed for people that AIs led to isolationist policies. Maybe The Core and Barinia had sophisticated AIs now working as slaves for them or existing as citizens with equal rights. Maybe they had been taken over, maybe they had realized AIs actually were that dangerous.

Whatever. What would come would come, and in the case of Baalphoria, there were a lot of laws in place to make sure AIs didn’t start taking over. Granted, a big part of that was that they had a booming robotics infrastructure going. Annoying tasks could be done by little robot cleaners who had very little to no personality; either way, they had no needs or wants that risked starting a robot revolution. Their Censors were AIs, sure, but while they could be programmed to have sarcasm or kindness or any other personality trait, they weren’t solid AIs with a personality that grew as they experienced the world. They learned, but that was different from

growing

—an important distinction in the eyes of both Baalphorian and international law.

So, no, Halen probably hadn’t been replaced by a fancy, human-like AI-powered robot. Still, he was being fucking weird.

“I will have you know,” she hissed, stepping closer and glaring up at his stupid face, “I have been inside Byshire illegally. They don’t know, so yes, I have done illegal things in a Free Colony and not been caught or punished for it.”

Lan’za may have sighed and rolled her eyes, turning back to walking and waving because they had been heading back to Olivier’s group after riding the aetherstream. Emilia’s Censor alerted her to Olivier's approach, seeming concerned with whatever she and Halen were doing. What were they doing? Arguing? No, it felt more like bickering, teasing, pushing. Pushing where or why, she wasn’t really sure. All Emilia knew was Halen had been weird since he’d shown up, hours earlier, and she wanted him to either break and return to his usually, finicky, pain in the ass self, or prove that he actually was different.

In order for him to prove that, she had decided to push at him until the point where the previous Halen would have snapped, all to see where it got her. This conversation, however, wasn’t going to do it—it was too unimportant, and Emilia

really

wanted her reward for being on her best behaviour.

Yes… this was, in fact, her best behaviour. Normally, by this point, she would have taken off, had random sex, done some drugs, and made a handful of new friends of questionable origin. As she had done none of those things, this was her best behaviour!

Still, she couldn’t resist the urge to press up onto his toes and give Halen’s jaw a lick that had him hissing and pulling back.

“Fuck, gross,” he grumbled, rubbing at his cheek and glaring at her. “What was that for?”

Shrugging, Emilia turned away from him without answering. He knew the answer anyways: she was just a spontaneous brat. Well, he knew that part of the answer. The other part? The reality that some part of her had pegged how close they were, how only a few inches had separated their mouths. It would have taken so little for them to kiss—for her to learn what that piercing felt like against her tongue.

That

couldn’t happen. For one, there was a chance it would lead to Halen ending up back in her room and Olivier having to awkwardly listen to them have sex—she’d already confirmed their rooms weren’t particularly soundproof. Worse, it would involve Halen accidentally being kidnapped wherever they were going next.

While she’d been enjoying Halen today, he couldn’t come with them. Today had just been… weird. Low stakes. He knew Lan’za, his family owned The Bridge. It made a little sense that he’d hung out with them for a few hours, but once they left, it would make no sense for him to follow them.

“Hello again, Olivier’tai,” Lan’za greeted when the man finally reached them, the students behind him looking impressively haggard—seriously, a few of them looked a few steps from death. Weaklings—this was nothing!

The lawyer’s eyes flicked between each of them, suspicious and tired, his jaw clenching when one of the students behind him began whining for what Emilia didn’t think was the first or even second time about hating everything and wanting to go home. Somehow… she didn’t think this could be uncommon on these trips, but clearly Olivier was very done with the complaints, and fuck.

Just as she’d thought, even though she’d been trying to behave, he probably wouldn’t let her get her reward. Her assumption was confirmed a second later when Olivier announced it was time to head to the elevator and back to the ship, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Well, that sucked. It wasn’t like she couldn’t come back and get it another time—she could ride the slide line from Roasalia to Kalink just as well as Halen, after all—but still, she’d been looking forward to it all day, and—

“Sorry, Olivier,” Halen said, his voice oddly close behind her, the heat of him rolling across her skin, “I know you want to leave, but I have a score to settle.”

A hand pressed to Emilia’s arm, a dozen skills shattering into existence, before she was being pushed off the edge of the Huss’tra.