Arc 9 | Chapter 438: The Threatening Gaze of a Preteen

Despite having gone through both compulsory schooling and his university years far, far faster than was normal—a few people had commented over the years that they had no idea if

anyone

had ever gone through both as fast as he had, at least in recent memory—Olivier knew, right down to the bottom of his soul and then some, that group projects were the bane of every student’s existence.

That didn’t stop him from assigning them to his own students.

Group projects were a good way of allowing students to learn to work together in a safe environment. If his students collapsed under the strain of the project and said mean things to one another—whether they were accurate in their assessment or just shifting blame—it wasn’t the end of the world. If their words weren’t too terrible, it would be left to their group to decide how to handle it, if they were truly atrocious, their Censors would report the incident to him and other school administrators. Sometimes there would be academic probation or sensitivity classes, but for the most part, it was never something so bad they would be kicked out of the class or school—although he had once been forced to remove a student from a group, which had created a mess of a situation. The student

could

have done the project by themself, but that would defeat the purpose of the assignment and would potentially encourage other students to behave just as badly so they could avoid the

group

part of the project.

As a result, Olivier had recruited his cousin Henri to come and create a group with himself and the student. Henri’s chaos and his own severity—as well as the fact that neither of them were being graded and they were rather purposefully making the assignment harder than needed—had combined to make the assignment a painful success. Every time classes turned over, Olivier heard his new students whispering about how terrible it was to be kicked out of a group.

So, success.

So, Olivier understood the point of group projects: to both torture students and prepare them for working with other people, where they might be fired for not being capable of holding their tongue and not telling their coworkers they were a waste of resources.

This didn’t mean Olivier was currently enjoying his current group project—and what was an escape attempt with a handful of people he neither knew nor trusted but a group project? A terrible group project, and Olivier was, in fact, struggling to hold his tongue against telling several of his group members that they were wastes of space and energy and resources.

For the most part, their group was a mess, but an acceptable mess. Many of the people had known each other for several years—if not more, in the case of Cordk and Renton, the bulky man who was helping the former traverse their escape path. The pair had known each other since Renton had first come into Fräthk’s

care

when he was about Porsq’s age, somewhere in his early teens. Considering that Renton appeared to be nearing one hundred, that meant the man had been beholden to Fräthk for at least eighty years. This was, needless to say, horrifying, especially considering that Cordk himself claimed to have also come to be held by Fräthk before that.

It was unclear just how long the old man been with Fräthk before Renton had been captured, even Cordk having no real idea, thanks to the abilities of one of Fräthk’s more loyal captives, who had died around the time Renton was captured. While not much was said of this person—partially because Cordk was the only one who had ever met her, and he was likely around three-hundred-years-old and even with Renton’s help, just walking took significant effort—but Olivier had the impression the mysterious, long-dead woman had been able to manipulate a person’s perception of time.

Really, had they been allowed to sit down and chat, Olivier would have been all too happy to discuss what Cordk remembered from before Renton had been captured, if only so he could figure out just how many years the woman had taken from the man. Even in what Cordk

had

said of how long he thought he’d been a captive, Olivier had the sense the old man believed it to be far longer than the few years he remembered it to be, something telling him the man didn’t dwell on it, but perhaps suspected that he had been a captive the majority of his life, if not almost the entirety of it.

“It was a way to control me, I suppose,”

Cordk told him, during the brief conversation that had ended with the old man explaining his abilities and stating that, to some extent, Fräthk had

given

him Renton when he arrived.

“Another means of controlling me, I suppose. I love that boy, and would never use my powers if I thought they would harm him—not when I’ve held on to hope that one day, maybe, he could escape this life.”

Renton, who had been momentarily tasked with helping Cravena break through a door—Cravena using her fire to melt the door’s hinges while Renton used his strength to keep it from toppling over and alerting everyone else in the building that they were escaping—didn’t seem to hear their conversation, but Olivier had a feeling he knew that this man—who was effectively a father to him—had only stayed in this place for him.

Now, he was perfectly happy to die, if it meant giving them a better chance to escape.

Of the other people in their group, the most problematic were the three people who had reacted badly to learning another silverstrain was likely coming to help them. Looking back through him memories of the three people from before he had told the group about Emilia, Olivier could see the signs that, even then, Izurial hadn’t liked them much. The silverstrain man had lingered as far from them as possible. Now, knowing that Olivier was perfectly accepting of Emilia, Izurial had cemented himself near Olivier, as had the two women who were babysitting the children.

Luckily, the children were on the older side and understood that they needed to be quiet. Still, children were unpredictable, and Porsq had been tasked with staying close to them, in case he needed to use his abilities to soothe the children—or if things became particularly bad, outright put them to sleep. Apparently, the latter was more taxing on preteen’s mind, so they would only ask that of Porsq if they really needed the children to not witness something. Considering Fräthk and his more loyal underlings were perfectly okay demanding Izurial whore himself out at their convenience, Olivier doubted anyone had much confidence that Porsq wouldn’t be knocking them out eventually—little confidence that Fräthk’s people wouldn’t be perfectly accepting of doing horrible things to stop them escaping.

The women and the man who appeared to have a grudge against silverstrains, however… Well, it wasn’t even

just

those beliefs that were making them unenjoyable to be around. Some people handled stress well, some people handled it badly. These three were decidedly in the latter category, and if they hadn’t needed Porsq’s abilities as fresh and powerful as possible, lest the children panic or they need to encourage one of Fräthk’s loyal members to go for a bathroom break or something, Olivier would have considered asking the boy if he could make them shut up.

Everything was a complaint.

Everything could be done better.

If they could open the door so much better, then why didn’t they do it!? Oh, that’s right! Because they had no abilities that would allow them to do so. Would they admit that when Olivier questioned them about it? No. No—

that

Cheska had leaned it yet again to whisper to him, telling him they were a lost cause and to just ignore them.

It was a shame that Olivier hadn’t put in a condition that the people who joined them in their escape had to be pleasant. That would be cruel, to tell people they couldn’t come because they were insufferable, and yet… he really,

really

wanted to ditch these three. It was almost too bad they weren’t

more

overt in their dislike of Izurial—if they had been, he would have been more inclined to leave them behind on the grounds that he wasn’t in the business of helping people with such sentiments. Unfortunately, as the three had already been freed from their cells, they couldn’t just leave them behind—Olivier wouldn’t put it past them to either follow them regardless or betray them.

Actually… he still thought those three were the most likely to betray the rest of the group, and he had assigned Cheska to keep track of how noisy their thoughts were compared to what she was used to receiving from them. Due to how little he understood of the girl’s abilities, he wasn’t about to put too much weight on her being able to tell if they were suddenly planning some elaborate betrayal of them. Still, it was better than nothing and Cheska had lit up at the suggestion, leaning in to tell him that she would pay special attention to them, but would also keep track of everyone else’s wandering thoughts as well.

Her job was also to monitor for other people in the vicinity, of course, but she didn’t seem too concerned that all her tasks would become too much for her to handle.

“There’s a reason Fräthk is so intent on keeping a few of us around,”

she had told him when they’d discussed it all.

“My abilities are so rare, that no one’s ever really been able to help me figure them out. They’re useful enough, even all… unknown, though! So, Fräthk keeps me around. If I weren’t so useful—if I only had potential, as long as they found someone to train me—there’s no way they’d be keeping me around, just another mouth to feed.”

Later, he would have to ask her what exactly she did for Fräthk. While he could guess that recon was on the list—breaking into a building or rival’s base and knowing how many people were inside would always be helpful, even if the information was nothing more than a body count and perhaps a general location and whether they were asleep or drunk or whatnot—that alone didn’t seem like enough to keep the girl around as, like Cheska had said, just another mouth to feed.

So, what other things could she do? And more importantly, what sort of things did Fräthk think she might be capable of, with the right training?

As they made their way through the level above their holding cells, searching out the few people who were being held nearby, Olivier’s mind couldn’t help but stray to Emilia and Halen. Part of why his cousin enjoyed their functions and skills so much was the fact that, through their anonymous hacker personas, they had taken to releasing things that directly helped people who were often forgotten about, but also had high needs. It made sense that Emilia, herself a non-dev and having so many low-dev friends, would put out functions designed with them in mind. While such people would never be

forgotten

, they were such a small portion of the population that most services glazed over their existence, leaving them to figure out how to manage their needs. Emilia had also mentioned having Dyad friends, which would explain the functions aimed at them, as well as the AetherealBoard he suspected she ran, aimed at allowing Dyads to request functions that did this or that.

Cheska didn’t have a Censor, but perhaps, if combined with a D-Levels test, the pair might still be able to figure out some way to help her get a handle of her abilities? That was assuming she even wanted more control. If just having what abilities she had, along with the potential to gain more control of them, was enough to make her so valuable, perhaps she wouldn’t want to learn, if given the chance?

Still, if they managed to get out of here—and perhaps out of Lüshan as a whole, Olivier suspecting that none of these people would ever be safe in the nation, let alone the city, again—Olivier might mention it to Emilia. With how friendly she was, he doubted she would hesitate to offer the girl what she could. There was even the chance, with how connected she was to people throughout the Free Colonies, as well as with Dyads and likely other people with irregular deviations in Baalphoria,

she

might already know someone with the same abilities as Cheska.

Olivier’s Censor, always helpful in regards to keeping his thoughts in order, added several reminders to his growing list of

Things to Discuss with Emilia Once We Have a Moment

. It was… long, some of the items simply things to mention to her—such as talking about abilities with Cheska and perhaps several other members of their escape group, which now included five more people from this floor, the other two residents having contracted an illness that was apparently quite brutal and contagious and had taken them down. Other items, such as his thoughts on whether the Baalphorian government might be actively conspiring to keep the public from believing in the abilities of Dyads and a number of other irregular deviations—likely ones that were primarily located in the Free Colonies, due to the core component—would be far more involved.

Fortunately, while some people would balk at discussing such things—let alone trying to confirm them, as Olivier fully intended to do—Emilia was just like him. Someone didn’t create an annotations system for discussing random legal documents and classes when they weren’t just as intense and weird as he was. Olivier had never met anyone just as odd and obsessive as he was—not until Emilia; not until, he suspected, Halen.

Yet again, his heart clenched at the thought of them, and—

And Porsq was giving him an odd look now, intense and probing. Great, just what he needed: for the preteen to be able to feel the reality of his complicated, knotted up feelings for the pair of Penns children.

Time to stop thinking about them, lest Porsq ask what was wrong, and he be forced to deflect—or worse, explain. They’d only known each other for a little bit, but Olivier was almost positive both Cheska and Izurial were the sort who would go blabbing his thoughts to Emilia, claiming they were

only helping.