[Can’t Opt Out]

If Emilia’s side of the building had been devoid of anything interesting, Payton’s side was a mess of too much fascination. Art hung from nearly every available space along the hall, currently comprised of two solid walls, much like her side have been, until it had opened to windows at the 10th floor.

She stepped forward, examining the art as she walked. They were, to put it lightly, disturbing. She recognized a few pieces, recognized artist of more. Pieces and people they had learned about in school because their legacies were so horrifying they were worth remembering—worth using to try and teach children to not hate for the sake of hatred. Beautiful art that was the work of people who had led wars, tracked down innocent children just because they had been born of genetic spasms. Hideous creations of blood and gore, glorifying those murders—glorifying outright genocide, in the most horrific of cases.

[Payton: Your side wasn’t like this?]

Emilia shook her head, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. She couldn’t send messages like this, not when her stomaching was roiling as she witnessed an artist’s rendering of one of the bloodiest moments in Baalphorian history. The artist had been skilled, and if not for the content, she would have said it was beautiful.

Somehow, that made it worse.

She should move on, she knew. Get out of here. It had probably taken Payton so long to get through here because he had been analyzing the artwork for signs that something other than bigotry and hatred were hidden inside them—not that those were all that hidden. Most were definitely proud of the fact that they were depicting such grotesque scenes, although occasionally, her eyes would catch on one far subtler. The eyes of someone in the background some unnatural colour, the framing making it clear that they were the evil of the scene. Someone wielding too much power, bending the aethernet to their will as they attempted to become a god. Fictional overlords destroying the innocent—the people who had been born naturally, whatever that meant.

Genetic spasms weren’t exactly rare, it was just that most of the deviations they created weren’t quite as obvious as her own silverstrain was, nor as obvious as Olivier’s eyes or Felicity’s skin.

“No one will want that child.”

“She’d just a distraction from the others.”

“Should we not let her attend—”

“We can’t do that.”

“She’s the sweetest child here, though.”

“That means nothing.”

“No one wants a child who will attract that much attention.”

“Every time she attends, though—”

“We can’t—”

“I think the silverstrain is pretty.”

“You and no one else.”

“Shush! She’ll hear you!”

“So? What do you think will happen even if she does?”

“No one cares about these children. Little irregulars like her, even less.”

She swallowed, willing her eyes to look away. Look away from the evidence that people hate you, hate the people you love and cherish and would die for. Look away and—

“Em.”

Emilia’s eyes shot away from the painting she had been staring at, a sickly rendition of a child who looked too much like her—like Nettie—being thrown into a pink sea they weren’t meant to escape from, to Payton.

He blinked at her before offering her a hand. “I didn’t think,” he said. He didn’t exactly sound sorry that he hadn’t thought to warn her, more acknowledging that he had forgotten to partake in a social norm he knew, but didn’t particularly care about. An unnatural concern. She’d heard more than a few people with black knots say they didn’t give a shit that people found them off-putting, people who thought all children should be tested for black knots and killed if they were misfortunate enough to have one. Hatred of strangers didn’t bother them, why should they remember it bothered everyone else?

She smiled, painfully, at him. “You didn’t know.” She shrugged, accepting his hand and reactivating {Light of Soul} when his Censor prompter her to.

“Not going to tell me not to follow some social contract I don’t understand?” he asked.

“Fuck, no,” she said, frowning severely at him. “That shit is what’s keeping you from becoming a serial killer!” She threw in a smile, so he knew she was joking… mostly. People with black knots were pretty apathetic. They could form solid bonds with people—so solid they bordered on obsessive, in fact—but otherwise their care about the general population was lacking.

“Good,” he replied, tugging her along with him, up floor after floor, down hall after hall filled with purist artwork. “That part of me I like.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I liked being a medic. I like being a nurse.”

They skidded to a stop as they reached the 31st floor. Unlike the other floors, this one didn’t just have artwork decorating the walls, but several statues and sculptures scattered along the hall as well. This hallway was wider than the ones below it had been, and in the centre—

“I also like being here,” Payton added as they approached the open door.

It didn’t have a doorknob, and was the same shade as the wall. Several pieces of art hung from it. A hidden door, then.

Emilia glanced around, trying to figure out where the switch had been. Nearby, sat several sculptures, one depicting a child’s head being pulled from their body. It was unclear who was the irregular in the scene, but only one of the decapitated head’s eyes was open, making it look just strange enough that she assumed closing or opening one of them had been the trigger.

“I like feeling like I can save people, even if I can’t save myself.”

Emilia frowned, watching her classmate’s back as he strolled into the secret room, filled with computers and a small lounge area for whoever had the misfortune of being on duty that day. “What makes you think you need saving?”

He shrugged, running a finger over a Virtuosi access point. Another thing he had learned from his father, then?

“You going in?” he asked, glancing back at her. He looked tired, either from all her poking or however much energy he had used examining the artwork, she wasn’t sure. Maybe a bit of both.

“Yeah,” she said, hurrying after him. The room was pretty plain. There were computers, a few dozen screens across a wall showing various area of the complex—it was often easier to monitor things like security cameras through physical screens, especially in a place like this. It was huge and not important enough to have multiple security officers on duty—and just like they’d hoped, there wasn’t anyone on night duty. It was rare for residential buildings to have private security running around the clock—so rare, that having a night officer might even attract attention from nosy neighbours.

“What are they hiding in there?” little old ladies would whisper.

No one wanted little old ladies gossiping about them. Much easier to just leave night watch to a monitoring system, even if that meant leaving giant holes in your security.

She ran her hands over the Virtuosi access point. She didn’t really want to have to log in, unless she absolutely had to. Going in externally, the system wouldn’t automatically log her entrance. If she used the headset, logged in normally, she’d have to go back and erase her steps.

Problem was—

Emilia gasped when Payton’s hand landed cold against the base of her neck.

[Skill: {Iced Access} Activated]

“Fancy,” she murmured as she let her Censor begin pressing straight into the system.

Payton said nothing, and when her Censor reached around her to look at him, she could see his eyes were closed. Apparently, keeping her Censor from overheating wasn’t quite as simple as his other skills.

[Access: Den—]

Her Censor automatically cut the notification, pressing harder against the security system as it worked to force its way inside.

[Access: Den—]

[Access: Den—]

[Access: Den—]

[Access: Den—]

[Access: Den—]

[Access: Den—]

[Access: Granted]

Emilia’s mind vanished from her body, and she hoped she wasn’t about to fall over into Payton—or worse, the access point. It had been so long since she’d forced her way inside a system, she’d kinda forgotten the whole… better off being seated thing. Technically, you could stand. Technically, you were also quite likely to fall over.

The world she opened her eyes to buzzed white around her because, of course, it did. White building, white security system. It was also ridiculously empty—in the really suspicious way.

“Fools,” she muttered, sending out a collection of programs to gather up whatever they could find.

Junk data. More junk data. A fake diary, unless there was a little mistress living here who was having an affair with someone from Alver—possible, but unlikely. Some generic emails. A bill for an elevator repair—

Emilia glanced over the bill, smiling to herself. Whoever loaded this place up with its supposedly boring data probably hadn’t realized how much information was inside the bill. The repairs hadn’t gone well, and the company had needed to order a part, return another day to finish the job. It was a big company, and they hadn’t been sure the same repair crew would be assigned to return, once the part came in. As such, there were detailed instructions on where the “very secret(?) elevator” was, as well as a note about “weird vibes” from the staff, especially in regard to one of their Free Colony employees.

Emilia doubted those notes were supposed to be included with the bill—or maybe they had been. Some small fuck you to the people who had hired them. Either way, even without the map her code located for her a moment later, she now knew exactly how to get into the purist meeting place.

[{Map} Acquired]

[{Members.data} Acquired]

[{p2.data} Acquired]

More and more notifications of things her Censor had found as it dug through the system flashed across her eyes. She gave the items a cursory glance. Most of it was encrypted, and she’d need a proper connection to decipher it… or to at least be out of the security system’s range before activating one of her more powerful skills to brute force it. Which reminded her…

Her mind flipped through more of the information her Censor was slowly revealing to her, looking for the actual controls of the security system, so she could temporarily disable it.

Or permanently turn it off. She hadn’t decided yet if she wanted whoever was behind all this to know they’d been inside the building yet. Probably not. They might already know one of their dealers had been taken out, but she didn’t need them knowing someone knew where the knotters had been distributed or that purists were behind it—or at least vaguely related to it. Who knew how far this went. The less notice they had that someone was on to them, the better. Obviously.

She found the controls faster than she expected, the result of Payton’s skill, she supposed. Normally, she’d have to keep her speed and simultaneous skills down, or risk her Censor overheating. Payton’s hand on her neck, keeping it cool and refreshed, was incredible. He’d already given her one skill tonight, but maybe he could be talked into giving her this one, too? Was it a med skill as well? Probably. Which, seriously!? Who was the magician coding their stuff!?

Usually, people that skilled were recruited into the Black Knot, D-Tect or criminal organizations. That level of skill was terrifying and coveted. People were killed for being less impressive than the creator of this stuff seemed to be. It was part of why they accepted—even sought out—jobs in the most powerful Baalphorian organizations. Protection. Emilia didn’t think the medics—who didn’t even have a single overarching organization supporting and managing them—had that kind of protective power.

Then again, if they’d managed to keep this programmer a secret, maybe they did.

Emilia flicked off the security system, quickly manufacturing a software issue that would explain the lack of video recordings since shortly before they arrived. Someone would have a terrible time trying to fix it when the next shift came in and realized all their cameras were down.

She flipped over to the aether records. They operated in a different part of the system, and it would be too suspicious if they also completely vanished. Instead, Emilia switched it to run random loops of nothing wrong in the logs, erasing the few blips of their own power that had shown up. They were small, but there.

[SecAlert: {Med Search} Detected]

[SecAlert: Abnormal Aether Detected | Exterior | Moderate]

[SecAlert: Abnormal Aether Cause | Exterior | Lack of Control]

[SecAlert: Unknown Party | Floor 1 | Moderate+]

[SecAlert: Unknown Party | Floor 1 | Moderate+]

[SecAlert: Unknown Party Solution | Send Patrol]

[SecAlert: Unknown Party | Floor 3 | Moderate+]

[SecAlert: Unknown Party Solution | Send Patrol]

[SecAlert: Abnormal Aether Detected | Floor 8 | Minimal]

[SecAlert: Abnormal Aether Solution | Send Patrol]

[SecAlert: Unknown Party | Floor 5 | Moderate+]

[SecAlert: Unknown Party Solution | Send Patrol]

[SecAlert: Abnormal Aether Detected | Floor 10 | Minimal]

[SecAlert: Abnormal Aether Solution | Send Patrol]

Unfortunately, there was no patrol on duty, and whoever was managing the system had disabled alerts below extreme from being forwarded to anyone on call. Actually, according to the work schedule that came up, there wasn’t even anyone on call. Even if they’d used their most powerful skills, the alerts would have been forwarded to no one. Probably, the owners were too cheap to pay someone to be on call—most people were because most people’s homes were never broken into. They had also disabled extreme alerts from being sent directly to SecOps, less common than not paying someone to be on call. In this case, Emilia could understand it, however. With how much purist artwork they had on display, they definitely wouldn’t want SecOps coming in, investigating some blip, and finding evidence of their bigotry.

Officially, SecOps couldn’t leak when they found stuff like that during investigations. It could only be revealed in court, on the rare occasion things got that far and it was relevant. Unofficially, there were enough former vets in SecOps who owed their lives to irregulars and Free Coloniers, and it never took long for information like that to leak.

Want of privacy also explained the weird layout, now that she thought of it. The blank walled hallways were the public ones, just in case the main elevator, wherever that was—apparently in a small lobby tucked behind another secret door on the first floor that they had both missed, according to her map—couldn’t be used.

In some ways, she thought it was nice that the world had changed enough that more and more people were hiding their bigotry, knowing they had fewer supporters every day. It helped that there had been more than a few heroes in the war who hailed from the Free Colonies, and almost everyone who had been part of the final strike had been someone that some part of the world thought was worth hating.

Except Boyd.

No one could hate Boyd, and luckily, Boyd could hate no one in return.

“Find something worth smiling about in there?” Payton asked as she slipped out of the system.

“Just a nice memory,” she said, rolling her neck and shoulders out as her classmate’s hand pulled away. Nice memories were such a rarity for her these days, even this memory more passing acknowledgement that the world was less obviously hateful than it had once been.

That was just an illusion, however. This place was proof of that—proof of the things hiding in corners and secret rooms, just waiting for the chance to snap out and destroy the people they feared and hated.

Emilia couldn’t completely argue with some of that fear. Non-devs were only born of genetic spasms, and everyone knew they were downright terrifying, despite the fact that almost no one knew the half of it. If they did know…

“Security’s down now, by the way. Feel free to go wild with all those skills you’ve been just itching to use,” she added, reaching her arms above her head and stretching. They flopped sadly down beside her. Two hacking sessions in a few hours? She wasn’t used to this kind of mental and physical strain anymore!

“Or, you’re getting old,” a very rude part of her suggested. She promptly stomped that part down. She was not getting old, thank you. She was barely a quarter of the way through her life! Might only be a fifth, if she took care of herself!

“Which you definitely aren’t,” the smushed part of her shot back. So rude.

“So, find anything interesting?” Payton asked, his hands returning to her shoulders and pressing lines of soothing aether into them.

“Fuck, that feels good,” she moaned, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. It did feel good, though. So, so fucking good. Even if she ended up hating her classmate’s guts, she was half-tempted to invite him on every so-called adventure she had from now on, just so he could put those delicious, skilled hands on her. Not that she went on many adventures these days. Maybe she would start again, if Payton were up for it. He seemed to be enjoying himself, so perhaps he’d be open to more vigilant justice?

“Was that another med skill?” she asked, sagging slightly into the touch as her eyes fluttered shut. “{Iced Access}?”

Payton hummed in confirmation, one last shudder of aether sliding through her muscles and Censor before he let his hands drop. He looked back to the door, eyebrows slightly furrowed, and she could feel his energy reaching out, more aggressive now that she had turned off the security system.

She felt it, when it collided with something—something that shouldn’t be there. “Get down!” she yelled, even as she was already throwing herself into him and sparking across the room.