[Can’t Opt Out]

“Fucking paper duty!”

Emilia cringed at the loudness of her roommate’s voice. Pria was always a bit on the louder, though, and she really couldn’t tell if the other girl’s hearing was still off or if she was just that upset. Either way, she needed to chill. Paper duty might be a pain, but it wasn’t worth this level of yelling.

“Maybe you should have gotten up earlier,” Elijah deadpanned as they left the Data-Recovery Lab a few hours later.

It was, unsurprisingly, even hotter than when they entered. The sun was now high above them, beating down on the paths and green spaces that filled the university. Around them, sprinklers were going wild, trying to keep the plants from dying in the sweltering heat, and more than a few of the students—and the occasional teacher—were playing in them.

[Join the Music Party Feed?], her Censor asked because someone had set up a music party as well. She swept the notification away, shaking her head at the people dancing to the music echoing through their heads. She wasn’t staying out in this heat, thanks.

High above them, if you knew to look, a thin haze of pink layered the sky. The university’s decontamination systems would keep the vapour of the pink tides from getting into the university itself, but Emilia figured that at least a few reckless students had gone outside the system’s protection in an attempt to drink in the hallucinogenic vapour. Hopefully, someone had had enough sense to send a SecOps patrol to the steeper parts of the mountain and down to the ocean, in case anyone tried to climb or swim while high—or was just so out of their mind that they wandered somewhere they shouldn’t. The problem with getting high on the pink tides was the drug was the air itself, inescapable unless you had the sense to get back into an uncontaminated area. Pink tide highs were spectacular, but potentially lethal.

[Current Pink Tide Death Count: 0]

Emilia shattered the notification, wondering why in the aethernet her Censor thought she needed a death count. She really needed to take a closer look at it soon, see what was happening inside its little AI brain.

“How was I supposed to get up earlier when my hearing is fucked? I know you know I hate Censor alarms,” Pria growled at him, hands planted on her hips as she glared. Then, her eyes widened, and she made to duck behind him, as though his tall, thin—if moderately muscular—frame could hide her own short, plump one. “Oh shit, hide me!”

Emilia’s eyes shifted in the direction her roommate had been looking, as did the rest of their friends’. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Beth asked, her arm linked together with Emilia’s once more. She’d woken up a bit, in the hours they’d been inside the lab. It seemed as though their teacher had gotten her something to drink and eat. It had also taken him a while to log into the system himself, and Emilia was trying not to wonder if that meant anything had happened between them. Beth had been too hungover to do anything sexy with the man… probably. Didn’t mean there weren’t plans for later, and she wouldn’t put it past either of them to get it on right there in the middle of the lab—in the middle of all the students deep in the Virtuosi System. Gross and kinda hot.

“That’s the girl,” she whisper-spoke at her friends, laughing when Pria continued trying to hide behind her boyfriend. He moved, Pria moved with him, like his own personal, slightly off-sync shadow. “The girl Pria brought home with her last night. What was her name?”

“I don’t know!” Pria moaned as she and Elijah continued their shadow dance. Elijah didn’t seem annoyed that he was being shadowed, more amused at Pria’s actions, and was trying half-heartedly to lose her… or make her trip. It was hard to tell.

“You forgot? And even your Censor doesn’t know?” Sil asked, his expression tight. He glared at the girl for a moment before continuing on towards the slides. “I need lunch. Anyone want to join?”

“Me!” Emilia and Beth cried in unison, skipping to catch up and attach themselves onto him.

“Not if you’re gonna keep giving me those judgy ass looks,” Pria hissed at Sil, grabbing hold of Elijah before he could follow after them and leave her without a shield.

“I will,” Sil replied easily, his mouth twitching when Pria squawked. “Plus, you don’t have your willbrand.” Technically, Pria didn’t need her willbrand, but if they got caught in a raid she’d have to rely on skills alone, which was never ideal.

Pria cursed loudly, her hands patting down her nonexistent pockets as though it would suddenly appear, and attracting more attention from the students around them as her antics grew more and more dramatic.

Emilia didn't generally think Sil and her roommate outright hated each other, but their personalities clashed too much for them to like each other either. Sil was too serious and reserved, Pria too loud and uncontrolled. They didn’t mix. They didn’t try to, but Emilia and Beth had been friends since shortly before they entered university—if only very, very shortly before. Pria liked them both. Sil liked them both, too. So they tolerated each other, when they had to, anyways.

Elijah barely tolerated her friends, and she still thought he was losing patience with her, even if he had denied it the night before—unfortunately, she still remembered bits of that accidental conversation. Until he brought it up or broke up with her, she was fine living like this. She was fine, knowing eventually he’d be done with her. She liked Elijah. She had fun with him—had great sex with him, too. She also knew it wouldn’t last—it wasn’t meant to.

“Good luck, babe!” she cheered over her shoulder as Sil led them towards the slide line entrance. “Pria!” she added, frowning severely at her roommate. “If your hearing is still fucked when I get back, I’m taking you to the clinic myself!”

Elijah tried to say something—probably a complaint about being left behind—but Pria yelled something over him, and from the corner of her eye, Emilia could see that her antics had attracted the attention of the girl. She smiled slightly as the girl began heading towards her roommate. Pria deserved for her nameless one-night stands to come for her, sometimes.

“So, where are we going?” she asked as the Sil’s Censor lightly tapped at her own, asking for permission to take her on a glide.

“How about that place by the water?” Beth suggested, her own cheap shoes lighting up as Sil took hold of her Censor as well. “Not the nice one—I bet they’re full up with subs enjoying the view. The little, shitty one in the slums.”

“Ooh, yes. We haven’t been there in a while,” she agreed as Sil slid them along.

Then, his slides caught on the lines, and they were moving, zooming through the university and out. Fast and untethered by anything but Sil’s arm through hers, his Censor guiding the way down, down, down the mountain and through the city. They raced on, the world a blur that Emilia couldn’t make out the details of—didn’t need to. Sil was in charge, keeping them safe, finding the proper exit for them.

A moment later, they slid out of the line, perfect and precise. Even with all the training in the world, most people exited lines a bit awkwardly. Most people, except those with perfect Physical D-Levels, like Elijah, or sub-30 D-Levels.

Sil had never actually discussed his own D-Levels, so Emilia wasn’t sure which category he fell into. She was pretty sure Beth knew, simply because she could usually tell what someone’s D-Level was after watching them for a few minutes, but she’d never tell. She’d probably never brought it up to Sil himself, either. It wasn’t any of their business, but Emilia was also pretty sure he was a sub-30—a new gen one, too. If you knew what habits to look for, you could almost always figure out what kind of family a person had been raised in. Sil’s habits screamed more of a breakpoint ex-100 family, just as Beth’s said sub-50, even if she tried to shove those habits and her horrible upbringing aside with everything she did, every tattoo she covered herself with.

“Why’d you bring us out here?” Emilia asked, looking around the area and not finding the broken exit of the slums she had expected.

She didn’t even recognize this particular stop off the top of her head. It was far fancier than the areas they usually frequented, with its perfectly manicured greenery and spotless buildings. Everyone she could see—which was only a dozen or so—were dressed in outfits she couldn’t dream of affording—not in this life, anyways—and if Sil hadn’t already been dragging them away from the lines, she would have thought they’d exited at the wrong place.

“There’s a raid starting soon,” Sill said, shrugging as he dragged them in the opposite direction most of the people she could see were heading, before her mind could put together that that was why so many of the people were heading towards the exit.

Parents led their children towards the lines and bubbles. It seemed like almost everyone who didn’t want to participant had already evacuated in the brief gap between the raid announcement and its start, and SecOps were helping to escort the parents, as well as those who would be unable to fight in a raid—elders and people who were sick or too high—out of the area. Many of the SecOp operatives were also mildly scolding them for waiting so long to leave, as the raid would be starting soon. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if they became trapped in a raid. They wouldn’t get hurt—the system would both designate them non-combatants and enact protective barriers around them—but they’d be stuck inside until it ended.

“WHAT!?” Emilia yelled, wondering if she should forcibly revoke Sil’s access to her Censor so she could get away. Would she even get far enough to escape the raid’s range, since she couldn’t use the slide lines solo? Without a valid reason, SecOps wouldn’t help her get away either.

“Why would you bring us here!? What happened to lunch?” she asked incredulously.

“You said you needed extra money.”

“When!?”

“Last night.”

[Received: {text.log} from Sil]

[Opening: {text.log}]

[Em: i fucked up]

[Em: need money asap]

Emilia gaped at the messages from last night. She most definitely didn’t remember sending those! And her Censor didn’t have a record of her sending them either!

[Memo to Self: Emilia has asked to not be reminded that she “desperately begged Sil for money”], her Censor explained, revealing the messages between her and Sil from the night before. Well, it had actually just been her messaging her friend, presumably because he had been busy with the sub-30. She also didn’t think this counted as begging!?

There were, however, several more messages in her newly uncovered logs than hadn’t been in the ones Sil had sent her:

[Em: fuck]

[Em: forget i asked]

[Em: i'm drunk and stupid]

[Em: i don’t need you cleaning up my drunk mess]

As though he knew exactly what was going on between her and her Censor, Sil added, “I do not think brining you to a raid counts as ‘cleaning up your drunk mess.’”

Beth shot him a look at said, “Yes, it does,” because they all knew that Sil carried them. Any big paydrops they received from raids were primarily because Sil’s stats were so high. They also contributed to his paydrops, when they raided with him, providing support he wouldn’t get from anyone else. It was why he was the one who usually bought their drugs and food.

[Notification: Raid Starting in]

[— 5 —]

“Fuck!” Emilia swore, letting Sil drag her towards where he wanted them.

[— 4 —]

[Glide Along with Sil Disconnected]

[Access: Change Requested]

[— 3 —]

[Access: Raid Companion Requested]

[Access: Accepted]

[— 2 —]

[Connecting to Raid System]

[You have connected to {Sil’s Silly Friends}]

Sil huffed, glaring at Beth, who had named the group years ago and refused to change it. Emilia was pretty sure Sil accepted the name now, but the tradition was to huff and glare at Beth as though this time, if he glared hard enough, maybe she would change it.

She wouldn’t.

[— 1 —]

Emilia’s willbrand sparked slightly as the black raid barriers crashed down over them and aethernet activated.

[— 0 —]

[Welcome to the Raid]

[Enjoy Yourselves!]

Yeah, right.