[Can’t Opt Out]

“Uh, I’m gonna have to call you back,” Emilia hurriedly said before unceremoniously disconnecting the call. Hopefully, when she had a chance to call V back, he would still be awake and available to chat.

“Professor A,” she squeaked. Did she sound suspicious? She totally sounded suspicious.

Her teacher—her most favourite teacher who, if she thought really hard about it, because it had been well over a year of virtual time since she’d last seen him, had seemed to have had something to say to her during class the real-world day before. Maybe. Possibly.

Fuck. While she’d definitely abused her brain and the Virtuosi System’s time skew during the war, that had been a long time ago and not nearly as intense. How in the universe did all the people who regularly stretched their brains to the limit within the Virtuosi System—especially if they were utilizing blackaether hacks—not lose track of their entire life?

Professor A raised an eyebrow at her, his pale blue eyes flickering between her and the closed practice room door, lit up to indicate that it was occupied and locked down. “Emilia. Rare to see you down here.”

“Oh, ah… yeah. New willbrands.”

“Willbrands, plural?”

“Not for me!” Was she yelling? Why was she yelling? “For everyone else. Well, technically I also have a new one, but it's similar enough in design to one I already had that I don't really need to practice with it. Well, actually I probably should practice a bit more, just to be safe, but like, I have other things to do that are more important? So many things to do. So many things there’s even a list. Been a while since I made a list.”

In the corner of her vision, several icons lit up in a subtle notification that her brain was running a little too fast. A new addition to her Censor, they were still being tested and adapted based on how her new knots would affect her personality and various levels. While she was definitely babbling—probably because there really was too much to do and having to beg her teacher to help convince all their other teachers to give them a pass on the whole skipping school for a week thing was stressing her out—Emilia didn’t think her balance levels were doing anything too funny, an icon indicating both of those things having lit up.

Clearly, her system needed a bit of tweaking. That, or her perception was fucked up. Given she and Sil had inadvertently spilled half of their secrets to one another, maybe she should ask him to help her test out her new hack? Not that her friend had seemed particularly impressed with the whole allowing her core to be used thing, but—

Emilia sucked in a calming breath, focusing on letting the tether of energy Hyr was now leaving connected to her have its way with her, softly pulling her down, although not nearly as insistently as it had any other times. Had Hyr realized this was more normal, ADHD brain, rather than her knots winding her up unnecessarily? That, for better or worse, this was a normal part of her unknotted—at least in regards to controlling her ADHD—self, even if Payton’s knots were exasperating her ADHD a bit? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, her brain really needed to chill, especially since her teacher was watching her expectantly. What was he expecting? She had no idea.

“So… can I ask you a favour?” she asked, smiling sweetly at the man.

“You can ask,” he replied, eyes filling with amusement and interest.

Better to just get it over with. “Can you help a bunch of us convince our teachers to give us a week off?”

The older man blinked at her, amusement falling away to confusion. Emilia didn’t blame him for being confused. Usually, when she asked for a favour, it was because she was broke and needed extra work. Thanks to Olivier’s generous, if technically unneeded, donation, Emilia doubted she’d ever have to ask again. It was actually a little sad.

“Trying to get out of the pink tide?” he guessed, commenting that he wasn’t a fan either. “Climate control is a wonderful thing. I wish the school would just install a control system. It’s been years. I highly doubt Pylenius will deign to join the faculty.”

“Pylenius? Is that the non-dev the school was originally trying to court? Honestly, I thought that was just a rumour that people treated as truth.” Definitely, it was at least partially a rumour—Pylenius wasn’t a researcher, as the rumour went, and while he was from the south, the rumour implied he was from the Grey Sands, not a Free Colony.

Still, regardless of the errors in the rumour, had any of the administrators actually met Pylenius? Emilia had, if only briefly. It was a good thing the guy had refused to come here. He was definitely too eccentric for half the teachers here, and that was saying a lot, considering many of the school’s teachers were more than a little odd themselves.

Professor A hummed in agreement, telling her that the non-dev had viewed himself as too free spirited for such a traditional setting. “I’ve met him in passing, and been allowed to attend several of his lectures. He is definitely… different.”

Emilia snorted, hoping her teacher would take it as amusement over his words and not what it actually was: first-hand knowledge of those lectures. She’d only attended a few, while visiting the man’s Free Colony—Zironia, a neighbour of both the Grey Sands and Chinsata that extended along the coast—while serving in the south, early in the war, but their unit had included a few of his students and she’d heard stories. Needless to say, the man’s public persona—the one he showed the world in his open lectures—was nothing compared to the one his chosen students saw.

“Different can be good, but I think a lot of our teachers think even you’re a little too untraditional.”

Another hum left her teacher, who had leaned against the wall across from her while they chatted. As always, he was dressed nicely, his suit well tailored and cutting him in all the right places, showcasing the fit body that he still had, even past his prime as he was. Unlike most days, however, he wasn’t wearing a jacket or sweater—most of their class assumed he came from somewhere warm, because he almost always seemed over dressed. Even now, he seemed to be wearing too many layers, his pants and shirt full length, even if his cuffs were all rolled up. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel✦fire.net

Emilia still hadn’t changed out of Olivier’s sweats, but everyone—save Sil, who never wore anything too revealing—had changed into skimpy clothing in an attempt to alleviate the heat. That said, Hyr looked over dressed, in their sweater and pants, but apparently they were made of cooling fabric, designed to help northerners deal with heat they weren’t used to.

“Most of your teachers are traditional, compared to myself, and yet you expect them to let you off school for an entire week?”

“Well, they might not, but we’re going anyways.”

“The heat that bad for you?” the man teased, and yeah, he definitely wasn’t feeling the heat as brutally as the rest of them were. Maybe it was more the humidity? Heat with such stiffing humidity wasn’t found in most of the naturally warmer areas in and around Baalphoria—for humidity, you had to head further west.

“Yes,” she replied, knowing that that wouldn’t be enough.

Inside the Virtuosi System, when she’d needed a break from her hacking, Emilia had thought this over, how to convince her teacher to help them. In the end, Professor A was just a good guy. He helped them out when they needed, giving them jobs when he didn’t need to, not reporting them to administration for the occasional missed class, only punishing them in-class when they misbehaved, offering them extra work when they fell behind.

The man had also fought with other teachers for them, and had pushed for the worst teachers to be fired—whether it was because they were making students feel uncomfortable, giving unfair grades, or simply held beliefs that he didn’t think were appropriate. Professor A was a good guy, and if he knew what they were doing and why, chances were that he’d help them out.

Unfortunately, it was pretty likely she was going to have to fess up to him about a lot of her secrets. The man wasn’t stupid, which she generally appreciated, but currently, it would have been helpful if he’d just accept some lame excuse that they had to do this themselves.

Indeed, when she ushered him into the practice room across from the one they were using, locking it down before explaining in broad strokes the situation with the knotters and going after the person who had given the bartender the drugs, Professor A’s first question was an expected, “Why not let The Black Knot or SecOps handle it?”

Shifting from side to side, Emilia admitted that they knew about the situation.

“And they’re not doing anything about it?” the man asked, sounding highly skeptical.

With a shake of her head, Emilia assured him they were. “I… know some members,” she admitted, hoping she wouldn’t have to throw around more than Samina’s identity.

Even that she couldn’t reveal unless her teacher consented to a Censor lock, which was basically the reverse of what the Hyrat clones were best known for. Where the clones locked and erased memories once they had been made, Censor locks were a preemptive measure, forcing anything that was learned during a set period of time, from a certain person or within a location to be locked away.

Technically, Censor locks through {A Private Moment} weren’t illegal, as long as there was consent, but they definitely weren’t something people threw around often, nor was it a skill most people even knew how to use. While it was a public skill, Emilia wasn’t convinced the majority of people even remembered it existed. Primarily, it was used by law enforcement—it was a great way to question people and know they wouldn’t go blabbing about what they’d talked to SecOps or The Black Knot about—or celebrities, who wanted an extra dose of protection in their relationships, especially early on.

In other words, most people never saw the skill being used and never had a need to use it themselves. Out of sight, out of mind, even if everyone learned about it its existence during their first few months of having a Censor, teachers needing them to understand the consequence of being caught within {A Private Moment}’s influence—the civilian version might require consent, but the law enforcement version didn’t.

Emilia’s version, having been adapted from The Black Knot’s, didn’t require consent. It may have also been further hacked to not really be noticeable when it was used. Some Censors would pick up on its use, but only ones with custom hacks—good custom hacks. Any hack that was publicly available? Yeah, knowing that they might be wandering into a situation where they’d need to lock up people’s memories, she’d updated her version of {A Private Moment} to hide itself from all the hacks she could get her hands on—that had been another of her extra projects when creating her new Censor hack had been too aggravating and repetitive. It helped that someone—likely a combination of Helix and Rafe—and been updating it on and off over the years.

Regardless, once the person realized they could barely think about a conversation, some terrible thing they’d seen or learned, they’d know something had happened in their Censor. Not exactly ideal, especially with someone she liked.

Still, the way Professor A was watching her, his eyes probing and not completely convinced by what she was saying…

“You’re telling me that you received permission from The Black Knot to go onto a luxury airship and try to find a purist terrorist?”

Okay, when he put it like that…

“Yes?” Did that sound like a question? It hadn’t been meant as a question.

The man blinked blandly at her. “Forgive me if I don’t immediately believe you.”

“Let him come over,” Samina said just as Emilia was reconciling the fact that she was going to have to ask her teacher to consent to {A Private Moment}’s use, Emilia having called to let her into the conversation when it first began—she hadn’t applied the room’s lockdown to herself, only her professor.

Grumbling, Emilia dragged Professor A back across the hall, preemptively warning him that there was a member of The Black Knot with them, and if she decided she didn’t trust him, she’d be calling in the Hyrat clones. The fact that the older man didn’t seem particularly concerned with that fact was both unsurprising and concerning.

Her teacher had always given off an air of something she couldn’t quite place, but most people didn’t willingly wander into a room with a member of The Black Knot without any complaints or attempts to get away. Instead, the man easily pushed his way into the other practice room.

Sil, Hyr and Conrad had left, leaving only Samina to chat with Professor A. The woman sat in her chair, imperious despite the sweet drink she was sipping. The door hissed closed, locking Professor A inside. There would be no escape, not if she or Samina—not to mention whatever Black Knot agents were monitoring the situation from afar—decided the clones were needed.

Emilia really hoped the clones wouldn’t be needed. As it was, this entire situation might already be pushing how much her teacher could tolerate to the limit, not that the man seemed put off or anything. Rather, he smiled mildly at Samina and introduced himself. The only show of surprise when Samina introduced herself as a member of the Baxter branch was a slight widening of his eyes, and a passing comment about how Emilia knew some powerful people.

Then, he stepped further into the room and taking a seat. “Emilia,” he said, turning his attention back to her, “you said you had both things to do and should practice with your willbrand. Why don’t you go do something more useful and leave the two of us to talk?”

Well, apparently she was being dismissed. Whatever. While the man might be her teacher, Samina had been trained to deal with these sorts of conversations. Let her handle Professor A.

Still, what in the world should she do now?