[Can’t Opt Out]

It would have been much more helpful, Halen thought, to have been busy. Had he been busy doing more than thinking and wandering about, trying to figure out where they should go next or if there was anything else of use in the place, perhaps he wouldn’t have been so brutally honest.

That said, within the scope of the current situation of trying to make their way through someone’s house—and thankfully, it seemed to currently be unoccupied, as his accidental shattering of a piece of glass artwork and subsequent yelp of pain would have surely been enough to attract attention—it was better to not be busy. As it was, they were mostly sneaking along at a more normal pace, contemplating their options.

Occasionally, someone would peek out the windows or swipe something from the house—mostly food, although Doctor Vickers had taken some medical supplies, muttering to the group that they would deal with paying the owner of the home back later. That was assuming whoever lived here wasn’t part of the corrupt faction of the Drinarna, Rafe having spotted a photo of a man in uniform in one of the rooms they’d passed through. He’d vanished for a few minutes, returning with a uniform for Halen.

“There were two,” Rafe admitted as Halen gaped at him, wondering if the guy really intended for him to pretend to be an officer—he didn’t; instead, Rafe just thought it good to analyze, in case they wanted to create more, and carry it with them, in case they needed it.

Really, Halen was the only one among them with anywhere near the complexion of a local, courtesy of his Grey Sander heritage and a great-great-grandmother who had been from an unknown nation this side of the continent—she’d died during childbirth, and her husband had never asked for specifics about her life before she ended up in the east. Whether due to that great-great-grandmother or the original, far-south area of the Grey Sands a number of his ancestors came from, where skin tones tended towards black rather than the softer browns and occasional red found through most of the nations that spread through the Cyrenix Desert, Halen could pass himself off as a Lüshanian. Rafe, with his tawny skin, might be able to pass, but maybe not. Even with the tans a few of their group members had—Janie’s tan was somehow darker than Rafe’s natural, light brown, probably because he tended to stay indoors when Emilia wasn’t around—no one else in their group looked like anything other than easterners, white skin really only common in Baalphoria, Lu Ros, and Zironia, while everyone else’s features were definitely eastern. He also looked more eastern, but his skin colour would cover for that well enough for him to pass as Lüshanian. Everyone else? Highly unlikely that more than Rafe and Janie would be able to pass—and they’d only pass at a distance.

So… yeah. Halen didn’t think the uniform was going to do much for most of them.

Still, he had analyzed it, lest they need to create more—and really, he thought it more likely that they would accidentally become allies with a local, as Emilia and the drop group seemed intent to do, and want them to wear a uniform.

With this in mind, he had sent the details of his analysis off to the rest of their group. Everyone’s Censors had replied that they were busy, which was slightly concerning—previously, at least someone in the drop group would reply. Halen didn’t like it—didn’t like that his explanation to Codeth about how the idea of a threesome had come up was still unseen by his friend.

He’d been analyzing the uniform when his friend messaged him, confused but intrigued. It wasn’t that Halen couldn’t read his relays while doing such things, but he’d been dedicating most of his resources to that, so they could get moving faster—similar to recon skills, analyzing objects effectively required the person to stay still. By the time he had clarified for his friend that it had come up because Emilia had asked if he’d known she and Codeth hooked up relatively often, and this had gotten him thinking, Codeth was gone.

Halen really hoped that his last messages to his friend wouldn’t be about how it might be nice to have a threesome with a girl he liked and Codeth had experience with—although, knowing as much as he did about the things his friend enjoyed in bed, he thought it more likely Codeth would mostly watch. So far, Halen hadn’t put much thought into this idea; instead, it just existed as there were logistics and reality and the fact that Emilia might say no to a thousand things that would make such a thing happening impossible.

Top of the list was the reality that Halen, for as much as he was hopelessly in love with the silverstrain, had been some mixture of tortured and sustained by memories of their few times doing anything sexual together for years. Having actual, proper sex with her… Well, Halen was almost positive that, love or not, he wasn’t sure having sex without some promise that they would try for something more was a good idea.

Losing her, after all, might very well break him, even if memories of their few, passing moments together over the last decade were some of his most precious. Burying his face between her thick thighs in Seer’ik’tine. Kissing and touching her, his cock hard against her clothed cunt, as they earned themself an alibi after trashing Coral’s old school. Seeing her wander naked through a party after stealing her closes while she and a few of her friends went skinny-dipping—he had been expecting her to call for help, not streak.

Oddly, it was that incident that had led to him expanding the capabilities of their fabrication skill to allow for more complicated items like clothing being included within its scope—although, it wasn’t so much that clothing was complicated, but that allowing the clothing to be altered to fit was complicated. As the skill was often used in their combat classes, they all had a copy—although, they had created a way to lock certain items in the default library from being used or shared, depending on what they were doing in the class.

Now, he had added the Drinarna uniform to the library, where it sat alongside the clothing he had added because he really hadn’t intended to make Emilia wander through the party naked. While he knew she was comfortable in her own skin, making her do that…

Logically, Halen understood that she could have called for help. The girl wasn’t helpless, nor was she stupid. There had been other options available to Emilia that evening, years ago now. He still felt guilty that his own actions had led to that moment.

He felt even more guilty at how often the memory of her filled his mind in the dark of night or the soft morning light.

Stunning—Emilia was stunning and perfect, even in all her imperfect parts. The girl was a work of art, shattered to pieces over and over again, her unending love and friendship pulling people into her orbit so they could puzzle her back together. Shimmering metal—perhaps even universal energy itself—held her together. Dozens of strands of colour, attached to each of her friends who had given some part of themself up to help put her back together.

Rafe was there, woven through her from their years together after Warren. Regardless of the damage their breakup—if it could even be called that—had caused to Emilia, Rafe had been there for her. Now, he was more a part of her than most.

The triplets were there as well, pressing themselves into the cracks Rafe had left when he tore part of himself free of her. Three strands that were the same and yet different. Sometimes, Halen could tell the boys apart, even when they were switching their personalities about. It wasn’t an always thing, the way it was with Emilia, who seemed connected to the clones in a way none of them understood, not even her.

He could see their differences, though. Taelor was the ever-giving caretaker to Emilia and his brothers—and much to his chagrin, Halen had realized Taelor was bullying him with his offers to help him with this and that throughout the day. Baylor was chaos—was the one who could draw those he loved out of their misery to make them move and dance and laugh. Valor was there, soft and quiet, falling into the background but ready to step out of the shadows to offer support whenever his brothers’ particular brands of love didn’t quite hit the mark.

Had he been watching the triplets closer today, wondering how he could fit in with them if Emilia and he started something? Yes, definitely. It was rather mortifying, especially in the moments where he had seen more of what they were, even if he’d long ago figured out they were more lovers than whatever strange thing being clones bred and raised alongside one another made them. The way they were so tactile with one another when no one was looking or when they didn’t think that whoever was around might care—or perhaps simply didn’t care if they cared. The things Baylor had told him, about some of the things he did with Emilia—and really, Halen was almost positive the middle triplet had barely scratched the surface of what the two of them got up to. Baylor had been hard as he expounded upon the blood Emilia let him spill from her during sex, Taelor looking… something behind him. Disapproving? Curious as to Halen’s response—and really, it was unfair that Taelor had realized his feelings for Emilia. When had that happened?

There had also been that whole thing with Baylor telling him he was beautiful and then freaking out. It would have been funny, had Darrian not been sent tumbling into the city, Baylor following so quickly—so, so quickly, and Valor’s arm around his waist that was the only thing keeping Halen from jumping after Darrian to help him.

“Baylor has him,” the youngest triplet had whispered to him, pulling him back into his chest, solid and comforting and—

And really, Halen didn’t know what was happening. Later, he would have to figure out if the triplets were all acting weird, or if he simply hadn’t been paying enough attention to them before to notice them doing these things with their friends—with Emilia’s friends. Perhaps, since he and Emilia were being more friendly, they were simply treating him differently? Or, had he simply not noticed them acting this way before, animosity between their groups leaving him to view their actions as more malicious than they really were?

Valor’s chest against his back, his arm, solid against Halen’s stomach, as they both breathed in those scant seconds of Baylor and Darrian falling, hadn’t felt malicious. No—no, instead it had felt as though Valor needed comfort as his brother fell, Taelor peering over the edge to watch them land. It was possible Valor had taken comfort from him simply because Halen was there, already in the other boy’s arms because he had been about to throw himself after Darrian.

On the other hand, maybe even if he hadn’t been so fast to decide that he was going to try to save Darrian—who he doubted could have hit that landing without breaking a few bones—despite not being particularly confident in his own able to hit the landing either, Valor might have grabbed him anyways.

It had felt like intimacy, in those brief seconds of contact, Halen’s own hand rising to press over Valor’s as they waited for Taelor to confirm the other boys had landed. It wasn’t romantic intimacy, but something softer and less defined—the intimacy of two people who loved the same person, perhaps, finding support with one another?

Halen didn’t know, but it had been nice, and when Valor pulled away, he had felt the loss of that connection, odd as it had been, through to his soul.

So strange—the day and the situation and everything happening was strange, but he wasn’t even really sure it was because everything was so stressful.

How stressful, one might ask? Well, it was stressful enough that when a relay he rarely received messages in popped up, asking why he had gone with Emilia’s friends to Lüshan, Halen answered honestly.

“Because I’m in love with your daughter,” he told Emilia’s father, which was objectively terrible. Did Halen have an inkling the man already knew? A little. There had been a few moments, over the years, where Miles had freaked out far less than he likely should have when the two of them did some nonsense or another, the looks he shot Halen some mixture of reprimand and a question of really, this is how you’re trying to make my daughter not hate you?

Sometimes, Halen thought it was all in his head.

When Miles responded with, “Ah, yes. That. I should have guessed,” Halen really wasn’t sure whether to feel better or worse. Also! It was a little vague? Had the man known? Or was he simply aware that people in love did stupid things—although, Halen wasn’t sure he’d consider this stupid just yet. He might yet change his mind. For the moment, he wouldn’t do much different, if given the chance to go back in time.

At the very least, he did have the sense to tack on to his message a better explanation about the situation, going back to the stalking function and seeing Olivier die.

“You can see everyone?” Miles asked after taking a minute to read the information Halen sent him—a more basic breakdown of all the information he, Taelor, Emilia, and occasionally Doctor Vickers, had been compiling, which he presumed Malcolm had already given the man. Mostly, he assumed Miles either hadn’t wanted to take the time to read that whole document yet—it did seem like he was in the midst of travelling, and potentially wanted to sit down in a Virtuosi Rig to analyze the whole thing in more detail—or wanted to see if any details changed between a more official breakdown and spur of the moment words.

They wouldn’t. Aside from perhaps the motivations of those involved in coming, the raw facts had all been put into the document, right down to his hand injury and a running list of things they had broken or stolen from this house, were all accurate.

“Yes?” Halen asked, sending the current raw data from the stalking function over to the man. Despite everyone outside of their group not replying to messages, they were neither dead nor were their vitals so erratic as to indicate something truly chaotic was going on—something that made their silence more ominous, honestly.

In the back of his mind, as Miles asked that he keep him updated on the situation and everyone’s current state of being—the aethernet connection was far too weak for Halen to try sending the man the function itself so he could track everyone himself—Halen was mostly wondering if they could design a function to purposefully cause their vitals to do this or that as an alternative method of communication. He and Emilia would have to make the stalking function work offaether for that to do anything—it wasn’t like normal communication being down wouldn’t take the function itself down at the moment—but also, this entire situation had showcased a number of places where their skills and functions needed to be expanded and improved. Communication was near the top of that list, along with recon skills and general expansion of their combat classes into something that was some mixture of more insane and less organized—and yes, Halen realized that, having graduated, they no longer had combat classes.

Was this going to stop him from improving the functions that had managed those classes, and then convincing as many of his former classmates as he could to run more simulations? No—no it was not.