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Arc F1.7 | Chapter 26: One Day, If I’m Lucky, I’ll Be Able to Forgive Myself

Porsq was out cold, not even Olivier’s running through the confusing paths of Falmíer enough to rouse him. The boy was worn out, and nothing would wake him.Not the running.

Not Olivier calling his name.

Not even the burst of a skill through his small, emaciated body, designed to force people into wakefulness.

would wake the boy up, and fuck.

Until now, Olivier’s lack of aethernet access hadn’t bothered him too much. It was inconvenient, but it could be worse. His entire Censor could be down. His core could be damaged within him, threatening to burst apart at any moment. Not being able to communicate with anyone was inconvenient, but it was far from being the end of the world.

At least, it hadn’t felt as though it were world ending until now.

Now, Olivier was alone. The little girl had been jostled awake by his hurrying through the streets, her sobs of overtiredness harsh against his senses. Porsq was gone to the world. Xavier was trying to run alongside him, and Olivier knew the boy was in pain—knew that being dragged along by Olivier’s hand was tugging on fragile muscles and bones in his arm and shoulder.

Something told Olivier he couldn’t stop—couldn’t stop to reassess and readjust so he could adjust his one-armed hold on Porsq and the little girl, hoist the boy into his arms, swing him over his back, just do… something.

Something better.

Something different.

Just… something, and he wanted to cry.

He was alone, with three small children depending on him, and yet, he felt like a child himself. This was out of his depths, and all he wanted was for another adult to be there with him—for someone who wasn’t exhausted to give him advice on what to do because he felt like he was going to fail. Olivier was forty—barely more than a child within the eyes of Baalphorian society. Yes, he had skipped over so many stages of Baalphorian life. He’d graduated early, skipped his gap decade, then sped through law school so quickly that no one really knew what to expect of his future.

Would he stumble and fall, after having spent too little time within the realm of university and education? Or would he rise within the realm of lawyers just as quickly as he had every other world he set foot within?

Only time would tell, assuming he got out of their forsaken city alive.

The point was, Olivier had felt far older than he actually was since he was small. Now, he felt small and alone and like he needed a hug.

Emilia would be good at hugs, he knew. Having her pressed against him the night before had been wonderful, even if the circumstances had been less than ideal. Her sobbing herself to sleep hadn’t been good, but she had been so sweet before that, with her constant snuggling closer—with her fearlessly taking what she wanted, and yet, never taking it too far.

For as much as she was a flirty thing, the girl had never hinted that she wanted him to feel uncomfortable. Had he demanded she stop flirting with him—forced her Censor to accept that he didn’t consent to her teasing comments—she would have stopped and never brought it up again. Unfortunately, he was a masochist in this, and in no world could he ever tell someone as beautiful—as tempting—as Emilia a true

No, Olivier was sure that his to that girl would always be layered over with the implication that, in a different world, his wouldn’t exist—an implication that it was nothing more than a consequence of their lives and expectations and a thousand more layers of complications. His would always be nothing more than

Emilia, he thought, as he hurried along, Xavier sniffling beside him, his free hand repeatedly moving upwards to return his fingers to his mouth before realizing he would inevitably clamp his teeth down around them as they moved before falling back to his side, would know what to do.

Emilia was strong—powerful—her mind a maze of possibilities that he’d seen bloom over and over again in his class. She would know what to do where Olivier had no idea, and he needed help.

Olivier swerved to the left, down a small alleyway, barely wide enough for him to traverse holding the children. he told Xavier as he pulled the boy in front of him, their hands releasing, and at the very least, he could finally relax his other arm, which had been reached tight around the little girl so he could attempt to support Porsq even a little more, the preteen’s sleep-slack grip on him most of what was holding the boy precariously to Olivier’s side.

Xavier scurried down the alleyway, his little head swivelling side to side as he went. The child was so young that Olivier had no idea if the boy even remembered what life outside those holding cells was like. Perhaps others had told him stories of the outside world. Perhaps he knew nothing at all.

Certainly, everything must be huge and imposing, compared to the cramped rooms of the holding cells. There was so much more out here, and yet, at the same time, there was nothing at all. So much empty space. So few people, their foursome having come across no one wandering the streets even when the alarm finally ceased blaring in the background. Part of it, Olivier had assumed, back when Porsq’s abilities had finally vanished from the world, was blowback from the preteen’s abilities. Everyone, coming back to themselves, and hearing the alarm going, would have realized something was wrong and hurried into homes and businesses once more.

Then, they had crossed the maximum range of Porsq’s abilities—gone into a world where the only people who would have been touched by his manipulations would be anyone who fled into the distance, rather than either returning wherever they had originally been or seeking refuge within the closest building. At the time, the alarm could still be heard in the distance, so Olivier had assumed everyone was simply hiding away, avoiding being dragged into any drama with the local criminals.

Eventually, however, the alarm had become nothing but faint background noise—that sort of noise that most people don’t notice. Yet, the streets had still been empty, and Olivier couldn’t imagine that, back when the alarm had first gone off and the streets would have been packed with people noisily going about their day, that anyone would have been capable of hearing the alarm going off at a building now blocks upon blocks away.

So, where was everyone?

Barely a block later, the alarm had cut off, and just to be sure, Olivier had sent his Censor spiralling back a ways, searching for any sign of that lingering background noise. There was none. The alarm had been turned off and with every step he took through the city from that point on, the wrongness of the situation grew and grew and grew because where was everyone?

Curtains were closed up tight. Doors to businesses were shut, bars and security blinds pulled down over their windows, all hiding whether anyone was inside or not. Occasionally, he would catch sight of someone peeking out a window, but the moment they saw Olivier’s group, the person would vanish once more and something was wrong.

Every step he had taken through the city, every sound he or the children made, felt like a slice through reality—a siren call to anyone who might still be lingering out on the streets, and even with a noise-cancelling skill pulled around them, it didn’t feel like enough because something was very, wrong. Perhaps in another neighbourhood, there would be homeless people, left to linger in the streets, but not here. It was impossible to tell exactly where he was, maps of Lüshan effectively forbidden by the government, but he was almost positive they had ended up in an area his class had been meant to visit later that day, which was home to numerous art galleries and museums. As a result, it wasn’t exactly the sort of place that called the homeless to it, and there was no one on the streets.

No, until just a little while ago, the only people he had seen on the streets organically, since leaving the holding cells, were those of them who had escaped, Hwris, and several Drinarna, shifting restlessly down streets that he had thankfully avoided, his Censor pulling in every small sound in an attempt to lead him away from any people. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but it felt as though anyone he saw wandering the streets at this point must be someone who couldn’t be trusted. Emilia’s letter had informed him not to trust the Drinarna, as at least some of them were beholden to Fräthk, and this was why he wished Porsq were awake.

Perhaps the child would be too worn to do anything, but if he could? If he could reach his abilities into the minds of the Drinarna they occasionally passed and perhaps determine if they had good or bad intentions?

That would be nice. It would also be unfair of him to demand such things of the boy, but in this sort of terrible situation, Olivier knew their options were dwindling, especially with people now actively chasing them.

The moment Olivier had seen the shapes of two people, neither wearing Drinarna uniforms, he had known he needed to get away. They were looking for them, and he couldn’t let them get the children. So, he had run—the pair had already caught sight of him, their features odd in the distance. Oliver hadn’t been inclined to take a moment to examine they looked odd.

At the time, the pair had been quite a ways off. They were catching up too quickly, and Olivier wasn’t going to be able to get them to safety. The embassy was still so far off; even the relative safety that be offered by the spire too far away. Their pursuers were catching up, and—

And Xavier tripped, a squeak escaping him as he sprawled forward and even before Olivier halted and squatted down, he knew the boy had drawn blood. The child’s front teeth dug into his lower lip as he pushed himself up and rotated, teary eyes fixed on his palms and the way they had been shredded. Blood was already seeping through the knees of his pants and there was no way he’d be able to run like this.

Some children had no awareness of their bodies, Olivier knew. They could break skin and bones and barely notice, only an adult asking enough to drag their attention to the fact that maybe they be okay. Olivier had never been like that. The moment anything was wrong with his body, he knew. As he’d grown, he’d been able to learn how to compartmentalize discomfort and pain—make it less of a drain on his mind and senses. Xavier, he thought, was the same, and Olivier wished he could pull the child close and tell him it was okay, each tearful that fell from the boy’s mouth breaking his heart.

The little boy wasn’t stupid. He knew why they were running, and he knew that he couldn’t run and Olivier couldn’t carry all three of them and the people chasing them were going to catch up and—

Olivier’s eyes caught on a small area cut into the side of the alleyway. There were dozens of similar areas along the path, most of them holding a garbage can. Presumably, a machine or worker came through to grab their garbage from each of the areas. Unlike every other spot, however, this one was empty.

Hesitating, he let his Censor catalogue the alleyway—find the rhyme and reason to it. Like many of the winding paths of the city, there was none. Along one side of the alleyway, there were doors to apartments or businesses, most on the wider side and opening upwards. On the other side, there were the cut-outs for the garbage cans, but they didn’t always match up with the doors. Some doors seemed to have two spots for garbage, others none at all. Sometimes, it was simply that a door’s garbage space wasn’t directly opposite it; yet, the number of garbage spots didn’t match the number of doors and maybe there was a reason for it that a local would know.

Even if there was a reason, what person, chasing him down through the city, would be paying enough attention to notice a garbage spot missing? Perhaps in Baalphoria, where someone could set a function within their Censor to manage such mundane things for them, it might have been noticeable. If a clone were chasing him, Olivier might not have risked it.

Here, he was going to risk it. Perhaps it wouldn’t work and they would all be captured anyways. Perhaps at least one of them would get away.

In the background of his mind, the war-simulation function was analyzing the stonework of the alleyway, creating a skill for him—some sort of partial-fabrication, partial-illusion skill that Olivier couldn’t hope to understand. With his body, Olivier was setting the little girl down beside Xavier and telling them both to stay there while he tucked Porsq away.

It was easy to choose Porsq to leave behind. The spot was too small to leave all three children, and he didn’t want to risk the little girl’s sobs being heard by their pursuers—noise-cancelling skills could only do so much before their effect on the aether was so pronounced most Free Coloniers would be able to feel it. Plus, if Porsq woke up alone—although, Olivier hoped that, by some miracle, he would run into someone who could come retrieve the boy before that happened—he would be the one most capable of getting somewhere safe by himself.

The preteen could figure out where to go—could manipulate someone into telling him where the Baalphorian embassy was and get there. In the worst case, he could manage to live on the streets for a while. The smaller children couldn’t.

Still, as he settled Porsq in, using a skill to summon a piece of paper with an explanation of the situation on it and tucking it into Porsq’s ratty shirt, Olivier leaned in and brushed a kiss against the boy’s hair. he promised, before pulling back. The new reality the skill had crafted for him settled over the child, solid enough that it wouldn’t obviously be an illusion if anyone spared it barely a glance, illusion enough that Porsq would be able to easily break free of it if needed. Someone with high aether awareness would be able to feel the illusion portion of it, however, and Olivier let a collection of smaller decoy skills suggested by the war-simulation function explode out of him, each leaving remnants of his aether along the alleyway.

If they were lucky, whoever was chasing them would assume something had happened—an attack, perhaps—and either in his panic or due to a lack of experience, he had left marks across the aether. They would think little of it and continue after himself and the children, not wanting to risk them escaping. If they were unlucky, their pursuers would stop to investigate and find the illusion.

Scooping both Xavier and the little girl's into his arms, Olivier bolted, his steps far lighter and faster without Porsq and he hated it—hated having to leave the boy behind, hated that he couldn’t keep them all safe, hated the absence of the boy’s weight against him.

It was for the best, maybe.

It was for the best, perhaps.

It was for the best, and if Olivier was lucky and he repeated that to himself enough times, he might actually believe it.