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Arc F1.9 | Chapter 7: Useless Lessons; Useless People

When they were young, Rafe and his brother, as well as the Baxter twins, had been taken to a collection of lessons. Often times, these lessons would include Hyrat clones as well—the triplets, more often than not, occasionally clones from both their school and others who were within three or fours years of them.The lessons covered all sorts of things, but the one that came to mind now was one that, oddly enough, he was beginning to think wouldn’t be relevant to him—or any clone who worked with either their friend group or Halen’s, although he increasingly thought that, once they left Falmíer, their groups would find themselves far more united than any of them had ever thought possible.

the clone who had been assigned to teach them said, his voice more exasperated than Rafe usually heard from the clones when they were in a professional setting—clearly, the clone had working with people who weren’t black knots and had not enjoyed the experience—

This particular lesson had been given to them when they still quite young, possibly due to their friendship with Emilia and increasingly more children their age. They had been taught —how they couldn’t tolerate gore or torture or killing or any other number of things.

Back then, of course, Rafe suspected their mothers had already figured out Andre wouldn’t have a black knot. His twin brother was cheerful and kind and had always taken the other kids being warned away from him hard. Rafe—as well as Malcolm—had never particularly cared.

What did it matter to them if the other kids their age were wary of them? Malcolm had Finn, and that was enough. Rafe would have been perfectly happy alone—although, he suspected that even had Emilia not fallen into their lives as soon as she moved in next door, Rafe would have to be her friend the moment his little eyes fell on her.

This was beside the point that Andre had always been . Now, as Rafe watched the members of his group—except Janie, of course, cowering next to the door and being impressively useless—sweep through the room, he wondered if those lessons bothered his brother. Andre had sat through lessons where they were taught how stupid and useless people were. While his younger twin was in no way , it was possible he had internalized those ideas—if he might hold some idea of self-hatred within himself because he was and in the eyes of many of the Black Knot agents who would one day answer to him. As the two of them weren’t close, Rafe had no idea. All he could do was send a message off to Emilia, to be retrieved whenever she was back onaether, and tell her of his contemplations.

Either she would already know the answer to whether those lessons had affected Andre negatively, or she’d ask. Rafe would likely never find out—Emilia knew well enough the lack of attachment he had to either of his brothers. It bothered Andre sometimes, he thought. Really, he and Malcolm only passingly cared for each other and their baby brother because Emilia would be sad if anything happened to any of them.

So, they didn’t really talk, but they also wouldn’t let one another die.

So, Rafe would send his contemplations to her, knowing that if it were eventually revealed that Andre really were struggling due to those lessons and he hadn’t told her, Emilia would be upset—not really upset him, Emilia aware that about his brother in terms like this wasn’t something that came naturally to him, but she would still be upset that she hadn't known sooner. That upset would live inside him forever.

All of this was a digression from the point that despite those lessons on how useless people could be, aside from Janie, the rest of the group was being perfectly useful. Even Leerin had pulled her shit together, resulting in he and Simeon pointing out to Halen that was why she was allowed to stick around: Leerin knew when to shut up and be serious. If anything, it was a useful measuring tool for how fucked a situation was.

Dozens of bodies reduced to gore around them made for a moderately fucked-up situation.

In the centre of the room, Simeon shifted slightly as he activated recon skill after recon skill, trying to penetrate a few walls that were turning out to be made of some strange material. The other boy was getting through them, discovering various equipment that Halen had suggested were important components in the xphern transmission network, protecting it from things such as aethersurges—relatively rare phenomenon, especially underground, but something that could fry most electronic records.

Halen had suggested, nose wrinkling as he signed something about how, if their skills could get through the walls , it was actually unlikely the equipment would survive an aethersurge. he had added as he worked on getting into one of the computers littered throughout the room,

As they were all good at multitasking, Halen had babbled in the background for a while about how the situation was even worse in Baalphoria: aethernet hubs had protection against aethersurges.

Leerin had asked from where she was cataloguing the injuries of the bodies littering the area—it was around this point that Rafe had realized those lessons on how useless people were had, in actuality, been the useless thing, at least when it came to the people he had grown up with.

Blood splattered out from under Leerin with every step, and while her nose occasionally wrinkled and she had activated a few skills, attempting to keep blood off her clothes and the scent of piss and shit from her nose, overall, even she was fine. Janie, not so much, but as Simeon had pointed out, that wasn’t actually surprising.

Rafe, Simeon, and Janie were so often considered , yet, Rafe knew a lot about Simeon. They were always signing to one another—or messaging in their sprawling private relay, in the cases where they didn’t want people to know what they were talking about, who they were criticizing. Janie rarely said anything—rarely joined them in playing quiet games while their friends ran wild, or in sharing books or articles.

Instead, she sat there, quiet and… something.

Janie was someone Rafe rarely, if ever, thought about. Some people were loud and impossible to forget. Others he tended to he liked well enough and knew Emilia kept safe.

Did Janie even fall into that category? Rafe wasn’t even sure if the girl he loved would care much if Janie died, especially with how useless she was being. There would be sadness, sure, but heartbreak? Emilia would shatter if most of them died, but Janie… Rafe wasn’t so sure.

Still, one useless and three useful teammates was far more than Rafe had been taught to expect. It was both expected and unexpected, and as he used a skill to roll yet another body over to examine their wounds, he found himself calling Leerin over, intent to get a second opinion.

Her feet smushed with every step, the entire office filled with so much blood that most of the floor was covered, every surface splattered with blood and viscera. The grossest thing, in his estimation, were the teeth, scattered nearly everywhere, this strange thing, as though someone had purposefully—or worse, —ripped them free of skulls. Every so often, someone would accidentally step on one or kick it. The kicking was worse, the tooth tumbling across the floor, sending yet more blood scattering before it inevitably banged against some desk or cabinet.

Every time it happened, Janie pulled in on herself a little more. Her shoulders pulled higher, her fists clenched tighter. Her jaw was going to break from the strain—certainly, she was liable to crack a tooth if she didn’t try to relax.

The worst thing, Rafe supposed, was that rather than being someone nervous that an attack was coming, defensive skills loading up within her Censor as she slipped back into the hallway, intent to protect their group while also avoiding seeing the mess—or even just sitting there, protecting herself alone with defensive skills—Janie was doing nothing.

If she was going to be this useless, she should have stayed behind—and really, how had she not known she would be this useless? How had they not known? Had she always been this useless in combat classes? Rafe wasn’t sure… but he didn’t think so?

[Simeon:]

[Simeon:]

[Simeon:]

[Simeon:]

[Simeon:]

[Simeon:]

[Rafe:]

[Simeon:]

[Halen:]

[Simeon:]

[Simeon:]

Internally, Rafe laughed a bit to himself. For as much as Simeon often struggled to understand people, it wasn’t the first time the other boy had proved himself to understand people and their motivations with shocking clarity. He could be wrong, of course. The more Rafe thought about it, the less he imagined the other boy was wrong.

Janie was simply looking for an excuse to leave their friend group—potentially, she was looking for some solid reason to demand they never speak to her again.

Had she really hated being part of their friend group that much?

Leerin said, when Rafe asked her, the pair of them squatting over the dead body and examining the strange marks on the corpse—bruises that seemed entirely unnatural.

Rafe wasn’t entirely convinced some members of their friend group wouldn’t have tried to convince Janie to remain their friend, considering that, based on what Mikhail had said of his and Olivier de la Rue’s interactions with the Lüshanian boy, Porsq, both had effectively implied they were going to be taking the kid hostage in order to keep him safe. The child hadn’t seemed too put out—if anything, Mikhail said Porsq was so unsure of himself that he needed to be assured that he was so wanted by them that they weren’t giving him a choice.

Then again, the Lüshanian boy was exactly that: a boy—one in need of love and protection, no less. Janie was increasingly an adult, and in no world did she need protection… except maybe from herself, the girl not even paying enough attention to defend herself when the attack came.

If Rafe died protecting someone who had come along in order to he was going to be fucking pissed.