“Mr. Donner, tell me about a time when you identified a vulnerability or weakness. How did you handle it?”

  “Um… What have you heard?”

  “Jett!” Wally clomped across the floor of the workshop pit as I landed, having jumped from about halfway down and used my shoe thrusters to break my fall. “You’re okay!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “They only flayed half of my hide, but it regenerated.” Wally’s eyes widened, so I quickly added, “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

  “Fireman!” Fu hugged me and clapped me on the shoulder. “King of controversy! How’d it go with Porter?”

  “Pretty much as I’d hoped, with some caveats,” I said. “I’ve gotta make tier 3 in four weeks, and then I’ve gotta win some mystery duel Marin’s setting up.”

  “And he gets away with it too! Shit, Fireman!” Fu grabbed my cheeks like I was some kind of adorable animal and grinned devilishly. “You are one naughty boy and it’s really kind of rawwr, ya feel me?”

  “Ow,” I said. Fu giggled as she let go, and I rubbed my cheeks. “I do feel.”

  “Don’t encourage him!”

  Jessie glared down at me imperiously as she descended from street level on the cargo lift.

  “Sorry Bee-Ho! Didn’t realize you were claiming him!”

  “Jessie?” I felt inexplicably sheepish. Caught by the hall monitor. “What are you doing down here?”

  “We’re helping Bee-Ho with her bike,” said Fu.

  Jessie stormed over to me. “Jett Fulgen, of all the irresponsible… Shones, we’re not in middle school anymore! You jeopardized everything!”

  I held up my hands. “Hey, they were being underhanded too. You knew about it. You disagreed. You warned me about it. Sort of.”

  She sighed. “My hands were tied. I would have told you everything had I been allowed. But I gave you good advice. Do you have any idea how risky that was? Seriously. Did you ever stop to think about it?”

  “I didn’t break any laws. Could they really do anything to me that’s worse than what they’ve been doing?”

  “They could fire you, Jett. Have you thought about that? Your pardon would evaporate instantly. I’m sure they don’t want to—they’ve already invested a lot in you—but you need to watch how far you push people.”

  “Hmm.” I hadn’t actually thought about that. I cleared my throat. “In my defense, I acted under the advice of a highly reputable lowlife.”

  Jessie ignored the comment. “Also, I just heard Colin Rusk mention that someone’s been poking around the rune wards he has set on the building. Your lapse was noticed, Jett. The enemy knows you left the building, and they’re lying in wait for you to do it again.”

  That was disconcerting. I wondered if Marin knew about that yet, and whether she would try to change our agreement. But I also felt a spike of anger at Jessie’s words.

  “So have you switched sides now?” I asked. “You think G-Tech’s right to try to box me up?”

  “I’m just saying that, for once in your damn life, you need to be careful. Yeah, it sucks what they did. It wasn’t right, especially how they did it. But don’t blame Marin too much. She’s complicit, and she’ll probably talk like it was all her idea because she’s the CEO, but—” She lowered her voice, “—she answers to others too.”

  Great. Another layer. I’d broken through one screen of secrecy and “I-wish-I-could-tell-you-but-I-cant” only to find another, identical screen just a few inches beyond it. I stared up at the ceiling in frustration. And that’s when I saw something. Far above our heads hovered the Black Box. The big block the size of a small apartment remained in its position near the ceiling of the workshop and lab complex. The walkway that provided access was extended, and I watched as a figure stepped across the temporary bridge and disappeared into the mystery cube.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be careful.”

  “Will you? Will you stop doing crazy shit?”

  I smirked at Jessie. “Now, you didn’t ask me to do that. From now on, I’ll do crazy shit more carefully. That’s all you’re getting.”

  Jessie rolled her eyes, but she threw up her hands. “Fine. But maybe next time, at least run your crazy shit by me?”

  “He barely runs it by me,” said Wally. “I hardly had any clue what he was up to last night. He wanted it to be a big surprise. And I’ve gotta hand it to him: he succeeded.”

  “I’m your ally here, Jett,” Jessie continued. “And like it or not, we’re tethered in ways that aren’t easy to unravel. I’ll go down with you because of injustice, if that’s what it takes, but I won’t go down because of stupid Jett shit. Get it together.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  She scoffed and walked away. I sidled over to Wally and murmured, “Sorry I didn’t disclose everything last night, Wall.”

  Wally had returned to his workbench and was studying a piece of circuitry. “It’s okay, Jett. But Jessie’s right. You can surprise people all you want, but maybe not us?”

  “You’re right. I’ll fill you in better on future plans. Speaking of which, you been poking around at all?”

  Wally glanced around much too obviously. “Like, in their system? I’ve restrained myself so far.”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “But you could?”

  Wally gave me a flat look that somehow said “Really?” twice. Once in response to me questioning his abilities, and once in response to what I was leading up to.

  I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Speaking of surprises, we need to know what the next one is. I want every bit of dirt and scheming G-Tech has going on behind the scenes.”

  “I’ll see what clues I can find, but I have a feeling most of the real answers are in that Black Box.”

  “Can you hack into that?”

  “Do you know what ‘air-gapped’ means? No wires or signals connect that place to anywhere else. It isn’t even connected to the building’s electricity. I’ve seen them wheel power cells in and out.”

  “But can you hack—” I made a sawing motion, “—into it?”

  Wally glanced up. “I can check the feasibility. But please, can we make that a last resort?”

  “Hey Sab,” Fu called. “Not to interrupt your lover’s spat, but can you come upstairs with me? We’re gonna try to make some goldsilver, and to do that we need to set up some equipment. Like, a lot of equipment.”

  “Ok,” I said. “No rush. Just poke around and let me know what you find.”

  Wally sighed. “Okay. Hopefully I won’t find something that makes things even worse.”

  I stood outside one of the practice rooms, waiting for my time slot.

  ?Ok, Habby. It’s show time. Tell me about these classes.?

  Habby popped up next to me with a flourish. I could tell he was excited. [Absolutely. From now on, at the end of each tier, you will need to earn a certain number of class points to progress. It’s three this time. Tier four requires eight, I believe?

  [Anyway, you will have a long list of classes to choose from, divided into two types and both centered around further developing your skills. The first type is a Focus Class. It allows you to specialize. You will typically select a single skill, and mastering the class will give you an upgraded version. Not just a modifier. Your existing skill will be switched out for a dramatically more powerful skill. It will still serve the same function, but it may have access to new modifiers and unlock other child skills.

  [The second, the Branch Class, is a path toward learning new, sometimes exotic skills related to one or more of your existing skills. Both types of classes are capped at a tier below your main class, so in this case you will need to advance them to Tier 1 Level 10, then collect a single point for the accomplishment. Both types of classes require practicing and studying the skills in question to progress.]

  ?Study?? I curled my lip almost reflexively. I’d studied once or twice on college. It sucked.

  [You’re about to grow past the stage where you just pick something from a list and instantly have it available. You’re going to have to delve into the aether system itself. Each skill is actually a complex aetherframe, a book of instructions that direct aether, matter, and energy to produce a certain effect. You will need to learn to deconstruct your skills, then put them back together in new ways to make them stronger or more tailored to how you want to use them. Or, to synthesize new skills.]

  ?Like Skidstick Aptitude??

  [Ehh… just so.]

  ?I can still select one new skill from reaching tier 2 level 20. Do I need to have that available to perform a synthesis??

  [Either that, or have a Branch Class that includes a synthesis as a requirement. I wouldn’t recommend that starting out. Easy to hit a wall, and as I recall, you have a time limit.]

  ?Ok, what if I keep that skill point in my pocket for now? I do two other classes to get a feel for this crap, then I try to synthesize the skidstick skill and make that my last Focus Class??

  Habby considered. [Hmm, I find it agreeable to attempt that. It’s difficult to synthesize skills this early, but I suppose you can take a crack at it. Let’s just limit how long you spend on it so you don’t run out of time, eh?]

  ?Deal. And I think I know what I want to start with.?

  [Don’t tell me.]

  I opened the class menu, drilled down to Torch Thruster, and found a little button marked “Focus Class.”

  Rocketeer. Tier 1 Focus Class. Prerequisites: Torch Thruster skill, tier 2 or higher. Further enhances the power and efficiency of Torch Thruster. Completion reward: Torch Thruster will be upgraded to Rocket Thruster. This version of the skill will provide enough lift for momentary hovering.

  I practically squealed with delight.

  [Fine, fine. That… that actually ‘rocks.’ Wait just a moment…] Habby vanished for a moment, I expected to hear him rifling through my skull “library,” but he reappeared after a few seconds with no such intrusion. [Yes! Jett, this is even better than I thought. With some additional enhancements and maybe a Burst modifier, you could actually power this up enough to fly!]

  I had never locked anything in so hard since I became a Guardian.

  ?Well. Guess I’ll have to go up to the roof to train this. Team Cyclone might get pissed, but I’m going to need to ask Valery if I can hog the track for a week or so.?

  I was about to charge toward the elevator when I heard a familiar voice from around the corner.

  “... tired of my team getting assigned to babysit Alex Fulgen’s little breeding experiment.”

  Dante Katsuro and Junpei Lin circled into view and stopped short when they saw me in the hallway, leaning against the wall.

  “‘Sup?” I asked.

  The two friends from teams Ambassador and Snowcrest just stared at me for a moment. Then they gave me a curt nod, almost in unison, and passed me without a word, heading for one of the other practice rooms.

  Habby stared after them. [‘Breeding experiment?’ What could that possibly mean? Just a random insult? I’ve heard people question each other’s parentages before, but that’s a very odd way to word it.]

  ?Great. Yet another layer of bullshit. Come on. I think I’ve bothered Marin enough for one day, but you can bet I’ll be back in her office soon.?

  “Wally?”

  “Mmm.”

  We were in our bunkroom, having just shut off the light.

  ?Habby, check one more time.?

  [Fine, fine. You people and your repetition. Imagine if you were this meticulous with your own work!]

  Habby’s glowing orange form zipped off into the darkness, and I saw an orange light that appeared to be coming inside the wall. He was searching for bugs.

  “Wally,” I whispered again, “can they hear us in here?”

  “No. I checked that a couple of days after we got here, and I recheck at least once a week just to be safe.”

  “Okay. Have you found anything?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Wally?”

  He sighed, and the bed creaked as he shifted position on the bottom bunk. “Nothing damning yet. Not overtly. But I found what I’m pretty sure are Black Box numbers. BB-1247. BB-0008. That kind of thing. It’s a whole cross-referencing system. It’s all over their docs on the intranet.”

  He paused, and I could tell he wasn’t looking forward to what he said next. “There are several entries for your family. As a whole, and the individual members. Also some for Jessie’s parents. And some for Chris. Your dad has the most references and unique numbers by far. Chris is in second. I guess that makes sense. But… you’re a close third.”

  I felt a chill. “All from before I came here?”

  “Two new entries since you joined up, from the looks of it. The rest, yeah. The latest from before you started dates back to soon after, you know, the incident.”

  There was more. I could tell without even looking at him. “The oldest?”

  Wally took a shuddering breath. “They don’t mention you by name, of course. They couldn’t have. But based on the context… your mom’s pregnancy is mentioned. So, yeah.

  “Some of the entries about you are from before you were born.”