Spellhacke- M. K. England Page 0,63
AT ME for my disguise yesterday, but they’re eating their words now.
While we finished up at the archive, Jaesin and Ania dug through Ania’s wardrobe and cosmetics for something to hide us all long enough to make it onto the train. We’re using concealment spells, obviously, but we’ll have to walk past several security guards, including one right as we walk on the train. If anything draws their attention enough to break through the concealment, we’ll be glad for the extra layer of protection. Can’t be too careful when you’re wanted by the police.
Remi is easy enough. Plain jeans and a World of Battle Tournament X T-shirt (Ania swears she has no idea where it came from), their dark hair parted and slicked back, a cheap deck loaded with video games in their hands, and they’re a totally forgettable nerd buried in their virtual world, barely aware enough to hand the security guard their ticket. Ania generally doesn’t stand out too much in her everyday clothes, though it can’t hurt to tone down her utterly polished beauty. She opts for an outfit similar to Remi’s, though it obviously pains her to wear her workout sneakers outside the gym.
Jaesin, though . . .
It takes everything in me to hold back a grin as we walk through the halls of the abandoned elementary school, Jaesin slouching along in the lead. Ania set her sights on him earlier, and she made good use of the time. She worked oil into his hair so it looked limp and greasy, lined his eyes in dark kohl, and dressed him in all black from head to toe, right down to black painted fingernails peeking out from his too-slim black hoodie sleeves. It started out as a disguise, but I think by the end it turned into some kind of revenge. For what, I don’t even want to know.
I prance up behind him in my flowing pastel shirt-and-skirt combination (coming off as soon as we’re on the train) and lean close, waggling my fingers. “You are no longer Awesome Strongman McDad Friend. I now pronounce you Super Edgelord McRaven Dark.” I fold my hands together and give a little bow, solemn. “It is so.”
Jaesin glares at me, then walks faster, pulling away. I look to Remi and Ania, hoping Jaesin is just keeping in character, but find the same annoyed stares from them.
Even naming jokes aren’t working. They really do hate me now.
Maybe they’ll always hate me, and tagging along for this ride is pointless.
“I still don’t understand,” Ania murmurs, smoothly ignoring me. “If the professor were alive and in Jattapore, there’d be some trace on the net. No one can truly disappear, right?”
“True.” Jaesin glances over at her with a small smile. Apparently he is still capable, after all. “Unless you go off the grid entirely.”
Ania shakes her head. “Is that even possible? Even toilets are networked to check contents for disease markers now.”
“It wasn’t too uncommon, before the plague,” Jaesin says, his eyes lighting up at the memory of his earliest childhood. Has he never told Ania about it? I don’t know what happened while they were dating, but there are some weird gaps in their knowledge about each other.
I think back to when Jaesin first came to the group home, when we were all only seven or eight. I made fun of him because he had an accent and had never used a deck or smart lenses before. What can I say? I was even more of an asshole as a child. Remi was the patient one, showing him how everything worked. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to admit that to Ania.
Jaesin continues. “Out in the Freelands between cities, it used to be possible to live a pretty great life. My parents moved out of Kyrkarta after they got married, and I was born out there. Ambient maz levels were really low, so far from a big source like the ones cities are built around, and lots of families couldn’t afford smart lenses and other tech, or just didn’t want to use it. We just did everything by hand and kept everything local. I think some people were there specifically because it made them hard to find.”
His face falls, and he blinks several times in quick succession. “Once the plague started spreading, though, even our trace amounts of maz turned toxic. MMC sent evacuation teams to the outland towns, but they only had room to take the kids. By the time they went back for