Chapter 12: Breakfast Can Wait

Chapter 12: Breakfast Can Wait

By morning, Silas needed to piss badly enough that he finally stopped watching the door.

He got out of the chair, waited for the feeling to return to his left foot, and limped into the bathroom. When he came back, the copied report was still beside the terminal. Sunlight had reached the edge of the desk.

He picked up the page. There was a crease where he had folded it too hard during the night.

Someone had wanted him to see it. Beyond that, he had nothing useful. He could ask Kerr questions, start checking records, get himself noticed by whoever had done this. The thought of arranging any of it while his neck hurt and his eyes felt full of sand made him want to swear.

And then what? Find them and ask politely?

He was still recovering from walking home after a student practical. Whoever had poisoned this body could wait until he had something better to bring to the conversation.

Silas slipped the page into an empty envelope and put it beneath his personal papers. He locked the drawer, checked that the delivery compartment remained secured, and pulled the curtains closed.

From somewhere outside came the bell for morning lectures.

He climbed into bed.

He woke late that morning with a pillow over his head and an appetite large enough to be annoying. For a while, he lay there listening to someone move furniture in the room above. Then his stomach cramped, and he abandoned the idea of sleeping through lunch as well.

The food menu was already open on the terminal. He must have left it there yesterday.

Silas scrolled past the broth he had ordered three times and stopped at a plate of roast chicken with potatoes. There was bread with it. Proper bread, judging by the picture, with a browned crust and enough butter to justify getting out of bed.

He added it to the order, considered the little baked custards listed underneath, and added one of those too.

The total gave him pause. He opened his balance in another window.

He could afford breakfast. Even breakfast with dessert.

Buy the fucking custard.

He confirmed the order before he could turn it into a budgeting exercise.

While he waited, he showered and changed into a clean shirt. The water stayed hot for as long as he wanted it. He had discovered that during his first week and then somehow failed to enjoy it, usually being too tired to remain upright.

This time he stayed until the stiffness in his neck eased.

The delivery notice arrived while he was drying his hair. He reopened the compartment for the scheduled delivery and retrieved a covered plate, a small bread parcel, and the custard in a ceramic dish.

He sat by the window to eat. The chicken skin had softened under the cover, but the meat came away easily, and the potatoes had crisp edges that survived being dragged through the gravy. He ate more slowly after the first few mouthfuls.

Below, students hurried across the courtyard carrying books. One boy was trying to fasten his coat while his companion read something aloud to him. They disappeared beneath the arch, still arguing.

Silas tore off another piece of bread.

He could get used to this. A decent meal, a room of his own, and nobody asking for a presentation before he had finished chewing. He wanted a better chair eventually. This one grew uncomfortable if he sat for too long, which seemed an unreasonable defect in a chair.

For now, he folded the spare towel behind his back and opened a recorded lecture.

The lecturer began explaining the distinction between Talent output and effective force. Silas listened through most of the introduction, then paused it to scrape the last of the custard from the dish.

There was no need to eat cold food while it played.

After clearing the plate, he took his prescribed medicine and rested until his stomach felt less full. The wooden practice ball arrived in a separate equipment order early that afternoon. He rolled it between his palms. It was smaller than an egg, polished smooth, and sufficiently light that a failed experiment should do little damage.

He moved the remaining breakfast things away from the desk.

The custard dish could stay. It was empty, shallow, and included a small return charge. Breaking it would be irritating enough to encourage care.

Silas placed it on a folded towel and drew four chalk marks around it. He connected them, then fed mana into the boundary until he could feel the small enclosed area responding.

The ball crossed it without slowing.

A warning pulse ran through his mana, perfectly clear and completely unhelpful. The ball landed in the dish with a clack.

"Yes, I noticed."

He retrieved it and adjusted the flow. He had tried stopping objects before; the trouble came when the boundary actually met one. The connected marks would pull unevenly, and the whole thing would fail before he could correct it.

He tried pushing mana into all four at once.

The line nearest the window snapped. The ball bounced off the towel and rolled beneath the bed.

Silas leaned back, irritated. He had barely thrown it.

He used Remote Grasp to fetch it, then sat with it in his hand while the sting behind his eyes faded. More mana had made that worse. He rubbed out the farthest mark and brought the whole arrangement closer to the dish.

The smaller boundary was easier to hold evenly.

He tossed the ball gently with his own hand. It reached the space above the dish, hesitated, and dropped onto the towel outside the chalk.

Silas stared at it, then checked the dish.

"There we go."

He tried again before he could forget what he had done. This time the ball caught at the boundary for an instant and slipped sideways. It rolled off the desk, but the dish remained untouched.

[Boundary Ward — Assimilation: 45%.]

The third gentle throw also stopped.

He smiled despite the unchanged number and put a little more force into the fourth.

The boundary broke. The ball struck the rim of the dish and knocked a white chip onto the towel.

"Ah, shit."

He picked up the dish. A small crescent was missing from its lip. He ran a thumb beneath the break without touching the sharp edge, then set it down again.

The return charge had been optimistic.

For the next few attempts, he used the chipped dish and kept the throws gentle. Some stopped. Others got through when he lost the balance between the marks. A small change in angle was enough to give him trouble.

Eventually, he caught himself rubbing his forehead after every reset.

He put the ball down. There was still a lecture to finish, and training with a headache had never improved his judgment.

When he returned to the terminal, a workshop reminder covered the paused recording.

Talent Theory: Force Control. Assessed practical workshop. Attendance required this afternoon. West Teaching Hall.

Silas checked the time, then opened the session details in the hope that "attendance" included watching from his desk.

It did not. The theory recording was optional preparation. The practical credit required him to be there.

He looked at the chalk on his fingers, the chipped dish, and the clean shirt he would now have to change out of.

He had almost managed an entire pleasant day.

Silas finished the lecture while dressing, packed his satchel, and left with enough time to walk slowly. As he locked the door, he remembered the custard.

He should have ordered two.