Chapter 247 | I Am Now Just Above Average [GT BONUS]
Chapter 247: 247 | I Am Now Just Above Average [GT BONUS]
Nyx appeared at the edge of our table without any of us noticing her approach, which was either a function of her Shadowmeld Aspect or simply the fact that she moved through social spaces the way a cat moves through rooms, appearing where she wanted to be and making it seem like she’d always been there. She wore the uniform with her characteristic modifications: fishnet stockings beneath the charcoal skirt, combat boots instead of standard shoes, black choker tight against her throat, and her dark bobbed hair hanging just past her jaw in a cut so sharp it could probably draw blood.
She pulled out the chair at the end of the table, sat down with her tray of sushi and miso soup, and spoke without preamble.
"It’s not Steele."
Everyone looked at her.
"I checked the room assignment for this afternoon," Nyx said, picking up a piece of salmon nigiri with her chopsticks. "Room 214 has been reconfigured since this morning. The podium’s gone. The tiered seating’s been pushed back to create floor space. And someone installed reinforced paneling on the walls that wasn’t there during Mercy’s lecture."
"How do you know what was and wasn’t on the walls during Mercy’s lecture?" Caden asked.
Nyx ate her sushi. "I pay attention."
"She took photographs of every classroom we entered today," Maribelle said with fond exasperation. "Including the bathrooms."
"The bathrooms had interesting ventilation architecture."
"Baby, no they didn’t."
"The intake manifold in the third-floor women’s restroom uses a non-standard configuration that suggests retrofit work completed within the last eighteen months. That’s architecturally significant."
Eden looked at Maribelle. Maribelle looked at Eden. A silent exchange occurred between them that communicated years of friendship and the specific resignation of people who loved someone whose brain operated on a completely different frequency from the rest of the human race.
"Reinforced paneling means combat demonstration," Percy said, his pen moving across his notebook. "Standard lecture rooms at Halloran use acoustic-dampening panels rated for verbal output and minor Aspect discharge. Reinforced paneling indicates the administration expects significant physical force within the classroom during the scheduled session." He looked up. "That eliminates approximately sixty percent of the faculty roster."
"So whoever’s teaching Hero Basics is someone with a physical Aspect strong enough to warrant wall reinforcement," I said.
"Or someone who expects the students to produce that kind of output," Percy corrected. "The paneling could be precautionary rather than demonstrative."
"That’s worse."
"Statistically, yes."
Marco pointed a chip at the group. "What about Hale? He’s Class 1-A’s homeroom instructor. Could be a crossover thing."
"Vincent Hale’s listed as 1-A exclusive on the faculty directory," Percy said. "I verified this morning."
"You verified the faculty directory at what time?"
"Five-twelve AM. The server traffic is lowest between four-forty-five and five-thirty, which reduces page load times by approximately thirty-seven percent."
Caden reached across the table and patted Percy on the shoulder with the gentle care of someone handling a fragile and precious object. "Never change, brother."
Eden leaned back in his seat, his red hair catching the overhead lighting, and flicked his Zippo lighter open and closed in the absent rhythm that accompanied most of his thinking. The flame caught and vanished, caught and vanished. "What if it’s someone from outside the academy? Like a guest lecturer."
"First day of Hero Basics?" Felicity tilted her head. "That’d be a statement. You don’t bring in outside talent for the opening class unless you’re trying to set a tone."
"Or unless you’re showing off," Maribelle added.
"Halloran doesn’t need to show off," I said. "Halloran is the show."
Nyx’s grey eyes moved to me with the flat assessment she brought to everything. "That’s the first thing you’ve said in this conversation that didn’t sound like you were managing information. I almost believed you meant it."
"I did mean it."
"Interesting."
"You say that about everything."
"Most things are interesting. You’re just above average."
Maribelle’s tail flicked against the table leg, and her gold eyes bounced between me and Nyx with the particular attention of someone who enjoyed watching social dynamics the way other people enjoyed watching sports. Her Bio-Pheromonal Charm operated at a constant low frequency, and I’d noticed since she sat down that the general stress level at our table had dropped by roughly twenty percent. People leaned closer. Voices carried less tension. Eden, who usually maintained a baseline volume somewhere between enthusiastic and deafening, had modulated to something approaching indoor levels.
The effect was subtle enough that nobody commented on it. That was the point.
"Okay," Caden said, stacking his empty pizza plates. "Final predictions. Go around the table. Who’s teaching Hero Basics?"
"Guest lecturer with a physical Aspect," Eden said. "Someone from the California top fifty."
Maribelle shrugged, her horns catching a gleam of light. "Someone political. Halloran likes making statements on the first day."
Marco pointed at himself. "Steele’s identical twin sister who’s nice."
"Steele doesn’t have a twin sister," Percy said.
"That we know of."
"I’ve reviewed her biographical file. She has one younger brother who works in municipal infrastructure in Portland."
"Percy, I was joking."
"The joke contained a falsifiable premise. I falsified it."
Nyx ate another piece of sushi without contributing a prediction, which was itself a kind of prediction. Nyx didn’t guess. Nyx waited until she had enough data to be right, and the absence of her opinion meant she hadn’t gathered enough yet.
Felicity smiled at me from across the table. "What about you? Who do you think?"
The question landed differently than the others because Felicity’s blue eyes carried something behind the casual curiosity. She’d noticed me holding back in Dravid’s class. She’d noticed me holding back during evaluations. She’d noticed me holding back in every conversation we’d had since the entrance exam, and she’d filed each observation without pressing for explanations, building a picture of me that was probably more accurate than I wanted it to be.
I broke my chopsticks apart and picked up the first gyoza.
"I think we’ll find out in forty minutes."
"That’s not a prediction."
"It’s the most honest thing I can say."
She held my gaze for a beat longer than necessary, the corner of her mouth turning up in the particular way that made her freckles shift across the bridge of her nose.
The Temptation Gauge in my peripheral vision didn’t change. But that didn’t mean nothing happened.