4.79: Found Family

Josh’s party was relaxed a casual in a way that I had not come to expect, from mage parties. It was held in a small classroom, with a cake and some snacks, and a handful of tacky paper decorations half-heartedly scattered around the walls. Most of the dozen or so people present were just wearing their normal everyday robes. It took me a moment to figure out why – this event wasn’t planned by legacy mages. Nobody here cared if using the wrong flower arrangement subtlely declared a blood feud for five generations or whatever.

The major exception to the casual dress was Josh himself who was, for some reason, wearing a three piece suit with an extremely shiny gold tie and a yellow flower pinned to his lapel. As soon as I entered, he sat up in his plastic school chair that had been covered in cushions and adorned with a glitter pain label reading THE THRONE OF AGES, grinned, and waved me over.

“Kayden! You made it! Come, come,” he said, waving me over in a vaguely lordly fashion. I put my last-minute present on the small pile on a table by the door and came over.

“Yeah. Uh, happy birthday,” I said, trying not to sound too awkward. I was a little floored by how few other people there were (I counted: thirteen, not counting myself and Josh, and the only ones I knew by sight were Terry and Mae). I’d been to much smaller parties, of course, but if the guest list was this small, then why under the Seven Points was I on it?

“Thank you. It’s great to see you again. Hey, did you hear that Mae might finally test up to craftswoman level? Didn’t think she had it in her.”

“Oh, shut up,” Mae said. “It’s been a while, Koala. I’m glad you’re still with us, and didn’t defect to Scotland.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” I said. “You’ll have to graduate for that.”

“Maybe I should just do that.” She waved a hand to indicate my brown robes. “Since you’re part of The System now, and all.”

“How terrible of me.”

“I know, right?”

“Better a doctor than a layabout,” Josh said.

Mae rolled her eyes. “Of course you’ll take his side.”

“Well, yes, of course. He’s my brother-in-law and you’re the party jester.”

“Jesting is a noble profession.”

“I’m your what?” I cut in.

“You’re dating my boyfriend’s fiance, yes?” Josh asked.

“Hang on, you’re dating Hammond?” I asked.

“Hang on, you’re dating Parveen Surya?!” Terry asked.

“That’s not important,” I said. “Josh, I don’t think that’s how brothers-in-law work.”

“Well, they’re not married yet, but it’s just a matter of time.”

“No, I mean, even if they were, the relationships – ”

“You won’t be,” Mae said, “because there’s no way your relationship will last that long, Jaybaby. Your boytoy’s not marrying for years yet and you two are gonna eat each other alive within the month.”

“I’ll have you know that we are very much in love.”

“You were very much in love with Cassiopeia too. And Jonathan. And Luka.”

“Love is chaotic – ”

“And Robert.”

“Hey, that one isn’t fair. Nobody can compare to Robert.”

“Okay, fair. But you and the richboy aren’t gonna make it to the wedding. I have money on it.”

“Oh? Money on what part, specifically/ When did you bet we’d break up?”

“Oh, no. If I tell you that, you’ll sabotage my bet.”

“Please don’t hurt Hammond,” I said.

“Oh, I’d never, brother dear. I may break hearts by leaving others yearning for my magnificence, but never through cruelty.” He shot a mock glare at Mae, who’s started snorting uncontrollably at ‘magnificence’. “And in this case it’s hardly relevant, because we’re very much in love and I’ll see you at the wedding.”

“Never going to happen,” Mae reiterated.

“Even if it did,” I pointed out, “we wouldn’t be related, because they’d have to break up with us to get married.”

“Oh, is that the sort of arrangement you have?” Josh asked. “Fair enough. We haven’t had that discussion, so – ”

“Yeah,” Mae cut in, “because your richboy has a brain and knows there’s no way under the Points that you’ll last long enough to matter.”

“ – so,” Josh continued stubbornly, “I’ll take your word for it.”

“They’re going to be married,” I pointed out.

Josh shrugged. “Hammond’s never struck me as the possessive type, but if that’s what you and Saina prefer then I suppose that’s your business. Anyway, we’re all here now, so… cake?”

The song was sung, candles were blown out, cake was served on flimsy paper plates. Several forkfuls into the forgettable vanilla sponge, I realised that I might have the answer to at least one of my problems right in front of me. While Josh grandly held court for a handful of his friends, I drifted over to talk to Terry and Mae in a corner.

“Mae,” I said, “you’re probably a criminal, right?”

“Wow,” Mae said drily while Terry choked so hard on her cake that her nose dipped onto her paper plate and came up covered in whipped cream, “you’re a real flatterer today, Kayden.”

“I mean,” I pressed on, “can you teach me how to pick a lock?”

“Oh. No, I don’t know how to do that.”

“I can,” Terry piped up, while Mae wiped the cream off Terry’s face with a napkin. “But what locks do you need to pick around here? Everything’s behind force fields. I can’t ‘pick’ a force field.”

“Not everything,” I said.

Both girls regarded me seriously.

“Kayden,” Mae asked, “you’re not stealing from classmates or anything, are you?”

“What? No! No, there’s some staff who – ”

“Oh,” Terry said, visibly relaxing. “That’s alright then. I can show you, but – ”

“Hang on,” I said, “you’d have a problem with me picking student’s locks, but staff’s locks is fine?”

“Well, yeah. Teachers are fine.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Mae added.

“But,” Terry continued, “lockpicking takes a lot of practice. We’re talking a pin and tumbler lock, right?”

“Uh… I guess?”

“Like the lock you’d find on an average door, or in a padlock? Stick in a key with teeth and turn it?’

“Yeah.”

“Right, well, depending on the quality of the lock, you might be able to learn to pick that pretty quickly, or it might take ages. If it’s a loose, old, cheap lock, then fine. But if it’s a good quality one, it could take months to get good enough to pick it. And it could take a while to actually pick.”

“I don’t know if I have months,” I said.

“Then hope it’s a shitty lock, or find another way,” Terry shrugged. “Think about it, and get back to me if you still want to learn.”

“You’re… not gonna ask about whose locks I’m picking?”

“Nope,” Mae said.

“If you get caught messing ith teachers’ stuff, you think we want to be accessories?” Terry asked. “No, we’re innocent. You told us you wanted to learn as a hobby. We knew nothing.”

“I knew there was a reason I hung out with you guys,” I said.

Terry nodded. “It’s because we’re the brains of the operation.”

“There’s cream up your nose, Ter-pear,” Mae said.

At that moment I caught wind of someone in another conversation mention ‘Fiore’, and turned to look. I hadn’t really seen my former surveyanto since starting my apprenticeship. I hadn’t seen much of anyone, really, except for Kylie and Malas and the other apprentices; I was working too much. My contract specified a minimum of ten hours per week, but I wanted to get as close as possible to Malas, as soon as possible. If anyone knew anything that could help us destroy the Pit, it was the guy who’d been physically unable to leave Refujeyo for who knew how long (had to be at least sixty years, if he’d treated Alania when she was a student), performed a vital role in the day-to-day functioning of the school as the world’s best general doctor, and, oh yeah, was almost definitely the guy who’d wiped our memories after we got out of the Labyrinth of Dreams.

I tried not to think too much about the consequences that us destroying his locus would have.

The conversation I was listening to moved on, and I realised that they were in fact talking about di Fiore, not Fiore. A much less interesting topic.

“The kid’s a total beast,” a pudgy, redheaded girl was saying, gesturing wildly with a party whistle. “I wouldn’t expect much from a pampered rich kid, especially one so young, but…”

“Oh, those legacy mages are all total nerds,” said a tall boy with a scruffy beard. “Every single one of them is a walking encyclopaedia.”

“Clearly you haven’t met Versuvia,” the girl said. “She’s dumb as a box of rocks and she is not alone. Anyway, we put di Fiore on the Pit analysis crew, right, just to see what he could do. He had the whole runic program down to its fundamentals in like, two hours. Teased out the initials from the overlays and everything.”

“Accuracy rate?” the boy asked.

“Just under eighty per cent.”

“Well, that’s not – ”

“It was his first project, Hans. In two hours. Kid can’t construct a project worth a damn, but give him something built and ask him to break it down? Trust me, if you’re modifying any program, you want him on your team to break it down first.”

“Wait,” I cut in, forgetting for a moment that I should probably be pretending not to be listening, “di Fiore was involved in investigating the Pit?”

“Yeah,” the girl said. “After the whole safety error thing. Did you hear about that? A student got hit during a pit comp – ”

“He was in the Pit at the time,” Hans told her. “His teammate got hurt.”

“… Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“What’s this about di Fiore investigating the Pit?” I pressed. “I thought they’d have professionals for that.”

“Oh, they do,” the girl assured me. “The techs combed through everything. But they always like to give projects to the MH Club first. Just to pick up on anything obvious, you know? Saves them time. Like how if your parents ring tech support they have to talk to the ‘did you turn it off and on again?’ guy before getting to the knowledgable guy, to weed out the obvious problems.”

I didn’t know if my parents had ever called tech support for anything, but I took her word for it. “The MH Club?”

“The Magihacker Club!” she grinned, blowing a fanfare on her party whistle for emphasis. “A runic circle is a program, and we can break them.”

Runic circle function analysis was a pretty basic runecrafting skill. Analysing and breaking down runes had been a bigger focus in my runecrafting classes than actually building them. “So, uh… you guys are just runecrafters?”

“Yeah, but in a cool way.”

“And... di Fiore is with you?” He’d never mentioned any hacker club to me. He’d never even mentioned runecrafting to me. I had no idea he’d even learned runes, let alone been good at them.

“Yeah. Still learning, but he’ll get there. Are you guys friends?”

I went to answer, then realised that both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ were lies. I settled for, “Every time I see him I want to punch him harder.”

“Yeah, he’s an insufferable little shit, isn’t he?” the girl said fondly. “Anyway, we didn’t find anything wrong with the Pit, and that was annoying because I always like to show up the techs, but then they didn’t find anything wrong with it either. So I feel better.”

“Better about nobody knowing what’s wrong with the Pit?” Hans asked. “Surely that’s a bad thing?”

“I mean, it can’t be that bad. They went ahead with the Initiation.”

Terry cut in. “So it might have been sabotage? Against Surya?”

“Not unless the assassin was really good at hiding their tracks,” the girl shrugged. “Like, unbelievably good. Settings hadn’t been altered. Looks like a flaw that we just can’t find.”

“If there was a flaw, it would’ve shown up long before this,” Terry said. “If something broke, you’d have found it; if it’s a flaw in the programs, we’d have been getting accidents for generations. Has to be sabotage.”

I considered explaining what I knew about school systems failing, but decided against it. It involved way too much backstory. So I just said, “Anyone trying to kill Saina wouldn’t have used such a stupid plan.”

Terry rolled her eyes. “You might say that, Kayden, but – ”

“Hang on,” the redheaded girl cut in. “Are you Kayden James?”

“Um… yes?” My puzzlement only lasted long enough for me to follow her line of sight. Laser focused on the familiarity runes on my arm. I really needed to ask Malas about long-sleeved uniforms. Or just not wear my work clothes to parties.

“You’re the human familiar!”

“Yes.”

“Stacey,” Terry said sharply.

“It’s fine,” I sighed. The redhead – Stacey, I supposed – leaned closer to my arm. I considered standing up for myself and taking offence for a moment, but this was a party. Anyway, it had been a long time since somebody had looked at my mark with scientific fascination, instead of disgust. Not since Max… well. I angled my arm for her to see better.

“Amazing,” she murmured. “It looks just like a normal familiarity rune.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “That’s what it is.”

She reached out, as if to touch, then caught herself and drew her hand back at the last second. “But these lines… a cancellation attempt?”

“You tried to un-familiarise yourself?” Mae asked.

“Of course not. Malas did. You know, a professional. I’m not an idiot.”

“Says the human familiar,” Josh pointed out.

“When did that happen?” Terry asked.

“The day after we made the link. We weren’t planning on keeping this. It’s dangerous!”

“Then why would you even create the link in the first – ?”

“Would you consent to an interview?” Stacey asked.

“As I’ve told everyone else, no; I’m not telling anyone else how to make human familiars. No little hints, no investigative help – ”

“Oh, no,” Stacey said. “I don’t care about any of that.”

“No – wait, you don’t?”

“Of course not! Who the hell wants a human familiar? Sure, the prestige of doing something new and weird, whatever, but honestly, it sounds really impractical. There are so many species to choose from; why pick a familiar that’s going to be dangerous, unstable, and magically limiting? No offense.”

“Uh… sure.”

“Magic should be practical,” Stacey added, wrinkling her nose. “I’m not for grandstanding.”

“Um,” Hans said, “aren’t you still trying to convince the techs to let you program Doom into the Pit?”

“That’s different. That’s traditional. I don’t care that you’re a human familiar, Kayden; I care that you’re an interviewablefamiliar. Familiars are normally cats, dogs, reptiles, whatever; animals whose moods we can estimate from their behaviour, but with whom our communication is very limited. We don’t have proper records of the actual experience of being a familiar. You have information that could revolutionise animal welfare!”

“Huh. I never thought of that.”

“So I can interview you?”

“You can ask questions. I don’t promise to answer them.”

“Of course. First up, did – ?”

“Excuse me,” Josh said in mock grave tones, “but I believe that this is my party. If you keep giving my dear brother in law all the attention, I’m liable to be offended.”

“So sorry, my liege,” Stacey said, rolling her eyes. But she did turn to talk to him. I shot Josh a grateful look – I didn’t mind talking to Stacey privately about the whole familiarity thing, but I hadn’t signed up for on-the-spot questions in the middle of a group. Josh gave me a tiny nod of acknowledgement.

At least he was having a happy birthday.