Mirah could see the final remnants of Aaliyah’s act melt from her face.

Aaliyah was scouring her brain in that moment, trying to desperately pull on any and all information that might be able to decipher the admittedly cryptic message from Willem.

“Who does he consider ‘big fish’?” Aaliyah asked, plopping herself down into the luxuriant cushioning of a seat. Mirah continued to be unhelpful to the girl, shrugging.

“I don’t know much about the gangs. Willem told me that you don’t either.” That caught a glare from Aaliyah, the comment inviting her ire.

“Oh? I know the gangs well enough, thank you.” Mirah nodded, unaffected by the other girl’s posturing.

“He said as much. Just not the gangs who are in charge.” Aaliyah almost growled, but shrugged petulantly, letting it go not only because it was pretty true, but also because fighting Mirah on the point was about as useless as you could get.

“What do you get out of this conversation anyway, Mirah. You seem like the kind of person who couldn’t care less if the team dissolved and went their own ways at the end of all this. Who cares who is sponsoring us.” Aaliyah remarked, knowing that it was true enough for herself. Mirah sat stock still for a few seconds, searching her own self for the answer.

“I don’t know. I came into this by pure chance, Willem said as much. I have known this team for a week.” Aaliyah nodded along, thoughtfully.

“Well, you’re here so you may as well make the most of it. That’s why I’m here, really. I’ll probably just leave when it’s all said and done. Move on to bigger and better.” It was Mirah’s turn to nod along.

A thoughtful silence shrouded the two girls, a strange artifact of what they believed about each-other. Mirah’s trust in Aaliyah being untrustworthy and Aaliyah’s certainty that Mirah could see through her tricks.

Therefore, they were stuck somewhere in the middle of hostility and peace. Mirah coughed dryly.

“Even so. Is it not important for us to know who is funding us? They might not be able to hang the money over our heads, but it doesn’t explain why they want us trained.” said Mirah. Aaliyah ran a hand through her hair, smoothing back the stray strands that had managed to make their way into her face.

She could see where the girl was coming from and agreed with her. Some part of her, however deep down as it was, told her to just let it be. Though Aaliyah had kept an eye on the idea for a while.

Aaliyah closed her eyes and sighed. I’ve lost my touch, she grumbled to herself mentally. It was becoming clearer and clearer the longer she stayed here. Maybe she could put it down to the lack of danger she was in. She had always used the mortal fear that surrounded her at every moment to propel her towards her goals.

It had made her excellent, but now it was gone. The war that she had fought was over, she had done the equivalent of commit social suicide. Now… she was lost.

“What do we even do about it, Mirah.” She asked, melancholic. There was silence as the other girl pondered in her stoic fashion.

“Tell the others.” She said quietly. Aaliyah almost scowled.

“Is that smart? We don’t know how they are gonna act.” Mirah just shook her head, dismissing Aaliyah’s question.

“They need to know.” The stoic girl paused, fingers slowly fiddling with the hem of her exercise shirt, “They are in the same situation we can ally together, for survival.” Aaliyah nodded.

However tenuous their relations, Aaliyah was starting to realize that her and the scarred street girl that sat in front of her thought similarly. Efficiency and effectiveness. A cold and calculating mind. But they were different, almost like predator and prey.

“Alright then…” Aaliyah mused, “but you’re going to have to tell the rest of the team!” Aaliyah said, ready for Mirah’s customary silent hesitation, but there was none. Before Aaliyah could bask in getting the upper hand against the other girl, Mirah was already waking out of her room.

As the door slowly drew to a close behind the leaving girl, Aaliyah huffed frustratedly.

“Still can’t read her.” She grumbled.

----------------------------------------

Walter was a nervous man.

Always had been, and likely always will. The only time he wasn’t anxious? Video games. In specific, linktech games. Though no full immersion tech existed or, more likely, was widely available outside of military application or a lab, linktech games were still bleeding edge.

Over even the course of Walter’s life, he’d seen games evolve from low polygon count 3D models and platforming, all the way towards graphics indistinguishable from reality. It had become so real that actors and actresses were now starring in games, their performances immortalized in perfect graphics.

Games had become the biggest entertainment market in the world a long time ago, but they only became more popular when you could experience what amounts to a movie yourself. Plus, the term ‘videogame’ became a nebulous mess very quickly. Some games were tantamount to hanging out with celebrities or other characters, some of which Walter had played, others that were a little too… out there, even for him.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Especially with technology at the level of linktech. It was apparently easy to actually create an extremely high-fidelity AI that was capable of at least believably imitating a human. Though they were still breakable. Walter could remember the time he was playing a game and managed to get the supporting cast of the story stuck in an argument loop. Somehow, he had accidentally skipped the event trigger for his character to interject in the argument and calm it down.

He could remember watching the three cast members arguing, all portrayed by famous actors, slowly devolving into more and more nonsensical territory as the AI’s desperately found something to argue about, waiting for the interjection that would never come.

Finding a bug like that wasn’t common, so he still treasured that memory. The game was mediocre overall, unfortunately.

Suddenly, there was a knock at Walter’s door, forcing the man to take of the lightweight linktech headset that his go-to time killer was streaming itself to.

I didn’t order any food right? He counted back the meals that he’d ordered on his hands and remembered that he’d already had desert delivered an hour ago. He got up from the bed he was lying in, snapping his fingers to turn the light in the room on. The management AI for the room could be customized pretty heavily, which was surprising. Walter had installed as many addons as the AASAU AI would let him, of course.

Walter reached his door and opened it tentatively.

“Hello?” He asked as he did, peaking through the sizeable gap between the doorframe and the door itself, spying someone he never thought would talk to him. Mirah. The stoic and mysterious type, to the extreme. Walter could swear under oath that she had said all of ten words directly to him.

“Hello.” She replied simply. There was silence, leaving Walter to fall into a pit of anxiety. He wracked his brain for what she wanted, his mind whirring with all the minor possibilities that could have made her appear in front of him like this, staring intensely at him. Her scarred face only accentuating her glare.

“I, uh…” He started, but found no more words to pull from his mind. Did I hit her too hard when we were sparring? Is she mad at me? Does she hate me? His mind was suddenly silenced when he saw her eyes glance into his room.

“Oh! Uhm, come in. If you want?” He asked, his stilted sentence making even him cringe. He opened the door wide for the scarred girl to walk in herself.

Mirah opted to sit on the couch that was identical to the one that was in Aaliyah’s room, and Ajax’s room for that matter.

She had already spoken with Ajax, and the man seemed concerned, but not overly so. In fact, he seemed more happy that he was being approached about anything team related, and had suggested that the team talk about it all together at tomorrow’s breakfast, which Mirah had agreed with.

She could tell that the man had been trying to bring the group together this past week. So she couldn’t fault him for wanting to jump on the opportunity to bring them closer, through a mutual conspiracy no less.

“So… what did you want to talk about?” Walter said, sitting in the chair opposite to Mirah’s spot on the couch. His heart was beating with the nerves that seemed to come out of nowhere, but he just swallowed against the dryness in his mouth and waited.

“Were you aware we were sponsored?” The reason she had asked, despite Aaliyah’s assertion that it was common knowledge, was that Ajax hadn’t known either.

“Yes? I asked Tracker about it when she came to talk about the team, but she didn’t say anything on it. Why?” He asked curiously and Mirah nodded solemnly.

“I was talking to Willem. He made it clear that we were being sponsored by someone that was ‘big fish’ and implied to some degree that I should be careful.” His eyes widened for a moment while he processed the new information, then narrowed as he started questioning.

“‘Big fish’ is a bit nebulous. Do you know what he meant about it?” Mirah nodded hesitantly.

“He talked about gangs and money. It took a lot of money to have Tracker and him hired to deal with a team.” Walter nodded thoughtfully, seemingly picking it all up far easier than Aaliyah had. Ajax had just accepted everything she had said as truth and thanked her for telling him but had no real knowledge to help her.

“That’s true. I did some digging into Tracker after we first met, trying to see if she was legit or not.” He shrugged, “She’s super high level. Corporate and militaries all over the place hire her all the time, though she lives in Australia most of the time and I think the AASAU have a deal with her to get her to work for them on occasion, probably for reduced pay. No idea what she gets out of it though.”

Mirah couldn’t help but raise her eyebrow at the unassuming man. She had expected to hear this sort of information from Aaliyah, but she at least didn’t mention it or didn’t know it at all, though probably with no lack of trying.

“Who she has worked for?” She asked, but Walter shook his head.

“No way would she tell us that! It’s probably half the appeal of hiring her in the first place. She’s an ultra-professional. One of the best info Linked in the entire world. Info Linked have a reputation to uphold, and leaking is a good way to get killed.” He said seriously. Mirah could understand the cutthroat nature of that sort of world. She had observed a version of it many times.

“Do you know who Willem is?” She asked, almost hopeful, but received a shake of the head as a response.

“No idea. Looked him up and everything, even asked my mum and dad but that didn’t get me a very good answer. I can’t tell if that means they know and can’t tell me, or if they have no idea at all.” Mirah’s eyebrow quirked at the mention of Walter’s parents. They hadn’t spent so much time together, and somehow she had just assumed that the others in the team also had no parents or parental figures. Though, in retrospect it was hardly surprising.

“What do your parents do? Info Linked?” She asked bluntly, but Walter didn’t seem to mind the lack of flowery words and subversive questions.

“Oh no, nothing that amazing. They are lawyers. Have been working together since before I was born. I’m pretty sure that my mum was my dad’s assistant.” He chuckled, and then froze, going red. A joke that was entirely acceptable and even funny amongst one set of friends and being horrifically inappropriate to another was something that Walter usually was pretty good at avoiding, but he had just been playing games with some of the raunchier of his friends and it had somehow leaked into this conversation.

Mirah, for her part, was entire oblivious to the red-faced young man in front of her.

Lawyers? She thought pensively. She had heard about them, sure. She had heard about a lot of things, which was possibly the only thing keeping her afloat in general conversation, but she had no idea why they may or may not know who Willem was. Something for Aaliyah to know.

“I see. Thank you for telling me this.” She said, standing up from her place on the couch, causing the man opposite from her to splutter.

“Uh, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said that!” Mirah stopped and looked directly towards the man woodenly, a look of slight confusion on her face.

“Have you told me something you weren’t meant to?” Walter was momentarily shocked. He had thought she was making a hasty exit after an inappropriate joke, but she was actually just leaving. He groaned inwardly and smeared on a hasty smile towards the stoic girl.

“O-oh! No, not at all. Have a good night!” He said quickly, making the girl pause for a second, before nodding and leaving shortly after.

Walter let out a massive sigh, before walking back into his bedroom. He let himself fall onto the bed and smothered his face into his pillows, groaning at his own embarrassment. After a few moments of regret-filled groans, he returned his attention back to his linktech headset.

He’d just have to play some games to get it off his mind.