As soon as the car pulled away from Tripwire, Charlotte frantically shrugged out of her blazer, completely destroying any image of the elegant and refined woman who had entered the vehicle. Samuel frowned at the woman miming a seizure on the seat next to him as he loosened his tie.

“Piece of shit straitjacket,” she grumbled to herself, finally freeing herself of its embrace.

“Get used to it,” Samuel remarked dryly in response. “I'm just glad that our new partners didn't have to see you like that. You really know how to shatter a man's dreams, you know?”

“If I gave a shit about your dreams, Samuel, I wouldn't have blackmailed you into being our lawyer,” Charlotte replied, her eyes glimmering with a cold light.

“You really know how to win someone over don't you?” Samuel grumbled.

“If I was good at winning people over, I wouldn't have had to resort to blackmailing you,” Charlotte replied with a smirk as she loosened her tie and unfastened the top two buttons on her blouse. Samuel grimaced.

“You know, I'm happy and all that you're willing to acknowledge your wrongdoings, but as your lawyer, I'm going to have to ask you to omit the word ‘blackmail' from your vocabulary while you're on the job, especially in the context of admitting to it,” Samuel chided, a wry smile playing across his lips.

“Oh come on,” Charlotte chuckled, “You know me. I'm not going to let myself get caught just yet. We haven't even gotten to the fun part.”

Their conversation drew to a close as Charlotte began staring into space and drumming her fingers rhythmically against the armrest. To anyone else, it might look like she was listening to a song in her head, but Samuel had been around long enough to know that she was actually typing a message to her partner, no doubt informing him of the day's events.

All in all, today wasn't bad. The folks at Tripwire had been ecstatic at the thought of working together. It had been a far cry from the welcome he had received at Virtech. Charlotte had told him that they would refuse, but insisted on making an attempt. She had called it a spider's thread, one last chance for Virtech to achieve salvation.

Samuel knew otherwise, but the public didn't need to know Morphix’s real motives. Hell, most of the time, even he didn't know Morphix's real motives. He didn't even know the identity of Charlotte’s partner. All he knew was that the bad blood between Morphix and Virtech was hardly something caused by recent events. They had been planning whatever this was for a long time.

Somewhere across town, two mildly inebriated startup owners were barreling through the door of their home, briefcase in hand.

“Look what weeee haaaaave!” the idiot couple sang as they danced through the living room swinging the case.

“You actually brought it home with you?” James exclaimed.

“Why not?” Katy replied. “There were enough of them,” she explained as she set the case down on the coffee table and opened the lid victoriously.

“This is it?” James asked lifting one of the boxes from the crate.

“Use it like this,” Katy explained vaguely as she stuck the box on the back of James’ head and pushed the button. James was a little bit unsettled to feel the branches expanding to encompass his head.

As they waited, Jeff gave them a quick brief on the device. Both James and Luke were stunned to hear about the augmented reality aspect of the Regalia. James held up a sample Calculus exam and his jaw dropped as the problems began solving themselves and the correct answers were highlighted one by one. Luke begged to be allowed to borrow one for the exams tomorrow, but even Jeff wasn’t drunk enough to let that one slide. The idea was immediately rejected and the machines were confiscated so that the boys could continue studying and Jeff and Katy headed upstairs to get some sleep.

Luke’s studies weren’t going as well as they would have liked, so around 10, Luke called home to tell his parents that he would be staying the night at James’ house. Early in the morning they finally felt satisfied enough to get some sleep of their own.

The next morning was marked by a general lack of energy. Katy and Jeff were still recovering from yesterday’s excitement and helped themselves to dangerous amounts of coffee. James and Luke, who were suffering from a lack of sleep, also indulged themselves in the steaming, caffeine-laced beverage before heading to school together.

They put their bags in their locker and headed to calculus class. There was still quite some time before class would begin so they decided to review what they had gone over last night. Upon arriving at the classroom, they were greeted with a surprise. Two unfamiliar students stood in the front of class trying to figure out where to sit. The distance students were here.

James and Luke greeted the new students with smiles and pointed out the seats that were empty on the roster. One was a boy and the other was a girl. The girl was seated in a wheelchair that was being pushed by the boy. Her name was Sara Howe. She had short dark hair and big, brown eyes. Her entire body was extremely slender. She was stunning. Luke was staring intently and could hardly stop himself from drooling. Apparently, she had been hospitalized for some time and a good portion of her muscles had atrophied. She would be able to walk again someday, but while she was going to physical therapy, her doctors thought it would be better for her to study from home.

She did most of the talking while the boy remained silent behind her. She introduced him as Oliver Belloc. He was deaf and preferred to learn off of videos because he could pause and rewind them to better read the teacher’s lips. Despite the weather, he was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. He even had the hood up which was typically not allowed at school. Tufts of long, dark blonde, hair stuck out from under his hood. His hazel eyes were framed by thick-rimmed glasses. Despite the obstructions, it was easy to see that Oliver had a prettyboy face. His only problem was the deadpan, disinterested, expression he wore.

Although they seemed to be close, it turned out that they were practically strangers. They had met in the front office earlier and the boy had started making strange hand gestures at her. Eventually, she realized that he was trying to communicate using sign language and got a paper for him to write on. It turned out that he was offering to push her around since they were heading to the same classes. She gladly accepted and had taken up the role of talking for the both of them.

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As she was explaining his deafness, she even gestured to two shiny, black lumps above his ears that could barely be seen. James internally recoiled in shock. Those weren’t hearing aids. Why was this kid wearing a Regalia? Was he pretending to be deaf? No. That’s jumping to conclusions. There might be some other explanation… Suddenly, James recalled Luke’s rejected proposition from last night. Oliver was going to use an unreleased technology to cheat on his exams.

James wrestled with his conscience. Cheating didn't sit well with him, but it wasn't really his place to say anything. Besides, speaking up would mean revealing the appearance of Morphix’s mysterious device, and revealing a connection between himself and the VR industry. It could cause a whole host of problems for both his personal life, and his parents’ company. Ultimately, it wasn't worth the trouble, so he chose silence.

James couldn't help but to shoot a few glances over at Oliver during the exam. As expected, he was completing the questions with an unnatural ease. It only took him half of the time allotted to finish the exam. As he sat back down after turning in the exam, James noticed him take a small black box out of the pocket of his jacket and slip it into his hood. James tried his best not to stare as he noticed the nodes appear once again over Oliver's ears. He had been mistaken. Oliver hadn't been wearing Regalia during the exam. Questions flooded James’ mind as he struggled to direct his thoughts back toward the test.

As James handed in his exam, Oliver was drumming his fingers against his knees. James watched curiously and wondered whether or not he should mention something. His thoughts were disrupted as a pair of hazel eyes spun to glare at him from behind Oliver's glasses. Realizing how creepy he must have seemed, James panicked as he tried to think of a way to explain himself. Summoning the little sign language that he knew, He pulled his hands into the sign for ‘why', pointed at Oliver, and spelled out ‘Regalia'.

As he was wondering to himself whether or not his message had been understood, a flash of excitement ran through Oliver's eyes followed by a slight smile. His hands moved in response, and although James didn't understand the signs themselves, he understood the meaning: How do you know what this is?

As James was beginning to spell out ‘Tripwire’ he heard a cough from the front of the room and looked up to find his teacher shaking his head disapprovingly. James cast an apologetic glance at Oliver before spending the rest of the hour feeling frustrated and scratching doodles into his worn notebook.

When the bell finally rang, James took the opportunity to offer to lead Sara and Oliver to their next classroom. James and Sara made small-talk as they walked. Oliver kept quiet as usual. As they moved to their seats, Oliver slipped James a scrap of paper with a ten digit number on it.

Once again, Oliver finished the exam first, but this time, as soon as James finished, he pulled out a paperback novel and hid his phone inside. Pulling out the scrap of paper, he punched the number into his phone and shot it a message containing only two words: “You first.” The response came within seconds, Oliver's fingers tapping skillfully against his knee.

“I'm a Morphix beta tester,” it started simply. James was surprised at the ease with which he admitted this. There are people who would kill for such a job. At the very least, he no longer had any reason not to share his source with Oliver.

“My parents work for Tripwire,” he replied. It wasn't the whole truth, but it would have to do.

“Makes sense,” Oliver responded simply. James couldn’t help his curiosity.

“How'd you get a job at Morphix?” he queried.

“I knew the right people.” Another simple answer.

“Are you really deaf?” This time, James’ question drew a pause from the dirty-blonde teen as a brief frown crossed his face.

“No,” Oliver continued, “I feel bad about that misunderstanding.”

Oliver continued to explain how he had been typing on his Regalia when Sara walked into the office. He hasn't noticed her enter and didn't realize he'd been looking at her as he typed. Before he knew it, she'd brought over a pass of paper for him to write on. It was far easier to go along with her story than to explain that he'd been messing around in augmented reality, and he wasn't even allowed to explain what the Regalia was, so he just let it be.

James had to resist the urge to laugh while reading these messages. He wondered if misunderstandings like this would become more common in the future. More likely, the Regalia and similar devices would make hearing loss and sign language a thing of the past.

“What if you were a pianist who spaced off while practicing for his recital?” he suggested absentmindedly. His idea was met with a small puff of laughter from across the room as Oliver struggled to maintain his composure in the silent classroom.

“Most people with the balls to call me out on a lie wouldn’t suggest patching things up with another lie. You’re interesting,” Oliver mused.

“I'll clear things up at lunch,” he promised as the bell rang, signaling the end of their last morning class and the beginning of their lunch period.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AN: Long unannounced hiatus, I know. I could make excuses, but I'm not really going to bother. Life happens. Sometimes it happens to fuck you up the ass until there's nothing left of you but a bloody pulp. Regardless, I'm back. I'll be updating both of my fictions regularly on here again. Also, I'm writing on mobile and my autocorrect is being a lil betch, so if you see something, say something. I tried to proofread, I really did, but there's only so much I can do with a screen this big.

Also, this chapter is a little boring. A much more interesting chapter will be up either later tonight or tomorrow.