The following couple of weeks were largely uneventful as everyone consolidated what they had learnt from the test and worked on improving the flaws that Dr Jacq had unearthed. Alex especially spent three days straight upgrading and changing his rocket boots before Oliver dragged him out of his cave to socialise.
Mathew spent a lot of time practising his less-used spells, as Jacq’s test really showed that he had been slacking in those areas. Oliver had started to get restless over his still-locked away Legacy, and while he had a clearly easier time with the challenges we had faced as he had had to be creative to make up for it, he still just wanted the cool powers already.
Lessons carried on as normal, with lessons on economic history focusing on the societal factors that developed into the current system, such as the rate of technological growth causing jobs to be unstable due to how easily people could be replaced in certain sectors.
Change, while necessary, often caused problems in the short run as people felt losses twice as strongly as they viewed gains. It was so easy to convince those who didn’t understand fully that what benefited them in the long run was actually bad through appealing to emotions and scapegoats, especially when it inevitably results in an increase in Shade attacks in the beginning as the kinks get sorted out. Some kingdoms were better at change than others.
Multiple guest speakers also gave lessons on battle strategy, resource management, and damage mitigation. Mr Fortune was the most enlightening about all the different redundancies that had been introduced into different parts of local infrastructure and how to use them when they failed.
He had the most experience of missions going wrong due to his Legacy, which also meant he had a better idea of how different people react to the chaos that brings and how to best deal with them. If prevention fails, then the best thing to do is to know the early warning signs when things are going wrong and how to use this to your advantage.
While all the many improvements that had been caused through the use of aura technology, aura as a power source had many unpredictable qualities to it when it leaked or broke. Aura takes on aspects of the soul it is creative from, and while these factors can be refined for more delicate tech and becomes more homogeneous the longer it’s been away from its source, most of the main uses passively collect from the population. This means that build-up can be catastrophic or behave in weird ways, so it is best to try to stabilise or move away from it if it's going to blow. It also is why some technopath tech sometimes doesn’t work for anyone but their creator, as their aura stablises it.
Edward and I got some more fundamentals of fighting down to an acceptable degree and extended the aura pattern to more parts of my body, this time with fewer unfortunate timings. We had settled into a routine with the rest of my team for training, which occasionally got interrupted by things like Oliver's new methods of unlocking his Legacy.
The main methods tested that had been unsuccessful had been gaining an item from a previous incarnation of him, trying to drop him from the highest point of Telum (which failed as Washington had predicted that people would try that method, so had preventative methods), trying to overload his aura by storing it then putting it back in, and other methods that tried to focus on how we were pretty sure it was teleportation related. Dr Jacq mostly just gave us a notebook rather than anything to stop us. I could be wrong, but I was pretty sure I saw him taking notes in the corner of my eye a couple of times.
I occasionally found notes that gave more suggestions that were probably him, as well as relevant books on things that I don’t remember taking from the library.
As the weeks went on, the mission for Oliver’s dad drew closer, so my team and the Legends had extra lectures on top of the regular ones. Alex’s dad specifically came to make sure we understood what we would be guarding.
***
Alex’s dad stood at the front of the classroom. He wore a red leather jacket and looked like he was trying to be cool. He was leaning against the wall and took off the sunglasses he was wearing indoors to reveal his lilac eyes in a way that I think was supposed to resemble an animated character.
“The name's Patrick Eye, and I am the head engineer for the White Whale project that you will be guarding during the unveiling. This monumental airship configuration that has innovated on the previous iterations by magnitudes. Our blue ocean strategy has allowed us to eclipse the competition in–”
“Uh, Dad, we don’t need the marketing pitch,” Alex interrupted him, making him jump in the middle of his pre-rehearsed speech. We just need to know what security it has that we can use.”
“Ah, yes, the security,” Alex’s dad took out his notes to get to that part, “Yes! Here it is, security systems on the White Whale are speciality grade and cutting edge, sometimes even literally. It has the standard energy shields but also adaptive attack models that can work with a Mythic’s Legacy; it works best, though, if the Legacy works over time rather than a one-and-done type. So while it technically can boost the range of my summons, it's not any better than if I just summoned them normally, whereas a Legacy such as yours, Mr Hunter, would be mighty useful onboard, especially with your spells.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I put up my hand, “So how do we use those systems.”
He laughed, “Oh no, you won’t need to use them; both teams will mostly be standing guard to prevent any of our competitors from getting too close a look at our systems. The AAM is mostly for potential Shade attacks during actual travel which won’t be happening for a few months after the unveiling. You are mostly going to be security theatre and won’t be expected to actually do anything meaningful. If we actually thought anything was going to happen, we’d hire established Mythics; we're doing it as a PR stunt. It's supposed to be a symbolic new generation of technology with the new generation of Mythics, type thingy.”
“But what if something goes wrong?” I said.
“It won’t.”
“But what if?”
“Well, we have many redundancies available in the unlikely happenstance something goes differently,” Mr Eye waved off my concern. The worst that might go wrong is that the pilot catches a cold or something, but that would just mean we would show off different aspects rather than how it flies, which certainly would be annoying but nothing too bad.”
Alex put up his hand.
“No, we don’t need you to test the system against technopaths again.”
Alex put down his hand.
“Oh, yeah! If you guys wouldn’t mind consenting to donating some of your auras to research, as from what I could see on your files, almost all of your files would seem compatible with the AAM.” He started taking out some contracts out of his bag, which had been off to the side before Oliver gave him a look. “Or we could sort things like that out closer to the time. But yeah, I guess if there was a Shade breach or something, honestly, just jump into the White Whale, lock the door and let the more trained Mythics handle it. We are not expecting you to be anything other than being there. Honestly, you’re just a reassurance for the public; you won’t even be a last resort, in all honestly.”
Alex’s dad then went on to describe some of the other aspects of the airship using a diagram to point out the different systems, the multiple power hearts and other finer details. I did feel at least a little disappointed that my first actual mission was just for show. I mean, I got the idea that anything to calm the audience's reaction was necessary, but I could tell that I wasn’t the only one who wanted more out of it. It certainly did not help how he clarified about how we were not even being considered as a last resort, as that did hit the ego.
“I know I’m the only reason we got this gig, but honestly, it feels like we're being babied,” Oliver sighed, then continued almost under his breath “, I almost hope something does go wrong so I can unlock this damn Legacy, I just need danger for it to click.”
“To be fair, though, what is the worst that could happen.” I heard Edward cringe when I said that, “Other than the obvious like death, everything blows up or some rogue Mythic somehow, against the odds, manages to take over.”
Mr Eye perked up at overhearing my muttering, “Ah, Mr Walker, even those concerns have been taken into account. The ship can’t be piloted by anyone other than those we've trained, and we’ve only trained two of them. We have taken every safety measure available to prevent and stop any chance of blowing up. Plus, you’re going to be more likely to die being struck by lightning than defending this airship.”
“So less than one in fifteen thousand three hundred?” Alex replied.
“Well, obviously, I don’t have an exact statistic, but probably yes.” Mr Eye replied, seemingly used to Alex being pedantic. “But yeah, that covers the basic schematics of the ship that you need to know, but remember kids, all you’re doing is just keeping an eye out for nosy journalists or maybe the occasional curious onlooker. You'll be bored out of your minds, I guarantee it."
With that, the lecture concluded, and we went to get food as there wasn’t really anything we needed to do at that moment in time. We also lacked motivation due to how dull the mission was likely going to be.
Star tried to spin it into a positive, as even Cassie looked slightly less enthused than she had been. “I mean, it will get our faces out there, which will be useful for getting missions later on.”
“Plus, you won’t be stranded outside of the kingdom with all your friends and the people you know thinking you were dead.”
“Yeah, I suppose so. It's still disappointing, though.”
“To be fair, though,” Mathew replied, “we will get to see the White Whale up close. I’ve heard that tickets for the unveiling are going for hundreds, and that's even without the scalpers. It could be worse.”
Oliver replied, “Plus, there is other entertainment. It's not just a press release. My dad also hired some singers. Don’t ask which ones, though; I can’t actually remember.”
***
The next few days were regular lectures, and behind the scenes, all the paperwork was being filled out for the unveiling. More info was gradually revealed about the event, including who they had gotten to present; Alex said that his dad had wanted to, but it was deemed that Light Industries should hire outside and that the head engineer would only need to do a quick interview during the show.
I believe this was done to maintain a neutral perspective for the audiences at home and also because Alex’s dad was not the greatest public speaker—a fact that he was allegedly slightly miffed at but understood.
The show was going to be live across multiple kingdoms as the While Whale was set to be one of the first commercial aircraft that will do regular trips between kingdoms, as well as a less public version that just transported goods.
A lot was riding on this going well, or as I should put it, a lot was riding on this going whale. The show had a lot of porpus-ful thought put in it, and hopefully, all this planning will hold water.