I stared at the clock, watching the minutes tick by as I played with a pen. I spun it round and around on the table, idly staring at the clock without too much thought in my head.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I did have thoughts, but most of them were fleeting. Like how I would get into the school if need be. Or the fact my Listener in the principal’s office would be out of range as soon as I left the building.

Mr. Jarvis went on and on at the front of the room, trying to teach us about some kind of scientific method mumbo jumbo. It was the last hour of the day though, so I wasn’t the only one zoned out waiting for the sweet ring of freedom.

Torren shifted next to me, casting his gaze around the room before his eyes met mine. He just sighed and nodded his head, seemingly as drained as I felt. He mouthed, ‘Fuck Feras.’

A light exhale of air through my nose, not a snort in the slightest, came from me as I shifted and stared out the window. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one feeling that sentiment.

Unfortunately, the wonderful view from the classroom did little to push me into sleep. Between all the traffic and constant hubbub of flyers heading to and fro, there was just too much going on. That wasn’t even considering the flashing lights of speeding Medevacs and the occasional Crusade flyer. The aerial traffic altogether kind of looked like a river constant in its flow. Sure, it was a mostly empty river considering flyers hadn't quite taken off considering the economic state of the world, but still a river.

I looked back at our resident grifter and leader, noticing that I really wasn’t the only one. The guy’s face looked even worse than yesterday with what looked to be fresh blood streaks under his chin. Deserved. A hundred and ten percent deserved. And yet… he looked extremely pitiful as he met my gaze?

I looked away. That’s what he gets for dragging Torren and I into this- this mess. And for what? Barely enough Rayn to pay rent? Well, at least I would get some cool tech out of this…

Maybe he should’ve taken the bodyguard though? Torren has barely had to do anything but lug around my stuff. Hell, school has been nothing but a breeze. A slow breeze, sure. Still a breeze though. I’ve barely even had to interact with the rest of my ‘team’ this entire time. Too easy.

The clock caught my attention once more. Just a few more moments till freedom- wait, no. I have a meeting with Tristen, right…

The bell rang, sentencing me to yet another long day. I gathered my stuff, avoiding Sean’s probing looks as he practically pleaded with his eyes for me to talk to him. The loneliness on his face, hidden rather well behind a cocky young master facade, was rather tragic. Poor guy.

Still, it didn’t stop me from racing out the door. A cool warning of Insight passed through me, hitting twice with its chill as I moved through the floral-covered door of the classroom. I ignored it for once, tripping over something in the way.

In mere moments, two strong arms caught me before I hit the ground. “Woah, watch it there, my Lady.” Tristen laughed, helping me to my feet.

My Lady? Disgusting… At least when Torren did it, it was manageable. But this? I felt like puking.

A forced blush rose to my cheeks as I backed up and dusted myself off. I dipped my head, my hair flowing easily over my face to hopefully cover up my frozen expression. “Th-thank you…”

”Aw, don’t mention it. I was just coming to get you. That is, if you still want to come to the studio with me?” He asked, a playful smile on his lips. The kind of annoying playful though, where he already knew what was going to happen and was just messing around. It was… irritating, to say the least.

I shifted my hair out of my face, slipping a Listener into my hand as Sean stepped out of the classroom. A plan rapidly took shape in my mind as I called out, “Of course- Oh, hey S-Sean!”

Sean’s face immediately lit up as I called him out. A wide smile sprung to his lips- only to crash and burn immediately as he spotted me with Tristen. Crush much? “Oh, Tristen. What a pleasant surprise.”

”Oh, it’s you, Sentinel.” Tristen put a haughty expression on his face, the light around him seeming to twist with a ‘holier than thou’ type vibe. He brushed his hair aside and leaned up against the wall.

“Tristen here was just offering to show me his studio. D-Did you know he was in a band?” I asked as I lightly tugged on Sean’s arm, bringing him over. I didn’t miss the look of displeasure from Tristen. But, well, I could use Sean as the perfect shield against lover boy.

Sean smiled, the corners of his eyes appearing tight for an entirely different reason. “Of course… Father personally signed him.”

”What can I say? I’m just that good, my Lady.” Tristen laughed lightly, offering me his arm- his arm holding him against the wall. He slipped, nearly falling face first before managing to twist it into a bow to me. “A-after you. We can go in my personal Northwind.”

Northwind… Northwind… didn’t sound familiar. It was probably some kind of rich thing. Still, I took his arm and took the opportunity to stick my little Listener into his pocket with Hidden Hands.

“O-okay!” Feras walked out of the classroom, staring at me amid all the targets while he was just off to the side. I looked him dead in the eyes as I called out. Hopefully he’d take the taunt I was doing better then him in the gig. “Oh, Sean… you want to come? I-if that’s okay?”

Tristen’s smile died immediately in a complete imitation of Sean’s. He managed to recover with a grin that wasn’t half bad. “Why would that be a problem?” It would’ve been a lot more convincing if each word wasn’t spoken through gritted teeth. "The more the merrier!"

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He wasn’t the only one with gritted teeth. Feras was in a similar boat as he met my eyes. He gave me a light nod and then headed out, leaving down the hall with a slight limp. Sucker. I really thought he would’ve been doing a better job with all this socialization stuff considering he called himself a grifter.

Cocky pride fell back onto Sean’s face. “Then I’d love to! I’ve always heard how great you were, Tristen.” His grin grew as he stared into Tristen’s eyes with a passion. Was there something going on between the two? Well, other than the poorly hidden hatred and loathing. Oh, was this the infamous fighting over a girl? “We can even take my Windrider. It’s a more up-to-date version of the Northwind, you know.”

”Of course…”

And that’s how the three of us ended up heading to Sentinel Studios.

——

As it turns out, the Northwind, and by extension, the Windrider, were flyers of the Sentinel variety. I found that out as we headed to a dock near the roof instead of the ground floor like I normally did and boarded Sean's Windrider. Torren and the other two of Sean’s guards got in the Northwind and would meet us at the studio along with Tristen's driver- err, pilot? I don't actually know what they count as...

The Windrider was basically like a car. Except it flew… But it felt like riding in a car. Sure, a car that constantly swayed in the wind and felt like it was going up and down a very bumpy road, but still a car.

It was a definitely high-end vehicle, done in sleek black, red, and bronze accents. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a car too, with large block protrusions right where the tires would normally rest. It was even as cramped as a car…

The three of us sat in the back with Bertram driving and a guard in the passenger seat. I, unfortunately, had to sit in the middle of the two boys. It was quite tight with me smashed between them. Whoever designed these things definitely hadn’t actually thought they would be full of people.

Thankfully, flyers were damn quick. We arrived at Sentinel Studios before I could explode from all the angst between the two boys. We offloaded onto a small landing hanger offset into the building, Bertram seemingly appearing outside the door as he opened it for us. “We have arrived.”

Tristen slid out, waving his hand around the place. “Welcome to Sentinel Studio! This is where all the magic happens!”

”Magic my ass…” I heard muttered from behind me as Sean slid out of the flyer.

I pretended not to hear as I smiled at Tristen. “S-so, what kind of music does S-soarin’ Flyin’ make?”

”Little bit of this, little bit of that.” Tristen said as he led the way to a large door leading into the building. “We’re rapidly moving up the leaderboards. If things go well, we’ll hit the top spot within a year.”

”I-Impressive.” I said as we walked to the hangar's door. The hangar really was quite nice, though kind of small compared to some of the ones I’ve seen in a few of the towers around the city. There was still plenty of room for several flyers though, and about a dozen were parked off to the side of the main landing pads.

A low hum of another flyer came from behind us, Torren and the other guards seated in it. Torren had on a brave face, but I picked up a few Cues that he was close to puking. Guess he isn't much a fan of flyers. I pulled out my phone and sent a message to him. 'Wait out here. Might clam up with you around.'

'No problem.' Torren sent me a moment before bolting out the door of the Northwind.

”Yeah! The band is great. With my leadership, we’ll be the biggest stars in this city!” A grin filled his face as he swiped his card over a reader on the door. It didn’t work. He swiped it again and again, each time blinking red. “T-that’s weird…”

Sean sauntered up and easily swiped a card of his own, the reader turning green as the door slid open. “Weird. Your card is broken.”

“Ha ha… yeah… I’ll see if my manager can’t get it fixed.” Tristen’s face twisted momentarily, returning to normal as he smiled ‘reassuringly’ to me. “Well, how about a small tour?”

He continued to brag as we headed through the place. And it was quite a big place. There were at least a dozen sound rooms and easily double as many amenities. Everything from a pool hall to an actual swimming pool sat atop the tower with exclusive access for Sentinel’s sponsored bands. Eventually, he led us before one in particular.

“And here is my band’s room! Mr. Sentinel has set us up with all the fixings-“

”For some reason-“ Sean quietly interjected.

“-so we have everything we need! C’mon, I’ll show you all our records.” Tristen headed over to the large terminal shoved up against the wall. He clicked through several programs before finally clicking play on one.

Immediately, loud, headache-inducing throbs of a guitar played through the room. The throbs were followed by malicious beats of a drum, horribly off and yet somehow managing to mesh into the guitar as autotune did its work. Then, I heard Tristen’s voice, I think at least. It was hard to tell over all the post-processing effects.

> ”I’m so fuckin’ lucky!

>

> Don’t you wish you were my buddy!

>

> Don’t you wish you were me!

>

> Everything would be free,

>

> I’m a fuckin’ money tree!”

‘The rest of the song played out, not getting much better. It was nowhere near as good as the stuff on my old handheld. Even the lyrics were trashy, over half being curses and the other nonsensical slurs while the entire thing was almost all Tristen just bragging. It was tough to digest.

”So? What do you think? That’s our top song!” Tristen happily leaned back in his chair, nearly falling as the chair lurched back. He barely managed to stabilize himself as he wiped the panic from his face.

I swallowed a laugh. Not only at Tristen's repeated failures, but at the irony of the world. Of course the song about shitty bragging was top of the list. “It’s- uh- it’s nice?”

”Yeah! We love it too! I’ll show you some other stuff, and then my band will be arriving soon.” Tristen smiled as he led us back to the actual sound booth.

——-

I sighed as I stepped into my apartment, drained beyond all belief. Tristen was- well, he was a handful. Other than his over-the-top ego though, there wasn’t anything that stood out about him. His singing was subpar, his band was subpar, and the only reason he was succeeding was thanks to Sentinel’s investment. At least, that's what I gathered.

Sean was entertaining throughout the entire day, at least. His constant cuts and snide remarks nearly made me laugh a couple of times. Sean really didn’t like Tristen. Maybe because of Sean’s aforementioned daddy issues? Tristen did seem to be getting quite a bit more attention.

As for whether Tristen was our guy or not? I couldn’t say. The guy was a class S narcissist, but that didn’t necessarily mean he got rid of a dozen people. That being said, he vanished several times during our time in Sentinel Studio, and I was far more willing to bet he said something less censored then.

I tossed my bag onto my desk, scattering some spare parts I had yet to clean up, and pulled out my deck. From there, I hooked in and pulled up the free sound recording software I’d been using.

Two new files sat at the top of the list. Listener-1.mp3 was five hours long, having cut off when I left the range of SPS and the device resting in the principal’s pen holder. Listener-2.mp3 sat at a similar length around four and a half hours. As I booted up the device, I settled back down and prepared myself for a long night of listening in.

Before I could get too far into the track of Principal Bously’s office machines and terminals buzzing, a shady-sounding text came from the Inquisitor. “The stuff is ready. You know where to meet me.”

For once, I wasn’t disappointed as I threw my crusade gear into my bag and raced out of the apartment. Anything was preferable to the bore of surfing almost entirely empty recordings.