With remarkable alacrity, the banners were switched back to the correct colour. They were red; red like oxygenated blood, Tom decided after a moments consideration. An appropriate warning to signify the consequences of a failure to follow the sign.
And then… That was it. There was no more talk, no discussion about the mistake. Everything returned to normal. They were pushed back into the standard routine, into the existence where every interaction seemed to be strained. Armoured groups patrolled the hallways, never less than ten people in each. The lessons were done by rote, with all the smiles forced.
The entire orphanage was waiting for the proverbial other boot to drop.
Two days passed without any improvement of the atmosphere. Tom watched the faces of his cohort through the many screens. They were feeling the strain.
Tom’s body finished the session in the isolation room. It had spent the last two hours creating a tower of books. This sacrilege had made him wince in his system room, especially when the tower that he had stacked to be over a metre high crashed down. At least one book had been left with a broken spine. The body acting like a perfect younger him was unworried by the outcome and only sought to build the next one higher. The child dragged over a toy box to help with that endeavour. Tom had to admit it was what he would have done when he was younger.
The doors dinged open, and he saw that an ugly frog waited for him, half-blocking the entrance way. His body reacted by stepping back shyly, having recognised it.
“Follow,” it ordered in Dimitri’s voice and then hopped away.
His body dutifully did as instructed, and, unsurprisingly, he was led to the waiting room outside the caretaker’s study. After almost five minutes, the door opened and Dimitri and Ma exited. They gave each other a quick hug before he sent her on the way.
“Ta, good, you’re here. Please, enter.”
His body followed the directions, and he was surprised to find that the study had been redecorated. It had been turned into a space better suited for young kids. There was a low couch that Dimitri sat on, and a young kid-sized chair, with them being separated by a low table. Paper and coloured pencils rested on top of it, and there was even some paper with a design sketched on it to allow him to do colouring. It was like walking into a child psychologist’s office.
If there was any question about how to play the encounter, it was overwhelmed by Tom’s Danger Sense exploding the moment his body crossed the room’s threshold.
Something was very wrong.
Dimitri, at a glance, seemed oblivious, and Tom knew that this was his precognition affinity of ninety-five showing its worth. That sort of firepower, even with a low-tiered skill could do stuff that those without an affinity simply couldn’t match.
“Have a seat. If you want, you can do some colouring,” Dimitri offered. “I asked you here because I’m checking on the more vulnerable children, given the unique circumstances we find ourselves in.”
His body had sat down and started to badly colour what looked like a pegasus. Not only was the attempt line challenged, the majestic animal was being turned an angry shade of red.
There was a pause, and Tom knew Dimitri was expecting him to say something, but he remained in the system room. The perfect acting of his body continued unperturbed by what his Danger Sense was implying. There was no way Tom was going to speak first, as he wasn’t even convinced that he was talking to Dimitri. This could be one of the illusions that he had been warned about - but then, again, he would expect his illusion-busting ability to reveal something like that.
Which suggested this was different. The most likely explanation was that Dimitri didn’t know the study was compromised.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
His body had not scanned his surroundings when it had entered the room. Tom was horrified by that, but he understood it was only five; though, on the other hand, that still felt sloppy to him. He double-checked the recordings and confirmed that neither of the corners adjacent to the door had been glanced at even once, and they represented massive black spots which could hide one of the hairy monsters.
Or potentially something even bigger. Anything could be hidden there; anything that could kill him easily.
The silence stretched.
Through the monitors, Tom watched Dimitri like a hawk, and, for a moment, the big man appeared stumped. He went to talk and then stopped. The expression was only there for a micro second, but Tom noticed the slight widening of the eyes. Then he coughed. “Well, Ta, can you tell me how you feel?” he asked, and then his eyes flicked up and around to the corners of the room.
Tom smiled at the reaction. The title that all reincarnators held had activated to stop Dimitri from exposing him, and, in doing so, it had confirmed that his office was compromised. Tom hadn’t needed to say a thing to get the message across. Ten minutes later of real time the session ran to its natural close, but that was irrelevant. He had said nothing, but the issue had been communicated to Dimitri in a way that was impossible to dispute.
Tom had no doubt that Dimitri would act more decisively, now that he knew that Tom was not imagining a threat. He knew, now, that his safe office had been compromised, and it would highlight the danger they all currently faced.
“That’s all the time I have for now. I need to touch base with another twenty or so of the more vulnerable kids.”
He was escorted out of the office. His younger self hugged the older man and went on his way. Not once had his body looked into either of the corners, so he didn’t know if the threat had been physical, or if it was some sort of remote sensing version.
His body hurried to the combat dodging room, and he played with his friends. Bir was summoned by the frog around an hour later, and, to his relief, Kang wasn’t. Dimitri was not stupid, and bringing a reincarnator into that situation was a recipe to trick them into exposing themselves.
The next morning, the banners remained red. But it felt like something significant had changed. If anything, things felt even grimmer than they had before.
Beatrice, not Dimitri, stood to do the daily speech. “Eden’s on the way.” She announced simply. “And when she gets back, we’ll be able to return to normal. In the meantime - reincarnators, remember to stay…”
Tom tuned her out and internally swore at the situation. Being stuck in the pseudo-system room was even more boring than pretending to be a little child. The next day let him enter the trial. It was wonderful. The ability to chat freely with April helped his mental state, even though his training was the same as before. Most of the trial was boring, hours upon hours spent unsuccessfully duplicating the complex ritual into the tiny wooden bands, and almost as much spent fighting. There was no fun, no exciting battles - it was just a series of opponents to hone his technical skills. He went through the moves almost robotically, until he could kill his enemies with a single blow. In total, he only spent an hour or two with April, but adult conversation was incredible. He had never been more thankful for that access to her.
At next day’s breakfast, the feel of a trainwreck disaster only grew. Once more, Beatrice addressed them. She looked like she had been crying. “I’m going to directly address the rumours that are spreading. They are true. Arnali was killed last night.”
Shocked silence descended.
“The assassin that did it got away. We’re doing everything we can, but none of the resources in town can deal with this threat. We’ve got ritual specialists coming from New Beijing. They’re a month away. If reincarnators stay in their system room, there will be no more deaths. Please, for the sake of all of us, be disciplined.”
In his system room, Tom fell back on his lounge chair and shut his eyes. He remembered Arnali disciplining Boreas for being so callous about the situation, those first moments after they saw the green banners. Had that been what had doomed him? Had him relaxing his defences for those couple of seconds been the difference, or had it been something that had occurred after?
As Tom opened his eyes and looked up at the metal ceiling, he wondered if the outcome would have been different if he had acted sooner.
“No, that’s stupid,” he told himself. There was no future in going down the path of what ifs. He had done everything he could, and he was not responsible for the choices these other species were making. They were who were killing people, not any lack of action on his part.
“Our priests have got involved.” Beatrice continued grimly. “A substantial penalty is being applied to MAKROS to extract a suitable cost for this out of competition-level interference. We are being compensated by a hundred thousand ranking points a week. That is to balance the impact that the presence of the assassins is having on the functioning of this orphanage. However, we get nothing for any reincarnators that die. So, stay in your system rooms.”