“It’s like the saying among airline pilots that the best flying team has three components: a pilot, a computer and a dog.

  The computer is there to fly the plane, the pilot is there to feed the dog.

  And the dog is there to bite the human if it tries to touch the computer.”

  — HANNAH FRY

  //Codex Tag

  function, inscribeAnnotation019 (content=

  /* Roses are red. Violets are blue.

  Computer, Pilot, Dog—Remi! Which are you?

  In these triads, everyone assumes they're the pilot. Few realize they're the computer. Fewer admit that they're the dog. Almost no one accepts they may only be the cargo. */

  codex.updateEntry("Checks & Teeth| The trick isn’t who holds control, but who stops them when they shouldn’t."

  );

  }

  It felt like an eternity since Remi had been in the pairing room, but here he was. Again. The tutorial was done. The room hadn’t changed: same sterile glow, same clinical whiteness, and the same solitary, empty chair—waiting.

  As he took a seat, the screen flared to life, zooming out from a pinpoint of light like an aperture snapping open. The image took the shape of a face. Dorian’s face, frozen in a half grin; it was not a genuine smile. The smile Remi remembered from when they played in the woods. It was his corporate smile, the one for fancy business dinners and meetings, the one that was just as immaculate as the business suit Dorian was currently wearing.

  This was where Remi had left off in the pairing process, paused at the edge of a choice he never made, except with one notable difference. A crimson system overlay shone in the center of the screen. Like a HUD notification, it floated just above the image, present but not actually a part of the image beneath it.

  [PAIRED]

  Active Partner: Elias Dray

  Prior Connection: Roommate

  Compatibility Index: 62%

  Narrative Interlock: LIVE

  Current Location: Courthouse Tutorial

  The air in the room didn’t change, but Remi felt colder. He had been right; it had been Elias in the memory maze. Remi still did not know why they had selected each other. Whether it had been choice or just coincidence, he knew they were together now. Elias was fragile in ways that most people weren’t. If the Crucible had learned to weaponise his differences—the drifting, the numbness, the cracks beneath the surface—then Dorian could be in real danger. Not from Elias, but from whatever version of him the system created.

  Remi quickly swiped backward to check the others. Wallace was also paired—with his father. He had come from good farming stock, and so that was a solid choice. Funnily enough, it looked like he was getting a pretty similar tutorial to the one that Remi had just finished, except his said Switzerland. Figures. Most faces Remi passed by without slowing, as he knew who he was looking for. Nel’s profile finally appeared on the screen.

  [PENDING]

  Active Partner: Selected-Remi Page

  Prior Connection: Teacher

  Compatibility Index: 94%

  Narrative Interlock: Queued for Sync

  Current Location: Shoreline Instance (South Loop)

  She was there, waiting. Remi knew that even if the Crucible might’ve offered him other choices, that now he would’ve chosen her, anyway. The Frank fight had made sure of that. He would be dead without her, so he simply confirmed her choice and swiped right.

  The room flickered around him, and a new space blinked into existence. He was still on his chair, but its legs were sunk into gooey sand. He could hear the lapping waves and smell the brine even before the image fully resolved. The beach lay still, the air thick with the scent of salt and damp sand. A low, restless murmur, the ocean’s breath, filled the otherwise quiet space.

  Pale sand rippled slightly as light danced across it, like sunlight caught in blown glass, scattering in soft, shifting waves. The water lapped inward, but not in regular waves, more like someone stirring from below, to kiss the back of Remi’s boots.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  As he had thought, she was already here. Lounging in her own selection chair. Spread out on it like a cat in the sunlight as she lazily picked at her keyboard. Nel did not look up. She finished typing whatever it was, then said: “Took you long enough.”

  She looked up at him, letting her keyboard vanish with a flick of her hand. Then she pushed her hood down; revealing her face. It wasn’t as he remembered.

  Her hair was still pulled back in the loose ponytail she always wore to class, and the same wry amusement lingered at the corners of her mouth. But there were a few more lines around her eyes now, some creases that hadn’t been there before.

  Remi knew those lines; they came from experience, usually hard ones that chiselled worry permanently into flesh. She was older, yes; however, still too young for that kind of weathering. He expected to see those lines on his own face when he looked in the mirror. Lies that told of age, and wisdom, and fracture. But Nel? She looked like she had already been through all of that, and then chosen to keep going, anyway. Her expression was harder now, and far more guarded than he remembered. Not colder—that was not right. She had the face of someone who was practiced, really practiced, in the art of not letting people get too close. And that, somehow, made Remi suddenly very sad.

  She looked at him, codifying his expression. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” In that moment, her expression softened, just enough for the old Elena to peer through the cracks.

  He smiled genuinely for the first time in what seemed like forever. “Nice to see you too, Casper. Wish it had been at a reunion and not a worldwide narrative apocalypse, but hey, my schedule lately has been a real bitch!”

  Remi felt strange swearing in-front of a former student, but he figured it was best to reestablish that dynamic right away. He was pleased when she responded with a light laugh.

  “I saw.”

  “Thanks for your help back there; I couldn’t have done it without you,” Remi said.

  Nel looked at him, measuring her response. “Obviously.”

  // 0.0 - Chains to Bind Me

  A girl sat on a beach waiting for him to arrive. He was taking forever to get here. The profession selection and character selection process should have been relatively quick. But from what she remembered, Remi Page delighted in taking his time. Especially if there were any reading involved.

  Nel pulled her hoodie up, sheltering her face from the sun. The light here was far harsher than in her sandbox. While she waited, she might as well dig further into her new partner. With a quick box of her fingers, she summoned her laptop; she opened a surveillance window, it she used her echo recall on the image; and so the scene played out like she was there. It flickered as it began, and Nel watched the bargain unfold.

  “First Faustina Question. When you think about Dorian. When you picture his face, not just his name. Do you still see him as someone who needs protecting or as someone you need forgiveness from?”

  Remi’s response was quick. “I mean, he is a grown-ass man…” But he knew deep down that wouldn’t be enough. He hesitated a bit. Drawing out the pause. The AI didn’t interrupt, just a slight head tilt, like a train conductor feeling the pulse of the tracks as the train moves. The ink pool at the edge of Remi’s vision pulsed once, slowly, but the storyline attached did not move. No rewards for half answers, but it appeared the system had noted the hesitation.

  “He is my little brother. For so long he was my shadow, always behind me, but always with me, wherever I went. As kids do, I resented him for it.” In a flash of memory, Remi could still see him, sad questioning eyes as Dorian trailed after him. “But as I got older, I realized that’s where I should be, right in front of him. Protecting him. He was my little brother. I had always tried to be everything our parents wanted of me. I wanted to save him from that, to keep him safe in my shadow. Their dreams were always too heavy. But when... something, no, someone…” Remi faltered. He had never tried to crystallize this before. “…When the one you love thinks your protection isn’t protection at all. He sees it as suppression. I wanted him to feel safe in my shadow. I didn’t see that he wanted out from under it. When he stepped out, I took it personally. I felt like he was abandoning me for them. We ended… bitterly. So yes, I still want to protect him. But that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need that anymore. Doesn’t even want it. He filled their dreams, became the son they wanted, and he’s happy with that. Who am I to interfere with all of that? He has his own life, his own dreams, and his own family. He is happy, and I do not need to cast my shadow on him anymore. You said he did not ask about me. That’s not the surprise you think it is. He hasn’t asked for me in a long time, and most of the times that he did, I let him down. Is that enough?”

  The AI didn’t speak for several long seconds. A faint light pulsed in the room: indigo. One beat. Then another. “That was emotional resonance.” The storyline ticks forward by a single centimetre. He finally exhales. It was not breath. Not exactly. More like steam being released from under pressure. “That’s more than enough. It wasn’t clean, but it was true. He was your shadow. You called that protection. He called it shade. That’s how stories fracture, not from lies but misread love. The Codex marks it as an unresolved sibling thread, but it is still viable. Still responsive. This is a usable tether.”

  On screen, he looked as if he could feel the chain settle—a weight she almost felt herself. A weight he would now have to bear.

  Nel hit the feed’s fast forward feature, racing through the rest of the AI’s response. She didn’t really care what it said. There would be nothing there that she couldn’t figure out herself from the Crucible’s base code. She was only interested in his responses, so as the avatar stopped talking, she resumed playing the memory.

  Silence again. The AI gave Remi a moment to process, then continued. “Two trades remain. Do we continue? Or do you need another moment before the next truth that cuts?”

  “Shut up. Just ask your damn question.”

  The AI closes its eyes, not insulted. “Second question. When you lost them all, Dorian, your partner, the students who stopped writing. All the ones you let slip between the cracks. Was there ever a part of you, even a tiny one, that asked if it was better that way? Maybe it was better that way. That the story was cleaner, moved easier. Did you ever let go first? There is no judgment, only record.”

  No more room for slow starts. If the system wanted to know who he was, it better learn this part early. He stiffened, ensuring his voice was cool and clipped. “If you think I would let any of them go, then you have failed your research assignment. You do not know me. There is no way I would leave anyone to flounder while there was something I could do. As for the second part, I had considered letting myself seep into the Void between the cracks of my Pathway. I would be lying if I said I have not. But who hasn’t? Life is hard. It is full of shitty things. It is full of shitty people. Sometimes you feel like you are screaming into a void, and that only the void answers back. Soon it feels like you can’t scream anymore. That it might be just easier, cleaner, simpler to drift off into that void. But then I remember I am not alone. There are others. All I need to do is keep showing up. So I continue, not for myself, but for them.”

  The lights don’t flicker. The HUD doesn’t flare. But somewhere in the room, something shifts, like a switch being flicked on. A single line of golden ink drips from the base of the whiteboard and vanishes.

  [THREAD ANCHOR CONFIRMED - PAGE.REMI - “Keeps Showing Up”]

  Status: STABILIZED

  Risk of Drift: Deferred

  Nel could hear him long before she saw him, as the sound of his feet dragging through the damp sand floated towards her. Nel did not look up. She finished typing, locking the video feeds behind some passwords after burying them deep in a subdirectory. When she felt that he had waited enough. Enough to pay her back for the time she had spent waiting for him. She looked up and said in a perfectly flat voice, “Took you long enough.”

  She looked up at him, letting her keyboard vanish with a flick of her hand. Finally, it was time to begin! With any luck, it would go exactly as planned.