🌒

You climb the ladder up to the first floor roof of the building annex. After a few months at 0.3G you feel much stronger than last time you came here, and can even jump up a few steps at a time, your hands gliding along the rails. As you reach the top you see Zeta sitting against the building wall, looking up at the stars through the glass across the cylinder. Its black and white hair almost blends into the grey metallic panels, but its pale eyes stand out with the faintest blue. Today it’s wearing the skirt from a girl uniform over its neural interface leggings, with the jacket from the boy uniform above.

“Oh hi, you got here fast,” you say.

“I already was coming here,” it says. “Nobody ever comes here so it’s my favorite spot.”

You cross the roof and sit down next to it.

“Pretty crazy shit you told me yesterday,” it says.

“Yes well they don’t call me a Lunatic for nothing. Sorry to disappoint about the gathering, though,” you say.

“I might not be too disappointed. I have an idea to investigate your predicament, if you’re open to collaboration. I’d understand if you want to keep it to yourself, though.”

“I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t trust you, and, I wouldn’t mind feeling less alone in all this...”

“Well, I talked to my sister last night. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention ÆON or the cult or anything suspicious, I just asked her about good ways to spy on something from afar, untraceably. Said it was for class.”

“What did she say?”

“She suggested technopathic synchronization, basically, merging your senses with another technopath’s, seeing through their eyes. It’s something we wouldn’t normally learn until our second year, but she gave me a basic script for implementing it, as long as you have a consenting partner to sync with. Doing it surreptitiously is way beyond our skill level,” Zeta says.

“Interesting idea.”

“And I was thinking, as far as you know the vision ÆON had only pertained to ÆR and maybe to you by extension, but it could be perfectly safe for everyone else in attendance. Even if it’s the cult they have no reason to hurt anyone but you, right? So, maybe I’ll go alone...