Hello, everyone. :) I ended up putting in a bit more about Ness than I was expecting, but hopefully it all fits decently well.
As always, reviews are greatly appreciated. :)
And next chapter, we're going into Lucas' Magicant. I promise.
Ninten walked back into the science café, scanning the area as he heard the glass door swing shut behind him. Still as crowded as ever, with coffee cups and scattered papers present at every table. Ninten checked his watch, seeing the digital numbers 6:38 appear on the device. Normally, most people would usually have left by now.
But this was no normal week.
Ninten weaved his way between tables, trying not to let the people's frantic expressions make him uncomfortable. Most of them had their eyes closed and were likely reviewing information through the psyweb. When Ninten was studying for the PSI test, he had tried it all. Psyweb, psyspace, paper notes, anything that would give him an edge. He supposed it had worked.
As Ninten spotted Ana sitting at the table where he had abandoned her earlier, he reminded himself that he was done with his test. There was absolutely no reason that his mind should keep going back to the event. After all, his future in the PSI program would be challenging enough.
Ninten walked over and sat down across from Ana without speaking a word, looking instead at the physics notes he had left at the table. After Ninten's conversation with George, physics actually sounded appealing right now. Ana looked up at him from her own mess of papers and smiled at him.
"Hey there," she said. "How'd it go? You look like you got run over by a truck."
She probably meant those words as a joke, but right after she spoke Ninten could feel his eyelids sagging and let out a yawn.
"Sorry I took so long," Ninten said, "And thanks for watching my stuff. The meeting went about as well as you would probably expect."
"What did he want from you this time?"
Ana's eyes sparkled with curiosity. Ninten looked around to see if anyone else was listening. Even just with Ana, he never felt comfortable talking about George. To everyone else, George was just the dean of the school. Ninten didn't want to become known as the dean's great-grandson, even in Ana's mind.
So for months during their freshman year, Ninten had lied to Ana when George summoned him. He made up different excuses each time, but none of them explained the men in suits who led him away. She never blamed him for those lies, and she hadn't treated him any differently since finding out that Ninten was related to the dean. For that alone, Ninten was willing to answer any question she asked.
"He wanted a guard to follow me around wherever I go," Ninten said.
"That again?" Ana snorted. "You never seem to catch a break with this guy."
"Well, that wasn't the bad part. He feared for my safety because Lucas went missing."
"Like… the Lucas we know?"
Well, it was the Lucas she knew, at least.
"Yeah. Mary-I mean the dean's wife said that he disappeared after failing his PSI test."
"Oh." Ana's eyes widened. "Oh, fuck."
"Yeah. We both think that failing the test drove him to run away. Hopefully he'll come back on his own, but the dean's wife asked me to keep an eye on him."
"Maybe he got drunk and passed out somewhere."
"That was her first thought as well. Apparently, nobody sold any alcohol or pot to him. He could have gotten drugs from somewhere else."
Ana shook her head. "Freshemen these days are so resourceful. Back in my day, we had to go to real parties to get drunk."
"Ann."
"Sorry." Ana grimaced. "This could be serious, I know. Why don't we go see if Ness has any ideas where he went?"
"Ness?"
"Lucas' roommate. They live in the dorms." Ana shrugged. "Silly freshmen."
"All right," Ninten said. "Checking in on Ness sounds like a good plan. Apparently, he was the one who filed the missing person report. Do you, err… know where Lucas and Ness live?"
"Yeah. I'm a natural-born stalker, remember?" Ana winked at him.
"Maybe not a great thing to say out in public." Ninten frowned. "When do you want to go?"
Ana blinked. "Well, right now. Duh. Unless you have something more important than looking for a missing person?"
"Just wanted to make sure this wasn't too sudden for you."
"Winged Hussars are always ready to leap into action." Ana puffed up her chest and flexed an arm. After several moments of holding the pose, she smirked and started gathering her papers. "I'll lead the way since I'm pretty sure I can stalk Ness better than you."
Ninten grimaced, looking around the room to make sure nobody was getting the wrong idea. "You really need to watch your mouth, Ann."
Ana puffed up her lips and looked down with bug-eyes. It took Ninten a moment to realize that she was literally trying to look at her mouth in an attempt to mock him.
"Nah, too hard," she said. "I'm going before you waste any more of our time."
Ana slung her backpack over her shoulders and walked towards the café's glass door. With a sigh, Ninten stood up, grabbed his physics notes, and followed her.
Ninten followed Ana all the way to Lucas' room, which included sneaking up a set of stairs that Ninten was almost certain they weren't allowed in. Still, nobody had said anything even as Ninten and Ana walked through a hall where they didn't live and approached Lucas' door. Cheap paper decorations on the door spelled Lucas' and Ness' names in curly fonts, and Ninten was almost certain that Ana wouldn't have known where Lucas' room was otherwise.
"See, I told you I'm a good stalker," Ana said, walking up and knocking on Lucas' door.
She really needed to stop saying those words.
"What are we going to do if Ness isn't here?" Ninten asked.
The door opened, revealing a person wearing a baseball cap and a striped shirt. Somebody looked like they had never graduated from middle school. But underneath Ness'… interesting fashion choices, his dark hair and round face made him look uncomfortably like Ninten. The two of them stared at each other for several moments.
"Oh my gosh," Ana said. "You look just like twinzies."
It took Ninten a moment to translate "twinzies" into twins.
"Yeah," Ness said, cracking a smile. His voice was deeper than Ninten's. "I guess we do. I already checked the room to see if Lucas left anything that would tell me where he went. But I'm not sure if he disappeared on purpose. He didn't take any of his stuff with him."
Ninten looked inside the dorm room. He assumed the half that was covered in baseball posters, books, and little league trophies belonged to Ness, which would make Lucas' half the area with potted plants and framed landscape photos. On Lucas' side of the room, Ninten saw a jacket and backpack lying on the floor, cluttering the otherwise neat half of the room. Maybe Lucas' disappearance hadn't been planned.
But if he hadn't meant to be gone for so long, what happened to him? Where had he gone? Ness tried to swallow, but couldn't force the saliva down his dry throat.
"I think we will take a look around, thanks," Ana said. She gestured towards Ninten. "Ness, this is Ninten. We're close friends."
"Nice to meet you," Ness said, extending a hand.
"How did you know we were coming?" Ninten said, shaking Ness' hand.
Ness frowned. "Ana didn't tell you that she was messaging me while walking here?"
Ninten sighed, looking over at Ana. She seemed to be trying her hardest to hold in a laugh.
"She most certainly did not," Ninten said.
"Hey, I can't afford to give vital information away to the Turks," Ana said.
"What?" Ness said, looking back and forth between Ninten and Ana.
"Forget her," Ninten said. "It's nice to meet you, and thanks for letting us look around your room."
"No problem. I mean, I've already looked through the room myself, but maybe you'll catch something I missed." Ness cocked his head. "But I've been meaning to ask… how did you guys find out about Lucas? I heard that the university's trying to hush it all up. Some of his friends don't even know that he went missing."
"Well," Ninten said, looking Ness straight in the eye, "You could say that the people running this school sometimes tell me a thing or two."
After just a few minutes of searching, Ana sighed and put her hands on her hips.
"Well, I may just have to use my last-resort weapon," she said.
Ninten would never understand how she could spend hours on a single physics problem before asking for help but refused to search a room for more than a couple minutes. Half the time, she would leave the room without her wallet, and she would have Ninten buy stuff for her, always promising to pay him back.
And to be fair, she always did pay him back. She explained to him recently that she kept a detailed spreadsheet of all her expenses, which sounded Ninten like much more work than just finding her wallet every time she needed it.
"Okay," Ness said. He had the television on a baseball channel, and his eyes remained glued to the screen even as he talked to Ana. "What is this secret weapon of yours?"
"I'm going to hack into Lucas' psyspace."
She spoke the words so casually that it took Ninten a moment to understand what she was saying.
"Wait, what?" Ninten whirled around to face Ana. "You're joking, right?"
"Why would I be?" Ana frowned. "His data files and records of his activity could tell us something about where he went."
"He disappeared right after his PSI test, Ann. He might not have even come back here to log into his psyspace."
"Wait," Ness said, looking over at Ninten. "You think that Lucas ran away because he failed the PSI test?"
Ninten and Ana exchanged a glance.
"He didn't," Ness said. "I'm sure of it."
"I know," Ana said. "He doesn't seem like the type. It's just suspicious."
"There's no way he ran away because of the PSI test," Ness said. "I talked to Lucas a couple days ago, and he wasn't sad at all that he failed. There's no way he would have left without a word."
"Some people don't always show what they really feel," Ninten said, thinking of Mary.
"Yeah, I know." Ness furrowed his brow. "But think about it. Let's assume he was devastated that he failed. He still needed to control himself well enough to hide his emotions from me."
"Sure," Ana said.
"Uh-huh," Ninten said. "And that means…?"
"You guys don't get it," Ness said, turning off the television and standing up. "Lucas was in control. If he hid his true feelings from me, it was because he had the good sense to plan it. Someone like that doesn't make such a desperate move. They don't run away and disappear for days without even a goddamn jacket."
Ninten found himself nodding along. He looked over at Ana, who was biting her lip. A sense of dread hit him a moment later.
If Lucas hadn't disappeared on his own, then he might be in even more danger.
"Besides," Ness said, oblivious to Ana's concern, "We live in a city. You can't just disappear and stay missing when it's so crowded."
"There are plenty of cities with thousands of undocumented people," Ninten said. "It can be as easy to hide within a crowd as away with it. He might just be taking a few days to think over everything that's happened."
"But-"
"Listen," Ana said, interrupting Ness. "Maybe you're right. Maybe someone abducted him. But we can't prove it one way or the other. Not without evidence. Lucas' psyspace can give us concrete data about who he is and what he's done."
Ness and Ninten exchanged a glance. Ninten didn't want to be the one to point out to Ana that hacking into someone's personal psyspace was highly, highly illegal. Judging by Ness' silence, Ninten guessed that he didn't want to be the one to say it, either.
"I get that it's an invasion of privacy," Ana said, "But Lucas could be in serious trouble. And since police don't really get issued warrants to hack into someone's personal psypsace, it's up to us to find the truth."
"You could be opening up every dirty secret he's ever tried to hide," Ness said. "I don't know if he would want that."
"To be honest, I don't really give a fuck." Ana shot Ness a cool stare. "Even if his psyspace doesn't have notes about where he went, I can use it to see who he is and predict what happened. I'll do it now, and I'll do it again if I have the same chance of saving someone."
Ness shied back, and then tried to hide his fear with a shrug. Ninten suspected that Ness' fears, along with his own, had little to do with Lucas' privacy in particular. If Ana could open up Lucas' psyspace, if she was willing to open up his psyspace, she could easily do the same to theirs. She could look at all of Ninten's personal records, and if she so chose to, could steal sensitive information and erase his identity.
And while Ana would never use her skills to harm Ninten or Ness, he couldn't feel comfortable knowing that his information was so fragile. Even beyond legal information, Ninten kept pieces of his treasured memories inside his psyspace. He would sometimes go in and look at a virtual version of his first metal baseball bat, chipped and worn from heavy use. He would then walk to simulated versions of his first stuffed animals, a Teddy bear named Rex and a lion named Roary. He would look around his room at his old house with his collection of crystals that sparkled in the sunlight.
Those moments were really all he had left of his past. And they could be erased in a moment.
"Well, I won't tell anyone about what you're doing," Ninten said. "But I don't think we can let this become a habit, Ann."
"Of course not. But desperate times call for desperate measures."
"I… guess I'm okay with it as well," Ness said, looking away. "Just this once."
As if he could have stopped her.
"Wonderful," Ana said, rubbing her hands together. "This might take me a while, so feel free to watch baseball together or whatever. Ninten told me he used to play little league."
Ana walked over to Lucas' desk in the corner of the room, sat down, and closed her eyes. Ninten turned on his psychic senses for a moment, and he felt heat radiate from both the desk Ana was sitting at and Ness' desk over in the other corner of the room. Out of the corner of his eye, they looked like the same bright orbs as the one that led to George's psyspace.
The orbs themselves, Ninten had been told, were mere portals to another plane of existence. They could be created and destroyed, but the process required professional installation. Therefore, most people only built in access to their psyspace in their own homes, or maybe at work.
Ana just needed to find her way through that portal and inside Lucas' personal records.
"So, uh…" Ness said, looking warily over at Ana. "How's she going to hack into Lucas' psyspace? She doesn't seem to be… doing much of anything."
"I can hear you," Ana said.
Ness let out a surprised "eep," and Ana laughed.
"Nah, it's a good question," she said. "And sorry for scaring you earlier."
"It's fine," Ness said.
Despite his steady voice, Ness' face paled. Thank goodness Ana's eyes were closed.
"Five or ten years ago when we had passwords, I probably would have rammed my way inside," Ana said.
"You would have… what?" Ness said.
"Whoops. I keep forgetting that you don't know hacker lingo. I would have used a program that entered random strings of letters and numbers until I randomly stumbled on the password."
Ninten felt a chill run down his spine. To him, passwords had always seemed so… safe. The way Ana casually talked about "ramming" through a password made Ninten glad that he didn't use them anymore.
"So what do you do now?" Ninten said. "You have to fool a mindscan, right?"
"Yeah. But fortunately for me, most of the mindscans are pretty shitty at what they do. But I can't brute force my way through a mindscan, so it's still a little bit tougher."
"A… what?" Ness said, frowning.
"Wait, you've never heard of a mindscan?" Ana said. "They're on everything. Whenever you log onto the psyweb, it probably scans your mind to make sure it's you."
"It does?" Ness' eyes widened.
"Yeah, that's how it knows who you are and how it tracks your domain. Most good hackers can switch between several 'minds' by changing their thought patterns so that they can have multiple identities on the psyweb. Actually, basically anyone important has access to multiple psyweb domains, even though it's technically illegal. It's pretty easy."
Ness and Ninten exchanged a glance. The way Ana talked about creating multiple identities made it sound like she had tried it herself.
"Remind me to never on her bad side," Ness whispered into Ninten's ear.
"What's harder," Ana said, "Is changing my thought pattern to match Lucas' almost exactly."
"Wait, can we back up a bit?" Ness said. "What do you mean by 'thought pattern'?"
Ana paused for a moment before releasing a sigh. "I… don't really know how to describe it. Different people's minds work in fundamentally different ways, and it's easy for a program to pick up on. It's something you really need to see for yourself, so I'm not sure how much more I can explain it. The important part is that every person's thought pattern is unique, but programs only look for certain cues that I can replicate if I know what they are."
"So could you get into the psyspace of someone who thinks in a similar way as you?" Ninten asked.
"There was a big discussion about this in Congress a few years back," Ana said. "The answer is theoretically yes, but practically no. Think of it like a password. If you're similar to another person, you're more likely to have a similar password, right?"
"I suppose?" Ninten said.
"Yeah, that's basically the response I'm going for. Human minds, just like passwords, are differentiated enough that you can't really fool a mindscan by accident. Even for identical twins."
Lucky for Ninten's twin sisters Mimmie and Minnie, he supposed.
"So how can you possibly fool the mindscan if it's so specific?" Ness said.
"Right now, I'm trying to pick apart the mindscan program itself," Ana said. "This program seems pretty cheap, so it's probably looking for just a few cues of Lucas' thought pattern. I just need to imitate those. But it might take a while, since I'm not really that good. But I'm not sure we want to bring a real hacker into this, so I'm all we've got." She turned her head towards Ninten and Ness, her eyes still closed. "Seriously, you two have some time to kill. Watching me sit still and do my thing probably isn't the best use of your time."
As if on cue, Ninten's stomach growled. Had he even eaten lunch today? Ness looked over, and Ninten could see a lightbulb going off in his head.
"Maybe we should grab dinner," Ness said.
"I can make a run to the Chipotle on campus, if you like that sort of food," Ninten said. "I know Ann does."
"Mm." Ana licked her lips. "I don't care what it's doing to my health. Chipotle is delicious. Ninten had never even been to one before going here, you know. I had to show him what he was missing."
Yeah, well that was because Ninten's family always ate at higher-end restaurants. To this day, he was pretty sure he had never stepped inside a McDonald's before. George would probably be appalled that Ana had roped him into eating Chipotle regularly.
"Yeah, Chipotle's fine," Ness said. "But I, uh, am living on a campus meal plan and don't really have any money right now."
"I can pay," Ninten said.
Ness blinked. "I mean, I would feel really bad if I let you pay for me right after meeting for you."
"But it's called a date," Ana said. "I totally ship the two of you, by the way."
"Do you want Chipotle or not?" Ninten said, feeling his cheeks redden.
Sheesh, what did it take for Ana not to give him a hard time for trying to be nice?
"Just kidding," Ana said. "Mostly."
"Listen," Ninten told Ness, doing his best to ignore Ana. "You probably want to keep watch on your room, right? If you give me your order I really don't mind paying. In fact, my family gives me more money than I know what to do with. It's really not a big deal."
"I trust Ana not to trash my room while I'm gone," Ness said with a shrug, "And I don't have much to do here anyway."
"Fatal mistake," Ninten said. "Ana can't stay in a room for more than thirty minutes without ruining it. You should see her apartment."
"Rude." Ana put her hands on her hips, keeping her eyes closed. "I'm quite respectful about other people's standards of cleanliness."
"And what about standards of cleanliness for your own room?" Ninten said.
"Not quite sure if they exist yet, but I'm hoping they'll show up eventually," Ana said.
"Are we distracting you from, err, accessing Lucas' psyspace?" Ness asked.
"Nah, you're not the problem." Ana waved a hand dismissively. "I'm just letting myself get sidetracked. Bad habit of mine."
"It might be good for me to take a walk, even if it's just over to get Chipotle," Ness said, turning towards Ninten. "Is it okay if I come with you?"
"If you really trust Ann in here by herself, then yeah," Ninten said, "Which I still think is a critical mistake."
"Jokes aside," Ana said, "I don't mind if you stay, Ness, but I also promise that I won't mess with anything while you're gone. I'll just be sitting here trying to figure out how to dupe this pathetic mindscan program."
"All right." Ness nodded towards Ninten. "I'm coming with you, then."
"And this is going to take a while, so feel free to eat there if you want," Ana said. "Are you okay bringing me back my usual?"
"Yeah," Ninten said. "But if we eat there, it might be cold when we get back."
"I don't mind." Ana smiled. "Thanks for getting me food, Ninten. I do appreciate it. I normally try not to take advantage of you and your vast riches, but this is a little time sensitive here." Ana frowned. "Which probably means I should shut up and work on my hacking."
"I'll leave you in peace, then," Ninten said. "See you when we get back."
"See ya."
Ninten took his order of tacos over to one of the coffee-shop-style wooden tables near the Chipotle booth, feeling the warmth from the aluminum foil. Ness sat down across from him and unwrapped the foil around the burrito he had gotten.
"Seriously," Ninten said, "I could have paid for you."
Ness shrugged, taking a bite of his burrito. Sounds of nearby chatter filled Ninten's head and distracted his thoughts. He looked around, noting that almost every table had someone present, and that most of those people were either anxiously ignoring their food or anxiously scarfing down their food. Testing week could even disrupt the normally relaxing air of fast food restaurant booths and coffee shops, Ninten supposed.
"Ana seemed to imply that you have a lot of money," Ness said. "Is your family rich?"
"Huh?" Ninten swiveled back around to face Ness. "I mean, yeah, I guess. But I try not to make a big deal out of it."
Thanks, Ann. If Ness started treating him differently because of his wealth, Ninten was going to go over and chew Ana out.
"What's it like?" Ness asked, looking down at his burrito.
"What do you mean?"
"Well…" Ness frowned. "I guess I already told Ana, and since she blabbed about your wealth level it's probably just a matter of time. It's probably better that you hear it like me."
"You told Ana what?"
"I hope this doesn't change what you think of me," Ness said, "But I'm… on the opposite side of the coin."
Meaning he was the opposite of rich, and therefore dirt poor.
"Oh," Ninten said.
"Both of my parents worked jobs that hardly payed more than minimum wage," Ness said. "We lived in a small town, so my dad didn't want to take food stamps even though I'm pretty sure we qualified for them."
Strange. Now that he was looking for it, Ninten could detect a bit of a valley accent in Ness' voice, but Ness' refined speech patterns had led Ninten to assume that Ness had been raised by members of the educated middle class. Maybe with everyone communicating with each other on the psyweb, people had learned to speak the same way.
Or maybe Ness had just educated himself by reading a shit ton. He had made it to the university, after all.
"We got by, more or less," Ness said. "But I always wondered what it would be like to be rich and be able to buy anything I wanted. Maybe I could get the cool new shoes, or maybe I could pick up the psygame of the year everyone was raving about. Maybe we could go out to eat at a place like this." Ness frowned. "Although we did eat a lot of fast food. My parents were sometimes too tired to cook."
So Ness was almost certainly taking out loans to be at school right now. Ninten didn't know how much Ness would be able to do with just a bachelor's degree, but Ninten didn't dare voice his fears out loud.
"And of course," Ness said, "I always thought that my parents would stop bickering if we had enough money. They always fought about something relating to money or work, like my mom being too tired to cook dinner or my dad losing hope of paying our medical bills. I learned early on to go into my room and shut the door when they started raising their voices. I just wished it would stop."
"I'm sorry." Ninten looked down at his tacos, no longer wanting to eat. "Please, don't feel like you have to keep going if this is painful for you."
Ness paused, and then released a sigh. "Nah, I'm just venting that this point. My bad. I shouldn't be loading you with my problems."
"I don't mind listening. I just don't want you to say anything if it makes you uncomfortable."
"I really shouldn't be complaining to someone I just met," Ness said, flashing a smile. "I guess the point is that I would always dream that we would win the lottery or stumble on a chest of gold. Here I am now, with someone in front of me who probably has that kind of money. And you're just… normal."
"Thanks."
Ness raised an eyebrow. "Thanks for…?"
"Saying I'm normal. I'm glad you think of me that way." Ninten frowned. "I'm still surprised that you told me all about your childhood. Is money not a sensitive subject for you?"
"Nah, it is. That's why I get a little uncomfortable every time you offer to pay for me."
"Oh." Ninten grimaced. "Sorry."
"Nah." Ness waved a hand dismissively. "You're just trying to be nice. I just have a bit of my dad in me, I guess. I would rather work my ass of then have to lean on someone else for money."
Ness took another bite of his burrito. That was probably 25 to 50 cents worth of food devoured by that one bite. Did Ness think about food, and everything else, in that way?
"But I am curious what it's like to be rich," Ness said. "Although you've never known another life, right? It's probably just normal."
"Well, I did know another life," Ninten said. "But it was before I really knew what money was. The biggest change when I got adopted was that I was surrounded by people who loved me. And even when my new sisters got mad at me, they just avoided me rather than dumping water all over my bedsheets or trying to tear my hair out."
"People tried to tear your hair out at your orphanage?" Ness said.
"Only happened a couple of times." Ninten shrugged. "There wasn't really a lot of oversight, at least in that regard. The adults just wanted us to get our chores done."
"Huh." Ness looked up at the ceiling. "At least I never had to deal with that."
"I'm trying to remember how I thought about the money," Ninten said, frowning. "Because for a while, I didn't really think of my family as being rich. I assumed that they were giving me more stuff just because they were nicer than the people at the orphanage."
"Well, they probably were."
"Yeah, which made easy to ignore the money aspect." Ninten paused for a moment, knotting his brow. "I guess when I did learn about money, I viewed it the same way that most people think of air."
"Air?" Ness blinked. "In what way."
"Money, for me, was something that I just happened to use during fun outings. Ice cream, baseball games, roller coasters… although I actually hate roller coasters, so maybe not that. But I rarely thought about money even when I saw my parents whipping out their credit card, and when I did I kind of just assumed everyone had enough to do whatever they wanted."
"Wow."
"Like I said, money was like air for me. I knew I needed it, but it was everywhere. So I just didn't care."
Ninten sighed, forcing himself to take a bite out of one of his tacos. He would regret it later if he didn't get food into his system, even if he had lost his appetite.
"And one day," Ninten said, "I learned that it could all disappear in an instant."
"Money, you mean?" Ness said.
"Yeah." Ninten reached into his pocket and felt around for his inhaler. "The money. Some of my family friends were big investors who lived in mansions. I knew people who lost it all and went millions into debt."
Ninten took a deep breath, just to remind himself that the air was there. It wouldn't leave him. Not here, not now.
But it would eventually. It always did.
"It was then," Ninten said, "That I realized how fragile our situation really was. My family works at the forefront of the PSI business. Do you know how many people want to take over PSI? My great-grandfather complains about Chinese hackers trying to steal our new ideas almost every time I see him. The government almost federalized our business multiple times."
"Wouldn't you still have plenty of money if the government took over?" Ness said, frowning.
"Yeah, but that's not enough for some of us," Ninten said, thinking of George. "And some of us don't trust the government with complete control over PSI. The US already told us it wants to use PSI to help spread propaganda and destabilize the Middle East."
"Because there are dictators there."
"Dictators that rose to power preying on fear that we created when Britain were trying to exploit Iran for oil or when we wanted to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan or whatever. There are some tense situations, and the current people in charge of our government are in no way equipped to deal with them. I'm not saying my family is, but… at least we don't rush to action for the sake of approval ratings."
"Well, I do agree with you that the current government would fuck everything up if they got their grimy little hands on PSI." Ness looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. "It's wild to think that you'll be a part of it all someday. Do you think you'll be able to influence world politics?"
Wild? Talk about down-right fucking scary.
"I wouldn't go that far. I think I'll just make objects levitate."
"Well, there you go. That's still pretty cool."
"I guess." Ness looked down at his tacos. "I still don't know what I'm really going to do. Or even what I want to do, really."
"Well, you still have plenty of time to figure it out." Ness paused. "Man, we're really hitting the deep subjects tonight. Do you normally share this much about you with someone you've just met?"
Ninten blinked, considered Ness' question, and then yawned. Maybe he needed a break.
"No, I've just been holding a lot in," Ninten said. "Someone close to me just told me about her life, and it's made me think about my own future. I know that I shouldn't care too much about showing off to the world. I should work to become the person I want to be and do the things I want to do. But what if I just don't know what I want? It's driving me crazy."
Ness frowned. "Are you happy where you are?"
"I…" was Ninten happy? "Maybe. Or maybe I never knew another way to live. What about you? Are you happy?"
"Oh, yeah." Ness' eyes lit up. "Definitely."
"How do you know for sure?"
"You're overthinking this," Ness said. "I'm happy because, well… I just am. I mean, I could probably come up with the reasons if you wanted me to. It's great to live on my own, and I'm learning all sorts of cool stuff here. But I'm happy because I can feel it."
"Feel what?"
Ness gestured outwards. "It."
Okay, then… Ninten motioned for Ness to elaborate.
"Listen, I don't know how to describe it," Ness said, releasing a sigh. "But it sounds like you need to try new things and figure out what makes you happy. You'll recognize 'it' when you feel it."
Or maybe Ninten was just born without 'it.' Maybe there was something that everyone else walked around with that Ninten didn't have. After all, how would he know what 'it' was if he had never truly felt it before?
But maybe it was better that way. At least 'it' couldn't be taken away from him. He was at the mercy of his own throat and lungs, and he didn't want to be at the mercy of whatever 'it' was, either. Ninten reached back into his pocket and felt around for his inhaler.
"Did I just make it worse?" Ness said, his eyes widening.
"It's not your fault."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
The words came out more harshly than he intended. Ness' eyes widened slightly, and Ninten released a sigh.
"Sorry," Ninten said. "I really need to watch myself."
"Well, you look like you've had a long day."
"That's not an excuse." Ninten slouched back in his chair. "I just…"
"Why don't we go back to my room?" Ness said, getting up. "We might be able to relax a bit more in a private space."
And by "we," Ness clearly meant that Ninten needed to relax. Ninten inhaled, and then shook his head.
"Ann will message me when she's done," Ninten said. "We have some time to kill before then."
"Come on," Ness said, his eyes wide with concern. "I'm sure she won't mind the company."
Ninten released a sigh. Maybe he was getting a bit irritable, and at the very least he would rather yell at Ana than someone he had just met. Ninten finished off one of his tacos and wrapped the other two back in foil before standing up.
"You're coming?" Ness said.
"Yeah, just give me a sec." Ninten yawned. "I need to order for Ann."
"Oh yeah." Ness cocked his head. "I forgot that she wanted something. Did you just remember now, or…?"
"I didn't want her order to get cold," Ninten said with a shrug.
"And you're even paying for her too, right?" Ness said, shaking his head. "What a gentleman."
Ninten raised an eyebrow, not sure how serious Ness was being.
"Well thanks for making sure Ana gets something to eat," Ness said. "I don't think I'd want to see her when she's angry."
"I forgot her order once before," Ninten said. "She didn't get mad at all, believe it or not."
"Yeah, I believe it." Ness grinned. "And you still probably felt terrible for forgetting her order."
"Yeah, of course." Ninten frowned. "Wouldn't anyone feel that way?"
Ness smirked.
"What?" Ninten said.
"Nothing, nothing." Ness laughed. "I'll wait for you here, if that's all right. No point in me going with you to order a burrito or whatever."
"Uh, okay." Ninten turned away and looked over at the Chipotle booth. "Let's hope we can get back to Ann and find Lucas."
"Knowing Ana, I wouldn't be surprised if she already knew where he was by the time we got back."
Ninten nodded. His family's fortune had been proven fragile, the air around him would abandon him when he needed it the most, and he didn't have whatever 'it' was that Ness was talking about. But at least now Ninten knew where he was at.
He could only go forward from here.