I had gone back to routine. Physicals in the morning, lunch break, firearms in the afternoon, study before I went to bed. Some days, I got help from some of the combat veterans in getting my head back on straight. I had been surprised that Ash was among them. Other days, I had blocks of free time I spent writing and gaming. I felt rather guilty that I was drawing time from these people but I had nothing else to give back, but I accepted the aid and companionship anyway.

Of course, I also wondered why SDC spent the time and effort keeping my useless ass aboard, and why my forehead throbbed so much at times. Trying to answer the first question generally led me to think that I was an investment of some sort. Which opened a whole new can of worms in turn. If I was an investment, then what results did they expect?

As for the throbbing forehead, I figured that I had suffered a head injury of some sort and this was the after-effect. I had been out for a week after all, and a quick trip to the infirmary confirmed that something in my head had been fixed. The medical officer prescribed me some painkillers for if it got too painful.

Somehow, I felt that the forehead throbbing and the investment were connected. Of course, I had no way of figuring it out just yet. I wondered when I would be let off the airship and made a note to ask Winter when.

I opened my eyes and sat up, blinking away the stabbing pain bright sunlight caused in my eyes as I stumbled over to my laptop. I opened notepad++ and started organizing my thoughts. Today, they went to the possibilities that this piece of technology I had with me, and the data it stored could bring. Reverse-engineering the laptop had the potential to open up entirely new avenues of research. If only I could find out just what was needed, and then sell it to the right people.

And then there was the data itself. Encarta 2014, the Wikipedia dump I had downloaded on a whim. There were so many ideas that could revolutionize a society with a radically different base from our own. It was Pandora's Box. Given time, the ideas stored on my laptop's hard drive could either save the people of Remnant, or doom them to extinction. And I was the butterfly whose futile wingbeats would set a hurricane into motion.

I asked myself: "What do I do?"

The mess hall was more crowded than usual, more so around the televisions that were mounted along the inner wall. It was the beginning of the Vytal Festival, and everyone was eager to tune in and watch the tournament.

"Hey, Ash." I waved from my table. "I've got a question if you're free."

He grinned and sat down across me. "Sure. Takes my mind off the mess food."

The faunus leaned in close and whispered. "Don't tell her I said that."

"Can do." I chuckled as I cut my sausage into portions.

"So, what's that question?"

I speared a chunk of sausage and forked it into my mouth. It actually wasn't that bad if I compared it to student center food, and sometimes that could be great. "Let's say you have a box that contains many things that could change the world so utterly that it might be unrecognizable when the dust settles. Opening it could either save the world or destroy it, and you might not know which is which. What would you do?"

"Oh, that's easy." He shoved a spoonful of mashed potatoes in his mouth and washed it down with a glass of water. "I'd bury it really deep. Get rid of it, whatever it takes to prevent it from opening."

"Even if it could bring peace and hope?"

"The world's doing fine as it is. If you push too far, the everything will come crashing down."

I chuckled.

"What?"

"You said 'the everything'."

"I blame it on you." He rolled his eyes. "But yeah, I'd rather not risk it."

I nodded. He had a very good point.

"Alright." He gave me a wolfish grin. "My turn to ask a deep and philosophical question: Pyrrha Nikos or Claire de Rojo? Pretend they're both 18."

"Oh fuck no! Not this again!" I rolled my eyes and continued eating. "Fucking pervert... Second, aren't they 18 already?"

I made a show of standing up and pretended to take my food somewhere else. He followed, of course, and started laying out to me the advantages and disadvantages of either idol, and I just shook my head and played along. Eventually, Winter's comments about my Aura came to mind and I asked him about it.

"So, like. Winter says my Aura's not as common as other auras. What's up with that?"

Ash looked at me for a minute as he scratched his chin. "Alright. So, an Aura is a manifestation of one's soul. How it manifests depends largely on who the person is."

"Alright." I nodded. I got that part.

"It just means that you're not the type to hit problems head on and push back. You'd rather avoid or deflect them away and tackle them from another angle. You're less a straight up, in your face fighter and more of some badass stealth guy.

"I could be, anyway." I admitted. At this point, I really did not want to fight.

"Yeah."

He gave me some tips on Aura management but had to leave eventually, and I was left alone thinking of Pandora's Box.

I couldn't ask Winter of her opinion as she was 'downstairs' liaising between SDC and the Atlesian military. All the better I think, as Mr. Schnee could quite possibly be among the worst hands for my data to fall into. It wasn't that I distrusted Winter entirely, I just didn't feel I was ready to break it to her yet.

They may have been beneficent to me, but their motivations were yet unknown and I had no way of knowing them without putting myself in a situation I couldn't extract myself from. Their reputation further muddied the issue, and I had little to no idea of whether or not it was deserved or if it was a smear campaign. The reputation may as well have shades of both.

I was torn out of my reverie by the General Quarters alarm, and I stood around being confused as the crew rushed to their stations. Blast shutters dropped in over the windows as the combat lighting flicked on. A pair of Levy combat robots led by a Valkyrie trooper escorted me back to my quarters and locked the hatch tight.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Grimm." The Valkyrie replied, clutching his rifle tightly. "We wandered off course and got ambushed by a flock of Nevermores. Damned things scare the shit out of me."

I had to remind myself that Remnant had no GPS, or even basic space travel due to the lunar debris clogging up its orbits as I poured myself a glass of water from the sink. Inertial, compass, and visual navigation might also be problematic because of various factors.

"So, uh." I turned to the guy. "Water?"

"Sure. Thanks." I poured another glass and handed it over to him before sitting down on the bed.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. The rasp of gatling guns and the drumbeat of the Glory Dawn's sole 5" gun seemed to go on for hours, and the hair-raising calls of Nevermores and the scream of tortured metal would haunt my sleep.

One of the combat shutters that protected the viewports of my quarters failed to rise, and a risky peek over a balcony railing showed me why: a trio of clawmarks several meters in length had been gouged into the armored hull around where my cabin would be, and the staccato thudding I had heard was when the airborne Grimms' weaponized quills had smashed gun emplacements and other equipment. Flames and smoke billowed out of one of the engine pods and the airship listed slightly. Several of its radiator 'feathers' had been broken off or bent out of shape.

The captain announced that we would be returning to port for repairs, and all VIPs would be offloaded, and I watched the crew prepare to get underway.

My mood only worsened when I remembered that Grimm were drawn to negative emotions, and I was currently a simmering pit of them. Therefore, my guilt-hijacked logical train said, I had a part to play in this. It had a point though. I needed to get rid of my baggage. I needed to take charge of my life.

I fiddled with the bracers on my arms, just switching them between modes as I waited. The quartermaster had practically insisted that I take them as I had come aboard with them anyway, and were therefore 'mine' on the paperwork. No weapon, he argued, and also a target for the White Fang. I was just begging to get kidnapped or assassed, he said. I think he meant assassinated. And it wasn't like I'd be in any trouble for carrying weapons while on Remnant.

Fuck my life.

I was sitting on a bench in a police station with my head in my hands as I mentally kicked myself for my stupidity. It turned out that Atlas had different carry laws than anything-goes Vale. Unless I had proper ID, a carry permit, and was wearing the prescribed combat school and military uniforms, I wasn't allowed to carry at all. Though, the police proved to be fairly sane and understanding once I explained my situation and I would come out of this with just the legal equivalent of a slap on the wrist. Procedure was procedure and I had to wait until somebody with ID came by to pick me up. Therefore, I was very embarrassed for Winter who I was sure wasn't supposed to be playing babysitter for a 20 year-old manchild such as myself.

"Hi, Winter." I said quietly. "I fucked up."

"Eh. You could do worse." She shrugged and patted me on the shoulder before signing the paperwork.

At least I had gotten pizza.

We ate the pizza while driving to the safehouse.

The new safehouse was less of a house and more of an apartment block in one of the middle-class subdivisions bordering Atlas's CBD. It was fairly modern and rather easy on the eyes despite the spartan decor, and I read the various papers tacked up on the notice board. One of which was an official-looking flyer with schedules for Atlas's community building programs. Communal street cleaning, home restoration, and all that. I expected the Red Army Choir to filter out of the citywide PA system at any moment.

On the bright side, it was next to a library! I made a note to visit later when I had settled in. I followed Winter up to what would be home for an indeterminate time and put my bag down on the couch. All I had with me were three complete outfits, my laptop, the bracers, and my Scroll so it was easy enough to get everything unpacked.

Winter had to leave again and I took the time to see the layout of the apartment. There was a combination living room and dining room with a holographic screen mounted over the fireplace. It also doubled as a personal computer of sorts given the foldout keyboard and trackpad integrated into the coffee table. Generous, but I'd rather do most of my work on my laptop. The fact that Remnant computers had a totally different architecture from ours made for a supremely powerful barrier against external access.

The kitchen was enclosed in a cubicle-type arrangement, while the bedroom was roomy and came with another fireplace. Everything was done up in the modernist decor that was vogue in Atlas these days. High contrast accented with glass, metal, or polished wood. Angular shapes offset by organic forms and vice versa.

I noticed the manila folder lying on the nightstand and brought it over to the coffee table to look at. Inside were a few legal documents for my identification. According to the documents, I was Carlos Marion from Vacuo who had just moved in last week to pursue employment in Atlas. I was 20 years old and had graduated from Sirentide Combat School. I set those away and looked at the medical data, it had been updated with a prescription for painkillers for the lasting effects of a head injury I had received last week during a sparring match, and monthly checkups to be done by a Doctor Braun. I set those away too.

What really put me ill at ease was that a letter from Mr. Schnee explained that I had two months to prove my worth to him in a presentation. He didn't need to write down the consequences of me not meeting his expectations. In the meantime however, I could count on a Remnant education and a moderate weekly stipend to be deposited in a bank account on my behalf. The last of the papers in the folder was my lesson schedule. 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, Monday to Friday. Tuesday and Thursday were for practical applications.

I made a note to get half of that stipend in my own bank account as soon as possible. Meanwhile, my thoughts veered once more towards Pandora's Box. I stroked my laptop's lid, wondering if I should just take a hammer to it. So I asked myself why I would want to open the Box.

Was it because I wanted free stuff? Yes. Was it because I wanted to make a positive change in my life? Yes. What about on the world? Also yes. Could I handle the awesome responsibility of such a task? For that, I had no answer.

I made sure my laptop was secure, and then made my way to the library.

I remembered Dr. Oobleck while halfway through Glass Menagerie: A History of the Faunus Rights Revolution. His speech about using knowledge and education to benefit the world had struck a chord with me when I first heard it, and it still did. He reminded me a lot of Carl Sagan, and I think they would have done a great many things together.

I put the book down and traced my fingers over the dust jacket, which featured a faunus woman holding a flag aloft while surrounded by her troops. It was almost closing time, and I spent the few minutes left to think. I was among one of the last people to leave, having checked out the book and a few others. Among them, Glass Menagerie's companion book, Castle of Glass: The Crystallization of Humanity's Kingdoms. The two books provided a look at the Faunus Rights Revolution from both sides, detailed the motivations of key figures, and then explored the implications of the post-War world. There were heroes and villains on either side of the conflict that marked the beginning of the cycle of retaliation and escalation now present between Humanity and the Faunus that would ultimately end in extinction if it is not broken.

Castle of Glass had made it quite clear. The frequency and size of Grimm attacks had grown ever since the War. While the Dust companies were more than adequate at supplying the defensive needs of civilization, the increasing militancy of the White Fang was beginning to endanger the steady flow of Dust to regions where it is needed most. Meanwhile, retaliations caused ever more faunus to radicalize as the White Fang's rhetoric suddenly began to 'make sense.'

The cycle of retaliation fed another. Morale across the board dropped due to the White Fang's activities. Faunus and human alike suffered in combat against fellow sapients, and troops meant to fight the Grimm were being pulled towards counterterrorism, a mission for which they were not equipped nor trained to accomplish. The decrease in confidence and fighting ability attracted more Grimm, which further dropped morale.

The solution lay in reform, but whether or not it was too late for reform was in question.

Opening the Box could help break the cycles that threatened to end civilization, but also stood a large chance of intensifying them. The ideas contained within the Box would take on lives of their own once released, the knowledge and rhetoric of our own civil rights movements and of our radical groups most especially. I may as well resurrect Martin Luther King Jr. and Adolf Hitler at the same time. But even something as impartial as an equation like 'energy equals mass times the speed of light squared' could change the world.

So how could I change the world? One step at a time, I suppose.

And that first step would begin with Schnee.

Two Months Later

The hardest part about talking to the owner of a company is asking him to shrink the company for the good of the company. The logic was that SDC could afford to give up some of its presence on the market and still turn in a hefty annual income. Since its competitors would have taken up some of the slack, White Fang operations would have much less effect on SDC's standing. The presence of other companies would also fuel innovation and eventually open new markets as SDC would try to remain competitive.

I had also proposed a wage increase and the reduction of working hours upon the logic that happy and well-rested workers were more productive, and less likely to tip off the White Fang. Whatever SDC was doing with the faunus employees also had to stop. It was giving the White Fang plenty of recruits, and their revenge activities were hurting business by interrupting supply lines, destroying manufacturing plants, and killing employees. SDC loses a full 25% of its annual income fixing the problems created by the White Fang, another 17% to its PMCs, and 8% to the Kingdoms that protected its assets. Giving faunus and human employees equal treatment would go a long way in reducing those expenses.

Mr. Schnee was silent the entire time, and so were his daughters. They looked at me for long minutes after I was done and I felt as if they were judging me.

"Do you really think that you can change what is?" Mr. Schnee said, lacing his fingers together.

"I don't know." I replied. "I only know that I must try, because it would be irresponsible of me to do otherwise. I want to see a better future for all of us. I want to walk a path that would take me there."

Wiess spoke up. "And what if you only make things worse?"

"Then the guilt will be mine alone."

They were silent once more, and I could feel the sweat bead on the back of my neck.

"I think I speak for the three of us when I say that we'll walk with you." Winter said.

Mr. Schnee looked less tired somehow. I think that was a good sign.