“You know it’s super suspicious that you managed to get your hands on these, right?”

  Emilia didn’t even bother looking at Sil as she told him that he had his secrets, and she had hers. “At least, we used to,” she noted, watching as Beth shuddered and twitched, her CierSuit stuttering into existence over her tanned skin.

  It was a slightly different design than the ones they’d used during the war. So was everyone else’s, even her own, which Simeon had apparently smithed months ago and kept in cold storage for whenever she needed it, along with ones for every other member of their unit who didn’t regularly seek him out for his services or had declined his offer for new CierSuits. Despite how he had a small army’s worth of CierSuits in storage now, from years of crafting slightly improved models, Simeon continued making them new ones, knowing that inevitably someone would do something stupid and need a state-of-the-art CierSuit on short notice.

  “I should have known it would be you,” he had teased her as he slotted her old CierSuit into storage.

  Overall, the new CierSuits were faster, stronger, had a better cooling system and a slightly different aesthetic than the ones they’d used during the war—similar enough that it couldn’t really be mistaken for anything else, but different enough that it clearly wasn’t a decade old. They also lacked military insignia, although they all featured the option to form insignia, if necessary—you never knew when you’d need to throw around your service record, especially when going after purist terrorists.

  Stiffing a laugh as Beth’s CierSuit snapped back into its wristband form, her friend’s concentration having wandered before the armour had fully formed, Emilia told Sil, “I think a bunch of our secrets are pretty out in the open now.” Smiling, still not looking at him, she asked him if he was going to point out the strangeness of her acquisition of all the CierSuits to the rest of their group, Beth and Pria still figuring out how to use them in one of the school’s willbrand practice rooms.

  Sil watched her as she switched her attention to Pria’s attempt to shift her CierSuit’s form. Much like her normal willbrand, her roommate had chosen the base form of an earring for her CierSuit. Now, two earrings adorned her left ear, but unlike before, when her government issue willbrand had been a simple, black metallic loop, both now featured clear casings, showing off the glittering gold liquid that powered them.

  “No. Are you going to—”

  “No,” she replied, before he could even ask if she was about to spread some of his secrets about as well. She wouldn’t, even if he outed her. Cut him off as a friend, perhaps, depending on the circumstances around why he was telling people her secrets. Certainly, spreading his secrets if he took to telling people he was pretty sure she was a member of Division 30 if asked how she’d been able to get so many CierSuits would be a terrible reason. “Besides,” she added as a message came in from Payton, announcing his late arrival and asking for access to the restricted room—there were no cameras or recordings or other people allowed, unless the renter allowed it—“I did grow up in the Penns, and so did one of the best willbrandsmiths.”

  [Emilia: i would just say i know them from school and sammie, if someone asked]

  [Sil: Why are we messaging suddenly?]

  [Emilia: because beth is listening]

  Blowing a kiss in Beth’s direction—she had no idea what the other girl had figured out about her past, but Beth was the sort of person who liked solving mysteries and Emilia wasn’t ruining this one for her unless she demanded answers—Emilia exited into the practice room’s observation area, leaving Sil to go help Beth and Pria figure out their CierSuits.

  In the corner of the observation room, Conrad, Hyr and Samina were sitting in Virtuosi Rigs, mostly teaching Hyr how to use their willbrands and the few skills Emilia had loaded them up with. Later, she’d spend some time making them more—there was no way their power shouldn’t be put to use, especially since they seemed perfectly happy to be taught and experimented on—but for the moment, they were already overwhelmed, even if they were doing an admirable job of hiding it.

  It didn’t help that they had so little experience in the Virtuosi System as a whole. That meant that as much as Conrad had hacked their Censor so they’d be able to exceed the government mandated time limit, their mind wasn’t used to it. As a result, every so often—Emilia thought it was about a week in-system—Conrad and Hyr would log out, and the former would look over the northerner, checking to make sure their vitals and mind were still okay. It was sweet, how quickly the pair had become friends.

  Then again, given they’d spend quite a few weeks together inside the system now, she supposed it wasn’t fast at all…

  “What’s that look for?” Payton asked when she let him in, his suitcase following behind him because they needed to leave soon and not bringing them would have been silly. That said, only Sil and Payton had followed that instruction—Beth and Pria would need to return to their rooms, while Samina had always intended to spark back home and grab her bag before they left.

  Emilia… had no idea where Conrad or Hyr’s stuff was, neither of them having arrived with anything other than themselves.

  “My friends have spent more time together than with me,” she pouted, sticking out her lip and looking over at the pair, plus Samina. What was Samina doing with the Free Coloniers? Emilia had no idea. Probably nothing good. So much for her plan of keeping her and Conrad from becoming friends.

  “Ah…” Payton sounded amused at her expense. Rude. “You had a willbrand for me?”

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  Handing over the CierSuit, Emilia waited for him to say something about it. He didn’t, probably because he’d already heard more about her past than any of her other school friends, instead just asking if he’d get to keep it, once all this was over.

  Emilia… actually hadn’t really thought about that. Technically, she probably should ask for them back. They’d be put into storage, either at Simeon’s workshop or with the military, who had a secure storage location for some of the more dangerous willbrands they’d created during the war. Those willbrands were mostly ones that had fallen out of general use or whose owners had died. Basically, no one wanted them and destroying them had seemed excessive—you never knew when things would be dire enough to risk using someone else’s willbrand. There were a few that were locked to a specific user and were so dangerous that leaving them with them would have been ridiculous. The worst, however, were dangerous and useable by anyone. A few of them had been experiments that should have never happened—experiments that should have been destroyed, but for one reason or another hadn’t, or couldn’t, be.

  That said… as much as CierSuits could defend against almost anything, there wasn’t much of a reason not to let her friends keep them. Realistically, while SecOps wouldn’t be able to get through the armour, any member of D30 would, thanks to some of the most brutal skills they’d created and never disseminated, even to most Black Knot members, due to the risk of the public getting their hands on it.

  What a terrible vision, though: her friends somehow becoming criminals that The Black Knot was forced to ask former unit members to take them down! There was no way that was going to happen.

  “I don’t have a problem with you keeping it,” she said, leading Payton over to the training room. She took a step in and—

  Hey, where did he go!?

  Emilia poked her head back inside the observation room, finding Payton awkwardly tucked in beside the doorway. “What are you doing?”

  Red spread over the man’s pale features. “Nervous,” he admitted. “I… gave what you said some thought, and realized you’re right. I just… don’t usually… tell people. About me.”

  Her classmate was adorable like this. Very bulliable. In a way, seeing him like this—blubbering and embarrassed and unsure what to do with himself—reminded her of how it felt to be with Mazi: like it might have been good, if she had a bit more top energy. Being a mean top to Payton would be fun, and she was almost positive he’d be perfectly fine having friend sex. No catching feelings for them!

  Alas, she had no top energy, especially not mean top energy. Drat.

  Still, as far as she knew, Payton had never been one for hooking up. She wasn’t even sure if he was into people, let alone what sort…

  “If it helps,” Emilia said, nodding towards the trio in the Virtuosi Rigs, “Conrad clearly has some black knot tendencies—maybe a deviation of it, or something else interfering with it? He isn’t spilling, but that’s my best guess, and Sammie outed herself as a member of The Black Knot earlier, and neither Beth nor Pria freaked.”

  Actually, now that she thought about it, their distribution of black knots on the mission was impressive. It reminded her of when she and Samina had been younger, and the chances of the majority of their group having black knots had been all but a guarantee.

  Payton raised an eyebrow, before asking if her childhood friend was the one who had scared the shit out of Victor’s parents. He laughed, when she told him she had been, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’m glad you broke up with Elijah,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I never liked him.”

  “Join the club,” Pria said, popping up behind Emilia.

  Her roommate was wearing the modified version of the CierSuit, which they had collectively decided to call the SkinSuit version—the original version now being the ArmSuit version. Emilia did not like these names and was going to be petitioning for them to be changed.

  They were cool, adapting to the user’s skin tone until they almost melted into the skin. In Pria’s case, it appeared as a shimmering black reached over most of her body. It looked like it could be a type of armour, but even with the armour reaching up to her jaw bone and wrapping around her ears, it was pretty enough that it could be passed off as either something for body sculpting—not that Pria ever worse such things—or some sort of strange lingerie.

  Honestly, though, the only reason Pria’s was so visible was she’d tweaked the settings to make it more noticeable, the glimmer of it reminiscent of galaxy dust, just more intense. With a little more tweaking—probably with the help of Sil or Emilia, or perhaps even Conrad—to make the shimmer a little less intense and more random, and a more accurate match to her skin tone, it would disappear into her, leaving only the impression she was covered in galaxy dust behind.

  That, in the end, was the point of the SkinSuit: to be a more subtle protection that also offered the cooling and computing, even if it wasn’t quite as impressive as the ArmSuit’s. Even the SkinSuit’s abilities surpassed their wartime CierSuits, though. Simeon had been busy.

  “What club?” Payton asked, blinking rapidly as he as invited to their group chat—not just the one that was specific for their group of vacationers, but their general, school friends one as well—by Pria.

  “The Elijah Haters Club,” Pria replied, ignoring Emilia’s frown of distaste. “We’ve also started a club for people who think Emilia’s next boyfriend should need approval.”

  “Approval from?”

  “Us, of course. And whatever other childhood friends of hers pop up. We’re forming a panel. Although…” Pria slid closer to Payton, her eyes sliding towards Samina as she whispered that she didn’t think Samina’s opinion should be taken into account. “I don’t think she’s the most sensible. Big troublemaker, that one.”

  “Even worse than Emilia?” Payton had the audacity to ask with a straight face.

  “Hey!” Emilia exclaimed, only to be ignored by the pair of them. Yes, she had inadvertently led him to break into a purist building where they’d been attacked by an echo just the night before, but still! Rude!

  “Oh yeah. Definitely has I’d burn down the world for fun vibes.”

  Emilia couldn’t really deny that—Samina was a walking disaster—but still! Pria hadn’t known her for long enough to be making such comments, and suddenly, Emilia was a teenager again, defending her friend from rude adults and classmates who though Samina was nothing but trouble, not a redeeming quality to be found within her chaos.

  “I’ll have you know, Sammie hated my ex more than almost anyone. She was one of the few people who tried to talk me into blowing him off”—and blowing him up, once, but she wasn’t about to say that to them—“and really early on, too! Sammie might have a lot of chaos, but she’d never encourage me to date someone she thought was bad or dangerous.”

  Pria and Payton looked her over, dubious, before their eyes flicked behind her.

  “Are you implying the ex you occasionally mention was a bad, dangerous person?” Sil asked, voice all ice and shit. That was his who do I have to kill? voice.