Chapter 465: 16: Dangerous Moment

Jade faced Harmony across the small table he had placed near the window when he moved in. Her white braids shimmered in the sunlight enchantingly, but she raised a hand to shade her eyes, so he could tell that her position wasn't comfortable.

"This tastes terrible," she informed him as she took another bite of boiled cereal.

"It's food," he informed her. "It counts."

"Counts for what?" she asked with interest.

Jade … came to a halt … as his automatically generated quest list came under examination.

"Jade?" Harmony asked with concern a minute later.

"It fulfills one of the quests created to mimic human consumption patterns," he admitted uncomfortably.

She set down her own spoon and shook her head. "If I didn't know people who ate this junk 'for their health' I'd say that you had utterly failed that attempt at mimicry."

"Isn't it stranger that you seem healthy despite the junk food you eat?" he objected.

Harmony laughed and asked, "Can you taste what you're eating?"

"I think so?" Jade replied uncertainly. 

Even the ability to look at his own functions, to a certain extent, didn't tell him if his senses of 'taste' and 'smell' were actually functional. He had more confidence in his ability to judge the air quality than a food's taste or a flower's smell.

"You think," she echoed dryly.

"It's not bad to eat," he insisted.

"I can't believe it never occurred to me to ask if you'd like a candy before," she murmured.

"Candy is not good for you," he informed her as he stood up and set his empty bowl in the sink to wash later.

Harmony laughed and argued, "Candy was developed as a preservation method."

"Preservatives aren't good for you either," Jade objected. "Some of them are poisons!"

"A little bit of poison won't hurt you, and tastes really good," she insisted. "That's what most spices are. Haven't you ever heard that you should eat everything in moderation?"

Jade hesitated. That phrase was indeed familiar, but there were so many reasons why it wasn't exactly true. "You shouldn't eat anything you're allergic to, or that upsets your digestion, or…"

Harmony interrupted, "This conversation is silly. You don't even need to eat do you?"

"My quests require it," he insisted, but even as he said it, he wondered if he could delete things as well as add things.

He could.

--

"It's time for me to leave," Jade announced. "Do you have a key?" he finally asked curiously.

Harmony's expression was rather inscrutable as she replied, "I don't. Where are you going?"

Jade eyed her and debated whether or not to ask how she had gotten in. "School," he informed her.

"Oh," she replied blankly. A moment later she asked more stridently, "Really? You're just going to wake up one morning and go back to school?"

"Of course," he agreed.

"You're just going to leave me here?" she asked.

"I trust you," he assured her.

Harmony blinked, and then laughed. "We have a lot to talk about, you know?"

Jade hesitated for a moment, but his schedule was getting tighter by the second. "I know that you must have a lot of questions," he agreed. "But are they very urgent?"

A breath huffed out of her, but she replied dryly, "I can wait."

Jade 'rummaged' in the drawer where he had his extra keys. He didn't need a new one himself, because he hadn't actually died this time, but he handed it to Harmony.

She stared at the key for a moment, and then her lips quirked and she promised with amusement, "I'll lock up when I leave."

"See you later," he assured her.

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"You will," she agreed.

Jade went to school.

--

He had been gone long enough that he had to visit the office, but his mother, Tayana, had already contacted them and told them to expect him back on Monday. He didn't have much trouble convincing the attendant to let him return to his classes earlier than expected.

Eric visibly reacted when he saw Jade seated in his usual place, but then studiously ignored him.

Jade tried to resume his usual studious attention to the professor's lecture, but he could only keep that going on one layer. That wasn't terribly unusual, it was just the contents of the other layers of his thought processes that had changed. He had changed.

After his classes finished, he went to his job. Jade stood behind the counter and wondered what would happen if his boss found out how expensive his employee actually was. He estimated the cost of a single one of the bodies he had gone through over the years, and calculated how many decades he would have to work in this position in order to pay for it himself.

His other 'instance' didn't know how the bodies had actually been paid for either, but it was slightly disorienting to realize that one reason he had this job was that his other 'self' could easily monitor him through the many surveillance devices used here. The overlapping records of two different views of 'himself' were disorienting.

Jade didn't realize how much it was affecting him until Emily suggested with concern, "Maybe you should have taken an extra day off?"

Jade straightened and assured her, "I'm fine. Really."

Emily grunted and finished the task she had been working on before walking over to lean on the counter beside him.

Jade eyed her, but didn't ask. He did what he usually did, and moved to accomplish the next small task his quest system suggested when he turned his attention to it.

After a while Emily said firmly, "You can take it easy for a few days if you want. You've always covered for me when I got sick. I'll cover for you."

"I'm not sick," Jade objected.

"Right…" Emily agreed after a moment. "Don't worry. You'll be fine."

Jade stared at her for too long. When she looked away he remembered to resume his task. His mind whirled as he checked himself from multiple angles of observation. He couldn't see any reason she would assume he was ill, even if he wasn't performing his duties quite as efficiently as usual.

--

The customer who practically blew in the door two minutes before his shift ended was very familiar.

Harmony kicked her board into her hands as she passed through the doorway.

"I'm here to pick you up for our date!" she announced boldly.

Both Jade and Emily gazed at her with equally startled expressions. Emily immediately shook her head and looked away, but Jade couldn't help smiling.

"Were you afraid that I would avoid meeting up with you tonight?" he asked almost teasingly.

Harmony grinned at him and winked, as she scooped up a handful of candies and dumped them on the counter. "I trust you," she assured him airily.

Emily peeked at her, and then looked at Jade, and silently shook her head again.

Last week Jade would have assured Emily that Harmony was just teasing him, but right now multiple replies were fighting for dominance, despite all of the system conflict resolutions he had already processed. Jade opened his mouth. Even as he chose the most logical option, the other instance of himself communicated that it had chosen a different one.

Jade stood there with his mouth open for long enough that Harmony eyed him less certainly, and then told him, "If you need to cancel, you can. We can always talk in the game later."

Overrides jolted Jade into replying quickly, "It's fine! Thanks for coming to pick me up."

Emily opened her mouth like she was about to comment, but Harmony looked at her and her mouth shut as though a silent communication had been beamed in that instant. Emily snatched up the candy Harmony had dumped on the counter and rang it up before Jade could.

He let her push him out of the way, and a few minutes later followed Harmony out the door.

"Hop on," she invited, as she slapped her board onto the pavement outside.

Jade gingerly mounted the board, and didn't know how to react when she wrapped her arms around him and shoved him forward. The board was already moving, he realized as he saw the surroundings begin to flash by.

As Jade wobbled, Harmony steadied him. She balanced each of his movements with a level of dexterity that even his character Hisui could envy.

It didn't take him long to realize that they were headed to Harmony's house. But his mind was occupied with the realization that he 'knew' where she lived. He was certain that he hadn't known that before his system had unlocked. He was rather startled to realize exactly how much more he knew about her.

His curiosity had triggered the 'self' that had watched over him to research her, he realized. As a threat, he realized a moment later. He was relieved to be able to verify that nothing about her had been determined dangerous to him, even as the hoverboard dodged a car that veered over the line a bit too far.

Jade closed his eyes and hoped that he wasn't about to have to explain another traffic accident to his mother.

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