Pandion (Genera #1)

Chapter 28

B ack at the lab, Kagesawa did the first two exercises of the in-depth analysis but then had to request a break, unable to concentrate.

“I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.” He was not fond of repetitive tasks to begin with, and he’d already done them twice that day.

“That’s all right. If it’s rough, could I get you to do number seven for me when you’re ready? I think I can extrapolate the rest from what we’ve got.”

“All right, I can try.” He pulled up test number seven onto the screen, gathered the last bits of his concentration and began the test.

Wake up, it’s time to get up. It was Satoru’s voice, but Satoru was in the other room, and the link was dampened.

The output surged. Wake up, it’s time to wake up. The wake up routine made the test much easier, but, if it had been triggered by something, it wasn’t just a timed event. It meant the organism had to be aware that Kagesawa was struggling to stay alert. He suddenly felt both energised and chilled to the bone.

“That’s good, thank you,” Hase-sensei let him know to stop the test sequence. “I see you picked up the pace nicely midway. That’s a beautiful, almost perfect graph.”

Kagesawa couldn’t really appreciate the compliment. He had the familiar but annoying drive to go on his morning run despite knowing he was supposed to be tired.

On top of that, he felt a little off. Nauseated? No, that wasn’t it. It was difficult to say exactly what was wrong, but it didn’t feel good.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped, he was flooded with drowsiness. The organism had learnt to make that correction from just one occurrence.

Kagesawa yawned. Oh, man. This was overkill… He slumped over the desk in front of him, feeling too sluggish to move. Help.

“Kagesawa-san?”

“Get Satoru for me, please.” He felt like he was about to pass out. Satoru, help. He could hear the door swing open and Satoru rushing over.

“What is it? What happened?”

Don’t panic. I’m just super tired. Can you give me a little boost? Oh, right, he wasn’t supposed to be using the link.

“A boost…” he mumbled. Satoru obliged. “Bloody shit on a chopstick, that was not what I’d call enjoyable.” Kagesawa pushed himself back up and stretched.

“What happened?” both Satoru and the professor asked in unison.

“It did it again, only it added that correction you did at the end, and it was not subtle.”

“That was certainly more severe than anything we’re used to seeing.” Hase-sensei checked the data. “Were you not able to control it at all?”

“No. I suppose if I knew it was coming, then maybe, but once it hits, it hits.”

“There was no forewarning?”

“No, but I was tired and needed to concentrate. That might have triggered it.”

“The output looks normal. The point of improvement is clearly visible, but we see similar spikes in people under normal circumstances when they’re concentrating.” The professor examined the rest of the data. He did not look happy. “What on earth did you do? It’s only been hours. This doesn’t look right…”

Satoru was sinking behind a desk. Kagesawa chuckled. It was a serious situation, but Satoru’s reaction was much too amusing. The professor glanced at Kagesawa and failed to notice Satoru’s efforts to hide.

“Didn’t I tell you not to use the link? What was so important?” Strangely, he was aiming his words at Satoru.

Satoru blushed and stammered, trying to form an inconspicuous answer. Kagesawa couldn’t recall ever seeing him quite so flustered. To save him from the pain of having to answer, Kagesawa offered what was probably the shakiest excuse under the sun, “I had a work assignment and didn’t think it would make that much of a difference.”

“Oh? Well, I really can’t stress this enough, but you can’t do any more of whatever it was you did. If this were a fresh link, I’d love to know the specifics of how you managed to spur this kind of growth and have you demonstrate it for some of my students, but your BtI score has reached 300 in a matter of hours. Most people stay in the 200-250 range their whole career, even with a significant workload.” He turned back to Satoru. “I’d like to check how this has affected your side of the link because I can’t imagine you’d be completely immune to it. Have you experienced any anomalies?”

“No, not to my knowledge, but I don’t have anything to compare to.”

“What was your success rate when you calibrated? Have you tested it since?”

Satoru bit his lip, clearly hoping to avoid answering the professor’s question.

“It was not very high,” he started.

“Well, it’s to be expected. He has DEFD. It makes sense you wouldn’t reach your full potential.”

“It was 78,7%.” Satoru forced it out through clenched teeth. Kagesawa had always thought his attitude toward the score was an overreaction. With Hase-sensei almost falling from his seat, doing a double-take and openly ogling at Satoru, it seemed a little less like one now.

“Did I hear that right? You did say seventy? Seventy-eight? Really? Did they make a mistake?”

“I don’t think so. It was a struggle to get past seventy-five to be honest. We had a spike of 80% for half a second so they graciously adjusted it upwards.”

“What in the world…” Hase-sensei handed him a connector to attach to the port. “I’m assuming your port is similarly modded as his?”

“Yes.”

“We were looking at the data integrity earlier today and after a few adjustments to our reader, the improvements were impressive. Any other time, I’d like to see what you’ve got in there. I wouldn’t mind upgrading myself if I’m honest.” He pointed at the screen. “Start from the top. This should be familiar to you.”

It was the same set of tests that Kagesawa had done, only when Satoru started going through them, it was obvious he wasn’t doing them for the first time. At around test number five, Hase-sensei, who thus far had seemed nothing but kind and supportive, looked up from his screen, grim.

“You’re lagging behind,” he said, voice matching his expression. Kagesawa frowned.

“I know.” Satoru knuckled down and picked up speed.

Having been babied and allowed to skip half of the tests because he was tired, Kagesawa could tell how pathetic his efforts had been and how easy they’d been on him all day.

“That’s an error,” Hase-sensei pointed out. Satoru had already corrected it by the time it was mentioned but looked like he’d bitten right into a particularly sour lemon to be caught making it.

Once done with test seven, he redid it before moving on—this time flawlessly. This retake cost him a couple more minutes, so Hase-sensei eyed him sternly over his glasses and shook his head.

The last few tests, the atmosphere was so tense and uncomfortable, Kagesawa wanted to tell them to stop but felt too much of an outsider to intervene.

“Done.” Satoru slapped the desk. Was this where he’d developed the habit…? Hase-sensei checked the data and humphed.

“You’ve been slacking.” The feedback seemed needlessly harsh.

“I know.” Satoru sounded disappointed, annoyed even. He didn’t try to give a reason or an excuse, merely acknowledged the feedback.

“Well, at least it was a personal best time-wise, but it’s a laughably miniscule improvement. And what was that error in test seven? What are you, a freshman? Is that why you scored under eighty?”

Satoru was taking in the feedback, nodding and looking increasingly distressed, which in turn made Kagesawa want to jump in to defend him all the more. It seemed the type of situation where, if Kagesawa said anything, it would have made it even more humiliating, as if he were an overeager parent protecting his child. He knew he needed to keep his mouth shut, but it didn’t seem right.

“At least you picked it up a little towards the end. I did expect more from you, but I guess this goes to show we cannot influence what happens after graduation. Some people peak in university, and that’s the sad truth of it.”

Hearing this, Kagesawa had to close his eyes and count to ten to quell the anger that was bubbling dangerously close to the surface. He was well aware that sometimes being strict and unforgiving could push people to excellence, but this was unhelpful and demoralising.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’s had to deal with continuous bullshit since being linked to me. He’s had no chance to do any link maintenance since we calibrated. Can’t you cut him some slack?”

“He is an SEU graduate. He should have made time. We do have standards.” Hase-sensei shrugged and compared the results. “Obviously we can’t have you do the calibration sequence right now, but based on this, I don’t see why you couldn’t reach a better score, other than negligence. 78,8%... I sure hope, for everyone’s sake, no one else learns about this.”

As if such an arbitrary score would make any difference considering the EA was facing dissolution and the whole empath profession was about to become obsolete. The corner of Kagesawa’s eye was about to start twitching.

“Oh, how wonderful!” The professor’s mood lifted in an instant.

“What?” Satoru leaned over the desk to see what he was looking at.

“They’ve omitted the score from your record. It must have been a clerical error. I knew it couldn’t be 78,7. That would have been absolutely ridiculous!”

Apparently, despite not receiving what they’d been hoping for from Satoru, the EA had removed Kagesawa’s existence from his record. Perhaps they thought that since Kagesawa no longer had a licence and was practically a nobody there was no need to even mention them having been linked. Satoru sat back down.

“Your performance today was appalling, though. I suggest you brush up on your basics at your earliest convenience. I don’t care if the world is about to end, you’re from the SEU, and you need to act like it.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” Hase-sensei eased a little. “Your BtI response time has gone down five percent, so some decrease to your overall time is to be expected. It looks like it’s caused by your organism being at a tendril growth phase, so there’s definitely some synchronisation happening between the two of you. However, I’m detecting significant degradation, I’m assuming, due to high stress levels and neglect. You need to take better care of yourself, or it will affect your performance. You should know better than to overexert yourself.”

Kagesawa had momentarily envied the SEU students for their access to superior tech and quality education, but the more he listened to Hase-sensei berating Satoru, the happier he was he’d not had to deal with something like that for seven years to gain that access.

“I understand.”

From these curt responses and with the link dampened, it was tricky to gauge how this was affecting Satoru. Maybe he was used to it. He looked irritated, but that was not uncommon. Unsure of what to do, Kagesawa decided to stop dampening for just a teeny tiny moment to take a peek at Satoru’s mental state.

R-red, r-red, r-red, r-red, r-red…

“Looking at your health assessment here, I’m assuming you haven’t done one for a fair while. If you had, you would have known better than to agree to these tests. It’s irresponsible, not to mention a waste of everyone’s time.”

“You are correct, I apologise.” Satoru sounded like he was fine. It prompted Kagesawa to quickly recheck.

R-red, r-red, r-red, r-red, r-red…

“I’m going to have to interrupt you right there.” Kagesawa would come off as the obnoxious mommy and take the risk that Satoru might not appreciate it, but this was abusive. “Yapping your mouth off and making him feel like shit when you haven’t bothered to understand the full scope of the situation is also a waste of time, so I suggest you shove your opinions where the sun doth not shine.” This did indeed shut the professor up for a moment. He seemed about to protest, so Kagesawa nipped that in the bud. “My apologies. That was uncouth of me, however, my point stands. You’re an empath. Where’s your empathy? I thought he was one of your favourite students.”

“He’s fine. He’s used to this. We teach our students the correct way to receive feedback.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, do I need to spell this out for you? Do you have any idea what’s caused that stress-response you’re so nonchalantly detecting from your diagnostics data?”

“No.”

“Let me recap this for you really, really slowly so you understand.” Before Kagesawa could get into it, though, Satoru grabbed him by the wrist.

“Don’t.”

“What? Why not?”

“It doesn’t make a difference. He’s right. I should take more care.”

“But you were doing it for me!”

“That’s even worse.” Satoru held his head in his hands and sank lower until his forehead hit the desk. Kagesawa glanced at Hase-sensei, whose face was now twisted between disbelief and displeasure. But why? Wasn’t it universally a gracious, good thing to do things for the sake of other people?

“I thought it was unusual when Harumine-san contacted me on your behalf. I wouldn’t have given it another thought had it been any of my other students but him? Highly unusual.” Hase-sensei rubbed his forehead and sighed. “78,7… I guess it’s not a clerical error.”

Confused about what the professor was getting at, Kagesawa hoped he would get a hint from Satoru, but Satoru was still forehead dabbed against the desk.

“What do you mean?” Kagesawa was forced to turn to the professor for clarification.

“He is, was, one of my best students. Do you know why? Because he always put his studies first, his career first. I’ve rarely seen such dedication. His record is exemplary. However, that all comes at a price. He was never one to care much about anyone other than himself. Don’t get me wrong, I doubt he’s wholly incapable of caring, but there’s no time for that when you’re truly focused on self-improvement.”

“Can you get to the point?”

“To distract him, of all people, from that path, it’s not going to be a run-of-the-mill working partner. He’s not going to be pleading for asylum or a checkup unless he’s desperate. He’s not going to do something at the expense of his own health and career unless the situation is that dire. He’s in love with you, isn’t he?”