Pandion (Genera #1)

Chapter 32

S tocked up with a few bags of konbini food, snacks and drinks, Kagesawa, Harumine and Yajima returned to the dorm. Kagesawa started with his share of the project. Yajima, now oddly invested, was charting for opportunities to help finance the endeavour in case Kagesawa’s assets were insufficient.

Instead of wasting time waiting for them to do the bulk of the work, Harumine decided to do some field research on what was needed and how to best provide that to the students. He spent several hours going around the different houses of the dorm, interviewing the students, listening to their concerns and providing some much needed reassurance that help was on the way.

The SEU was the largest, most prestigious empath university in the country, but it was by no means the only one. If the situation was this bad here, it couldn’t have been much better elsewhere. There were thousands of empath students stranded and struggling at schools less equipped to handle the emergency. The finances required to help them all were beyond any one person, but if they could set this up so that it would help distribute donations across the schools to where they were needed, there had to be others willing to help.

Can you implement a donating system? How big a load can the servers handle if we invite a couple more schools into the mix? Harumine continued to brainstorm with Kagesawa, who was coding but more responsive than usual.

Yes, sure. Once this is up and running, it shouldn’t be a problem expanding it as needed. It’ll be good PR for the school, so they should be willing to cooperate. The only issue I can foresee is that the bigger it gets, the more likely we are to run into trouble with permits and legislation, but I’ll see what I can do.

Harumine walked across the yard to another dorm building. The worst of the commotion had died down, but the remaining students had gathered into the common room. They were trying to organise a safe exit for their local friends who needed a discreet way out without being hassled or followed.

Since the treaty had been signed, there were fewer reports of violence on the streets, but the front entrance of the SEU was still a hotspot for the more die-hard protesters, and it would take some pacing to let everyone out through the few backways undetected. With the front entrance blocked, it had been a struggle to bring in the necessary food and supplies for a few days now. Having the backways remain open for use was vital.

When Harumine inserted himself into the conversation for the third time that day, he heard a few hushed comments he couldn’t quite make out—now a familiar occurrence.

He’d always stood out and had a reputation, and it was why the students were showing him—practically an outsider—such respect. However, the strange, curious looks he received now differed from what he was used to.

Once he was done with his usual speech and the questions died down, he turned to one of the students who’d been taking notes for him to ask what the whispers were about. The student’s face twisted into a frown.

“Oh, that. It’s nothing worth mentioning.” She slipped out a nervous laugh.

“I’d like to know.”

“Really, it’s nothing. A ludicrous rumour going around. A joke someone thought was funny.”

“Now I’m even more curious.” Harumine tried to ease her nerves with a smile. She seemed to respond favourably.

“Well, someone from B-house reported seeing a tall, handsome ghost walking around campus in the middle of the night.”

“Oh?”

“The ghost was reported to be carrying a lifeless body in his arms. They said the body resembled you, senpai.” She blushed as she recounted the story. “Obviously it couldn’t possibly be you, but since you showed up today and you match the description, some of the third and fourth year students got excited thinking it confirms the story.”

“A ghost? Haha…” Harumine’s forced laugh was so obviously fake it was painful to know it had come out of his mouth.

Another student, this time a young man, joined the conversation.

“I was at C-house yesterday and we had a chat with Harumine-senpai’s new link. Some were saying the ghost must have been senpai’s link, and I can attest he was tall, but handsome? No offence, but he seemed average at best to me. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great conversation. He seems like an interesting fellow, but a handsome ghost, strong enough to carry Senpai? No, definitely not.” This statement, while a welcome addition to thwart the rumour, somehow didn’t sit right with Harumine. Average at best? Not strong enough? Kagesawa had pulled Harumine up from a dead hang to save his life!

“I thought he was gorgeous, though,” another female student piped in. The two young women had a moment of camaraderie sharing their opinions and giggling about it, and Harumine was about to nod along when he abruptly realised what he was about to do.

“Ah, anyway, I can assure you I was not carried by a ghost in the middle of the night.” He wasn’t entirely sure if Kagesawa had indeed carried him all the way from the lab to the dorm, but it was technically not a lie. Kagesawa was perfectly alive, a human being and not a ghost.

“Yes, it does seem like a silly rumour. I guess since Senpai is practically a celebrity, it’s feeding people’s imaginations.”

A celebrity? Since when? His only merit was that he’d been a diligent student.

“It’s crazy to think the legendary Harumine-senpai is suddenly here to help us. I was in despair this morning, but now I feel like there’s hope I can go home safely sometime soon.”

Legendary? Holy hell, that was even worse…! What were these expectations, this pressure? These people were expecting him to solve their problems. How could he guarantee any of it would work out? There were a lot of them stranded here, and he was just a normal person. Kagesawa was the one currently doing all the heavy lifting. How’s it going? Does it look like it’s going to work? How long will it take?

I’m going to set this up so that all of the donations are direct transfers between individuals. We’ll bypass having to set up an NPO, at least for the time being. I’ve got Yajima working on the donations and marketing. I’m currently working on an app that allows the user to anonymously pay for a person’s train ticket for them. People can submit their preferred ticket information; the system will assign spaced out departure slots, make reservations and allow others to pay for the tickets.

Kagesawa seemed well on top of it. He’d been listening to the feedback Harumine had been passing on to him, made adjustments and sustained his motivation for hours. Harumine could tell this had involved several cups of coffee from the jitters he was experiencing, but not nearly as many as he’d expected and braced himself for.

“Are you headed to D-house next?” The note-taking student handed Harumine the notes she’d written.

“Yes.”

“All right, there’s probably fewer people heading home from there, but they may be interested in food and supplies.”

“Oh?”

“The students housed at D are primarily from the research department. All they’re interested in is the pursuit of data and finishing their passion projects. A lot of them will stay for as long as the school will have them.”

That made sense. Harumine had also bumped into a few students with nowhere else to go, so hopefully the school would stay open and provide safe space for them for as long as they needed to sort things out. He relayed this information to Kagesawa and headed to the next house.

I recruited Nimura-kun and a couple of his friends from yesterday to help out with the coding. He’s working on a system that allows you to pay for orders of food and supplies to be delivered to undisclosed addresses. The sensitive data will of course be protected to ensure everyone’s safety, but we are going to be as open about the mechanics of it as possible.

Kagesawa was working at a student BCI that Nimura had arranged for him. He’d requested for a keyboard and an extra screen to have a similar setup to what he was used to having at home. Some of the other students were watching him work, a bit too curious, forgetting that they’d each been assigned a task they were supposed to be doing.

Yajima will distribute it to the other schools when it’s done and we’ve shown it’s operational. If there’s time, we’ll make an installer and offer it to anyone who needs it if there’s demand for it. Once he was done reporting to Satoru, Kagesawa emptied his coffee cup and got back to work.

This thing needed to be stable, smooth-running and have no significant security vulnerabilities. With such a tight schedule, there was bound to be something wrong with it, but he was determined to make sure it was not going to be anything major. Can you check my code for me? he instructed the organism.

For what?

The organism was good at prompting for clarification when it wasn’t sure what it was supposed to do. It was yet to do any disservice, and it had been very reliable.

Kagesawa explained what he was after and what to look for. The organism got to work. Once it was done, it reported back to Kagesawa with its findings.

You’re so good at this. I really appreciate your help. If the JufO was genuinely worried about the working conditions of the organisms, Kagesawa wanted to make sure they’d never have a leg to stand on if they tried to fault him for how he was treating his. He felt a peculiar buzz only moments after he’d given the praise. Hopefully that meant the organism had appreciated the feedback. I’m glad we’re getting along so well, he added.

For a while, there was no answer, but the organism did respond once it had decided what it wanted to say. I like us. We’re doing interesting things. Let’s do more interesting things.

This was probably its response to knowing it would not reach maturity with Kagesawa’s limited lifespan. Feeling bad for its sake, Kagesawa decided he would try to do everything feasible to make its life worthwhile.

All right, what sort of interesting things would you like us to do?

Good thing the organism seemed to have a calm temperament and shared most of Kagesawa’s interests. The whole multitasking thing was an example of such mutual pleasure. If there was something similar that they could enjoy together to keep the organism happy, Kagesawa was interested to know.

I would like to **** and **** our ***** together with Mentor. I believe you referred to it as ****ing or was it ****ing the ****?

Kagesawa froze. Clearly it had picked up something it shouldn’t have, and this was just about the worst time to be reminded of it. He was being watched. Though his chats with the organism didn’t seem to transfer through the link automatically, the link was currently open. If Satoru decided to pay attention, he would probably be able to pick this up.

Could you not mention this type of stuff when there are other people around? It’s awkward. Having to explain it was almost as awkward.

What do you mean? I need parameters for ‘this type’.

Did it really not understand from context or was it trying to form a joke?

Anything to do with any body parts of either mine or Satoru’s. That sort of ‘interesting things’ should be done in private.

Even ****ing?

Especially ****ing.

“ Excuse me, I think I need a break.” Kagesawa decided it was probably safest to withdraw until he was sure the organism had understood the gist.

“That’s probably a good idea. It’s almost five o’clock,” Yajima replied.

“I’m going to go see if Satoru is done yet…”

Can we **** Mentor, then? It’s very invigorating for me. I like it when he ***s his **** into your ****.

HOLY SHIT, CAN YOU NOT. He could ignore it and not think about the words too deeply for only so long…

Can I not what? It was Satoru.

Nothing, sorry, I was just—

Since it seemed Satoru had forgotten some of the relevant details due to his migraine, Kagesawa hadn’t made a point to reinform him. He didn’t plan to keep it from Satoru indefinitely, but he wasn’t ready to get into the details yet. I was talking to myself.

What did you do? Satoru was worried.

It was nothing. You’re in the… cafeteria? Are they serving something? Kagesawa headed downstairs.

No, we’re having a meeting organising some departures for tonight.

He’d had his hands full dealing with the students ever since they’d realised he was willing to help, and the remaining faculty were busy making sure the school itself stayed afloat.

I’ll be right there.

When Kagesawa reached the stairs, his path was blocked by Fujitani-sensei along with three other people that he didn’t recognise.

“Excuse me, Kagesawa-san?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“If you could come with us, we would appreciate it.”

“What is this about? More tests? I was about to take a break. I’ve been working on something all day.”

They’d already done all the tests they could possibly want. Were they going to chastise him for accessing their servers at a time like this, or…?

“This won’t take long.” No doubt she’d get what she wanted, swiftly, with the three people behind her eager to make sure Kagesawa complied.

We may have some trouble.

“Kurosaki Akio, I presume?” Kagesawa hazarded a guess. One of the men behind Fujitani-sensei seemed surprised to be recognised. So, they were not aware that he’d checked the servers. That left… “Hase-sensei isn’t aware of this, is he?”

What is it? Satoru asked.

“ No. This is something we would like to discuss with you in private.”

Fujitani-sensei’s affairs are about to come to light. You may want to steer clear of her.

“ By discussing you mean zapping me and leaving me in some back room to rot?”

Since Satoru was downstairs, he was too far away to be of help, but at least he was out of harm’s way for now. Surely they wouldn’t interfere with a former SEU student, especially someone as prolific as Satoru? Kagesawa was a prime target, though, with not much to defend himself with.

“I’d prefer you stating your business right here so I can be on my way.” It was worth a shot.

She appeared to check that they didn’t have an audience. “It’s not something we should be discussing here.” She gestured for the two other men to escort Kagesawa. “Also, if we are interrupted or our business becomes known, we will have no choice but to deal with it. I’m assuming you don’t want that, so I suggest keeping correspondence to a minimum.”

Should I come over? Thankfully, Satoru seemed to be offering more to be polite.

I’ll handle this.