"So, the Academy can just let us roam around like this? Hey, Sanjeev, I'm talking to you—"
Arfa's lips pursed into a thin line as she stopped and turned back, watching Sanjeev converse with yet another vendor.
Her brow twitched, and her lips curved into an exasperated smirk as she fully turned to him, the evening sun setting her face aglow, eyes squinted at Sanjeev.
'Seriously. What's with this guy's intense social energy? I mean, he, too, must have his fair share of secrets like everybody seemed to have here, but... he looks like an open book.'
Her eyes narrowed as Sanjeev finally caught up to her, all tousled hair and smiles, cardigan shirt ruffling.
"Hey! Sorry, I got—"
"Caught up?"
Arfa cut him off, turning away with closed eyes and started walking, him following behind.
She smiled, glancing back at him.
"It's fine. Besides, we're going to an arcade, not to a dentist appointment."
The evening sun bounced off the metal railings of the bridge over the lake, sparking light in her vision.
The water glowed, shimmering, as Sanjeev huffed beside her.
He put his arms behind his head, eyes on her.
"Are you sure you should be blindly trusting me?"
Arfa's eyes snapped to his, mind already running mental calculations.
'What the hell is he saying? Is it possible that he can cover the true essence of his Drive and fooling me? Or is he fooling me into thinking that he's fooling me? Well... whatever.'
She stared at him for a moment, before sighing theatrically, bowing towards him with her hands already in dramatic gestures.
"My dear Chincholi, even if you were a threat, you should know I'm very attracted to red flags~!" She grinned up at him, internally wincing.
'Well, more like, I have no self-preservation when it comes to deceptive and manipulative people. But he doesn't need to know. Or maybe he already does.'
She thought to herself in flat tones.
He laughed.
Thank god that that's all he did.
'I was kind of waiting for the predatory snark to show.'
The sun dipped lower, the buildings of the heart of the city coming into view, already lighting up with tiny stars all over their glass bodies, cell towers blinking red like judgemental eyes.
Or red-hot stars.
Arfa always preferred cosmic analogies anyway.
The energy grew thicker as they went in.
Of course.
Internal dissonance contributed to the growth of Drive.
An energy system that was still mysterious, not just to her, but even to the people who used it and still hadn't unlocked its full mechanics.
"Well, mademoiselle—"
"Hah?" Arfa smirked.
"—welcome back to Bangalore." Sanjeev smiled.
"Since you said you were away from civilizations for a while." He huffed a laugh.
"Of course. And yet, arcades remain the most important place to return to rather than a home, for me, at least."
She leaned her head closer to his, still smirking, facing away from him as her eyes tracked the people going around them.
Some laughing, some on their phones, some corporate workers in hi-tech companies.
But all of them leaking Drive like a stream left to overflow.
"Oh. You feel that too, don't you?" Sanjeev asked, smiling as they turned a corner.
'He's always smiling. Doesn't that hurt?'
Arfa tilted her head at him.
"Why are you acting like a cat?"
He blinked at her.
"I'm talking about the energy flowing in an unruly manner. Like a leaking faucet."
"Ah... yeah." She scratched the back of her neck, eyes darting elsewhere.
The night was setting in slowly as they inched closer to what Arfa assumed was the arcade building, "GameTower", Sanjeev in the lead.
The inside seen through the glass doors shimmered with dim purple light and blue screens, the stench of teenage desperation and angst curling into that familiar energy.
Drive.
Her eyes narrowed, looking around at the city with screens on buildings displaying ads.
Everything was cast in their soft blue glows, the dark night sky invisible over the artificial glow that held everyone's attention.
"Yo!"
Sanjeev went in with his familiar greetings, while Arfa stayed a bit behind, eyes still focused on the people.
She felt displaced.
Not exactly.
'This familiar feeling of being left behind, paradoxically, still trails behind me. The world...'
Her eyes darted to people around her.
She closed them and casually moved into the building, catching up to Sanjeev.
'...still runs with time, no matter what.'
She was about to clap Sanjeev on the shoulder for leaving her behind.
But then bumped into his back instead because he had just abruptly stopped.
He turned his head, looking down over his shoulder and straight at her.
They both blinked at each other, doused in the glow of screens displaying pixelated graphics.
"Oh, right."
He smiled, moving away from her to reveal another person behind him, seated at the arcade machine with an almost bored expression.
"Arfa, meet Riyyan Akhtar. Riyyan, Arfa Sayeed, the one Arun recently took in." Sanjeev gestured between them.
Arfa scowled, lips twisting into a grimace.
"What am I, Madhav's pet? You don't need to introduce me like that."
"Ah, but you've got the look of a stray cat, sorry!" Sanjeev laughed, bending over to his side, arms raised in surrender as she lightly punched him.
Riyyan's eyes tracked her and Arfa stopped, smoothly slipping her hands in her pockets.
'This guy. His energy is insanely packed. Don't tell me he's one of those that's got sleeper builds?'
She thought, almost exasperated.
'But there's no doubt...'
Her eyes sharpened, darting to the screen in front of him to seem casual. His eyes were still blinking at her.
'His Drive is like an empty tank. At least from what I can sense, it's building up. Passive inertia?'
"Hey." Riyyan finally spoke up. "Bandaged girl. You play?"
Arfa blinked at him, head tilted.
Riyyan's eyes widened for no reason, or so she thought before he practically leapt up from his seat, surprising both her and Sanjeev.
His hand came to rest on her head as he leaned on the arcade cabinet and ruffled her hair.
He was, in actuality, completely delighted, despite the lack of expression on his face, only his wide eyes giving it away.
Sanjeev laughed, Arfa's shoulders slumped as she, too, joined with a huff of her own chuckle.
Riyyan spoke in that same low voice, like lotus pads over moonlit water.
"You're like a cat."
"What's up with you both calling me that?"
She shook her head, her hand wrapping around his wrist to free her head from more hair-ruffling.
'These people...'
She looked down for just a moment.
Riyyan already slipped back into his gaming seat, slightly pouting and conversing with Sanjeev, who just kept pointing at him and laughing.
'Do they trust so easily because they've got nothing to lose in a world like theirs? Maybe I'm not the worst they've encountered. It all feels so illegal. To exist like this. Among people when I've done such heinous...'
She shook her head lightly, a smile already plastering on her face. "Alright. I do play, for your information, you insomniac."
Riyyan's hands flew to his face, covering the under of his eyes, his pout growing more pronounced.
"I'm betting on Riyyan."
Arfa gave Sanjeev a look that could scald.
He simply laughed.
She grumbled, practically jumping into the seat beside Riyyan.
The two of them started their game.
And not even two minutes in, Arfa had started yelling insults at the machine.
Sanjeev had taken to collapsing on the floor and laughing.
Riyyan himself could barely hold it together, occasionally sputtering at the colorful insults thrown at him.
Arfa laughed then, eyes crinkling genuinely at them, face aglow in flashing colours but heart not missing that beat of repressed guilt.
Meanwhile, there was also someone at BMDTA yelling. Not at a machine, but at paperwork.
Arun Madhav, 29 and an active senior instructor at BMDTA, who was currently pouting at a stack of registry paperwork.
His eyes flicked to the side panel near his computer, and he sighed dramatically exactly after a dot on it blinked red.
[Hollow Activity Detected...]
[According to recent Drive updates on students, user with Drive Style: Velvet String Theory, Ayesha Tazeen, is recommended to be sent in for Hollow termination.]
[Deny or Allow?]
Arun mulled over it for a moment, sunglasses flopping back onto his eyes as he leaned back in his desk, slumped in it for a moment, hands clasped over his mouth.
Then he let out a groan. "Argh! Who cares, I'll just send her—"
Another panel, on the wall this time, tracking student signatures and their travels, pinged.
At the arcade GameTower, three signatures blinked in variations of colours. Blue, yellow and a rapidly blinking purple.
The colours flashed as he leaned in, reflected in the black of his lenses, a hand curling around his chin, lips painted in theatrical annoyance.
"Man... I should've known they'd be there. Especially Riyyan. Seems like he's been feeding his Drive all day by doing nothing.."
He sighed, leaning back in his chair, thinking it over, his feet and head bobbing together from one side to the other to an unheard rhythm, like a child would.
'I could easily just defeat that Hollow, but where's the fun in that, yaar? Maybe this could be the field assignment Mahendra kept pestering me to give the students.'
He snapped his fingers, with an "Aha!" ringing loud.
Nikhil, in his office down across the hall, paused just when he was going to take a sip of his 5th cup of coffee.
Arun immediately tracked down their signatures with his own Drive, one of his many useful abilities, thank you, to their exact locations and rerouted the transmission of signal to their devices instead.
He then paused, golden-brown eyes squinting.
"Huh. I gave Arfa the working Contracter, and not the damaged one, right?"
He leaned back, arms behind his head, pleased at his work of finally assigning field work to students and also having hope that they'd survive.
This year's candidates were promising.
It was a matter of time that the Hollow would be dealt with. The actual problem was erasing the Hanged Man signature from active trackers.
His eyes narrowed and then he slumped onto his desk, cheek against the cool and hard wood, the clack of his keyboard above his head like a ping in his already aching head.
His hand grabbed at a small bottle of Yakult.
"Hah... Kids are so much work. I wasn't like this, was I?"
Mahendra, passing by, glanced at Arun through the tall windows separating the office and hallway.
He shook his head and simply moved on.