Chapter 8: The Scavenger's Deal
Lance and Opal tracked Kian the only way they could: by following the slight, almost imperceptible electrical failures in the Aetherium's Annex. Kian's unique skill as a Mote-Drain meant he left a faint, subtle vacuum behind him, a trail of absorbed energy where the light seemed marginally dimmer and the air slightly colder.
They found him two hours later, nestled in the service tunnels beneath the residential halls. These tunnels were a chaotic mess of discarded copper conduits, humming crystalline pipes, and ancient steam valves—a forbidden labyrinth where the Aetherium's perfection broke down.
Kian was sitting on an overturned barrel, calmly picking through a small pile of shimmering scraps of metal and wire he had salvaged. His Mote-Drain wristband was completely hidden beneath a heavy, braided leather cuff he must have acquired during his brief escape.
"Well, well," Kian said, looking up with a weary, cynical smile. "The Aetherium's weakest link and its most volatile firecracker. I figured Dean Eris would have you in maximum security detention by now. I assume you're here to turn me in for the reward?"
Opal immediately crossed her arms. "We're here because you used us, Kian. We risked being expelled or worse, and you disappeared."
Kian held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I prefer the term, 'utilizing environmental assets for maximum efficiency.' Look, I know I left you sitting on a smoking Resonator, but the Annex was locked down. I'm a Mote-Drain; I literally can't generate enough power to open a simple lock. I had to create a crisis to slip into the tunnels before I was registered."
"And you risked our lives for it," Lance stated flatly. He wasn't angry; he was analyzing. "You knew the system would blame the two new kids with the perfect zero."
Kian sighed, the sarcasm momentarily slipping away. "Okay, look. I'm sorry. Truly. I'm not a Void Weaver—I don't steal to destroy. I steal to survive and to sell. The Aetherium keeps us remedial kids dependent. I need these components to build an external Stabilizer that will let me manage my Drain without crashing the school's power every time I sneeze."
He gestured to the pile of scraps. "Now, you've found me. What's the price for your silence?"
Lance didn't answer immediately. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the thick, Mundane history textbook. He carefully placed it on the floor, the glossy cover reflecting the dim light of the tunnel.
"We don't want to turn you in," Lance said. "We want information. And we need your help exploiting a flaw in the system."
Opal looked at Lance, confused, but remained silent.
Kian raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the textbook. "Exploiting flaws? Now you're speaking my language. Go on."
Lance explained the Flicker—the sudden, painful memory of the musical language and the ancient word Aethel that he got when touching the textbook.
"This book is full of lies about the Founder's Age," Lance explained. "But touching it makes my Motes act like a playback device for the real history trapped inside the Mundane fibers. We think it's a key to finding what the Aetherium is hiding."
Kian picked up the book and examined it with the detached curiosity of a scavenger. "A textbook. Of course. The biggest lies are always printed on the cheapest paper. But history is useless, Silverwoods. It won't power a door."
Lance shook his head. "It's not useless. It's leverage. If we can prove the Aetherium is built on a lie, we expose the entire institution. That's worth more than any copper scrap."
Kian leaned back, suddenly seeing the bigger picture. He looked at Opal's volatile wristband, then at Lance's "weak tea" Matrix, and a cynical smirk returned, this time born of calculated realization.
"Alright, I see it now," Kian said. "You're not trying to be the next Master Stabilizer; you're trying to be a wrench in the system. And you actually have a value to me. I need chaos—a lot of it—to run my Mote-Drain system without tripping the alarm. Opal can provide that Volatile Surge to distract the network's sensors."
He pointed at Lance. "But when the chaos gets too hot, the system explodes, and I get caught. You, Silverwoods—the alleged 'weak tea'—you have the Precision Dampening. You're the anti-Mage. You don't generate power; you contain it. You stop the surge just before it gets critical. You can stabilize the chaos I need to thrive."
Kian stood up, his cynical facade solidified into a mercenary proposition.
"So, here is the deal," Kian said, fixing Lance with a challenging look. "I help you research the Forbidden Script—that musical language—and I use my network to find the true history artifacts you need. In return, I get the chaos I need to build my external stabilizer, and you get a safety shutoff to stop Opal from going thermonuclear. We form a mutually beneficial, entirely platonic, study group."
Lance glanced at Opal. Opal, despite her anger at his betrayal, recognized the logic. Kian was offering them a dangerous, but essential, third leg for their tripod.
"It's a deal, Kian," Lance said, offering his hand. He gained confidence in his moral compass: he was defining himself against Kian's chaotic ambition, but utilizing Kian's street smarts to serve a greater purpose—the truth.
"Fine," Kian said, shaking Lance's hand. "But if either of you brings Dean Eris down here, I'll use your backpack as an unstable power source and leave you floating in a Rift."
Kian was their ally, but his loyalty was purely transactional. The remedial Key Bearers—the weak tea, the firecracker, and the mote-drain—were officially a team.