Chapter 77: Hi, Milo

the clock’s sorted. don’t stress about it.

Milo read the message for the sixth time.

Hours ago, when Layla had put her contact and Ollie’s into the phone, he’d braced for a joke about getting one. Whose was it this time? Lol.

Above the dreadful line, Ollie had managed only one other.

no way. milo with a phone.

Sorted how? Wound forward, or taken off its nail? And who else had been in the corridor?

Whatever Ollie had done, there was a written record now. Unless another storm graciously erased all this; the first had done a very sloppy job by excluding Milo.

In the corner of the screen, the phone’s own clock indicated 21:40. That matched the darkness outside and Layla’s device.

Not that he could tell an old phone from a new one, but the device had belonged to somebody before him. Under Layla’s guidance, he had picked a basic model and come away with thirteen coins to spare.

Thinking about the clock would fix nothing tonight. By logging into the academy’s app, on the other hand, he’d get to discover just who he’d go with and where he was supposed to place himself.

Milo pushed off the couch and started on the living room’s drawers.

Expectedly so, they were a graveyard of gadgets he used to have. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Bootlaces tumbled out when he lifted the remote for a television that no longer hung on the wall. Two candle stubs had glued themselves to an old letter from the Church’s fund.

Many artifacts, yet no slip of paper with a login on it.

The academy had handed that out years ago, to a boy with no phone to type it into.

He was already picturing himself at the gate tomorrow, asking strangers which trashy group he had been assigned to, when something white showed at the back of the bottom shelf.

Behind Thwaite’s four books, he uncovered the slip of paper. Perhaps he could no longer really call it white with how dust had clouded it, but so be it.

Milo eased it free and blew gently, uncovering the numbers.

Back on the couch that blocked his front door, he balanced the phone on one knee and the slip on the other.

Each digit required a separate jab at the glass, but the passcode got him as far as a form asking for his name, age, and birthday.

Name: Milo Zeuqe

Age: 16

Date of birth: October 31st

He hovered over the green confirm button and struck it too.

Nothing happened.

Looking closer, he found that his nail was tapping the glass while his fingertip never touched it.

He flattened his finger and tried again.

It almost worked.

Invalid data!

"Which data?"

Teeth gritted, he checked his passcode against the slip. Every number matched, so he pressed the confirmation button again.

Invalid data!

By the fourth useless notice, he flicked the slip onto the floor and opened his chat with Layla. She’d offered to check his assignment for him.

Her last messages were at the bottom of their chat.

still only mine showing

sleep!!

Could he call her?

It seemed he didn’t even have her number. To sign in, he had to enter his own, yet nobody else’s was displayed. At least it was a process that had worked on the first try, contrary to the academy’s shitty system.

No names, either. Only the labels he’d given the two of them himself, and beneath those, their usernames.

alliivi12

3893982656

The first was Layla. The second, somehow, was Ollie.

So much for stalking them online.

All he’d ever heard about the internet was that it was a dangerous place where people got their data exposed. How was anyone meant to link Ollie to that row of digits? Of course, the mysterious numeral could always encode some hidden truth, but Milo doubted it.

Still, he typed Layla Durand in an internet search.

A middle-aged woman smiled out of the results.

"No, that’s not Layla," he whispered, squinting at the text while pop-ups bloomed faster than he could close them.

I’ll learn eventually.

Finding the alarm took another three minutes. No application carried that name; the function was buried inside one called Clock.

Who thought of this shit?

Part of his trouble with sleep had always been the lack of anything to wake him on time. His body had been pressured to drag itself up early no matter the circumstances. Though the past couple of months had offered little to get up for, the habit stayed.

Tonight, he could sink into the cushions and let the device do the waking.

...

So why couldn’t he fall asleep?

He turned onto one side, then the other, and the next time he checked, the window had grayed.

The phone’s verdict: 4:51.

With no sleep coming and his group still unknown, he cancelled the alarm an hour before its one job.

Into the brown leather coat he had last worn into a Misprint went the phone, the coins, and the crumpled petals.

At 5:00, he climbed over the couch.

Jence’s platforms were nearly empty, lacking pink coils bobbing among the few people waiting.

The capsule that whirred in carried three passengers.

One of them coughed.

...

Crossing the academy’s yard, Milo typed with one thumb.

I am already at the academy.

If you wanted to know.

Once both messages were sent, he looked up. The instructor who had clocked their times, minus the sweatband, was hauling a crate to a stack by the iron poles.

Milo waved to him with the phone in his hand.

"Hello— Good morning, sir. The application won’t take my login. It says invalid data?"

"Not now, kid." The crate thumped onto the stack. "I’ve got forty of these to shift before the capsules start unloading. Lists went up yesterday."

Capsule unloading was not something he knew of. If there were some new cargo capsules, those omens back from the Turning really did have to enrich the academy.

"I don’t know where my group is without it."

"That’s what the board is for." The instructor bent for another crate. "You all need to listen more carefully."

"The board won’t tell me why my own data is invalid, sir."

The man froze. With a grunt, he straightened and wiped his palms down his trousers.

"Fine. Let me take a look." A phone of his own came out. "Name?"

"Milo Zeuqe."

A few taps later, the instructor beckoned Milo’s screen closer.

"...It’s the birth date."

"It can’t be. It’s the thirty-first. Halloween."

"The record says the thirtieth."

"The record is a lab’s guess. I was there."

"Speak to the principal if the school got it wrong."

"It’s Halloween."

"Or to the authorities if they did." The instructor was already walking. "This way. Quickly."

Rolling his eyes, Milo changed a one to a zero and trailed after him.

The login went through, and a list of names had only begun to load when the man halted in the far corner of the yard.

"Here. And you’re not even the first."

As Milo lowered his phone, the instructor jogged back to the crates.

On the low wall ahead, somebody sat with their back to him and their hood up. Their shoulders were squared under metal plates sewn into leather like his own, only thicker.

A pack leaned against the wall, buckled and ready.

Somebody had beaten him here at an hour when Jence’s platforms were empty. Either Hallorch ran earlier capsules, or he was about to spend the expedition beside a person who slept as badly as he did.

That was almost comforting.

Since his shoes made no sound on the grass, the figure did not turn, which left the introduction to him.

"Good morning."

The hood slid off. Green hair settled on the plated shoulders.

"Hi, Milo."

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Much of a Fuss (Part 1)" ... ⤵︎ [!]