Shards

Techie Talk

"You know those back-alley robotic tournaments I got involved in years ago?" Xander says to Octavia.

"Yeah." Octavia stares at a faded, framed picture hanging on the wall. Her heart aches as she looks at it. Despite her faint fascination with the past, she never longed to live in it because of its problems, but she can't help wondering what it would be like to travel back to when this picture was printed to escape everything happening in this room.

"I ended up making friends at those tournos who taught me a lot of stuff," Xander says.

Octavia glances at the Chromies in the room. "Great friends you made," she mutters under her breath. Her eyes revert to the picture.

"They are," Xander says seriously. "They care about me, more than my parents ever did. They've supported me, encouraged my interests-"

"Of course they supported your interests," Octavia says, "so they could take advantage of you. Manipulate you into being their friend, then get a new soldier to fight for their 'cause'."

"They didn't and don't use me. They can't take advantage of me if I volunteered myself to do this."

Xander's words cut Octavia's throat. A lump forms where the invisible injury is. "That's what they want you to think." Octavia's tongue is heavy as she speaks.

Xander shakes his head. "Beyond encouraging me, they supported me when my parents cut me off and threw me out. I would've been on the streets and could've been killed by the air knows what or who if my friends didn't house me up or help me."

"Your parents cut you off and kicked you out?" Octavia says.

This comes as a surprise to Octavia. Xander always seemed well-to-do and still accompanied his parents to public events where Xander would appear stuffy but managed good fake smiles and politeness despite discomfort he vocalized to Octavia every so often when he got to see her. The relationship with his parents being strained is something Octavia has known for years, though. It was impossible to deny after overhearing Councilman Olowe tell her parents in a meeting they hosted in their home, "Xander's only saving grace is being friends with Octavia. I know he's a handful, but my wife and I are hoping she'll be a good influence on him since we're unable to stop his crazy, pointless endeavors. Maybe he'll get more interest in politics being around her. You two and her are the only hope we have left for him." The comment had made Octavia angry for some reason she couldn't and can't explain.

"Yeah," Xander tells her. "That's part of the reason I disappeared for that long bit."

"During that time you disappeared you said you were on an NSM mission."

Xander disappearing for times, especially after Aurora died, is not uncommon. Octavia thought and was told it was because of the tournaments and the job Xander had taken on being a Netizen Safety Monitor. However, Xander makes obvious only one of those two could be true. But there was an extended time he went completely silent, so silent Octavia almost started to to worry. NSMs are known to go missing due to the nature of their job hacking into people's devices and reporting suspicious content to authorities. Octavia began to fear Xander could've been breached and traced, but he resurfaced and told Octavia he was on an extensive raid on some suspicious servers.

"That was just a cover story. There's no way I'd become an NSM. Those snitches are as aggravating as hell, but I know it's a good story to buy for disappearing a lot. That time I was gone was when I was kicked out and happened to coincide with finding Ari." Xander pauses but continues. "I'm also not cut off anymore. Once my parents found out I was steadily surviving and I could make it look like I could be successful without their influence in my life as an NSM, they started luring me out with money every once in a while to make it look like we have something of a relationship. In reality they continue to hate me for everything I don't do. I'm sure they did hope I would die off or actually disappear or something so I would no longer be a problem or hindrance to them. But I got a place to stay and threatened to become a worse nuisance to them so, to keep from bad press, they'll pay me off to show up at things and say nothing, something I don't have a problem with."