“Uhhh…” While Lamb was reorganizing his scattered thoughts, Hermes pulled away. It wasn’t until his friend was already a table away that Lamb blinked and called out to him alarm. “Hey! Wait, are you sure?!”

Hermes didn’t glance back or acknowledge him, but he did spare Lamb an internal message.

<Yup. Good luck.>

“Ah…” Sighing heavily, Lamb fell limp with resignation. He sat there forlornly for a brief second, alone and slumped over, before realizing that perhaps Messiah was waiting for him. Suddenly fearful that he was being rude, he scrambled out of his seat.

It felt like an extremely long walk from his table to the tunnel exit, and Lamb could feel his limbs creaking as he walked stiffly over to the man. There were no eyes in the man’s mask, so he couldn’t tell where Messiah was looking, and the man didn’t move an inch, even as Lamb crept timidly in front of him.

“Um… hello…” Damn… he wasn’t usually this bad at socializing. But Messiah’s large body and armored face exuded waves of oppressive superiority. Swallowing hard, Lamb offered the masked Sentinel his best attempt at a beam. “Am I your partner for the contest…?”

If it hadn’t been for the mask, Lamb imagined the man might have cast him a sideways glance, and then maybe he would have had some idea of how to continue. But for now, all he could see was Messiah ignoring him.

Vaguely, Lamb wondered if he should have double-checked the list himself. But Hermes had never lied to him, and Hermes was always right, so he brushed that insecurity aside quickly. Maybe it was simply too obvious a question for Messiah to answer. Right… the man was probably thinking, “Well duh, why are you even asking” – or something like that.

Hmm, but, maybe Lamb judging the mysterious Sentinel too much by his appearance. Maybe Messiah wasn’t as cold and cynical as he looked. Earlier, when they’d sparred, Lamb had clearly felt the man wrap an arm around him to soften their fall. And Messiah had even knelt down and asked if he was okay, afterwards…

Berating himself for being shallow, Lamb gathered his courage in a deep breath, and then smiled hopefully up at the man. “Do you wanna grab dinner together?”

“No.”

Messiah’s reply had been so abrupt and matter-of-fact that Lamb blinked a few times before realizing that he’d been immediately rejected. Thrown off his train of thought, he heard himself begin to stammer.

“B-But we should get to know each other a bit better before tomorrow. We don’t know the rules yet, but we can guess and prepare for some likely scenarios…”

Within his panicking head, parts of him were screeching in horror. Good lord, stop already! Stop before you embarrass yourself even more! But despite his internal shrieks and flaming cheeks, Lamb found himself blurting out more as he gazed into the man’s black mask. “Don’t you wanna win…?”

Urk… now you’ve done it. He trailed off, voice growing faint and timid as soon as he realized what he’d just said. Shrinking back into his shoulders, Lamb stared dolefully up at the man’s unmoving head for a while before a voice finally replied from within the mask.

“I don’t need to learn about you.” Messiah uncrossed his arms and turned his body to face Lamb. His head tilted down slightly as he appeared to look directly into the boy’s wide eyes. “And I’m not interested in winning petty games.”

“O… Okay…” Fingers fidgeting within his clasped hands, Lamb averted his gaze. W… What do I say now..?! He had never been denied so resolutely like that, before. The Generation Zero really was like a different species… most people were kind enough to humor him, or give some sort of excuse, or at the very least leave him a way out. But here he was, stuck in front of the man with his head turned, wallowing in shame and embarrassment. That was pretty cruel…

Wait, if he’s not here to meet up with me, then why’s he even here?

Fueled by the misery of their awkward silence, Lamb felt a spark of indignance. If Messiah had only been here to hear the announcement, then he could have left ages ago. Why’d he bother standing here and sending such an obvious message to his partner if he hadn’t intended to meet with them, anyway? That kind of misinformation was not cool. Not cool at all.

Feeling the need to regain some of his pride, Lamb turned up to the man with his mouth open. But before he could demand Messiah to be a little nicer about it, the man’s hoarse voice washed over him.

“How’s your wound?”

Lamb blinked, his angry brows abruptly lifting into a look of surprise as his open mouth turned into a gape. “Huh? M-My wound?” He lifted a hand to his shirt and clutched at with a confused stutter. “It’s uh, it’s fine.”

“You got it checked, right?” Messiah’s voice was monotone, neither threatening nor dubious – but somehow, his tall figure seemed to tower just a little more over Lamb’s head.

“Yeah.” Lamb felt a cold tingle run down his spine as he lied, but he did so without hesitation. He had promised Hermes enough times that he would be careful… “They said it’s fine.”

The man’s empty mask stared at him in silence for what felt like a long time. Then, eventually, Messiah took a step back.

“Alright.” He slipped his hands into his pockets and turned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Rest before then.”

“Oh, uh… uh, okay. See ya.” Lamb lifted his hand in a half-wave and stared the man’s retreating back in bewilderment. It was only once Messiah’s dark silhouette had thoroughly vanished into the tunnels that he began to think coherently again.

Huh…? Did he stay just to check on me?

A warm, rosy colour flooded his thoughts, but Lamb hastily washed it away with an internal shake.

Heck, he sure wasn’t nice about it though. Sighing to himself, he turned his back to the tunnels and found himself gazing at the café. Most of the Sentinels had left the lounge by now, and the few that remained were wandering out in pairs. Faced with the sudden prospect of spending the evening utterly alone in the unfamiliar city, Lamb wandered back to a table and collapsed forlornly into the plastic chair.

<Sob, I got rejected.>

It only took a second for Hermes to reply.

<Lol really?>

Behind the darkness of his closed eyes, Lamb frowned indignantly.

<You knew I was going to get rejected, didn’t you?>

<I don’t have any data on Messiah, so I couldn’t make a prediction.>  But Hermes dropped the Sentinel talk with a smug reply. <But yeah, basically. I mean, just look at him.>

Huffing grudgingly in agreement, Lamb leaned over on his arm and squeezed some of the pent-up loneliness out of his chest with a deep breath. As his gut deflated, it gurgled, and he grimaced inwardly.

Okay, dinner. What do we do about that…? He lifted his head and looked around, but it didn’t take much more than a glance at the complex network of tunnels beyond the translucent dome walls for him to decide to stay put. He wasn’t much good with directions, even with the amount of navigation support available nowadays – if it wasn’t Hermes leading the way, it was Alicia. Besides… Lamb wasn’t really picky about his food. The café was an automated one, but he wouldn’t be able to tell if his food had been cooked by a robot or by a real person, anyway.

 Ypsilon’s cities, like many places in the country now, were fully integrated with Alicia and its mobile app. Real Sentinels like Hermes and Puma would have been able to order with a mere thought, but for Lamb, the traditional way was easier. Using his actual fingers, he scrolled through the menu on his phone and ultimately picked clam chowder and a turkey sandwich. He’d receive another notification when it was ready, so he leaned his head down on the table and went on social media to pass the time.

A few years ago, there had been many different social media platforms. There still were, but the newest trend was not the individual platforms themselves, but rather management services – apps that integrated all the different social media platforms. Social media management services had been primarily used by businesses in the past, for multi-platform promotions and such – but as more people had to make more accounts on multiple different sites to connect with others, cross-platform services gradually became much more common. The largest and most popular management service was called Yipper – it was not owned directly by Ypsilon, but Lamb heard that they had a close partnership. It integrated the content and messaging systems of all the large, old platforms, and supported some newer, smaller ones too. This way, people could stay connected to all their contacts in a single place – regardless of what social media platforms their friends might prefer.

Having grown up with Hermes as his only same-age companion, Yipper had sometimes been Lamb’s only connection to the outside world. When he was younger, he used to spend hours scrolling through the yips – that’s what content was called on Yipper – of strangers, marvelling at the sight of people simply… being people.

And then, when he’d been released into the world last year, he finally got the chance to be one of those people. Between Rose’s wide network of friends and Kairo’s flamboyant reputation, Lamb had found himself suddenly managing an alter ego with hundreds of online followers. And it seemed like his newest follower had already started sending him private yips…

The messages he’d received from Rose had already been marked as read, since he’d replied to them earlier. But he’d turned notifications off as a default for everyone else – it had been exciting at first, receiving hello’s from almost-strangers, but after Rose published more articles on him, the pings had started to get out of hand. Already, there was nearly a dozen unread yips from people and classmates that he’d met last year, most of them simply saying hi and asking about his summer. But one profile picture caught his eye – a professional-looking headshot of a man with dark skin and very blue eyes. They had sent Lamb a single, short message with a winky face.

“Skipping classes already?”

It took Lamb a few seconds to remember. Right… it was only Tuesday. Hanael probably noticed he’d been absent in one of their shared classes. The timestamp of the message was only a few minutes ago – if he replied now, Hanael would probably see it right away. Did he really want to start up conversation with the weirdo…?

As he was hesitating – deep in serious thought, not staring blankly at Hanael’s handsome profile picture, not at all – Lamb received a notification that his food was ready. Slipping his phone back into his pocket for now, he weaved through a few tables, collected his tray from the café counter, and then returned to his seat. The chowder gave off a warm, creamy steam, and a thick layer of cheese was oozing out the sides of his turkey sandwich – the food looked surprisingly appetizing. In a better mood, Lamb scooped a spoonful of chowder and thought of his phone as he blew on the hot liquid.

Sentinel abilities were great for multitasking. He sometimes struggled with complex tasks, but something like accessing his phone and sending messages was simple enough to do while eating with both hands. Lamb took a moment to think about what he should say, then, deciding that he shouldn’t be too friendly to someone that eager, replied bluntly.

“Watcha gonna do about it?”

Hanael didn’t see his message for a while, and Lamb took the time to eat. He enjoyed his food wholeheartedly at first, but as his stomach slowly began to fill, he found himself glancing at his phone screen more often. Had he been too cold…? Had his joke been too obscure…? Despite himself, he began to worry. Maybe he should add an easier conversation starter… but what would that be…?

As his brows furrowed into a frown, the screen finally showed that Hanael was typing out a reply. A surge of relief rushed through his fingers and Lamb swallowed his next bite of sandwich with considerable more ease.

“Report you to the Dean, maybe?”

“Whoah, someone’s a tattle-tale.” Lamb chuckled faintly, and imagined that Hanael was doing the same. There was another pause, then a few long seconds indicating the man was typing.

“Srsly tho. I wanted to sit with you. I was really sad.”

Aww… that had been Lamb’s first thought, but after a moment he slapped his gushing heart with a scolding. No, not ‘aww’, he’s lying. He’s probably sat through every class flirting with a different girl since the start of term. Huffing determinedly to himself, Lamb tore his gaze away from the man’s profile picture yet again and gave what he hoped was a nonchalant-sounding reply.

“Sorry, my grades are shit, you’re better off not sitting beside me.”

But Hanael, apparently unperturbed, replied immediately with a laughing emoji. “LOL its k. Grades are overrated.”

You’re not going to get along well with Avery, I can say that for sure already. Smiling musingly to himself, Lamb swallowed the last of his turkey sandwich and wiped the oil off his fingers. Hanael sent him another yip in that time.

“Next time, let’s sit together.”

Damn, the weirdo was devoted… or no, what was the word? ‘Persistent’ – that’s what Hermes would say. Devoted was a good thing, persistent was more of a bad thing. Lamb needed to keep up his guard. Deciding to end the conversation for the night, he left a laughing smiley react to Hanael’s earlier message – the one about grades. Then, he tucked his phone away and went to return his tray.

Turning around, he caught a glimpse of the digital clock on the wall – it was already nearly 8 PM. The day had been so full of exciting new things that he hadn’t really noticed how long it had been… guess there wasn’t much left to do but settle down and wait for Hermes to finish his date.

Lamb took a vague step towards one of the tunnels, only to realize that he had no idea where their assigned rooms were. He’d been called to the West Gym shortly after breakfast, so Hermes had taken their bags and dropped them off in their room. Walking slowly into one of the tunnels anyway, Lamb telepathically poked his friend.

<Where’s our room? I need somewhere to cry.>