Episode 57. The Method of Running with One True Thing
# Episode 57. The Method of Running with One True Thing
The merge was not the end but the beginning of a choice.
When Jiwoo's skiff and Kael's glider both settled onto the same outer lower line, the four of them had to solve the same problem together for the first time.
How to get out alive. How to not drop the real ember. Which craft would open the way ahead. Which craft would cut the pursuit behind. Who would empty their hands. Who would hold on to the end.
Sion felt the ember in his hand grow heavier for no reason.
Its authenticity had been confirmed. Which meant from here on, the very fact of holding it was a burden. A burden that reprioritized over speed and changed the movements of everyone around him.
Kael spoke first, low.
"Closing in."
That was not sentiment but a distance report. The gap between the two craft was now very short. A little closer and they could transfer a person; too close and they would tangle and collapse together.
Sern said immediately.
"Don't fully close right now."
Jiwoo asked shortly.
"Reason."
"It gets easier to eat us in one bite."
Sern answered.
"If we look separate, the chasing hands split too. But the moment they confirm where the real thing is, everyone lines up on one."
Jiwoo scanned the line ahead without argument.
It was a fair point.
Until now, only the dark-red glider had been biting closest, but once the hands from outside the arena truly caught the scent, things would change. The moment the two craft fully merged into one mass, the target to protect became equally clear.
Kael glanced at Sion's hand and asked.
"Move that somewhere else?"
Sion almost reflexively gripped harder.
"Not yet."
Before him, Sern added low.
"Moving it shakes things."
That was precise. The real ember was not vivid but it was alive. Switching hands now was not simply passing an object—it might shake the reaction one more time. A rash change of judgment here could kill the real thing with their own hands, just like the teams that were fooled by fakes.
Jiwoo concluded shortly.
"Then Sion holds it to the end."
Kael nodded immediately.
"Okay."
A brief agreement. Yet Sion heard that single word strangely loud. It meant the real thing stayed in his hand. It also meant the target stayed fixed on his side.
The dark-red glider behind was narrowing the line again.
This time it was not the probing approach from the start. The front pilot had dropped the angle completely, and the rear rider's hands were empty. The movement of people who no longer needed to confirm whether what they were seizing was real. That team was already certain. The ember was in Jiwoo's team's hand.
"They've locked on."
Sion said low.
Sern caught it immediately.
"That's why we have to switch now."
Jiwoo raised an eyebrow by the smallest fraction.
"You said don't move it."
"Not the ember. The line."
Sern said.
"We need to switch who gets chased."
Kael understood first.
"We make ourselves more visible as the target."
"Yeah."
Sern answered.
"Jiwoo's team drops onto the dirtier line below. We show big from up top once. Create the moment where the dark-red side has to choose only one of two—and the hand holding the ember gets caught less."
Jiwoo heard that and did not smile.
Instead, he looked again at the outer line ahead, the clean line above, and the shadow of the dead frame between them.
"It's possible."
He said.
"But we really split for one stretch."
Kael answered very evenly.
"That's what running together is."
Sion found it strange how fast that exchange reached its conclusion. But then again, not strange at all. Right now all four were moving with heads closer to survival than explanation.
The change was being read from the stands too.
Luhai watched the two craft briefly close then readjust their spacing below, and immediately grimaced.
"Are they planning something?"
Seorin said very low.
"One side becomes the bait."
Ater looked at her immediately.
"Which side."
"Don't know yet."
Seorin answered.
"But the hand holding the real thing will keep pulling toward the less visible side."
That was correct. If the hand holding the real thing stayed clearly visible, all of Hazran would converge. So from here on, what mattered was not speed but making it unclear—even briefly—who held the real thing.
Nasim, watching below, stiffened his expression by the smallest degree. He must have known by now. With the race board broken, all that remained was who held the real thing and where they were breaking out. Harun was still quiet. Zahir had not moved to the end. But the longer that silence lasted, the heavier the next intervention would fall.
Aka, beside Nahira, looked between the two craft, then for the first time let her gaze rest a long beat on the dirty outer line below.
Sion could not see that directly. But strangely, it became clearer and clearer that the real thing he held had to escape not along a vivid line but along the ugliest one.
Right then, from above, the dark-red glider drove deeper and set its angle.
Now the decision truly had to be made.
Jiwoo said shortly.
"Decide now."
Sern answered at once.
"We go up."
Kael prepared to shift the glider's weight onto the upper line without a word, and Sion, gripping the ember deeper, looked at Jiwoo's back.
Jiwoo was looking only ahead.
Not a good road. A dead line. A dirty line. A line everyone else had discarded.
The road that man had always used best.
"Good."
He said low.
"Then we go where we can't be seen."
With those words, the two craft prepared for the first time to split with deliberately different intentions, at the same moment.
One to hide the real thing. One to look like the hand holding it.
And Sion knew.
From here on, they would need to learn not only how to run together, but how to deceive together.