Episode 58. The Way Back with the Proof
# Episode 58. The Way Back with the Proof
The splitting was easy.
The problem was surviving toward the same result even after splitting.
The moment Sern's call dropped, the two craft began tearing away from the same outer line, each carrying a different intent.
Kael and Sern's glider rose high once, conspicuously. Not a full climb—but they set their nose far more visibly than Jiwoo's team riding the dirty line below. Making it look as though that side was on the better line, and perhaps the hand carrying the real thing might be over there.
Conversely, Jiwoo's skiff pressed nearly to the ground. Beneath the dead slope and broken frame shadows, burrowing only where others deliberately chose not to look. A line that from above would look less like a path and more like a shadow. A line race hands would not ride for the score, and even pursuing hands would hesitate at least once.
Sion was uneasy precisely because the difference was so blatant.
"Will they buy it?"
He asked low.
Jiwoo answered, eyes only ahead.
"Right now they will."
Before those words finished, the dark-red glider truly angled harder toward Kael's team above.
True to an experienced team, their final judgment was fast. The hand holding the real thing disappeared from sight while the bait rode the flashier line. On a board like this, people ultimately bit what was more visible first. The dark-red glider could not shed that habit.
Sion exhaled very briefly.
They bought it.
But he was not fully at ease. That team would not stay fooled forever. At some point they would try to confirm again, and if this side could not vanish completely before then, the board would narrow once more.
"How long does it hold?"
Sion asked.
This time Jiwoo spoke with something like a smile.
"Long enough that we don't die first."
Kael and Sern's glider, covering behind, deliberately rode the living line one more time in an exaggerated show. Kael openly raised the craft to create an angle the dark-red glider would want to bite, while Sern kept just enough distance not to be caught too easily through it all. Close in and it pulled away; let go and it showed itself again.
"Pull them a little longer."
Sern said low.
"Right now that team is running on conviction before confirmation."
Kael answered shortly.
"What if they actually bite?"
"Then endure."
Kael said without smiling.
"Great plan."
But contrary to the words, his hands were perfectly precise. He did not push the glider too fast, nor did he kill the pace enough for the dark-red glider to give up entirely. Less bait work, more a hand that kept the opponent's certainty perpetually off-balance.
From the stands above, Luhai reacted first.
"Why'd that team suddenly go up?"
He said in a near-shout.
Seorin answered without taking her eyes off below.
"To be seen."
Ater caught it immediately.
"To hide the real thing."
Seorin smiled very briefly.
"Finally watching the same scene."
Ater did not react to that. Instead, he looked farther. Including the hands from outside the arena, simply fooling one dark-red glider would not end it. What mattered was who would be the first to realize the real thing was not there.
Aka, even half-hidden in front of Nahira, was looking long at the dirty line below. That gaze was no longer watching a race result. It was the eyes of someone who knew where the real thing was now, and who was also seeing where that real thing needed to return.
Sion could not see that. But strangely, the sensation grew that what they were running was not simply an escape line, but possibly a detour for circling back to the center of Hazran.
Running alone would not end it. If they survived carrying the real thing, they would ultimately have to press it before someone.
Jiwoo said suddenly, low.
"It opens ahead."
Sion read ahead at once.
At the end of the dirty outer line, a narrow passage was opening between two dead frames. It could break out toward the recovery line outside the arena, or conversely, loop back beneath Hazran's inner structures—an ambiguous fork. The straight path was too tidy, smelling of recovery hands. The lower path was collapsed, but in exchange, a line where anyone would have difficulty waiting in ambush.
"Down."
Sion said at once.
"Not straight."
Jiwoo did not ask.
She pressed the skiff lower and slid it beneath the fork. The hull bottom scraped hard once, and the right hover plate nearly died before flickering back to life. Sion thought his heart had stopped for an instant, but Jiwoo, as though she had calculated even that last lift, immediately corrected the center.
"Still alive."
She said low.
That sounded like words spoken to the craft, and words spoken to themselves.
Above, the dark-red glider had finally closed deeper toward Kael's team.
This time it meant to bite for real.
Its nose drove toward the back of Kael's glider, and the rear rider extended his hand again. Sern, seeing that, said very shortly.
"Drop now."
Kael, as though he had been waiting, twisted the glider sideways.
Not the clean upper line—he dropped in one move toward the shadow of the broken frame outside it. The dark-red glider could not follow the change immediately. The distance it had thought was close enough to seize had suddenly vanished.
In that split second, the two teams finally converged again onto the same lower outer line, almost simultaneously.
Sion saw Kael's glider shadow rejoin from the side and drew a short breath.
Done.
Not a complete shakeoff. But they had deceived once, survived once, and now regrouped on the same line carrying the real thing.
Sern spoke almost simultaneously.
"If we break out now, we'll be chased."
Jiwoo asked low.
"Then."
"We go back."
Sern answered.
"Run straight out of Hazran and the whole place converges on us. But if we take the real thing and re-attach to the center board, the story changes."
Sion understood in his body almost the instant he heard it.
Yes.
If they only ran, they became thieves who stole the real thing. But if they returned carrying it, at least they could stand again as the hand that won the board.
Kael said shortly.
"Sounds insane, but."
Seorin, reading the flow from below, murmured almost the same thing.
"Insane."
Ater narrowed his eyes despite it.
It might be the most correct move. The moment they broke straight out of Hazran, every hand outside the arena would converge in the same direction. But returning to the center board meant at least not fully losing the rules. Standing before Zahir again as the hand that held the real thing. In this situation, that might actually be the largest shield.
Jiwoo laughed shortly.
"Good."
She said.
"Then let's go back in."
Sion liked those words to a strange degree.
They sounded less like a person fleeing and more like a person returning alive with the real thing in hand.
And in that exact moment, the two craft began to change direction completely.
Not the line escaping outward from Hazran, but the line returning to the center of the board—carrying the proof.