He was Almost Absorbed by the System

Chapter Nine - Not Into Sweat

There were many things that Aidan felt worth doing with his time, such as eating, sleeping or if he was really motivated; soaking in a bath filled with steamy hot water and bubbles.  Watching a bunch of large, sweaty guys jogging around the sports field as they stretched out their taxed muscles was definitely not on the list.  He wasn't into muscles or guys and he didn't like to sweat, it was gross and meant he'd moved enough to burn calories.  It seemed he was in the minority (of one), however, as the girls a few feet to his left squealed and bounced in delight as a couple of boys stripped off their tops and another poured water over his head.

From where he sat on the grass verge beside the sports field, he lazily glanced at his phone and the reason he had decided to come to the field during lunch hour, when he could have been taking a nap in the classroom.  Mission; Prevent the fateful meeting between Shaun O'Connor and Katy Daniels.  Naturally his first thought was; how was he supposed to do that?  Er.. okay, not strictly true; his first thought was actually; 'Do I have to?' But regardless, the text didn't state when or where the pair were supposed to meet.  Plus, both students were in the year above his so it was possible that they had a class or two together, wasn't it?

Katy's chances of losing the election had spiked nicely following their verbal confrontation during assembly, which was a nice, if unintended result of the whole situation.  On the downside, girls kept greeting him and brushing up against him in the corridor and making faces at him in class.  Chase had likened them to growing tiger cubs; fluffy and cute until they got their teeth into you.  Aidan wasn't so sure about the cute part... or the fluffy part.

He looked at the mission again and it finally occurred to him to wonder how these missions had anything to do with saving and protecting Warren.  The boy was now safely enrolled in a new school and so far seemed okay with things there according to his texts anyway.  So was disrupting Katy Daniels life really required?  *PING* Mission; Trust in this Backup System. 

"Alright, alright," he sighed, aloud.

"Hey, everything alright there?"  Aidan looked up to see the secondary target of his mission, hovering over him, blocking out what little sun dared to shine through the patchy grey clouds above them.  "Hey, you're the guy from the assembly, the one sticking up for his friend!  That was awesome."

"Yeah, that would be me," Aidan sighed again, dropping his chin to his folded knees.  "Didn't realise it would become such a big thing though."  Shaun chuckled as he wiped his face on the towel that was draped over his shoulders.  He then plonked his large self on the grass beside Aidan and waved at the girls staring over at them, who began squealing shrilly again.  Aidan winced.  "Can you not?"

Shaun just chuckled again and shrugged.  "What, are you telling me that you are not interested in those girls checking you out?"

"No, I'm not interested and no, I'm not the one that they are 'checking out'."   A cool breeze swept over them, carrying the sweaty stench of exertion.  Aidan's nose wrinkled in distaste.  "Why would you waste a perfectly good lunch period running about on the field?"  He suddenly asked.

"Ah, we've got a game coming up," he explained.  "And our Captain thought it would be a good idea to get an addition light work out in a couple times a week."

"I hardly call that a light work out," Aidan stated.

"You should come to our game, it's next Thursday and it's here, so it's not like you have to go out of your way or anything," Shaun suggested as he got to his feet, almost gracefully.  "Oh and bring your friend."  He jogged towards the boys locker room without waiting for an answer to his invite.

*PING* Mission Successful; fateful meeting between Shaun O'Connor and Katy Daniels averted.

Huh, okay, well that was easy.

*PING* Chances for Katy Daniels losing the election 75%.  (Anthony Marshall Junior - 12%, Cameron Lacey - 12%)

I'm pretty certain that doesn't add up, he thought, but then do I really care?

****

The System was experiencing emotional turmoil.  It had lost the connection to its Body.  That caused an annoyance, but this in itself was not entirely a big issue as the soul of its Body still lived in this world.  There would be a reasonable period of time in which it could reestablish its connection.  However, there was something interfering with this world and the paths of the protagonists were now unaligned.  This made it feel anger.  It  rescanned their timelines and discovered a lone divergent point which might allow the System to fix the issue, however in order to do so, it would be necessary to find the soul and claim it or this world would be lost to it.

She bit down on her nails a few times before mapping out what she should do next.