-----Grady-----

My partner, Stacey, dumped me at the café to go register for a fight. While I waited for her, I "watched" the battle between my other friends.

I'm not so sure who to root for. Dania & Daniela or Carlos. The Statusin narrates to me that the girls have the upper hand.

A guy passed by my booth and bumped into me. It was my fault, really, for sitting on the very edge of the booth seat, but I mean he had actual eyes. He should have been watching where he was going.

"Hey, asshole, watch where you're going!" I called out to him. I wasn't sure of what got into me.

"What? Sorry," he apologizes genuinely. I can see his aura blush with embarrassment. Oops. Guess I shouldn't have been that mean.

"You're not going to sit with anyone so sit with me," I offered somewhat brusquely.

"I don't think I should. I'm not a very convenient person to be around."

"Come on. Sit."

"I'm—"

"Sit."

He did.

"Are you a student of the UM?" I asked.

"No, you don't know who I am?" he asked.

"I'm blind now, kinda. I can only see auras."

"An auric extrasensor. Wow. So can't know my face even if you wanted to."

"Who are you? It's not like I would know even if you told me. I'm from Earth."

"Woah. That's big. I guess I have to tell you now. I'm kinda a circleman in the Fuji National Assembly. It was my first day today. I'm the youngest ever to be in assembly. I fucked it up, though. I kinda cussed out the Fujian Premier."

"Was it on television or something? Was it for a good reason, at least?"

"Well it was on the PolitiChannel, live," he sighed, "I cussed him out because he was talking about deporting Liadans from Fuji and sending them elsewhere in the empire."

"And that's bad?"

He took a moment, "They're people, clearly. They're sentient just like the rest of us. Being an android doesn't make them any less. We don't deport the Faery or the Archons because they're not technically alive."

"Then it wasn't for a wrong reason, was it?"

"I don't want to lose the next election, though."

"Better to lose an election than to stand by and watch something like that go on."

I saw his aura smooth out as I said that.

"And Carlos has been impaled by a branch!" I heard the Statusin announcer say, "This is the end of the match!"

I stood up quickly and began walking, "That's my friend. Come with me!"

I was glad I could sense him tagging along.