Close to the government facility, the two women selected a small restaurant that was suitably packed with customers.
"Food must be good if there are so many people here," Sarai reasoned. After ordering and picking up their food from a conveyor belt, Noble selected the only open table.
Covertly, Noble passed over one-half of [The Others Voice] so they could chat privately while they ate.
She and Sarai had spent the train ride catching up on each other's families and professional lives. Sarai's bakery was reaching record sales, and Noble explained how her days were now mostly split between the academy and government work.
Now they had looped back around to the Dreamscape and did not want to be overheard.
'I'm still reeling over that Memory, Sarai. If I ever see Snowmobile again, I might break my silence and ask him why he just gave away such a powerful tool.' Noble, of course, had a passion for Memories. She could not fathom anyone parting with them so easily.
'I will ask him before you ever get the chance.' Sarai smiled before taking a bite out of her Mandu.
Noble looked over her shoulder at the crowd, causing the baker to furrow her brow.
'What is it?' Sarai craned her neck to peer at the line of people waiting to get food.
'Probably nothing.' The professor scanned the room once more before returning to her delicious food. 'So many people around can be distracting with all their emotions. It throws me off sometimes…'
'Is that what happened in the arena with Thorai? Your eyes went as white as the spear and I thought maybe she had permanently blinded you for a second.' Sarai had been itching to know the answer to this question for weeks.
Although Nothing like that incident had happened again, a nearly severed leg was not something either of them could easily forget.
'No, it wasn't the crowd or anything like that. Truthfully I am not even sure what happened. I've run it over in my head a million times. One second I can see Thorai and the next I am blinded. Except I'm not. I can still see her…if that is the right word. I can sense her outline and watch her movement. At first, I thought I was hallucinating. You didn't have anything like that happen during that battle, did you?' Noble had mixed feelings when Sarai shook her head.
'I didn't. I had that first bout of blindness and then I summoned the visor. Maybe repeated exposure caused it?' Sarai pointed to her eyes with her chopsticks.
'Maybe,' the professor was less than convinced.
Part of her wanted to believe it was just a side effect of the Memory that was used against her. Then she could study it for a paper, but ultimately dismiss the experience as a fluke.
But if it wasn't anything that Thorai did, and was in fact something else, something inside Noble that had allowed her to perceive the world in such a strange manner…that was something Noble needed to explore.
"There is more than one way to see," Bane had told her years ago. Now the professor wished that she had asked the blind Awakened exactly what he meant.
'Whatever caused it, I was able to use the vision to spot Thorai behind me and hit her with my estoc.' The professor's eyes deepened in their blue. Her eyes flicked around the room, sending off alarm bells in the baker's mind.
'Something is really bothering you,' Sarai observed. She looked over her shoulder to spot an incoming danger.
'You can calm down,' Noble waved off her friend's intense worry. 'It could be innocent… but I have sensed the same person by the Academy, on the train and now here.'
'I don't understand,' Sarai's beautiful face contorted into a frown.
'Each person has an emotional signature of sorts. Yours is adorably erratic, Fort's is suitably solemn, Honey's is hopeful, and the boys…well theirs are laced with different flavors of boundless energy. All that to say is that no two people are alike.' Noble could tell by Sarai's nod that the explanation had been adequate.
'If you noticed the same emotional signature in all three places…' the baker mused, 'Is someone following us?'
'That is my assumption, yes." Noble's eyes went to noiselessly scanning the room.
'And you want me to keep calm?!' Sarai forced a large bite of Mandu into her mouth so she would not audibly scold her friend.
'I don't sense any ill will from them. I think the best course of action would be to head to government headquarters and have security deal with it there.' Noble felt resolved in her decision.
Or at least she did, until she finally spotted the source of the trouble. Then her concern turned to frustration.
'I found the culprit. He was waiting for us outside the Academy. I'm going to deal with him here and now!'
'Noble!' Sarai could not stop her friend from standing and marching across the crowded room.
The gentleman was clearly doing everything possible not to look their way as they approached. His avoidance did no good.
"What are you doing?" Noble tapped two of her knuckles on the table to focus his attention.
"Excuse me?" The man took a sip of his drink and pushed his sunglasses into place. "Have we met?"
Ignoring his ploy to avoid the question, Noble continued to interrogate the other diner. "Why are you following her?" The professor pointed to Sarai. "Can't you see she wants to be left alone?"
'You are making a scene,' Sarai sent the message through [The Other's Voice].
"He started it by stalking you!" Noble answered out loud, causing the man to wince.
"I think there may be some mistake," the dark-haired diner was cut off.
"Your mistake was following us all the way from the Academy. I don't know what nonsense you are trying to pull but..." Noble paused as the man began to chuckle.
"I assure you, I am nonsense-free to my core." The man pulled off his glasses. His brown eyes twinkled with mischief.
The professor stopped mid-retort, and her accusing finger dropped. "You've got to be joking."
"No, my name is Frey." The man smirked.
"I am aware." Noble had seen the reporter many times. How did she not recognize him before?
"Have we met?" the journalist asked again, this time more seriously. "You seem very familiar."
"I only know you from your articles." Noble hedged. Though they had never met formally, he had seen her many times in battle. "Sarai and I both read them when we can."
"Ah, the famed Fireshing reads my work? I am most flattered!" Frey touched two fingers to his cap and dipped his head.
"Noble reads them more than I do," Sarai elbowed her friend, nudging her forward.
"Thank you for your patronage, Professor." The reporter gave the Noble the same salute before resting his elbow on the table.
Noble cleared her throat. "You didn't answer my question." Just because the floating Awakened enjoyed Frey's articles did not mean she would let him off the hook for his spying. "Why are you here? Surely you have better things to do than skulk around and stalk Sarai while she is enjoying a leisurely lunch."
"Forgive me, but I do think you have the wrong idea. I wasn't trying to stalk anyone. But if you must know, it wasn't Fireshing I was following, lovely as she is." Frey shifted his gaze. "The person I was hoping to have a chat with, Professor, was you."