“I DON’T WANNA GO!”
“Can I go back to the ship?”
“Absolutely not. No way. Not gonna happen!”
“Do you normally come to Lüshan on these trips?” Emilia asked over the continued sobs of several of Olivier’s students, who Grenner had helpfully volunteered to effectively force into the underground rail station that also lead to the Lüshan capital of Falmíer. A few of them were trying to fight against the skill dragging them along. So far, their attempts had proven highly ineffective, and they were instead stumbling down the long staircase in awkward, halting steps.
“Yes,” Olivier replied, not bothering to glance back at the few students who were apparently quite afraid of being trapped underground. “Several students panic every year. Usually, I allow them to return to the ship, with an assignment to befriend a Free Colonier and learn about their nation’s justice system. If Grenner wishes to force them along, however, I have no complaints.”
The man’s eyes slid over the various members of the Lüshan Drinarna, stationed throughout the rail station, and making sure none of the visitors caused too much of a fuss. His panicking students were certainly causing a fuss, but not only were she and Grenner relatively well known in the capital—this was the same route she and her father came to the city by—but the clones ran drills with the Lüshan police force often. Probably, Drinarna officers were the only group on the continent to not be at least a little antsy around the clones, due to how often they trained together, although the ryohua of Dion were a close second—not that the ryohua were law enforcement, precisely. As a result of their familiarity, however, the students’ calls for help were being ignored.
“Should we be concerned about, I dunno… traumatizing them?” Emilia asked, peeking back at the three students who very much did not want to be visiting the underground city.
“Perhaps,” the lawyer admitted, his feet landing on one of the levels that housed a variety of shops and restaurants before leading the class to yet another staircase. There were escalators off to the right, just out of sight, and Emilia had no doubt he knew they were there. She also didn’t doubt that not a single member of the class realized as much, having learned while waiting for the elevator off the ship that, even after their day in Seer’ik’tine, very few of them had bothered to install any of the language packets Olivier had suggested.
Mostly, those packets were large collections of far more languages than they would need on the trip, and yes, installing them would result in a bit of a headache, but at least they would have been able to translate the blocky letters that read “ESCALATOR THIS WAY.” Emilia had little doubt that, should someone brave straying from the group to use the escalators, Olivier would allow the entire class the privilege of letting their legs rest. No one else could read the sign—or, if they could, they weren’t saying anything. No escalators for anyone it was.
“I will let them return to the surface once we are in the city,” he continued, telling her that Grenner had already agreed to act as escort for them and any other students who decided they’d rather turn back. Apparently, he also had experience with students
thinking
they’d be fine visiting Falmíer, only to realize after they were there, the glittering ceiling of stalactites threatening over them, that they were very much not okay and wanted to go back to the ship, thanks.
“I see~” Emilia sighed, hopping onto the next level of shops.
Really, the station had far too many shops and restaurants spread out over its ten levels, but she understood why they were there… mostly.
So much of Lüshan was composed of at least partially subterranean cities, connected by a combination of rail lines and aetherstreams. In theory, the interconnectedness of the Free Colony should have made visiting different cities easy—it was a relatively small nation, and travelling from one side to the other took under three hours; less time than getting from Yurndale to Roasalia did. In practice, Lüshan was something of a police state—in the
really strict about security
way—and residents moving in and out of cities that weren’t their home could be time-consuming.
Exiting one’s home city was less complicated; reentering it as well. The result was a booming economy outside of the cities themselves, and as the largest of the rail hubs, Falmíer’s station was packed with vendors and branch businesses and restaurants from the nation over. Having seen the financials of a few of the businesses that called the station home, courtesy of peeking over a few unsuspecting Drinarna officers’ shoulders when she’d help take down a human trafficking ring a while back, Emilia remained unconvinced renting space in the station and commuting in every day was worth it.
“Oh fuck! There
cannot
be more stairs!” someone yelled as they began down the penultimate set of stairs, which would eventually lead them to the papers checkpoint. Olivier had all their papers. None of them could be trusted to keep their shit organized, and she’d already proven liable to lose anything that touched her person.
Around them, more than a few Drinarna officers snickered, earning them a collection of confused glances from Olivier’s students.
“The Drinarna are one of the most well-trained police forces on the continent,” Emilia explained to them, everyone having accepted the day before that she was something of an authority of Free Colonies—at least, when compared to the average Baalphorian. While she had never purposefully shared who her father was with the class, avoiding using her last name and Olivier never bringing it up, she’d been forced to admit her father was
the
Miles Starrberg, Secretary General and one of President Daymark’s closest advisors. There had just been no other way to explain how she’d known Lan’za and all the other people who had filled her friend’s various stories of her antics in Seer’ik’tine.
It didn’t really matter—not here, anyways. One day, when she went to university for real, Emilia wasn’t sure what she’d do. It wasn’t exactly uncommon for students from prominent families to use pseudonyms while in school, or even early in their careers. Some people loved to throw their family’s influence around; lots more didn’t. The OIC System—which managed virtually all academic and employment records—was generally pretty accepting of people wanting a bit of anonymity. Some room to become their own person, out of their family’s shadow.
In a decade, Emilia would have to figure out what she wanted to do. For the moment, she supposed she was getting to experience what living as
herself
would be like.
Currently… she had mixed opinions. Yes, everyone quieted down as she explained that Lüshanians chose their careers far earlier in life than children of many other nations, around the age of thirteen, and that, for the Drinarna, this resulted in early training in multiple languages, including Baalphorian. Yes, everyone had so far been rather nice about not asking too many questions about what it was like to be the child of one of the most influential men on the continent. Emilia didn’t think it would last.
Eventually, she would be a know-it-all, blown up on her so-called importance and knowledge of the world.
Eventually, the politeness would break, and she would be left blowing off probing questions about her father and other important dignitaries.
Until then, Emilia would keep babbling about the things she knew, answering what questions she could. Stars knew Olivier didn’t seem to mind, and she loved the Free Colonies. Sharing their culture with people was enjoyable, and while she would never claim to be an expert about anything other than the Dionese Inner Court, she was definitely more knowledgeable than any of the students around her. Most things, she wouldn’t get wrong. Most things, she would caveat with
as far as I know.
“As far as I know,” she continued, answering a question from one of the few students who hadn’t treated Free Colony culture as lesser yet, “very few people regret their career choice? I think a few do, but…”
She hesitated a moment before adding that not all careers were open to everyone. “It’s not an official exclusion,” she tried to explain, “but when choosing careers, everyone goes through a number of phases? So, they choose the careers they’re interested in, do an internship in each, then decide which careers they’re still interested in. From there, they go through a few rounds of interviews and are offered positions. There are definitely some issues with certain careers not accepting anyone from certain backgrounds. With the Drinarna, few teenagers who live in crime-heavy areas are selected. On top of that, legacy children are almost always accepted, so if there are too many legacy children one year, people who might have otherwise been allowed to become Drinarna are refused.”
“Can people try again another year?”
“People may try the following year to change,” a Drinarna officer Emilia vaguely recognized commented as they passed him. “Rare. Mostly, teenagers take other career choices and find happiness.”
“It is hard to catch up on training,” the woman next to him offered, turning from her trek up the stairs—it really was a good workout—and heading back down the stairs with them to continue telling them about how schooling in Lüshan worked, something Emilia only knew the basics of—basics she and her friends had applied to their own studies.
To say that schooling in the Free Colony was tough was to underplay it. Most children attended boarding schools for the majority of their school days, from about age six to well into their fifties—sometimes higher, if they were in certain careers, although around thirty many of the careers began including extensive on-the-job training. Most careers also included continuing education for the rest of the person’s life, also in a boarding-school setup. The days were long, with extracurriculars filling most of their so-called free time. The adults who came out of those schools could only be described as monsters, and it wasn’t uncommon for parents in Free Colonies allied with Lüshan to seek a place for their own children in the schools and programs that allowed international students, rare as those were.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the Lüshan school system, however, was that while many Lüshanians were monsters in whatever they did—motivated, skilled, innovative—for the most part, the schooling didn’t mess them up. Well, most of them, anyways. Quite a few of the Drinarna officers Emilia knew leaned a bit too serious for her liking, even when they were trying to relax, but virtually everyone was else was chill.
In some ways, it was the opposite of many Baalphorians. Where Baalphorian youth enjoyed their freedom and became more serious adults, Lüshanians seemed to fill their youth with severity and training, before falling into something more relaxed once they settled into their careers and adult lives. Emilia could only hope that by pulling some of the intensity of Lüshanians schooling into her and her friends’ own compulsory schooling that they might be able to retain their youthful innocence and joy for life as they got older… not that Penns residents were known for their severity, unlike professionals from other areas of Baalphoria. Roasalia was particularly known for its somewhat cutthroat environment.
No thanks. The longer Emilia and her friends could continue acting like the highly motivated, slightly terrifying children they always wanted to be, the better.
“Everyone line up in the order I sent you,” Olivier called as they bid goodbye to their temporary teacher—the woman was actually a teacher, returning to her home city after spending three weeks in Lüshan for continuing education, hence her immediately latching onto their group to explain the educational system to them in as many words as one could in only a few minutes of descending stairs.
It took some shuffling around, but eventually, all of his students had arranged themselves into their assigned order, so they could make their way through the papers checkpoint. Amazingly, the man had trusted her to go first, intending her to manage the students who came out behind her, as he would be stuck inside the checkpoint until everyone had made it through.
When asked who usually managed such things, he told her he usually assigned a class representative, and would ask Norrayn, if she weren’t available or willing. All he needed was someone trustworthy and with a modicum of sense when it came to dealing with Free Coloniers and their diverse laws.
When asked if she would prefer he ask Norrayn to take over, Emilia brushed him aside, her eyes catching the glimmer of amusement in his eyes, almost as though he knew exactly what he was doing—knew that when she was responsible for managing other people and keeping them safe, she was usually on much better behaviour.
Odd… how had he learned about that? As far as she knew, he’d never seen her prioritize other people over her own enjoyment and spontaneity—although, when she thought about it, she was certainly doing that so she didn’t cause
him
any problems…
“Tark!” a system announcement called, her Censor automatically translating the Lütian word for
next
, even if she spoke the language relatively fluently—she’d tried her best to brush up on it before falling asleep the night before. Around her, however, the rest of the class—even Norrayn—looked to Olivier and her in confusion.
“Seriously, did no one install any translation functions?”
Emilia wondered as she pushed her way into the papers checkpoint, accepting her papers from Olivier as she passed him.
“How can they all be so stupid?”
.
!
Arc 9 | Chapter 363: Into the Depths
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