[Can’t Opt Out]

No, apparently it really was that easy.

⸄You have learned all the rules. You have not objected to any, nor given any indication you intend to break them. You have asked respectful questions. You are free to go.⸅

It was probably the longest she had heard the man speak in a single go.

“But I still have questions.”

Something about the man’s demeanour changed, shifted into something that seemed to say, ⸄That is unfortunate.⸅ He made a motion with a hand, a ⸄Let’s hear them then.⸅

“Well, where do you suggest I go?” That seemed a good place to start.

That annoying twitch of a smirk. ⸄Up.⸅

Fucking up. She’d known she’d have to go up, what with the whole, ⸄The outside will kill you slowly,⸅ thing, but hearing it spoken aloud—kinda—sucked. She didn’t have to listen to him, of course. She could go up a few floors, start searching for those bridges and descend back onto the streets. That would, of course, mean spicy, toxic air and inevitably triggering the sirens, which, now that she thought about it, seemed like a giant sign that she needed to come back down here to explore, but only once she was more skilled.

Better to go up, for the time being. Still, she shot him a look, hoping her annoyance with his answer got across to him.

He seemed to sigh, that near imperceptible feeling surrounding her for a moment before it vanished into the aether. ⸄I can take you.⸅

Her mostly-faux annoyance fell away as she nodded a bit too enthusiastically. Escorts could definitely be pains—she’d spent her young dodging the ones her father had assigned her with, after all—but in such a strange place, where she could barely communicate with people? Yeah, she wasn’t about to refuse one under those circumstances.

“What would have happened, had I gone up, rather than down, anyways?” she asked, curious about what that path in life would have brought upon her.

The man shrugged the smallest shrug she had ever seen. ⸄Another unit would have found you.⸅

“Ah~ so I would have been deprived of your sweet company then?” she sighed, breaking into a long-winded lament of how tragic that would have been when he glared at her.

“So,” she continued, once she figured her teacher-escort man had just about had it with her teasing, “can everyone communicate with me like you can?”

⸄No.⸅ So curt.

She stared at him, willing him to elaborate. He did not. He was aggravating. She also had the feeling he had decided she was annoying and the best way to deal with her was to be similarly irritating. It was a good plan, in theory. It just made her want to bother him more.

“How do I communicate with people, then?”

⸄You don't.⸅

“Say what.”

⸄You do not communicate with people here. Not directly. I believe visitors who are not afforded an escort usually give up, and return to a unit for shelter until their time here is over.⸅ He looked away from her, the barest of smiles tugging at his lips. ⸄Even those with escorts do not find their stays here easy.⸅

Emilia glowered at him. What. The. Fuck. Well, that explained his ease in returning her freedom— in offering to escort her. He didn’t expect her to last more than a few days upstairs. Screw that.

She leaned back, watching him consideringly. “You communicate with each other differently?”

A nod. He looked like he was enjoying fucking with her.

“Is it something you’re born with?”

A shake of his head, so slight she almost missed it. Another look of enjoyment, and something else. Something extra that she couldn’t decipher. Something left unsaid.

“Do you have access to the system?”

Nothing, only the slightest flicker of a feeling—of ⸄You don’t really think I’m going to tell you that, do you?⸅

He’d been rather tight-lipped on what exactly the Risen Guard did, other than protect the city. Protect it from what. He’d obviously heard of the system before, but was it something that existed for him, or something that had been mentioned by current and past visitors. She’d mentioned it pretty damn fast, not seeing a point in hiding it.

Sometimes raids let everyone access the system, AIs and heroes alike. More often, it was for heroes only. An extra, fun way of interfacing with the world.

Usually, locals didn’t hide their access to the system. Then again, this wasn’t a normal raid platform, built to be a long term playground, or filled with locals unaware they were being visited by people from another world—by murderers and world destroyers.

“When did the first visitors arrive, this time around?”

⸄Seven days ago.⸅

Good, that meant she hadn’t lost too much time with her blood experiment. She tapped her nails idly against the table, drawing attention to them for the first time, watching the way the man’s eyes widened slightly as they took in the sharpness of them. As far as weapons went, they definitely weren’t the most fabulous, but in a world where books were made of thick, bulky material so you couldn’t even get a paper cut? Yeah, they were pretty damn scary.

He didn’t say anything about them, only looking back to her and waiting for her next question.

“Have any of them caused problems?”

The man tensed slightly—so slightly, in fact, that Emilia wouldn’t have caught it, what with her reduced abilities, had the air around them not shifted. ⸄Visitors always cause problems,⸅ he said diplomatically. It wasn’t a yes, it most certainly wasn’t a no. Rather, it was a ⸄We except that you will cause problems. We prepare for that.⸅ Which begged the question, was he her polite escort or babysitter?

She smiled at him, wishing him luck with his superiors when he inevitably lost her. Reduced abilities or no, she was used to losing annoying babysitters. “Alright. Shall we go?”

If he had expected her to ask more questions, he didn’t show it. ⸄I must gather supplies,⸅ he said as he rose. He grabbed the bag of dirty dishes and made his way to the door. ⸄I will return shortly. Do not go far.⸅ He didn’t quite say it like the warning it seemed to be. He might say she was free to go, make her feel as though having him as an escort was a privilege and not a requirement. It certainly didn’t read that way, though.

Emilia watched the door as it hissed shut, fingers tapping idly over the table as she waited. She’d had enough babysitters burst back in on her to know you didn't go grab the drugs—or {Blood Blade}, in this case—until at least a bit of time passed. A few had used skills on her, too. Forbidden skills peeking in on her. A few had caught her doing things, taken her to her father in hopes she would be punished. She was, and they’d lost their jobs. Spying was illegal. You did not spy on his children, no matter how well-meaning you might feel your intentions were.

By the time her nameless escort returned, Emilia had tucked her contraband items away. She really needed to get a proper bag, somewhere to store them that didn’t involve waistbands and buttons and giant pockets and hoping everything held together.

“Shall we?” she asked for the second time, following behind the man as he led her to the next set of stairs. “How many flights are we going up, anyways?” She frowned upwards. The first building she had been inside, the stairwell had gone up and up and up. These ones were inconsistent. Sometimes they went up two or three levels, other times only one. Then you had to walk to a different stairwell. It really was a horrible design—designed to torture and confuse people, no doubt.

⸄Down.⸅

She hurried after the man as he descended the stairs, leading her back the way they had come—which seemed insane. Why bother bringing her up so many flights of stairs if they were just going to go straight back down!? Had he had no idea if she was going to be an ignorant or belligerent student and been forced to prepare for the worst? Probably, but that was no excuse! This was torture! Stairs, stairs, she was so done with—

Emilia’s internal ranting broke off as they turned a corner and met with another group of people. They’d seen no one on the way up, and seeing people now sent an unnerving shock through her. A dozen men, three members of the Risen Guard and nine others—visitors, by the look of them. Their eyes widened as they took her and her own guard in. Confusion, recognition of her silverstrain colouring. She could see the thoughts swirling through them, wondering if she really was a silverstrain woman, or if it was an aesthetic choice.

Wondering why she was only showing up now.

The Risen Guard nodded to each other, stopping for a moment to—Emilia presumed—talk to one another. Now that she had experienced her escort within a confined space, she could feel the slight shift in the world as they talked. Were they talking directly over the aethernet? Pria had once said that she could feel it, to some extent, when people were interacting with the aether. Usually, it was just one bubble of overwhelming pressure for her, but when they were alone, when the world grew quiet because security systems were blocking aethernet access for tests or privacy, Pria could feel when it moved.

The other guard’s eyes shifted towards her, something unkind in them that didn’t exist within her own guard’s.

⸄Less than a day, and free,⸅ one of them said, smiling almost cruelly back at his own group of visitors, who had tensed at learning she was free. They stared at her with wide, searching eyes, trying to figure out what made her special. Given the way several of them scoffed, she could already imagine what kind of reasons they had come up with.

Her escort’s demeanour tightened, eyes bleeding cold at his colleagues—were they colleagues? He had said there were different units. These men could have been from elsewhere, colleagues in simple existence within the same career and nothing more. There didn’t seem to be any love between them.

⸄Let’s go,⸅ he said, glaring at the men until they made way for them to get by.

The visitors hissed at each other—at her—as they moved on, trying to get even the slightest hint of an answer out of her.

They were annoying.

One of them tugged on her cloak. So rude.

Her guard caught the man’s wrist before he could pull harder, grip tight enough that the man gasped and let go. Her escort didn’t release him until he had fallen to his knees in pain.

Well, if you’re going to have a babysitter forced upon you, a scary, protective one was better than a bitchy, controlling one.

“Thank you~” she sighed, leaning into the man and giving the other visitors a sensual smile. “I’m sure you can guess how I got my freedom, if you think about it really, really hard.” Her eyes slid to their guards, watching her with a look of confusion—even the one who had spoken and must surely understand her words.

Interesting.

“Shall I tell you a secret?” she asked, leaning in towards the visitors, her arm slipping into her escort’s and pulling him along with her. “You can get free like this, too.” Her eyes shifted back to the guards. She bit her lip and smiled back at the visitors. “Just depends on which way you swing, and what you’re willing to do to win.”

She popped back, falling gracefully into her escort, who thankfully had the decency to catch her. His arms were strong around her, unflinching even though, given the look on both his and the other Risen Guard’s faces, none of them seemed to have any idea what she was doing or talking about.

The visitors did, though, their faces an amusing mask of horror and denial and shame.

“Good luck~” she cheered, winking at them as she dragged her own guard away.

He looked down at her, frowning slightly. It felt like he wanted to ask her what she had just done, but she had no idea how much to trust him—no idea whether he would inform the other guards about the seed she had just planted. How long would that seed take to spread? How long before every visitor was trying to fuck their way to freedom?

She was almost sad she wouldn’t be around to see the fallout of that. She had always enjoyed a good show. She had important places to be, however! No time for stupid heroes, trying to manipulate their way out of confinement when all they had to do was be reasonable human beings.

Too bad that was difficult for so many of them.