[Can’t Opt Out]

“The school I attended is considered the top law school in Baalphoria, and virtually all of my classmates were sub-30,” Olivier explained. “It wasn’t that the school wouldn’t accept other D-Levels, but there was a certain environment that I think scared off higher D-Levels. Most of the students came from law families and sub-30 families who lived outside The Penns. There were a few new-gen sub-30s from the Sub-50s, but not many, and they were trying their hardest to fit in—to emulate what they saw their sub-30 peers doing. A some point in the school’s history, there was this specific culture that developed, and nearly everyone followed it—some still follow it, even as graduates. Nearly everyone dressed the same, had the same haircuts and accents. There were those of us who stood out for our refusal to conform, and while students from The Penns were less common, they stood out in their own way. It was generally not a good way, and virtually everyone avoided them.”

“I think most kids from The Penns go to the law school in Ursha,” Emilia commented, thinking back to the academic background of all The Penns lawyers she had discussed her case with. Virtually all of them had bragged about their Penns-based schooling, and those who had attended school elsewhere in Baalphoria tended to downplay that part of their history, as though not attending law school in Ursha was a shame upon them.

Ursha was located a little north of her own home, which was located at the southern tip of The Penns and often considered the most powerful of the various regions of The Penns. Ursha was the biggest city of the southern Penns, however, and was home to several universities, huge shopping malls, museums, amusement parks, and anything else a spoiled young adult of The Penns could possibly want for. While many children of The Penns wanted to get out and see more of Baalphoria as soon as they turned thirty—seeking out the chaos of Roasalia or travelling the nation, mostly—the majority came back for schooling, realizing that so much about the culture of The Penns was just… wrong, when mixed in with normal Baalphorian culture.

It wasn’t that they were better than the rest of The Penns—at least, Emilia tried not to think that. The reality, however, was that the environment just encouraged individuality and healthy competition. Emilia had heard horror stories from even the most normal of Penns residents about their own experiences attempting to make friends outside The Penns—or worse, outside the sub-30s. Again! There wasn’t anything wrong with the way the majority of the population—together, sub-30s and ex-300s made up less than 10% of the population—operated, but when someone who considered learning and pushing themself to the brink a great way to spend their time attempted to befriend someone who thought that was insane… Yeah, they just didn’t always mesh that well.

It was even worse for low-devs, who tended to be even more crazy when it came to finding niche passions and just letting it consume their every waking moment—all while surrounded by the lazy ease of someone from The Penns. Even at her own school, their class had been considered monsters by the other classes due to their passion and overwhelming desire to just push and push and push themselves. There was no side that was correct—and honestly? Given how much a few of them had already pushed their innovations, only their ethics keeping them from the insanity of releasing certain sparks of genius to the public, Emilia thought it was probably a good thing few people were as crazy as they were.

The last thing the world needed was more people with the same energy as her and Halen, in particular, let alone whatever was shifting through Simeon’s mind when it came to willbrands—he had picked up an interest in willbrandsmithing from her and was probably better at it than her for all the time he spent in her studio, although he rarely let her see anything he created, and she didn’t think it was because the things he was making sucked. The strategies that came out of some of her friends’ minds when it came to any sort of game they wasted their time on—board, video, war, prank—could be terrifying. Most of their class had their own passions as well, specific and obsessive enough that it would be shocking if they didn’t go to university to study it further, even after ten years of wasting time having fun partying and enjoying their freedom—

Actually, fuck that. They were all the sorts of people who would continue messing with their passion projects while they were supposed to be relaxing and enjoying their last taste of true freedom. Halen might be weird for actually going after what he wanted so soon, but he wasn’t the only one of their class who would be continuing to work towards the life and career they wanted these next ten years—something that definitely wasn’t part of normal Baalphorian gap decades, according to those older Penns residents she had spoken to, each having run into issues making friends with non-Penns residents when they realized they were still—essentially—doing schoolwork while in their gap decade.

They were the outliers, and the cost of that was life outside The Penns being less than pleasant—although certainly not terrible—for any who dared leave its territory. That was all to say that Emilia was unsurprised that Olivier had only three, weird classmates from The Penns—all with last names she recognized as being, well… it was a bit mean to say, but definitely from problem families.

“Problem families?” Olivier asked, and Emilia wasn’t even sure how to explain it without a thousand years—or at least three generations—of history.

“I can explain more later, if you want, but the short version is… people spend a lot buying a home in The Penns, and sometimes people with new wealth see it as some sort of automatic membership into Penns life? Like… it’s some imaginary card into the lives of families like mine, or the Laprise or Daymarks?”

Humming, Olivier told her he thought he understood. “Lawyers who suddenly become famous after a case will act as though they have a right to step into the world of old law families like my own and the Florens. They treat it as a right they earned, sometimes through something as simple as a singular case that suddenly set an important precedent despite their lack of skill.”

“Yeah, like that. These classmates of yours came from families like that, and while they own their homes so they can’t be kicked out of The Penns, most people don’t really like them. It’s been a long time, but they still try to force themselves in where they aren’t wanted, and speak as though they’re far more important to the upper levels of Penns society than they are. Their kids probably went to your school so they could differentiate themselves a bit, and because no one wanted them in Ursha.”

“Did you go to school with any of their children?”

“One was in my age group—Bryce Runsh. I think she’s a cousin of the one classmate you mentioned? Don’t trust me, though. Those families also seem to think breeding themselves to oblivion is the way to finally immerse themselves into The Penns’ upper echelon.”

“What was she like?”

“Nice, until her family realized she was becoming friends with a bunch of us. I think she has a form of Dyadism? Not sure which—more just a feeling from knowing a few. Her family didn’t think she had a chance of befriending us, from what I can tell, so unlike their older kids, who they were always pushing to get closer with us—not that we’d let them, creepers that most were; such bad, obviously disingenuous vibes, and most were way older—they just ignored Bryce.”

“Not after they found out you and your friends were friendly with her?”

“Nope, and of course, all she wanted was her parents’ approval. It was all rather… terrible, realizing that she had gone from friendly, innocent girl to someone trying to get in with us for personal gain. Like, we all understood why she’d go along with their plan—most kids will do anything for their parents' approval, especially at that age—but it still sucked, and it wasn’t something we could just let her use us for.” New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novèlfire.net

“When was this?” Olivier asked, pulling Emilia further into his chest as though he could feel how sad this story made her, even over fifteen years later.

It had been a little over a year before any of their Censors were installed, and Emilia sometimes wondered if things would have been different, had they already been installed. It wasn’t that Censors themselves had changed anything about each member of their friend group— Well, not obviously. The world in which she could be free and wild had expanded, the ways many of them managed their over attention to detail had shifted as well. Simeon had his functions to help him manage his ECC Dyadism—which was also officially diagnosed shortly before their Censors were installed, although they had all known he had some sort of Dyadism long before that—while a number of them had begun using the function that Olivier insisted on using the ancient version of. There had been dozens of other little ways functions—mostly designed by her and created specifically for her friends—had helped them fall into their late teens with grace and ease. For the most part, however, they were the same people they had been before that day. Just more balanced and more chaotic—not to mention more dangerous—all at once.

What Censors would have done was rather simpler: they would have allowed Bryce to explain what was happening to her. Within hours of acquiring their Censors—and highly against recommendations from the people who installed their Censors—Emilia had been messing with each of her friend’s Censors, making functions and working on that first version of her Censor System hack. Parents could monitor their kids’ messages, if they wanted, and one of the first things Emilia had done was figure out a way to get around those monitors, just as she had with their pre-Censor tablets. Oddly, many of them actually had parents who had never really monitored them—or, at least, most of their parents had never said anything about the things they found in their normal chat, which they had kept populated with general chat and less insane plans, just so the parents who did watch their children’s every move wouldn’t grow too suspicious.

Had Bryce had the ability to speak with them through her mind—the ability to speak without her cousins watching and listening, as they had increasingly done in those weeks before Emilia and her friends had been forced to eject her from their group due to her actions—perhaps things would have been different.

“Things might have turned out the same,” Olivier told her as she sniffled—only sniffled, not cried!—into his chest, each brush of his fingers over her skin cataloguing into her mind as perfect and comforting, just a little awkwardness lingering there because Olivier may very well have never comforted someone before.

“I know,” Emilia admitted, “but her life at school after that wasn’t that great. Like… I think you already realized this, but our group of friends was weird.”

“I did suspect,” Olivier teased—actually fucking teased!

“Mhm, mhm. Well! Let me put your suspicions to rest! We were weird and scary and too influential for our own good—and to be honest, there was a while there where we were still kids, denying how much influence we had. We set the trends. We were the kids almost everyone wanted to be friends with, even if they were terrified of a bunch of us. The rest—like the group Halen eventually fell in with, or the daughter of my father’s secretary and her friends—they hated us. Enemies to the core.”

“I do not think Halen currently views you as an enemy,” Olivier had the audacity to point out. “Lan’za said it is… complicated, between the two of you.”

“Of course she was gossiping about us,” Emilia muttered, happy to note the way Olivier shifted uneasily under her but not cruel enough to not brush it off as fine; really, she didn’t care that much about him knowing.

“It is complicated, but even if mine and Halen’s relationship seems to be on an upturn, trust me: a lot of our school years were antagonistic, and Polianna and I? I would leave her ass to drown, given the chance, even if Coral would be sad. Coral can do better, anyways. The point is, there were always lines drawn through our school, and Bryce’s situation was impossibly complicated from being briefly let into our group—cause it really wasn’t like we were friends with her for years or anything, we just invited her to sit with us at lunch a few months before she was ejected because she was all alone.”

“She neither belonged on the side that wanted to be your friends, nor on the side of your enemies?”

“Something like that. I think she could have fit in with the people who disliked us, but there was no way her family would let her draw a line like that. Those kinds of grudges last generations in The Penns. That’s part of the reason those families are in their current position of being disliked: everyone remembers hundreds of years ago, when they pushed too hard and broke relationships so firmly their descendants’ can’t even pick up the pieces, although, their current pushing definitely doesn’t help. The thing is, even if Bryce had stayed our friend, her family wasn’t coming with her into our circle?” Emilia sighed, grumbling that it wasn’t like the Drydens or Lowrys or Zentaris were allowed to step foot into the level her family existed on simply because she liked their kids, just like the Mhrinas hadn’t been excluded from invitations simply because she and Halen had constantly been playing war.

Olivier made a considering sound before telling her that, in his experience, people outside such levels of society often didn’t understand how such circles worked, even outside The Penns, and wasn’t that just great? Emilia had known it wasn’t just an issue in The Penns, but her previous experience with exclusive societies had extended into the Free Colonies—mostly Dion—rather than other areas of Baalphoria.

“Tell me about it?” she asked, settling in because this? Olivier speaking in a harsh tone about the shitty people who had repeatedly tried to get into the good graces of his various family members? This was Olivier being mean again, and Emilia was so here for it.

Give her more juicy gossip, please~