[Can’t Opt Out]

The person standing in front of Olivier—the two of them separated by nothing more than an open doorway because apparently the person was that confident they could take him, should he decided to press him luck and lunge—was a strange creature.

The Lüshanian was tall and wiry, their grey hair at odds with a face that seemed in their late 100s or maybe early 200s. Some people dyed their hair, but the crinkling curls suggested that no, they’d just gone grey early. Their eyes were a similar shade of grey, almost milky and entirely empty, as though they weren’t really seeing whatever they looked at—except, when those grey eyes fell on him, Olivier was sure they were seeing far more of him than he would like.

The person was strange, and just a few weeks ago, Olivier wouldn’t have known what to make of them. Given what he’d heard from the girl in the next cell, perhaps he would have suspected they had just been broken by their time in this place—by the things that had been done to them here. While Olivier didn’t doubt that there was some of that lingering behind those empty eyes, behind the blank face that had barely shifted as the girl suggested they just let him go—and Olivier had noted that she had only suggested that he be let go, seemingly unconcerned with her own fate here—there was something else as well.

This person reminded him of the clones as he now knew them. Just as the clones who were working—the ones who filled up courtrooms with testimony on what they had pulled from the minds of criminals and victims alike—were a blank slate, pulled over the personalities that they all possessed, this person had that same energy.

This blankness was just as much a facade as the generic personality the Hyrat clones hid their bright and myriad personalities behind was. Olivier wanted to say this was just a guess, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t like him to assume, but something told him this person was exactly like that.

That was surprising—it had been beaten into him long ago to not make assumptions about people, after all. Sometimes, like with Emilia, he failed. From the moment she burst into his life and offered to fuck him for help with her cases, he had assumed her a spoiled little princess from the Penns. Fortunately, after so many weeks of knowing one another, he thought the two of them were slowly shifting into a better position—one where they knew each other better, one where they could lift the covers a bit and reveal the people they were underneath all their public parts.

Regardless of the situation with Emilia—which despite its odd beginnings felt like a natural flow of how their relationship was supposed to go—Olivier still maintained that he was usually good at not making assumptions about anything. Not about people. Not about facts. Not about anything.

Olivier still knew this Lüshanian was tucking the reality of themself behind a wall of emptiness. Oddly, that wasn’t the strangest thing about what Olivier felt for them, however. No, the strangest thing was his desire to peel away that layer of emptiness—this seeming need to find the person who didn’t stare at the world with dead eyes, uncaring for anything and everything.

That was strange—so strange that it took far longer than it should have for Olivier to finally answer their question as to his identity and give up his name.

“Olivier de la Rue,” he offered, unsure if his family’s name would have any meaning here.

Baalphoria was so separate from the Free Colonies that during these last few years of bringing his students on trips, it had often been a toss up of whether people would recognize the name, especially as they moved further west. More often than not, people were more likely to recognize him as one of Baalphoria’s few known non-devs, but even that was relatively uncommon outside of law enforcement, the only people who tended to keep up on such information. It wasn’t like the fact that he was a non-dev was of any use, after all. Baalphoria didn’t train their children enough to make him or any other non-dev a threat through their simple existence the way the Blood Rain General’s heir, with his decades of dedicated training, was. Similarly, one of Nur’tha’s hy was a non-dev, and the fact that she both led a tribe and had a record within the Dread Coliseum made her a threat that more people were aware of—more, but certainly not all.

Honestly, Olivier would be surprised if any of his students—save perhaps Emilia—even knew what the leaders of Nur’tha’s tribes were called, let alone that one was a non-dev. He would be even more surprised if any of them knew that northerners preferred their native tongue’s Nur’tha over the more commonly used Northern Tribes, similar words in the local language used throughout the continent to describe the northern nation, although a few names edged into ideas of barbarians and savages, rather than tribes.

Later, when he met back up with Emilia, he would have to ask if she knew this. Given how much she seemed to enjoy learning about the Free Colonies, either she’d already know or she’d be happy to learn and then perhaps spend the rest of her life correcting people’s use of anything other than Nur’tha.

For the moment, however, he was left simply watching this person blink blandly back at him, no recognition filling their eyes.

“And you are?” Olivier asked, unsure of what else to do. Hopefully, at the very least the person would give him some indication of their gender, their clothing and body type so androgynous that he couldn’t even guess.

“Vtraní,” they replied.

Thankfully, they seemed aware that their appearance left questions in their wake, and they’d helpfully tacked on a verbal indicator that they had no gender preference—or was it that they preferred gender-neutral pronouns? Olivier couldn’t quite remember—there were a handful of Free Colonies with more specific groups of non-binary and gender-fluid groups who had more specific guidelines on how they wanted to be referred to, but unless he’d missed something, Lüshan wasn’t one of them. So, unless this Vtraní told him they preferred something specific, Olivier was just going to go with gender-neutral terms.

It was… a little odd that he was taking this so serious, he knew. This person was part of the group who had kidnapped him, and even if they turned out to be an overall good person—and the girl’s comment about how she knew there was disagreement among the group over his kidnapping certainly implied that perhaps Vtraní might be convinced to let him escape—it wasn’t as though they would know each other long.

Olivier’s stomach seemed to roll over with that thought—and what even was that? He knew nothing of this person, so why did it feel like they were—

“So… are you gonna let him go, or not?” the girl asked, and really, Olivier should have asked her name earlier. It seemed awkward to ask now, especially since the first thing he’d requested of Vtraní was their name.

Fortunately, when Vtraní turned their gaze back to the girl—and how powerful must they have been, to look so casually away from him, not a care in them that he could attack at any moment—they used the girl’s name.

“You ask impossible things, Cheska. Even were I inclined to let him go, I would not escape unharmed.”

“You could go with him! I know you don’t like it here, even if everyone is always like, ‘Ooh~ Vtraní is so strong and dangerous and is all set to rise and rise and rise through the ranks~’” Cheska replied, her voice pitching higher as she swayed, all over exaggeration that reminded him of Emilia. Then, in her dramatics, she fumbled and tumbled backwards, out of sight. “I’m okay!” she called, although she didn’t reappear.

Glancing back at Vtraní, Olivier found the closest thing he’d seen yet to an expression on their face. It wasn’t much, but their eyes were a little wider, their lashes a flicker of grey-black over their soft-brown cheeks as they blinked at the spot Cheska had just been occupying. It only lasted a few seconds, however, and then, their mask of indifference was back.

“Leaving the city is impossible for us, Cheska”—and yes, that was what the girl herself had said, not very long ago, even if there had still seemed to be hope within her words that maybe she could escape this place, this city, this entire nation. “If you are hoping to find an escape with him, I suggest you reassess. There is no escape from Fräthk.”

“Jerrial got away.”

“Jerrial will be found eventually. He may have evaded Fräthk’s little bugs yet, but they will find him eventually.”

There was no edge in Vtraní’s voice—no frustration. Just as their face was blank, so too was their intonation. Everything was simple fact to them. Olivier had seen similar things in court cases, when victims had to testify. Sometimes they broke down—cried and screamed until they were shaking wreaks and someone was arguing that the jury should have their memories of the witness’ breakdown stripped from their mind, lest their hysterics affect the verdict.

Somehow, it didn’t matter that the clones would never touch memories like that. Usually, they only erased memories if something that had already been disallowed was accidentally—or, more often, purposefully—introduced during questioning. That didn’t stop lawyers from requesting hysterical breakdowns be removed from jury memories, as such strong emotions could affect the jury more than the facts. Olivier actually agreed with that sentiment that the emotions of a witness were often seen as more persuasive than facts and evidence—after all, juries didn’t like the stoic, broken witnesses. If something bad happened to you, you should be screaming and crying, you should be falling apart.

If something bad happened to you, how dare you turn into a shell? The only thing worse than that, when it came to the jury’s opinion of a witness, was when they managed to find happiness—but only if a specific amount of time had yet to pass. A year to get over the murder of your wife? No, you shouldn’t have any happiness yet. Five years to get over the death? No, then you should have found some happiness, should be moving on. Five years gone, you should—apparently—only be tearing up, and—

“You also have so many thinky thinks…” Cheska noted, popping back up to stare at Oliver and drag him out of his frustration with people who demanded that mourning and grief and trauma follow a set timeline—check off specific points on a list.

“Yes,” he commented mildly, wondering if he should point out to Vtraní who and what he was.

While they were difficult to read, Olivier still had the impression they had no idea of who he was or how complicated his kidnapping would be for the Baalphorian government. Unfortunately, knowing so little about this Fräthk or their intentions, he had no idea how they would react to learning that the Baalphorian government might start a war to get him back just as easily as they might leave him to his fate. For Fräthk, he could just be a means to an end, his purpose now fulfilled, or, they could have been planning something else for him.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone had been kidnapped with the intention of starting a war, all the reasons why war was sometimes desired complicated and insane and even occasionally sensible, unfortunately.

“What do you want from me?” he asked instead, hoping to get something—anything—from the Lüshanian.

“Me?” Vtraní asked, “or my boss?”

“Both,” Olivier responded, not really thinking through the implications of asking what Vtraní themself wanted from him—although, he’d meant to say with him, his Censor had just messed up the translation, but he was sure the meaning was clear enough.

Grey eyes skimmed over him, the smallest bit of something lingering within them, before it snapped off, and those dead eyes returned.

“I cannot say if Fräthk wants anything more with you, as their initial goal has been accomplished.”

Somehow, it felt like Vtraní had wanted to add something to their statement—who knew what. Some implication that Fräthk might use Olivier for something else? Some remark that what had been accomplished wasn’t enough or wasn’t done?

Whatever it was, Vtraní didn’t say. Instead, all they did was turn, pulling the door closed with a shudder of aether and one last comment: “I would not concern yourself with whether Fräthk has another use for you. It is always in a person’s best interests for them to be of more use to Fräthk. They are not the sort of person you want to be done with you.”