[Can’t Opt Out]

Something tugged Olivier to a stop—something that he couldn’t explain yet had felt in soft ruffles throughout his life. A quiet urging to do this or don’t do that. At least, normally it was something quiet—something soft that, were he disinclined to listen, he would have simply swept aside as anxiety or indigestion.

This was not something quiet; rather, this was a roar inside him, telling him that under no uncertain terms could he go any further towards the next stairwell.

Something was wrong, and something didn’t want him to go that way.

“What’s wrong?” Porsq asked, stepping closer to Olivier. The boy peered up at him, and for the first time, Olivier was hit with the reality of how small he was. Although Cheska had told him Porsq was almost thirteen, in no way did he look it; instead, Oliver would have guessed he was eight or nine at most. Not only was he petite, not yet even having the gangly, awkward body of a preteen, but there was also just an energy about him that was simultaneously both innocent and very done with the world—the energy of both a child and an old man, ready for death.

With any luck, by the time they were out of this place—not just the building or the city but Lüshan as a whole—he would have come up with a plan of what to do with all these people. It wasn’t his job, but Olivier felt responsible for them. Of course, he had grown attached to several of them as he slowly got to know them as they crept through the levels—thankfully, they’d managed to avoid running into anyone yet, the one person who had occupied the lower levels who was considered significantly more loyal to Fräthk napping and none the wiser that they had slipped silently from one stairwell to another.

Some of the people were insufferable—some mixture of traumatized and unbelieving that they could actually escape, and people who just possessed generally unpleasant personalities. Others, he was now attached to—was now invested in keeping safe. Few of the people talked about what they would do once they got out of there, but it was clear that several of them had attachments to one another—friendships, and in at least one case, an unrequited love. So, it was possible some of them would be sticking together as they learned how to function out in the world.

Some of them, however, were clearly on the outs with the others. A few were so unpleasant, that… yeah, Olivier couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be friends with them. Others, like Porsq, were just at the wrong age to be friends with anyone, leaving a question of who he would go with—if he would even willingly go with any of these people—once this was all over. Aside from the two children and Porsq, the youngest member of their group was Cheska, who was in her early thirties—at least, she thought she was. Of the many things Olivier had been told as they travelled, he had learned that many of them people Fräthk took were homeless or transient before they were picked up, leading to many not being completely sure of how old they were.

“Some of it,” Cheska had explained, herself one of the more recent additions to what everyone referred to as Fräthk’s little bugs, “is that there is now a lurking sense of dread in the city. Fräthk’s been brutal about swiping up valuable people for a long time. It was bad before their trafficking ring was shut down, but with Gëon’s influence and reach growing, they’ve been more desperate—been taking more risks. Before, Fräthk would just swipe people up from the street, so yeah, there was always a danger to people with valuable abilities, no matter what sort of life they lived, but it wasn’t so bad as it is now. Now, Fräthk’ll even send their loyal little bugs into houses of the rich, seeking to swipe someone up. A lot of risk, not just to the people in the home, but to the little bugs as well. More little bugs have died sneaking in to grab more little bugs than did civilians in them houses.”

“Personally, I think it is a calculated plan,” Izurial had added in, his arm looped through Olivier’s as they trudged up and up and up. Apparently, several of the people Izurial was constantly forced to service liked to take him out and about. In order to not risk him running off, they’d starved him even more than the other captives, leading to his muscles decaying within him. As a result, the silverstrain had already tripped several times. Not wanting to risk the man hurting himself or taking anyone else out if he fell, Olivier had offered to help him out—the stars knew they didn’t need him breaking a bone in a fall, all because some of the people who worked for Fräthk were sick fucks.

Seriously, it was one thing to prioritize keeping yourself and your loved ones safe over other captives, but forcing Izurial into sex work for them was another level of cruelty—something unnecessary and serving no one but themselves. Olivier knew that some of the people they would come across would likely have bad pasts with the members of their group, much like Xavier and the woman who had contributed to his parents’ deaths. That was terrible, but while tensions were high and most of the group was ignoring the woman so well no one had even bothered to tell him her name, they accepted her presence because it was difficult to tell someone they should have continued living in filth and starvation rather than seize on opportunity to find a little more happiness.

If they came across someone who had forced themself on Izurial for no other reason that they could, there was a chance that he would revolt at the idea of letting them join their group. There was also a chance he might just outright kill them—might even step on their body as they moved past them, too.

“What’s a calculated plan?” Porsq had asked, popping up on Olivier’s other side. For as small as he was, he still had that childhood energy that let him go and go and go. Eventually, he would crash, so everyone was trying to keep him from running around too much, but he was clearly excited—evidently, while some people were allowed in and out of their cells to do jobs, Porsq was considered a flight risk, so was only ever brought to different rooms in the building if his abilities were needed.

“I ran off once,” he had told Olivier when it came up, a little gleam of pride spreading over this face. “Used my abilities to convince the person moving me to let me go. Now, they always send enough people to stop me from doing that, when they have to deal with me.” The boy had shrugged, muttering something about how he was almost sorry he was leaving, as he had been working on expanding his abilities so he could affect more people at once—could affect them from longer and from further distances as well.

When Olivier had dared ask how powerful his abilities were, the little brat had just smiled, something sharp and biting there, before hurrying off to talk with Renton, who while tolerant of the child, clearly didn’t enjoy the reality of what the boy’s abilities could do, seemingly without the person actually noticing. That was another reason Olivier was concerned about where Porsq would end up: the majority of the group were clearly wary of him.

“It means it’s a plan, but with extra steps,” Izurial—one of the few people who didn’t seem put off by the child—had explained to the boy, using some local word game as an example.

In the game—which they sometimes played from their cells, calling out words to one another—the goal was to get from a starting word to a final word. There were various rules as to how the words everyone called out had to be related to the previous word. Sometimes, the rules were clear and publicly stated. Potential rules included all the words having to start with the final syllable of the last word, or all words needing to be animals with something notable in common with the previous animal. Other times, the play was more open, and players simply had to explain why their words were related. It was used to teach children words and associations, as well as to think fast. Apparently, it was also a good drinking game, while more complicated versions could be used as a logic game.

At more advanced levels, extra conditions were brought in, including words or concepts to avoid. Sometimes they were outright stated—none of your answers can be blue—other times, they were vaguely stated, a list of forbidden words given—your answer can’t be this variety of flower, the ocean, or Renton’s shirt—with players required to determine the rule of no blue objects based on which words the rounds’ rule maker stated were and weren’t allowed as play progressed.

As Izurial explained it, while it could be a fun game, there were ways of sabotaging other players. “There is a balance between being too obvious about how your own plan to get to the end word is going to go, and actively tricking players to call an illegal word. If we are in a game where no blue words are allowed, but are trying for a specific species of fish as the final word, perhaps we try to get close to the type of sauce that is used in the dish that includes another fish. A player could go with ‘the sauce and this other species of fish are related because they are both in this dish,’ so call out that fish species, then make their final jump to the final fish species. However, in their excitement, they forget that the first fish—the one used in the dish—is blue. The word stands, but they lose their final jump word—which is only allowed if they believe their most recent word can transition into the end word—and boom! The next player wins.”

Olivier didn’t have a good enough grasp of Lüshanian to play the game himself, several members of the group later demonstrating the game for him, but he could appreciate the concept, and understood what Izurial was saying: Fräthk hadn’t sacrificed his little bugs for nothing.

Indeed, as Cheska had continued her explanation, it had become clear that while Fräthk had been doing this before their trafficking ring was shut down, they had largely focused on grabbing people off the street, which had been annoying but wasn’t generally dangerous to anyone but the person being swiped and anyone who actively got in Fräthk’s way. Once they started taking more than the most valuable of people from their homes, everyone in that home was at risk. As a result, it hadn’t taken long for people to start pushing family members who might be targeted out of the house, leaving them homeless or shifting between friends’ houses.

Even Porsq, who had been barely six when the home invasions became more common, had been pushed out onto the streets—apparently, he had siblings who his parents had decided to prioritize the safety of—where he had quickly been picked up by Fräthk, while Xavier’s parents had been kicked out of the home they had shared with one of his grandparents. Originally, they had managed to find friends to stay with for spurts of time.

Then, kidnappings had started popping up in both the homes of friends who dared give anyone with a valuable ability shelter, as well as workplaces, leaving more people who might be targeted on the streets and out of work. This had all resulted in Fräthk having an easier time of grabbing people up, as well as more people desperately joining them or Gëon.

“Do you think Gëon did anything to contribute to the situation?” he had eventually asked, confused as to why Fräthk would continue on if it was also leading people to their competitor. It was one thing to leave the people they wanted to swipe up more vulnerable, but if they were actively joining a rival group, knowing that their time evading Fräthk was coming to an end…

“I think it’s possible he is behind at least some of the workplace assaults,” Izurial had agreed as they reached the top of the stairs, shortly before Olivier had been pulled to a halt by that something. “While I won’t say Gëon never takes people by force, from what I’ve heard, he definitely leans more into taking people who struggle to get on in normal life, or buys unwanted children. Usually treats them relatively well, too, from what I’ve heard. He knew that Fräthk was pushing more irregulars onto the street, then planning to snatch them up.” Shrugging, the man had added that if it were him, he would have done something to push more people to actively seek to join him as well—as long as they had jobs, they had hope of eventually finding a boarding house that would accept them, but without money, that chance vanished.

Now, Izurial leaned against him, breaths coming a little heavy as Olivier stared in the direction something was telling him they should go. “Well… there is a hidden passage that way,” he replied when Olivier admitted that Porsq was right, and something didn’t feel right—that something was telling him they needed to not take the stairs. “You have some sort of connection to the aether? That sounds a lot like it’s trying to tell you we should switch to the other set of floor.”

Startled, Olivier turned to stare into the man’s silver flaked eyes. “What other set of floors?”