[Can’t Opt Out]

The machine was a strange thing, stretching across the room in a mess of metal and wires. It looked the puzzle, and had they been anywhere else, it might have seemed fun. Instead, it simply felt like a death trap—the jaws of a monster, its body a thousand joints of metal, welded together by the abilities of this Curtisal person, presumably.

Two doors led into the machine, one pushed ajar, while an inspection of the second suggested it opened from the other side—an escape route, most likely, something in the design of the path the first doorway led to suggesting that it was one way, and fuck if that wasn’t ominous.

Emilia let her gaze shift over the entire contraption, taking in what details of it she could see and trying to decide what to do. It said a lot about the thing that she was even taking these few moments to assess it—usually, she was somewhat more of a just go for it sort of person. A thousand things about this machine scratched at her mind in a way that suggested she needed to look, assess—decide if attempting to get through it was actually the best idea.

Unfortunately, she also had a feeling that Jerrial might attempt to make his way through it if she refused to try, and if Jerrial went, so would Vern—or, the latter would try, anyways.

From what she could make out of the flow of the machine, however, Emilia doubted more than a single person could make their way through it at a time. In other words, if she did find the people Jerrial and Clemence were looking for on the other side, they would either need to make their way through it individually or she would need to attempt cutting through it with her willbrand—assuming the path out was similarly designed for a single person, anyways.

From this side, it was impossible to get more than the barest of glances at the path that might exist on the other side, but Emilia thought it safe to assume it was either just as treacherous as the one on this side, if not worse—after all, if there were people on the other side who hadn’t made their way past this machine, it must not be the easiest thing to get through. It could be that no one on that side had the skill necessary to get through something like this, nor even the confidence to try, but…

But something didn’t seem right. The machine was weird—some strange blockage that both made it difficult to get through to the other side and difficult to escape. Yet, it was a temptation—a thing that, based on the glimpses she could get of the other side, based on the taste of yet more dried blood that she couldn’t see in slashes and splatters of blood through her senses, people had attempted to get past.

The question was whether anyone had succeeded, and whether they had then run into the guards who were lingering in the winding hallways beyond because surely, Arinesi and that other person had to be guards of the people within this room and others?

“No one ever escaped from down here, that you know of?” she asked, rising on to her tip toes to try and see a little more of the other side.

Aside from the two doors, the machine itself looked like some sort of deranged playground setup. While it was rather large, stretching at least ten metres in each direction, a lot of that space was actually unused. Tunnels of metal and ropes of wire, bridges and climbing walls, bars to hang from over shattered glass—all sorts of obstacles spread through the 1000 or so cubic metres, most of it appearing to need to be crawled or climbed through. Blood covered much of the ground, while the space between the various obstacles and paths was cut off by wire mesh—hence why they could see to the other side, if only they looked at the right angles.

Toeing her shoes off, Emilia gripped into the wire wall that spanned the entire outer edge of the machine’s domain and hoisted herself up. Supporting herself on the thin wire wasn’t exactly pleasant, even with a climbing skill running to lessen the strain on her fingers and toes, but as she climbed upwards and side to side, cataloguing everything she could see of the machine while also trying to catch sight of anything that would suggest what sorts of people lived on the other side, the ache slipped under her concentration.

Behind her, Rayleen was relaying what she knew about this dungeon to the group in what might very well have been her most forthcoming and straightforward conversation so far. Emilia’s Censor was a soft burn as it worked, reaching recon skills through the gaps in the wire—it was as repellant to her skills as the more solid parts of the machine were—to gather what information it could about the machine and the world beyond—she’d been able to spot a doorway on the other wall, presumably where the people who existed over there were hiding. Her Censor slotted each word the people behind her spoke into [[Blissful Silence]]—Clemence was currently collaborating Rayleen’s claim that while no one had escaped this particular dungeon, someone had escaped another several years ago. Apparently, Clemence had been back from school for a break, and witnessed Fräthk’s wrath due to the loss of this person—a nearly complete subject they had called the person, and wasn’t that fucking ominous as well?

A thousand bits of fragmented information flooded Emilia’s Censor. Buzzing. Laughter—but not real, human laughter. Something that felt like a willbrand, but wrong. Hooks and mirrors. Scratches in stains of blood. Fingerprints. Dials and what might have been a script carved into the machine. Hissing, hissing—so much hissing and buzzing and crackling, all random and seemingly disconnected from any real source.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Emilia’s eyes flicked to a corner of the other side of the room that she couldn’t actually see—to what she thought might be a security camera, monitoring the machine. Did it lead to anyone? This Curtisal person? Fräthk themself? Someone else? Could be no one—some psychological torture of the people on the other side, telling them that someone was always watching.

If you try to escape, someone will know.

If you try to escape, you had better do it fast.

If you try to escape, you only have so long before someone shows up to slit your throat.

The thing she thought might be a security camera wasn’t where the beeping sound was coming from, however; instead, a flicker of light was flashing on it—that silent message to anyone who caught sight of it that it was watching. Such things weren’t particularly common in Baalphoria, where the OIC’s eyes were generally quiet and unseen, but she’d seen them in Lüshan before.

Specifically—assuming that she wasn’t crazy, her Censor’s spying on an object she couldn’t make out with her own eyes and not completely jumbling the information—she’d seen this particular model of security camera in Lüshan’s governmental buildings before. Other Lüshanian buildings had security cameras, of course. Even the little bakery she and Jerrial had gone into had cameras, both within and without its establishment. They were a different sort of camera, however. It was possible that Fräthk or this Curtisal person had simply stolen or manufactured themself a camera that looked similar to the rather unique and iconic security cameras used by the government.

It was also possible it had been given to them by someone within the government, and that whoever was monitoring the feed worked for the government.

That… would be a problem—not because some corrupt Drinarna might show up to deal with them or anything. No, the problem was that the Drinarna didn’t directly control or monitor the security cameras. It was, from what Emilia understood, an exceptionally tedious job. Literally just sitting there, the person watching the feeds and hoping they didn’t miss anything because most of the people who worked for the department that monitored the cameras had to monitor multiple cameras and missing crimes occurring was relatively common.

Instead, the cameras were more often used to secure evidence of crimes that occurred on or near government property, while scaring people into not causing problems. It was only when something was seen that the situation was directed to the Drinarna, and actually… Given how many cameras each person was monitoring, did anyone ever really question how something had been missed? Emilia thought it was likely so common that unless something truly egregious were missed—like an explosion left to burn for ten minutes or something—such things were unlikely to be questioned due to the number of cameras each person was responsible for.

In other words, it would be easy for members of the department to ignore crimes occurring on their cameras, and it was possible that not only were the Drinarna dealing with a corruption issues, other departments were as well. Awesome. Just what they needed: fewer people they could trust and more people potentially gunning for them.

Of course, she’d also been receiving updates from the various groups about their progress and what they were learning. The two Drinarna interns had revealed that the department that managed the xphern network was no longer completely controlled by the Drinarna as well. From what she knew of the various information and communication networks that spread throughout their continent, this wasn’t exactly odd—a few nations also left that sort of infrastructure within the hands of their law enforcement directly, but in general, most considered it to just be asking for their law enforcement to exert too much pressure on the nation or to attempt a coup, due to the power such control gave them. As this was power the Drinarna already had, and had possessed for centuries, it was considered normal for them to control these things.

It actually surprised Emilia that Wander had given up control, although based on what the interns had said, it seemed as though he may not have had much of a choice on the issue, due to staffing issues?

Once again opening the relay with her father—he was continuing to yell into the abyss about how stupid she and all her friends were but was also muttering about weird Free Colony communication methods now—Emilia asked if her memory of a particular issue from a few years back was correct or not. As she was often left to overhear conversations her father had with other diplomats and foreign officials, it wasn’t uncommon for her to know more than she should about a number of things. At the same time, it wasn’t like she sat in on these meetings; instead, she overheard them as she bounced about the various embassies and offices she had access to, and few people outright refused to discuss things with her father while she was around at meals. As a result, she knew bits and pieces of information, but often didn’t know the whole of the situation either.

“Yes,” her father replied as she let herself drop off the wire wall, cushioning her fall with a skill that seemed to bounce off the machine—it had been much the same with her climbing skills, which her Censor had informed her weren’t operating at full capacity, due to interference from the machine. “Wander was rather pushy about working to create something like the OIC in Lüshan. While I agreed to support him in his efforts to speak with someone who would know more about developing a similar system there, I believe the consensus was it would be extremely difficult.”

“He also brought up the idea of using Virtuosi Rigs,” Vrin added to the conversation, although not in a group relay with her and her father; instead, the man simply messaged within his and Emilia’s relay, which seemed rather odd. As he had tagged along on the trip to Seer’ik’tine, presumably her father had mentioned the conversation topic to Vrin, who was likely one of the people Wander would have spoken with. “I think he was considering asking a few of his officers to have Censors installed, so they could utilize the rigs. Not sure what happened with all that—never heard back from him, but I know he was in contact with some people from the Ridge Rind as well. I can reach out and see if they know more about why he hasn’t moved on it,” he added with all the enthusiasm of someone who had a chronically strained relationship with several people who worked for the research institute.

Emilia could think of a handful of reasons why—if she were connecting all the dots properly—plans to replace the people monitoring the security cameras with something similar to the OIC and to give a few officers Censors so they could better manage the xphern network—and potentially other departments as well—with fewer officers hadn’t gone anywhere, or was potentially moving at a glacial pace.

For one, as much as Wander was head of the Drinarna and the organization had a lot of control, there was technically an actual politician at the top of the government, figurehead as they largely were. Possibly, they had refused to cooperate.

It was also possible that whatever corruption existed extended further upwards, past the people training interns, into the upper echelons of the Drinarna and other parts of the government. While Wander had a lot of power, he was only one man and didn’t actually have the blanket power of a dictator; if he wanted something like the OIC developed for Lüshan, he would need other people to support him, and that might have been difficult. As no one really knew how the OIC worked, developing something similar wouldn’t be cut and dry, and it would definitely be expensive. It would also require more cooperation with Baalphoria than was common, and a number of nearby Free Colonies would likely get antsy about allowing so much Baalphorian influence into the west, and the entire region was notoriously unstable.

As for the Virtuosi Rigs, from Emilia’s perspective, the biggest issue there was the fact that their use would require Censors, which would open the nation up to not only Baalphorian influence but to manipulations by the clones. The Hyrat clones were already something of a monster to most of the continent, due to their ability to change their appearance, lifelong training, and black knots, but at least without Censors, the clones couldn’t pluck out memories of those they set their eyes on, nor manipulate their minds in other ways.

A collection of Drinarna having Censors installed, however, would change that—would create an opening for the clones to make use of.

Emilia contemplated all this as she tugged off Olivier’s sweater—there was no way she was letting it anywhere near that machine, and yes, she realized she was insane for realizing the sweater was likely to come out in less-than-perfect condition if she took it in there with her, and yet, she was still going in herself.

Never let anyone say she wasn’t crazy.

“If I die,” she muttered, tossing her sweater and shoes to Clemence and telling the girl not to lose them or her bag—she wasn’t convinced leaving this nightmare of a place wasn’t going to involve a lot of running and no time to put her clothes back on—“I’m going to use all I know about the aether to haunt ya’ll.”