Arc 1 | Chapter 9: Not a Princess

The square outside the courthouse was filled with people. There were so many already gathered, many pressing banners and signs into the aethernet and being reprimanded by a combination of SecOps, court security and de la Rue private security. More people were arriving with every moment, almost all seemingly part of several distinct groups: the as foretold fans for the famous, non-dev lawyer, those protesting for either side of the case, and security. Occasionally, there seemed to be someone who didn’t belong to any particular group in the crowd. A reporter or a law student, perhaps. Someone who had accidentally been dragged into the crowd and couldn’t escape—at least a few people seemed to be fruitlessly trying to get out of the chaos, only to be pushed further in as more people pushed forward.

“Is this program even gonna explain what the case is about?” Beth asked dubiously. She frowned severely up at the screen, the expression making her look far older than the 39 she was. She was a baby, just over half Emilia’s age. If the world had been fair, she should have still been enjoying her gap decade. The world wasn’t fair, though, and Beth hadn’t been able to enjoy most of her life. Really, Emilia thought her friend had really only managed to enjoy the last few at Astrapan. Before that, there had been family obligations and homelessness and war raging around them, even if from what her friend had said, the war had been more of a blessing to her than anything.

“Less people to work, less people to rent,”

her friend had explained once, back when they had first been getting to know each other, secrets slipping off their tongues with increasing confidence every day. “

People were desperate for workers and renters, they didn’t push on getting paperwork and didn’t care much that I was obviously underage.”

Plus, there had been so many people missing due to the war already, and with SecOps focused on it, there had been no time or resources to look for a single, missing teenager—one everyone knew had a strained relationship with her parents, no less.

“Probably not,” Emilia sighed, eyeing up what was less news broadcast and more gossip fest, before explaining what she knew about the situation. Some she already knew, some her Censor helpfully summarized for her. Beth could have looked it up herself, but she’d gone through most of her life without one, having run away from her shitty parents before hers could be installed as a teen. Even almost a decade on, after she’d had one installed before starting at Astrapan, using it wasn’t completely natural to her.

Plus, it was bad form to use your Censor to look up everything and remove human connection and discussion from your life. That kind of isolation wasn’t good for your soul! So bad, in fact, that eventually your Censor would start refusing to provide you information if it thought you were becoming too dependent on it.

“Basically, the city has been letting this entire area fall into disrepair. They’ve been saying repairs and upgrades are coming, the costs are more than expected, and a thousand other excuses for a long ass time—this is the oldest part of the city, after all. It’s finally gotten to the point where they’re just saying it’s a write-off. No need to fix it up, just demolish the whole thing and start over.”

“Bu’ it’s our home!” Faylyn hissed.

They all turned to look at her, her light-brown skin reddening under her rare show of anger. Emilia had seen her smile and flirt with even the most obnoxiously drunk customers, their hands slipping under her clothes and her smile never faltering. Smile when SecOps raided the place for no reason. Smile when her father and her barely had money for food themselves because his health was failing, and he desperately needed—wanted—knot therapy they couldn’t afford. Faylyn didn’t get angry, but obviously, she did.

“It is,” Beth said, nodding severely. “They can’t just get rid of it—and where would all the people who live here even go? All the businesses?”

“Gov'ment wants to relocate us, but…” Faylyn trailed off, her slightly too big front teeth digging into her bottom lip.

“But they haven’t been forthcoming about where they want to relocate people,” Sil finished. His face was tight, that same look he got when he was about to bodily remove someone from his presence. Sil might look fat, especially under those huge clothes, but Emilia knew that thickness was muscle… under some fat. Her friend was built like a squishy brick wall, but most people assumed it was all squish. They generally regretted that assumption pretty quickly, if they decided to mouth off about Beth or herself, or anyone Sil viewed as defenceless. Neither her nor Beth were defenceless, but they also didn’t have to worry about breaking their nails fending off fuck boys and bitches.

No, they only had to worry about breaking nails when he kidnapped them for raids!

“My… friend,” he continued, eyes trained to the screen as he ignored Beth and her whispering

friend

to Faylyn in a way that made it obvious—as though it hadn’t already been—that this

friend

was a

more-than-friend,

“said that the documents they’ve received as part of the case show the government is planning to relocate people all around the city, with little compensation. I assume they want to break up the community.”

“You guys sure talked a lot last night,” Emilia noted as Faylyn hissed under her breath, something about how that was what everyone had suspected, but it had never actually been confirmed.

Emilia couldn’t exactly blame the city for wanting to dismantle the area to separate its inhabitants. The place was a dump. That was largely the government’s fault, of course. Centuries of mismanaging taxes and maintenance, letting buildings and infrastructure fall apart, watching as gangs and crime rose and fell and came back with a vengeance, all while never lifting a finger to stop it. This place was a mess of criminals and orphans; ancient technology and systems that were quickly breaking down. It hadn’t really been a problem until Astrapan. The university meant more eyes on the city, more questions about what it was allowing to happen. It had taken a decade, but apparently they’d finally decided on a so-called solution.

“Yer fuck friend works for them lawyers?” Faylyn asked, once she had stopped hissing to herself, her head tilting in thought as Beth and Emilia giggled at her wording.

Unfortunately for Sil, they came in here often enough that Faylyn and all the regulars knew Sil didn’t make new friends, but he did hook up with plenty of people. Never new friends, hookups—fuck friends. A few, like Haru, had managed to become friend-ish with him, but there were never boyfriends, not even friends-with-benefits or any extended sexual relationship. Sil hooked up, Sil had all the friends he needed, and anyone else he mentioned was never anything more than a one-night stand, even if he was still trying to catch a glimpse of his latest conquest on the screen.

He’d hooked up with more than a few people from around here, too. Emilia wasn't certain, but over the years she had come to think that the locals saw her friend as some kind of goal. Fuck the probably-sub-30. Most ex-300s never got a chance like that, especially not when they lived in this kind of hellhole, even if it was their home. Here was their chance for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Sil rarely walked out of the area without at least a few people offering him some kind of sexual favour, more than a few of which he accepted.

Sil hummed around his blush, his hands gripping into his sweats in an attempt to not drag them through his hair. He used to, before she’d started dating Elijah. Elijah dragged his hands through his hair in a perpetual attempt to get it out of his face. Sil didn’t like Elijah; therefore he could not, under any circumstances, have the same habit as him, especially not now, when they actually had to spend a moderate amount of time around one another.

“He didn’t say a lot about what he does for them, but…” His eyes briefly moved from the screen—and his search for a glance at his hookup—to Faylyn. “He did say that his boss is confident they will win.”

“Well, guess there’s nothing to worry about then,” Emilia sighed, smiling warmly at the young girl—because she really was too young, barely out of her 30s, barely out of the compulsory education she’d only passed because Sil had tutored her and several other local children for free. Too young to be stuck serving customers in this shithole. Family obligation, though. Her dad would die if she didn’t help out, didn’t help earn the money for the knot therapy that kept him kicking. The day was coming when he would be too sick to work, then she’d be left to run this place solo. Faylyn seemed to be making the best of it, but Emilia’s heart ached for her, as she knew Sil and Beth’s did as well. Too similar—their stories of obligation were just too similar, even if none of them knew the entire truth of each other's struggles. The bits and pieces they did share were enough to know—enough to ache for their younger selves and each other. “If the great and powerful Olivier de la Rue is confident, then I’m sure he’ll succeed.”

“Who is this Olivier dude anyways?” Beth asked. “What?” she added, frowning when the other three turned to gape at her.

“Y’dunno? Aye! I knew ya were bit deprived during yer childhood, but to not know who Olivier de la Rue is!” Faylyn cried, her expression etched with mock shock. Too amused, though, so she wasn’t quite selling it. “Y’must know about ‘is family at the very least, eh?” she asked, collapsing with a dramatic moan onto the counter in front of her when Beth shook her head.

Once, Beth would have been ashamed she didn’t know, angry that someone was calling attention to her ignorance. Sil and Emilia had beaten that out of her long ago. Questions were good, and anyone who actually meant to make Beth feel stupid would be promptly removed from her presence.

“They’re basically just this big-shot lawyer family. Sub-30s, not from the Penns, though,” Emilia told her friend.

“Rare.”

“Yeah,” she said, staring at a fridge—just as run down and rusty looking as the rest of the restaurant—filled with bottled drinks before hopping up and going to grab a few, Beth and Sil calling out what they wanted to her. “I think there’s just more work in the cities? They have a few offices throughout the country, and they’re all workaholics.”

She smiled as she slid back into her seat, the padding hard and worn out under her, and handed over the drinks—Alpha Suds for Sil, Magic Pow for Beth, and Rain‘n Ruin for herself. “Anyways,” she continued, popping the top off her drink and taking a deep breath of a fresh and spicy scent, “like… a decade or so before the war—”

“Eight years before,” Sil cut in, his eyes glazed over as he obviously read through whatever information his Censor was supplying him with.

“Eight years before the war,” she amended, “there was this case. Most of the details were closed, cause the person charged was underage, but it was this whole thing. Precedent setting case. Won’t bore you with the details, but that’s how Olivier de la Rue became known—well, he was already known, being a public non-dev. This was how he made a name for himself, though.”

“Not jus’ as a great lawyer,” Faylyn piped up, her eyes glittering as she stared up at the screen again, where people were now emerging from the courthouse, “but as someone who ‘ill fight 'gainst injustice.”

“Like this?” Beth asked, glaring up at the screen as well.

“Like this,” Faylyn agreed. “Ooh! Ooh! ‘dere he is!” she squealed, a rare show of the child she was showing through as she smiled and pointed up at the screen.

On the screen, several people were now standing at the top of the courthouse stairs, although the building likely had a slide line they could have just as easily left by, rather than risk walking down through the mass of screaming fans and protestors being held back by security. A number of reporters had stepped up to the top of the stairs as well and were attempting to ask Olivier de la Rue questions about the case.

“Olivier de la Rue!”

the reporters were shouting over one another, trying to get the reticent man to speak with them.

Instead, one of his co-lawyers, a distant cousin who Emilia

thought

might be named Clovis, stepped up to answer. Later on, the non-dev would answer questions himself, once things really got started. Until then, he would simply ignore the crowds he didn’t care for. Emilia wondered how many people knew he hated it, the fawning and screaming. It was considered natural for people idolize him. He was famous, beautiful and mysterious, and came from one of the most powerful families in the country—probably on the planet. He was also a non-dev, the closest one could get to being perfect.

Of course, scientists were always fiddling with the list of what was considered the perfect gene-set, but even if the list changed during your lifetime, your first official D-Levels, assessed when you were a teenager, were the ones that counted. Olivier de la Rue had been designated perfect as a teenager—something his family had been all too happy to share with the world, despite such information generally being kept private until the people themselves could choose to reveal it once they were adults. Almost no one ever revealed they were non-devs, though, and official estimates of how many there were in Baalphoria were questionable at best, such information only being revealed by the OIC System in very specific circumstances. Being a non-dev meant pressure and expectation—had once meant being held to higher standards in the eye of the law, until a young Olivier had smashed that precedent.

Old laws that Beth could look up if she wanted. The laws that said the lower your D-Levels the more control, the more responsibility, the more ability and skill and restraint a person should have. As though someone with a low enough D-Level should be able to stop a gun pointed at their friend, as though any death that occurred when they were around should have been avoidable—as though they should go to prison for life for keeping those they love alive in the face of a black knotted stalker.

“I don’t see why I should help you,”

the cool, indifferent voice had said, echoing slightly in the now quiet room. It hadn’t been quiet when she’d arrived, nor had his voice—lecturing on an obscure law that only existed in the far north—sounded so harsh and uninterested.

“How about because I’m cute?”

she had tried, bold and inexperienced with the world then. She had been a baby, and she had needed help that no one seemed capable or willing to give her.

“I’m also a good lay if you wanna bargain like that? You’re pretty hot. I bet you’re good in bed, too. How about it? Just a little legal help, and I’ll let you fuck me till it’s all sorted out.”

A snort. If he’d been facing her, would she have seen him roll his eyes, or was he too polite for that, even back then? Even the snort seemed too juvenile for him, but Emilia had always been good at pissing him off.

“You really think highly of yourself, princess.”

“I am

not

a princess,”

she had said with more force than she’d meant to.

“No? Your record would suggest otherwise.”

He’d turned to her then, and looked at her—really looked at her—for the first time since she’d entered that tiny, prestigious little classroom he’d been working in, come to beg for help because otherwise she was going to jail.

She could still see him as he was that day, even now, decades on. Olivier de la Rue, the image of him nearly 40 years younger overlaying with the one on screen now. He was beautiful—then, now, probably until the day he died—so heartbreakingly beautiful. Too bad his personality had been shit—although it had gotten better over the decades. Those eyes, though. Those eyes still haunted her dreams sometimes. So did his cock and his hands on her—inside her. Memories of the first time they had fucked, angry and horny and frustrated not just with each other but with her stupid case. It had been good, so good she’s spent the rest of their time together pissing him off just to see where it got her. So good that once the case was over—once he had won her freedom for her—she’d been afraid to seek him out for sex again. She kinda regretted it now, wondered what would have happened—how things would have been different—had she risked having… something with him. Even just sex.

“Too bad that isn’t the sub-30 you fucked last night,” Beth snickered, eyeing up Olivier and the way he effortlessly moved through the crowd—even she would have had to admit he had a presence, even if she disliked most sub-30s as a rule. “Then again, non-devs are a different breed. Probably better to keep away from any of them.”

Everyone moved aside for him. His fans giggled, trying to get as close as they dared, although his personal security were hovering around him. He didn’t need them, but his family insisted. He was their most valuable possession, after all. Even when he’d been a barely known teacher with only a passing record of court cases he’d assisted on, they’d been there, hovering outside his classroom door. They hadn’t liked her, she was too good at avoiding their eyes—she’d spent most of her teens evading her own security, after all. She’d even managed to sneak Olivier out from under them a few times, usually without his consent.

Sil shot Beth a look as the screen shifted away from Olivier to his cousin, still answering questions about the case. Confident they would win. Travesty. Misuse of power and funds. Bad planning was not the people’s problem. He had a nice smile, nice voice. He wasn’t Olivier, though, and Emilia shot her Censor a memo to send her videos of her former lawyer, once he did get around to speaking about the case. Usually, she avoided her past life, but this involved a place she liked, so she brushed off the tension she felt at getting too close to pain and suffering and trauma.

“Hopefully, they ain’t jus’ spouting off,” Faylyn huffed as the broadcast changed to news on the pink tide, and she muted the screen again. “We really need to win this thing, ‘specially if yer hookup was right and they wanna split us up. This place may be a mess, but it’s home! Ya’ll ready to order?” she added, frowning severely at them, as though she hadn’t been the one delaying their ordering because she was watching a news conference.

“Fuck yeah, I am,” Beth cheered, looking ravenously down at the menu. “You are buying, right? Gonna make up that whole raid kidnapping thing by filling our tummies up?”

Emilia wasn’t positive, but she was pretty sure the other girl had known about the raid. She certainly hadn’t seemed kidnapped or complained even once.

“Yes, Bethany,” Sil sighed, long-suffering, although his eyes softened as he looked at her. “I am buying. Order however much you like.”

“Good, then I’ll have—”