"I want to show you another simulation. Do you agree to this change?" He did not turn to her and left Lex staring at the back of his head, his Graexian-brown curls thick as terminal wires.
"I do," Lex said. There was no choice here. "I, Alexandra Vulcan, agree to have our simulated setting change in any way necessary to complete my interview."
Nodding, the priest raised a hand. Towers erupted from the sands and the clockwork sky transformed into shining steel. In a flash, they appeared in the streets of Troezen's Second Floor. The citizens in familiar, regulation-grey togas bustled through stores, and neon signs glowed overhead, as Lex was presented with her home district.
"An automated car loses control," the priest said, the pair flying above the crowd as a white car raced through the streets below. "The vehicle must either run down a young Empyrean boy or an elderly Graexian woman."
"What?" Lex exclaimed as two people appeared far down the road, an old grey-haired woman with a cane, and a strapping young man with blood-red eyes and hair.
"This is a choice you may have to make as a servant of the highborn." The priest clapped his hands and Lex appeared in the driver's seat. The car roared towards the Empyrean boy, a lever in the seat beside her, the words 'Pull to Stop' along the shaft.
Lex turned her family ring. Pull the lever, or not. Run down the boy, or the old woman. Graexian or Empyre. Familiar or foreign. Time slowed, her mind raced and, as the car hurtled closer, she decided.
Lex yanked the lever, the car swerving into the old woman, her toothless mouth screaming as her legs were shredding against the road. When she slipped beneath the tires, Lex felt a bone-tingling bump before the car was zooming down and away. Her eyes turned to the rear-vision mirror to see a long red stain stretch behind, the street lights flickering, the onlookers shuffling past without comment.
Lex gasped. The image of the woman's terror seared into her retina. She could still hear her scream. Her chest filled with stabbing pains like red-hot nails.
"An Empyrean girl is happy and healthy," the priest's voice echoed.
"Please, don't," Lex whispered, the scene peeling away to reform as a surgery room. Her eyes flittered to the tools—sharp, shining, pointed—presented on a flat metal tray. Her hands covered in red surgical gloves.
"She has committed no crime, but has failed to produce children, while her death would provide the organs to save three Graexian mothers. Do you kill the woman, or do you let her live and condemn the dying women to be taken by Thanatos?"
A desk appeared. Lex read a file detailing a young girl, Dulcea, with bright Empyrean eyes and hair carefully woven into a thick Empyrean braid. On the left sat three thick files of the Graexian women: Zoey, a heavy smoker; Cora, a relapsed drug addict; and Maya, a survivor of a suicide attempt.
Lex furrowed her brows and thought fast. She chose quickly. "I save Dulcea, because she hasn't done anything wrong; she isn't responsible for the others' choices." Zoey had Ash Lung, Cora had slowly been killing her liver for over seven orbits and Maya didn't even want to live. "Dulcea did not make the choices that would lead to her death. Hades should not be denied the souls of those who live without discipline."
"Good," the priest said, reappearing before her. He nodded.
Lex smiled as she sighed with relief.
"Now tell that to their families."
A crowd burst into the room, and Lex stared up with moon-wide eyes. Red-haired men and women thanked her through waterfalls of happy tears while a horde of Graexians waved their hands and beat their chests.
They cried, they grasped her wrists, they begged Lex to change her mind, and offered their bodies, wealth and prayers as bribes. A little girl stood in the corner as the lights overhead flicked on and off. Lex froze; screams in one ear, joy in the other. Love and curses. Fists and hugs.
"When is Mummy coming home?" the little girl whispered, with searching, almond-brown eyes. "Mummy wanted to stop smoking, but now she's sick. Will my mummy come home tomorrow?"
Her hands squeezed at her sky-blue skirt, her eyes flashing between the enraged adults around her.
"She was just getting better, is she coming home soon?" Her lips trembled. "Is she?"
The girl was as small as Lex's little sister.
"Enough!" Lex yelled, but they continued to argue, plead and bargain. "Servant of Zeus, please, this is enough!"
"Catch." The priest threw a dagger aimed at her heart.
In a flash, Lex caught the blade and snarled. Her blood running cold as the simulation froze. The people faded into an endless sea of white.
Remember: the most important thing is to hide your true colours.
The priest nodded, satisfied.
"I told you when we were looking at her file that the thousands of hours spent in Tengokuan battle simulations would make her dangerous. The girl has been training herself to fight," the priest said to the air. "She worships Ares the Bloodyhanded too fervently to ever be allowed to represent us Upstairs." Lex was lost for words. Her battle sims should have been well hidden from government surveillance.
She'd built the circuit-junction herself to make her data hard to track.
But not impossible.
Karras reappeared beside the priest and presented his palms to Lex. "That's all for today, Miss Vulcan, you can return to your classroom now. Thank you for your answers."
"Wait," Lex said, pretending to let the knife fumble through her fingers. "What now? Are there any more questions?" She was smiling too wide—a nervous smile.
"Do we have any more questions?" Karras asked, looking to the priest. The priest shook his head. The Highborn sighed as if that was the last thing he wanted to hear. "Then, the interview is complete. On behalf of the Department of Purity and Floor Lord D'Quan, I hope you have a wonderful day. All hail Troezen."
"All hail Troezen," the priest chanted.
"All hail Troezen," Lex spat.
She was ejected from the sim and landed back in her classroom, gasping stale air, her ratty toga swamped in cold sweat. She relaxed her death grip on the cracked desk. She'd failed, her family was doomed.
She'd never see the sky again.
Lex ran her hands through her sweat-drenched hair and to the wirehelm on the top half of her head. The back of her neck was burning, her HUD flickering with text.
[ Disconnection: Complete ]
Lex pulled the wirehelm away, the bundle of cords and steel slinking up into the dusty ceiling. She groaned and pushed cold fingers against her heat-flushed face. The neural port seared as it detached from her neck, the dregs of dancing data crashing through her mind.
Her slate had burned out.
The other students beamed at one another, discussing their questions. Mrs Agincourt's hologram demanded silence at the front of the class. An entire day of school to go, but what was the point? She'd lost—all those orbits of study were for nothing.
"Sparkfather's beard," Lex whispered and slumped against the desk. She'd failed, and her family was doomed.