IX Malcolm

Malcolm watched out the window of the carriage as the gas lamps that lined the streets began to be lit, illuminating the city with cones of warm light. Upper Elysia was kept immaculate by the small army of guarantee workers in grey robes. They kept their heads low, scrubbing at masonry and picking up cigarette butts. Malcolm observed the street passively. He had a negotiation coming up. Negotiating with a bureaucrat who had the slightest bit of power was 80% ego-stroking, 10% letting them know you are on their side, and 10% seeming important enough that you being on their side will stroke their ego, with the remainder being genuine institutional concerns.

As easy as it was, nothing drained Malcolm faster, which is why he much preferred some combination of blackmailing and knowing their bosses, which also worked. The flaw in this is that getting to know their bosses was 80% ego-stroking, 10% letting them know you are on their side, and 10% seeming important enough that you being on their side will stroke their ego—and, well, there are some people for whom blackmailing is not a viable long-term stratagem.

Friendly relations with the mayor in particular always proved taxing, and this time he had a big ask, and they both knew it. According to his calculations, it would take precisely three lavish dinners, four late nights out, and listening to the story about being invited over by the Swancourt’s roughly one hundred times, with various levels of drunken embellishment. Just the simulation was exhausting. He knew how to play the game but wondered exactly what others got out of these ‘friendly relations.’

The annoyance buzzed in his head incessantly and he pictured losing his temper. He had the carriage driver stop in front of the tobacconist. This was no time to quit. Besides, it was that perfect chilly weather for inhaling rich, warm smoke. This marked the four hundred and sixty-third time Malcolm had quit quitting. There is always later, he thought, and pulled out the slender black cylinder from its wrapper, placed the gold end in his mouth, lit it with the engraved silver lighter he kept telling himself he would throw away.

When he finally arrived at his penthouse, his staff rushed to him, grabbing his outer garments, dusting them, and putting them away. He removed Esmeralda putting her in her case with one last bit of polish. “Fetch me a coffee and a cognac.”

Niles, the butler, bowed shallowly. “Very good, sir. And would sir like a hot bath?”

“Yes, that would be lovely.”

The Butler turned to go.

“Oh, and Niles, send someone out to get ashtrays.”

“Very good, sir.” The Butler said this with another slight bow. Malcolm often told them to throw away the ashtrays as a sign of his commitment to quit, but he was pretty sure at this point they just kept them in storage.

“Daaarling, is that you?” Sapphire said, her voice playful and coquettish, as she began exaggeratedly descending the stairs. “Good! I have been terribly bored.”

Malcolm eyed Sapphire giving her an unbalanced smile. “I see. That is my job, then? To amuse you?”

“Isn’t it?” She said. “So tell me, how did the hunt go, darling?”

He gave her a weary expression, “I need that cognac.”

“Aww your prey not worth the catching again?”

He sighed. “It has been flavorless of late.”

“You could always try hunting banana fish!”

“Esmeralda is not meant for underwater.” Though Sapphire was occasionally amusing, she possessed no ability to read a situation. Malcolm should have guessed as much when he picked her. He walked past her and began ascending the stairs towards his bath. The lights went out, and the background hum of the city was silenced. Someone had set off a JOLT, probably another teenage noble having a spot of trite rebellious fun. The infrastructure quickly reset, and the lights turned back on. He continued to make his way up the stairs.

Laying in the hot bath, he inspected his body. There was not so much as a bruise. Should he give up the hunt? Malcolm couldn’t think of another hobby that could fill the void. Business was just business. Relationships were too. The hunt had been his. Malcolm lit a cigarette and took a hungry sip of his cognac swishing it around his mouth. Cigarettes always tasted best right after quitting. Perhaps it was just the nature of joy to be ephemeral. No, that wasn’t true in the case of the hunt, they had objectively become easier, and more tedious. He could measure it just from the amount of fictionalization Edgeworth added into his accounts, that was a clear external measure it was getting worse.

What he needed was to do a better job of vetting his prey. Money was, of course no object. So long as he got that rush again. If his next hunt didn’t serve as a palate cleanser, he would hang up his gun. Hang up my gun and do precisely what? Collect space rocks? Throw lavish parties? The nobility were the worst gossips around, if you were not seen throwing money around you might as well be insolvent. Hunting had been acceptable, occasionally enjoyable, and by far the least wasteful in terms of auren per unit of reputation earned, especially if like Malcolm, you preferred a challenge. What was the point of power when all your options for maintaining it were distasteful?

He slid on his silk robe and went to bed. After a few minutes, he heard Sapphire’s unmistakable clomp. She had her own room with her own bed but most nights insisted on sleeping next to him. She lifted the heavy down cover and moved next to him. She claimed it was for the extra warmth, and yet her heated blanket sat in some closet with many of the other things he had bought to fulfill her transient wishes. Perhaps not everything was business. He turned, giving her a kiss on the forehead before falling soundly asleep.

The Academy Girl

– Three years prior –

The Vestal Virgin Academy for Young Ladies stood apart from the rest of the city with its anachronistic spiraling gothic architecture, its grey masonry contrasting with some of the most sublime stained glass one could hope to see. It was built inside of the husk of some second age religious structure.

There, girls starting from a young age, are tutored and molded to be ideal partners. Elegant, always knowing what fork to use and how to dance. Learned enough to make witty-sounding conversations but not enough to question their husbands. Taught to be tolerant of all manners of behaviors their husband might exhibit. Notoriously well-groomed, able to apply makeup and select the perfect outfit to be a proper accessory to her husband. Of course, the main criterion for selection was how beautiful the girl was projected to become. Though their projections had startling accuracy, in the case that one of the products grew surprising features, they would be sanded down with cosmetic surgery. Those girls who were not selected for marriage by the time they turned twenty would instead work off their substantial debt by putting their charms to use elsewhere.

There were, of course, other such academies, but having a wife from one of them was like buying any other off-branded things—you will spend every encounter trying to explain why, logically, it is just as good or better. Even if it is just as good or better, deep down, you will not be able to believe it yourself. The other academies also did business with those seeking a live-in mistress, but Vestal would only sell marriage contracts—if there was one thing the headmaster knew, it was how to maintain brand image. They accepted less than 1% of applications parents submitted, but for those they did accept, they paid handsomely. Those girls selected for marriage contracts would have their station increased to that of their husbands, the only way in Elysia for a copper girl to become gold. Certainly many of the parents held this bit of trivia on their tongues as they imagined what they would do with all the money they would get for selling their daughters. This led to a whole cottage industry popping around preparing applications. Where there are bread crumbs, there are birds to peck at them.

In Malcolm’s youth, he had explored and experimented in all manners of physical interactions in an attempt to produce emotion. But everything he tried had just left him feeling colder, more uncomfortable. The thought of his younger self going through those “experiments” made him vaguely nauseous. He understood the practicality of the matter—in his early thirties and having taken the helm of a company, marrying became a default expectation.

He debated marrying for connections, but that would be too draining. There would be expectations placed on him that would not be worth the extra social capital. He had enough to easily afford a Vestal, so he thought he might as well. His butler scheduled the appointment.

An ebony carriage arrived, decked out in burgundy satin and silk, its steam engine purring with a melodic thunking rhythm. In the carriage, there was a heavy black leather binder containing a set of files on the available girls. All the pedigree information a horse breeder could hope for was in there, pictures from various angles, health checkups, and a handwritten “Letter to my future husband.” Everything was there except for price—that would be gauche. The lurch in his stomach started to make him feel as if he was making a mistake, but he calmed himself. This was his best option, aside from a few eventual rendezvous to produce an heir. He only really needed to see her on social events.

The premises of the Academy were surrounded by luscious well-groomed gardens that always smelt of spring with ancient vines that snaked up the walls. Two great mahogany doors were pushed open by servants as he walked under the archway and began to take off his gloves. “This way, sir.” An immaculately dressed escort bowed while pointing his right arm towards the grand hall, where the girls stood in a line.

Malcolm walked around them. While aesthetically polished, they were just that, polished—even graded using gemstones. Each exuded a desperate and servile energy while attempting to hold themselves as delicately as possible. While it was permitted for them to decline any gentleman, the consequence of failing in their role of attracting a suitor made this functionally unheard of. From a young age, they had been conditioned, molded by carrots and sticks, into this. Looking into their eyes, the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach intensified. Not human eyes, they were doll-eyes—the same passive doll-eyes his mother had.

It was permitted to take them on dates, give them a bit of a test run so long as physical interactions did not exceed a courtly kiss on the hand. But what was the point? Malcolm was sure after a lifetime with one, you would know exactly as much as you did after reading their folder with their letter written in cloying cursive script.

“Is there anyone else?” Malcolm asked, the first words he had uttered since getting in the carriage. The girls visibly collapsed but then immediately straightened themselves up, making extra effort to appear dignified, like a runway model who stumbled on a bit of carpet.

“Sir, with respect, these are all the girls we have, ages 16-19. We do have younger… but I am afraid we must insist that fruit still ripen.” The headmaster said in a regretful tone, adding, “though that is not to say some discreet mutually beneficial arrangement cannot be arrived at…” with an ignorant knowing smile.

Malcolm balled his hand into a tight fist. He was about to leave when he heard someone yelling—

“Where in the hell did you put my book?”

The headmaster’s face cycled from embarrassment to rage and back again.

Malcolm turned to the source of this disturbance. In a frilly rumpled dress that didn’t quite seem to suit her, with bangs that curled against her forehead, long wavy chestnut locks that reached her waist, and bright clear blue eyes, there stood a girl. She seemed immune to the awkward silence that followed in her wake.

The headmaster stamped his foot his eyes screaming do something to a nearby servant. “Young lady, your sisters are now undergoing a selection by this fine gentleman!”

“Sorry to be a bother, sir.” She said, giving a cursory bow in Malcolm’s general direction, then turned back to the headmaster and exclaimed, “Now where is it? I wasn’t finished yet!”

Malcolm broke out in laughter. “What about her?”

“Her, sir? I am sorry, sir, but, as it might be obvious, she has been delisted for her behavior.”

Delisted, that’s why Malcolm didn’t see her portfolio. He looked at her eyes, which bore an impatient, self-possessed expression. She impatiently shifted her face. A tiny spark of levity overtook him. “Good, I will take her.”

“Sir, I must insist, she does not meet the Vestal brand!”

“Then I am all too happy to take her off your hands. I trust that will not be a problem?” Malcolm’s dealt with enough men like him. To such a man, his words were not so much forceful as they were force itself.

The headmaster simply gulped and nodded his head.

“Good. Write up the contract, and I will see you are paid in full.”

Arms crossed, sitting on the opposite end of the carriage on the way back, the girl named Sapphire spoke to her new husband directly for the first time. “Why choose me?”

“You are not dull.”

“I see.” She said, nodding her head and looking out the window.

Malcolm picked up the report on the company’s attempt at an air-cooled modular nuclear reactor. It still wasn’t nearly reliable enough for his tastes. It looked like their reliance on Atlas would have to continue. It was a valiant effort, but best not to throw the good money with the bad. By the time he put the report down, she was still looking out the window. It had been a long silence.

“So, what is the book?

She turned to look at him. “What book?”

“The one you were yelling about.”

“Oh, that? Nine Stories. It’s an old classic.” “I will see that a copy appears in your bedroom.”