Chemistry, Chaos & Steam: A Magistery of Dunces

An Enemy in the Works

 Sorry for the long break - I just started a new job and well, the first few weeks have been pretty exhausting! On the plus side, I'm in charge of introducing a super cool robot named Pepper to the US Market. Anyhow, without further ado (and hopefully less times between chapters) here we go. 

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Three days. That's all it took for Victoria to get over being away from home. She'd always known that the one thing she would not miss was her mother, but life as a Castillo had other advantages and Victoria wondered what it would be like to do without. To hear her sister tell it, life at the Magistery consisted of having to make your own soap, wash everyone else's clothes and bake bread for the entire school...morning, noon and night. Translated, Victoria quickly realized, it meant that students were responsible for cleaning their own rooms, receiving their food on trays in a mess hall and, once finished, responsible for stacking their dirty dishes in a bin.

Victoria had also lucked out by getting the single room which gave her that rarest of accommodations at the Magistery—her own closet. Though it wasn't nearly as spacious as what she'd been used to at home, it was more than enough. All she cared about was that it capably hid a small bed. There was also a dresser and desk surrounded by shelves built into one of the brick walls. Yes, it had been rather damp and chilly at night. But after all, she'd reasoned, the school located on an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Plus, that's what the extra blankets were for.

For the first time in her life, Victoria was gloriously, dumbfoundedly, amazingly alone. As long as she did the little that was expected of her, no one ever came into her room. Plus, it was far too cramped for visitors, even with the bed folded into the wall. So it was up to Victoria to do the visiting, mainly with her newfound friend, Amy and Amy's somewhat secretive roommate, Mai Mai Feng. Mai Mai was the one person Victoria could, in an odd sort of way, relate to. As the suspected spy for the Shanghai Imperium, Mai Mai had almost as much notoriety as Victoria.

Mai Mai's mother, Chang Lu, had been the ambassador for the Imperium to the Bay Area Confederation, but had defected fifteen years earlier in what had then been widely reported as a spectacular scandal of espionage and romance. She had married Thomas Feng, a well-liked, high-ranking BAC officer from an elite squadron of paratroopers known as the Dirigible Devils. Shortly after the marriage, Thomas retired from the Airship corps and he and Chang Lu settled down to a seemingly perfect life on his Napa Valley estate. The once torrid love affair had only re-emerged in the papers with Mai Mai's acceptance to and arrival at the Magistery—that is, until the Steam Girl story took the confederation by storm.

But far from being upset by the sudden loss of attention, Mai Mai, noted Victoria, seemed overjoyed to no longer be in the spotlight. Oblivious to any of this was Leo, who'd been quite pleased to get Michael Ambilton as his roommate. What all five students had in common, however, was that unlike most of the other first-years, they weren't complaining about any of the supposed hardships they'd so far encountered.

"I don't get it," said Amy, digging into a plate of bread pudding.

The group was all seated at one table, enjoying a light lunch in the Chinatown Mess Hall. "You'd think they never cleaned up after themselves."

Mai Mai smiled softly. "Many of them haven't. They come from wealthy families and were waited on hand and foot. They had only one duty in life. Study, study, and then study some more. All to get into this place and bring great honor to their families." Mai Mai focused her attention on Victoria. "Ask Steam Girl. She is of that background."

"As are you, Mai Mai," replied Victoria, annoyed.

"Actually you both are," observed Michael. "And from families far richer than those of the loudest complainers. So why aren't the two of you like the rest of them?"