The Duchess (Outsider #2)

Chapter 1: The Outsider

(If you have read the book Outsider, you can skip this chapter)

On a Planet called Sol-3, there is a country called Bravadia, ruled by Emperor Willian Lidwig. In that country, there is a Province called Arcadia, which is mostly a desert. It was an impoverished province, since the desert does not yield much of revenue. In that Province, there is the village of Longburn.

The society was advanced in technology and use of Artificial Intelligence was common, advanced transport like Maglev Trains, Air Transport was common and connected all parts of the country. Hover-cars were used mostly by top government officials and was not commonly available even to Nobles.

Money was in electronic form, commonly used in apps that were registered through the 'communicator.' These were communication devices that also acted as personal computing devices. The richer sections of the society had wearable computers as their communicators, but everyone needed a communicator as it was the basic identity of the person and ability to do any transaction was dependent on your communicator.

Into this world was born, Dusk Hale, the Main Lead of the previous book, 'The Outsider'.

Dusk Hale, born in Longburn to owners of the only local restaurant called 'The Tavern', was exceptional when compared to the rest of the children in the village. She liked to study and absorb new things. While most of the rest of the population gave up study after secondary school, Dusk fought with her parents to study in College.

After she finished college, she opted to join a college project team that was developing a new version of Virtual Reality software for teaching agricultural courses.

Encouraged by the Mayor of Longburn, Dusk Hale put her heart and soul into the project. Her work was mostly in programming the computer systems to recognise hard substances in VR and make the user feel there was something actually there.

The end result was a VR Engine called HRT, that became an instant success, resulting in the Project Leader, Professor Handa being recognised by the Minister of Education. From there, the attention came on Dusk Hale, whose contribution to the project was most notable. She was awarded a Scholarship at Uni-Viva, the best university in the country.

She moved to Uni-Viva in Ci'gazze, Malliv Province, located 4,500 km from home. From a rural desert culture, she was transplanted to the most modern metropolis of the nation, with its completely different set of standards, attitude, comforts and opportunities.

The first opportunity she got was from the Bravadian Armed Forces, which was trying to modify her HRT engine to be used to train soldiers. Then someone offered to extend the HRT software to make VR version of difficult to understand tech books.

One of the investors in the project was Princess Rosemary, a member of the Royal Family who took a liking for her. Through her, Dusk got more opportunities that allowed her to leapfrog years ahead of her classmates, getting involved in larger projects.

She also made friends with Luke Jones, a post-graduate student, 6 years older than her, a prized consultant to the Military. Over a period, she grew close to him and they moved from friendship to a relationship.

When Dusk was invited to the Emperor's Ball, she met Princess Catherine, a teenager and wayward lost soul of the Royal Family. Catherine took a liking for Dusk Hale became her friend. Both the Princesses invested in a number of businesses and in each case, pulled Dusk in with them.

Then she met Princess Scarlet, a very rich, secretive member of the Royal Family, an introvert who was now forced to emerge from her hideout in a remote, hostile but beautiful mountainous province where her father was the Governor.

In the middle of helping the 3 Princesses build their Business Empire, Dusk discovered that Luke is not a simple boy from a middle-class family, whose father is an ordinary government employee. She found discrepancies in his background and as she dug deeper, to find that he is actually pretty rich him (not what she wanted in a boyfriend).

One fateful night, Princess Catherine's mother came to Ci'gazze and disclosed Luke's real identity. He was an alternate identify of the Crown Prince!

Finding her boyfriend's lies to unacceptable and even though he was the Crown Prince, she broke up with him.

Though she walked off, the Crown Prince, vowed to get Dusk back as his future wife, by any means required.