Chương 399: 182.Free Labor 2

The next morning, as usual, I took Maki to school on the bike. The snow had stopped, but not completely. There was still a thin layer of white on the sidewalks and branches, and the morning sun made the streets so bright it felt like someone had just hosed the city down with cold water. The tires whispered over the half-frozen slush at the edges, a light grit sound. Like winter quietly saying: I saw what you did last night. … Fantastic. Even the weather had teeth now. Maki sat behind me the way she always did.

Hands steady, not too close. Nothing like Hedwig last night. Completely normal. So normal that I could feel myself getting abnormal about it. I stared at the road and bullied my brain back into Vice President mode.

"You're in a good mood," Maki said from behind me. I blinked.

"Am I?"

"You are," she said.

"You haven't cursed the weather, the school, or the Seitokai once. That's not like you."

"... Maki, your evaluation of my personality is very biased."

"Not biased," she said.

"Long-term observation." I snorted and didn't turn around. But she was right. I was in a good mood. With good reason. Once we parked and got our helmets off, the cold still clinging to my shoulders, my body went into its usual autopilot toward the Council office. Maki walked beside me, skimming her terminal, just as naturally angling that way. I only realized something was off when my hand closed around the handle and didn't turn. Locked. I stared at the door for a second, my brain going blank. Maki stopped too.

"Something wrong?" she asked. I looked at the door. At the empty hallway. And finally, very slowly, remembered something we'd been too busy to internalize until past nine last night. We were done. Actually done. No more crawling in at dawn to mop up committee disasters, patch budgets, or stitch mutilated processes back together. No more worrying about which department would show up trying to bury Roy under "ritualism" or some equally fancy corpse. Now, basically— We were waiting for Christmas break.

I stood there at the locked door and had a near out-of-body moment. Humans really are pathetic creatures. You take freedom for granted when you have it. Let forms, schedules, minutes, and trash can routes train you for too long, and the sight of a closed door can bring you to the verge of tears. In the Federation, to accommodate people scattered across different star systems, the old Earth Christmas and the first few days of the new year all got lumped together into "New Year leave."

Roughly: instead of scattering a few days here and there, just package it and let everyone enter a synchronized state of let's not pretend to be functional. Usually you got two to three weeks. Hedwig had mentioned a few days ago that the Empire did pretty much the same, just without the "Christmas" branding. They had things like Imperial Apotheosis Day and Imperial Foundation Day—names that sounded like they came with poster campaigns, flags, and built-in propaganda decks. Very on-brand.

Even their holidays were reminders to be grateful. As for me— Forget holidays. I'd never really felt what "celebrating" was. Things most people took for granted—Christmas, New Year, family dinners, gift exchanges—existed, for me, mostly in shop windows, discount ads, and other people's photos. You knew it was out there. You didn't expect it to land on you. So when I finally registered, standing there with my hand on the lock, that I was getting a New Year leave this year, the happiness hit hard and stupid.

Primitive. Intense. I was borderline euphoric the entire morning. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. I walked like I owned the hallway. I liked the sun. I liked the snow. The cafeteria gave me an extra chunk of radish in my soup and I almost told the lunch lady long live the Federation. Maki watched this with increasing suspicion and finally, before lunch, asked:"Are you sure this level of happiness is appropriate?" I cupped my soup.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I genuinely didn't think I'd ever have such pure and healthy faith in the concept of 'time off.'" She was quiet for two beats.

"That sounds sad," she said.

"Thanks for the concise summary of my life." She gave me a look. The corner of her mouth twitched—almost a smile, not quite. On Maki, that nearly invisible relaxation was as lethal as a full grin on anyone else. For a second I forgot I'd just been praising human civilization for inventing holidays. I remembered instead that this was the same woman who'd sat behind me on the bike last night and walked into school like nothing had happened this morning. Meanwhile my head felt like it was full of contraband. Enough.

People should not be internally rioting while going on break. Anyway, I spent the morning stupidly happy. Until the afternoon. Until I went to the Council. And, within three minutes of walking in, had all that bright mood neatly erased. Trying to describe it was tricky. It felt like buying a nice bag in the morning, then looking the product number up after lunch and realizing it was a knockoff. A really good knockoff. The kind that hurts worse. Everyone was there. Maki behind the desk. Roy with some new stack.

Lan against the side, flipping through a file. Jess on the sofa wearing the look of someone who already knew who'd die first. Hedwig too, sliding a freshly printed notice into a binder. I walked in still carrying a trace of my morning brightness. Maki killed it in a handful of sentences.

"The Seitokai's on duty over New Year," she said. I froze. I was pretty sure my soul vacated my body for at least two seconds.

"... What?"

"During the break, some of the campus security staff will be off," Maki continued, as calmly as if she were reading the weather.

"Faculty on duty are down to one or two, so the Seitokai and the Disciplinary Committee will be taking turns." I stared at the duty notice. Black on white, neat font, clear bullet points. I understood every word. Put together, they read like an exceptionally vindictive archaic curse.

"Why—" I was practically drawing blood with that word.

"Isn't 'break' supposed to be for breaking? Why would you stuff duty into a holiday? How is that any different from hiding screws inside a cake?" Roy didn't look up.

"Screws have industrial value," he said.

"You're defending the school now?"

"No," he said.

"I'm correcting your metaphor." Lan turned a page, adding, mildly:"And it's a military academy." I looked at her.

"I know what kind of school this is. But it's the Space Age. Why are we still doing night patrols? We have FTL lanes, military networks, live cross-sector comms, and we're still sending students around campus in the middle of the night like nineteenth-century sentries?"

"There were still sentries in the twentieth," Hedwig corrected, softly. My breath almost tripped.

"Hedwig. Whose side are you on?" She looked up, completely unruffled.

"I'm only adding historical context."

"Why can none of you drop the academic tone for five seconds while I'm having a breakdown?" Jess was basically dying of laughter.

"Because you're hilarious right now," she said.

"I am not," I said solemnly.

"I am a victim of Federal labor policy." Maki, apparently satisfied I'd howled enough, added:"The good news is, I talked to faculty." I squinted at her.

"... What good news?"

"You can read during duty shifts." The room went dead. So did I. Then I said, with complete sincerity:"Oh, that's fucking fantastic." Jess folded over, wheezing. Lan had to cover her mouth; her shoulders shook. Even Roy paused his pen, gave me a look that clearly said: this is wildly inappropriate, but I understand. Maki, of course, didn't flinch.

"You're welcome," she said. I stared at her and very seriously considered rolling up the duty sheet and smacking her with it.

"And Nikaido," I said, flipping through the day/night rotation instructions, my sense of betrayal by civilized society deepening with every line.

"She's probably already planning to stick me on gate guard duty." Maki nodded once.

"Not impossible." I stared at her.

"You nodded."

"We are a military academy," she said. I laughed. Not because it was funny. The kind of laugh you get when reality hits you enough times that your only options are laughing or screaming.

"I cannot fucking believe this," I muttered, scanning the sheet and hating every line.

"Space Age and we're still doing night patrols, gate checks, dorm area sweeps, storeroom seal inspections. Wouldn't it be easier to hire more guards?"

"I suggested that," Maki said. My head snapped up.

"And?" She slid her terminal onto the desk, tone flat as ever.

"Kushima Security could handle it," she said.

"The school said we should avoid any appearance of favoritism." This time I actually snorted. Half absurd. Half suicidal.

"Avoid favoritism?" I said.

"If they actually wanted to avoid touching the Kushima family, half this planet would starve." Jess happily piled on.

"Or freeze," she said.

"Heating's probably them too."

"Most likely," Roy said.

"Hey, you too?"

"I'm just stating high-probability facts," he answered coolly. I looked back down at the duty grid. More accurately, I tried to. The sheet lay right there. I stared at it and saw dates lined up like epitaphs, each one scheduled to kill a piece of me. As for who was with who, which days were day shifts, which nights— Out of sheer self-preservation, I decided my soul was not yet ready to know. Some truths are bad for your health if you learn them too early.

I let the paper fall flat and said, heavily:"I have fully experienced the malice of the system." Hedwig sat beside me, watching for two seconds before pushing a cup of hot tea toward my hand.

"Drink," she said.

"You look like you're actually about to cry." I took it and squinted at her.

"Don't think handing me tea erases the fact you just sided with history." She smiled, faintly.

"I'm not on any side," she said.

"I just think if you really do read during duty shifts, you'll read hard." …That was, annoyingly, true. Damn it. Maki stood then, distributing the rest of the packets.

"In any case, read the notes," she said.

"I'll send out the final duty schedule later." Every nerve in my body went on alert.

"Why later?" I asked.

"We're still coordinating some slots with the Disciplinary Committee," Maki said. She said it flat. Like this was just process. For some reason, a very bad feeling crawled up my spine. Jess must have felt it too. She leaned forward, eyes lighting like a rescue dog catching a scent.

"Ohhh," she said.

"So there are 'groups,' huh." I narrowed my eyes at her.

"What is that look."

"Nothing," Jess said, smiling far too brightly.

"I just suddenly feel like this break might be even more interesting than I thought."

"Shut up."

"You also think so," she said.

"Your whole face says 'this is going to be a mess.'" I took a deep breath and didn't bother arguing. Because, depressingly, she was probably right. Any time Maki said "I'll send it later," it usually meant— She had already designed some arrangement that would look reasonable on the surface and quietly stress-test everyone's sanity and relationships underneath. And I had never had good luck with those. I held the duty instructions and took a sip of the tea Hedwig had handed over. The tea was hot.

The office was warm. The holiday was fake. I finally, fully understood: the Federation had never given anyone rest. What it offered was a more structured, more scheduled, reading-privileges-included way to suffer. So very considerate.