Turning the street corner, Amber raised her hand against the wind blowing through the streets, pressing her index finger and thumb to her collar and smoothing it out to make the creases even sharper.
This Tribunal-custom smallest-size uniform coat was her entire source of pride.
Everyone on the street is looking at me…
Her loli eyes, black and shiny, darted back and forth.
They must be so surprised that someone so young could join the Tribunal. It’s unbelievable!
“I’m someone with status, highly admired. No need to bicker with some guy from a notorious family.”
With that thought, the gloom from being tormented by Ashley lifted a bit.
This was the Source, the main city of Union City.
Outside the city stood windbreak forests and walls. The wind and sand softened after buffering, turning from wild northwest gales into gentle veils of mist mixed with damp fog, layering moisture that coated rooftops and ground in a fine layer of ochre foundation.
Footprints and wheel tracks dotted and extended in all directions across this layer of brown snow.
Because it sat in a low-lying area within a piedmont alluvial fan, canals and wells were always full, rain or drought.
Twelve of Union City’s seventeen most important agricultural production bases were near the Source.
Moreover, with abundant groundwater and unique strata, underground rivers surged and swirled, forming countless sinkholes and storage U-valleys.
The Dive Team plunged into sinkholes a thousand meters into the depths, salvaging lost ancient technology.
After years of salvage, shallow-layer operations had become a red ocean; most relics pulled up lacked value and gathered dust on streetsides.
Deep-layer salvage offered greater rewards but meant greater dangers and uncertainties.
The underground fissures and passages formed a complex three-dimensional labyrinth. Anyone with slightly poor spatial awareness would get lost just turning a corner.
And when water flows shifted, they created new channels and barriers, constantly changing like a living maze. Even veterans with years of deep diving could easily lose their way in the depths.
Deep Dive Team members occasionally passed on the street, metal helmets slung over their shoulders like reaction kettles, bolted and pressurized, instrument panels flickering with numbers.
If you got close, you’d hear muffled gurgling from inside the helmets.
Their builds were often shorter than average, usually under 1.5 meters, because being too bulky made it hard to squeeze through rock fissures and caves.
To adapt to deep water, some Deep Divers had their lungs modified into fish gills to prevent collapse under high pressure, but the cost was they couldn’t breathe air on land, so what they wore weren’t diving helmets but “fish tanks.”
Some said the era had changed; Deep Divers were no longer needed. The input and output of deep diving no longer balanced, wasting social resources searching for meaning in the void. Pointless.
Amber held no fondness for the Dive Team, not because of exploring voids and meaning, but because the Tribunal’s action plans needed approval from the Hundred People Assembly to execute.
Union City used a special value calculation formula to compute the Dive Teams’ contribution values, then selected captains of the top hundred ranked teams as Hundred People Assembly members.
Of course, some Dive Teams operated deep underground year-round and couldn’t be reached, so teams after the top hundred filled in—society’s core class wasn’t scholars, farmers, artisans, or merchants, but divers. That was the post-apocalyptic tech era, built on salvage.
–
“Hmph, unpleasant…”
For some reason, Ashley’s detestable little face popped into Amber’s mind again.
Her home was only two or three hundred meters away; she could even see smoke rising from the chimney of the two-story building.
When she left at noon, her mother had told her dinner would be stew with meat. She couldn’t wait to sop up the rich broth with mashed potatoes and take a big, satisfying bite.
But Amber forced herself to stop and turned in another direction.
She bought a chickpea and azuki bean combo taco from a roadside vendor, pinching the hot crust with her pinky, nibbling small bites while huffing warm air from her little mouth.
As she finished, the high walls of Saint Dormer Community appeared before her. Amber shoved the last bite into her mouth.
Residents here weren’t just jailers; they were rigorously selected upright folk.
Friendly, patient, tolerant, high EQ, highly educated, most holding caregiving or psychology certificates.
They guided and taught juvenile offenders how to socialize and empathize.
Hard to find such people, but the pay was generous.
Of course, there were also self-proclaimed do-gooders whose life dream was reforming bad guys, even moving their whole families to Saint Dormer to realize their value on juvenile offenders.
Saint Dormer Community was semi-open: closed to juveniles, open to outsiders. And Amber was Tribunal staff, not some random, so no one stopped her.
The entrance was a small plaza centered on the Seventh Apostle statue, standing on a gray stone stele engraved with “Seeing is believing.”
The statue knelt halfway, muscles compact and taut, spine arched back, chest thrust forward, hands firmly extended to the sky, eyes sharp. Its right hand’s index finger reached out, probing the nail hole in the holy body to verify authenticity.
Amber circled the stele, eyes scanning ahead to an oval garden a hundred or two meters long and wide, filled earth mounded into hills, trees lush.
Encircling the garden was a path, beyond which stood staggered standalone villas, each with front and back yards.
“Juveniles should be thrown in water dungeons; they live better than me…” Amber couldn’t help muttering.
Though teachers often warned her against extreme thoughts—judgment wasn’t venting, rules were the Tribunal’s foundation—she couldn’t stop herself from thinking it.
After asking around, she reached a clean, pretty little chapel shrouded in trees.
Amber stepped onto the wooden corridor and peered through the back window.
Warm yellow lamplight flowed over desks where boys and girls laughed and clamored, showing no sign they’d once been dangerous criminals.
Besides reformation, teachers also taught them knowledge and vocational skills.
“A bunch of little demons…”
Amber suddenly recalled a story from a fairy tale book—if angels or demons wanted a human servant, they’d swap their own child for a human one. Those left in the human world, angel or demon offspring, were called “changelings.”
Standing at the chapel podium was a loli with an angelic face. She wasn’t a juvenile offender but Flora Dora, daughter of a Saint Dormer resident and leader among the children.
The loli wore a white blouse, the fireplace right beside her with a roaring fire, beads of crystalline sweat on her forehead.
Sleeves rolled up, exposing lotus-root-like tender arms; pale golden hair draped over her shoulder blended with the blouse and her skin.
Her posture was dignified and virtuous, delicate neck and moist thin lips faintly colored, her whole being shrouded in a hazy white holy light.
Flora lifted a basket full of oranges and stepped down from the podium, handing them out one by one to the juveniles.
Seeing Flora, Amber felt her mood improve, a healing sensation. So cute; she must be an angel.
After distributing the oranges, Flora returned to the podium, smiled, and clapped to get attention.
“Classmates, later we’ll welcome a new friend. Remember that Christmas story? Each person gives one segment of orange, and we put together a special big orange to give our new friend, as the start of a beautiful friendship.”
In the orphanage of the story, orphans labored year-round: fetching water at dawn, cooking at dusk, running errands mornings, grinding flour nights. Even Christmas was no exception.
On Christmas, the protagonist bustled all day and returned too late for dinner. What was left were oranges, eaten only on Christmas as gifts.
But he was moved to find his companions had each given a segment to make a special big orange by his bed.
However, the juveniles paid no mind, their clamor unabated.
Some gouged good oranges to shreds with nails, poking fingers inside to stir like toys.
Some peeled the strings clean, squeezed them, took huge bites, juice splattering everywhere.
Some weren’t satisfied with their own and snatched others’.
Some gnawed like dogs; anyone approaching got a head-up glare, bared teeth, and terrifying growls…
“Everyone… remember to save one segment… don’t eat too fast…”
“It’s proof of friendship…”
“To commemorate the beautiful times we’ve shared…”
“Bonds…”
By the end, the poor loli’s lips trembled, grievance welling up as if she might cry.
“These ungrateful beasts!”
Seeing this, Amber fumed indignantly, kicking the wall base hard again and again.
“If I were her, I’d set the ‘Amber Rule’—anyone taking an orange must give back a segment, or off with their finger.”
