Crystal and I walked towards the building however a gust of wind seemed to force us to stumble over to the side, where we were suddenly on a piece of ground that started moving. 

Both of us fell smack on our faces as we were dragged along the sandy path, barely able to catch our breath as we did so. 

“It’s a travelator!” Crystal exclaimed as she dusted off the ground to reveal metal plates that were joining together and moving us rapidly toward the entrance of the job fair building. 

I struggled to my feet as the momentum of the moving walkway kept throwing me off, and I pulled Crystal up as we rapidly approached the main doors. As we got closer, we started to see other people on other travelators all converging at the building. None of them seemed to have noticed us as they were all looking very nervously at their devices or staring dead ahead at the ominous building looming ahead of us.

Finally the travelator slowed down to a stop at the steps leading up to the main hall, allowing for Crystal and I to step off and walk towards the tall pearlescent gates that beckoned us towards our future. 

I pushed open the gate, and to my surprise, beyond the door was a small, narrow white chamber. 

“Crystal, I think we might need to try another door; there isn’t space in here for the two of us,” I said and was about to exit the chamber when the door slammed shut, trapping me inside the small space.

“Hey! Ally! Wait up!” I heard Crystal shout, but before I could try the door again, the chamber started moving, and the door disappeared and was replaced by a wall that looked sealed shut, with no hands to be seen.

A pleasant-smelling gas filled the chambers, and then I was doused in a cool liquid, which covered me from head to toe. I felt panic rising as it got into my eyes and my mouth, and I slammed myself against the chamber walls in a panic, unable to see where I was going, which I tried to wipe clear my eyes.

Just as quickly and suddenly as it happened, it was over, and the liquid evaporated rapidly. Within seconds, I was once again bone dry, blinking in surprise and shock.

“Hello Alaina, long time no speak,” A familiar voice suddenly rang out in the chamber. I looked up to find my old Nany Cam fluttering down from the chamber's ceiling, which closed back up immediately. 

“Oh my god, throughout everything, I completely forgot about you,” I said out loud. I never really knew if the cam understood what I spoke about, as it never really responded in the past when I rambled on about things happening in my life. However, it would often report things like the weather, my development, and other bits of propaganda or information that the council needed to convey to all citizens from time to time in that familiar voice, so I often saw it as a long-time inanimate friend.

“Well, I am made to be inconspicuous. I will give feedback to the maker program that my stealth function is a success,” It responded, making my jaw drop as this was the first time it had ever responded to anything I said. 

“Wait, you understand me? Then, all those years, I’ve been ranting and raving about my parents and my training.” I started.

“All logged and recorded,” The Nany Cam said as it hovered slightly above me. Then it lodged itself into the wall of the chamber, and a huge screen appeared from floor to ceiling, and suddenly, footage of me from when  I was a baby all the way until a few days ago started playing. It was all of me sitting at my favorite “Thinking rock” behind the house at the base of a tree, just talking to myself angrily. It seemed that it had recorded time and time for me to speak my heart out about all the injustice that had been done to me. 

“I also have recorded evidence to back each relevant claim,” The Nany Cam said and then started playing recordings of my instructors beating us, or times I had little to nothing on my plate, or incidences of me being forced to sleep out on the roof, or out in the courtyard. The video evidence of all the pain and trouble I was subjected to went on and on. Some of which I didn’t even remember that I had gone through. 

“Do you wish to lodge a complaint?” The Nany Cam asked, “ Immediate action will be taken against your legal guardians.

I sighed and rubbed my face. I now understood the narrow chamber separating me from everyone else. This must be whatever other candidates were going through, and no one wanted their dirty laundry to be hung out in public, even if the person beside you was your sibling.

“If I was to press charges, would this affect my record?” I asked grimly, remembering the threats my foster parents made about us having to keep our mouths shut. 

“Yes, it will be a permanent record in the family registry, and a demerit point will be issued which will prevent your current legally registered family from fostering children anymore. This is an automated punishment. After that, there will be the court case opened and-”

“No. No, I don’t want to file a complaint,” I said and sighed and rubbed my forehead in frustration. I thought back on my juniors still suffering, stuck in the cycle. I didn’t want to be the reason these irresponsible adults bullied and abused them because they were taking their anger out on them. No, I was working on a more permanent solution to the Winter Assassin Problem. One that would permanently stop operations, but I needed to first become a Bard to do it. 

“Alaina. There is overwhelming evidence here. I…I gathered every piece of evidence to form a solid case,” Nany Cam said.

Was that emotion I detected in the robotic voice?

I looked up at the small blinking beetle-like device that was still lodged into the side of the wall. It had a tiny screen that sometimes had little lines of code that looked like eyes, scanning and blinking as it fluttered around high above me, just out of reach.

I smiled “ I can see that, you did an amazing job. But I really just want to move past all this and start a new life, far away from them,” I explained.

The chamber fell silent, then suddenly there was a lot of whirling and clicking, and all the videos that had been playing were dragged into a folder named “ Alaina’s Childhood”, and then the folder itself disappeared from the screen, leaving nothing but a huge image of a meadow, with flowers swaying and the sun shining brightly in the sky. 

“Your response has been recorded, and the documented evidence has been saved for any future complaint you may which to raise after you have finished your apprenticeship course. Do note that my system will be wiped clean on the day after your 19th birthday, so please take note that you have this limited time to reconsider any claims you may which to lodge” The Nany Cam explained. 

I nodded “ Thank you so much. It was really disturbing to…see all that again, but at least I now know that you heard me, I feel comforted knowing that someone did” I said, not knowing if it would matter to the robot, but I felt like I had to say it. 

The room was silent for a while, then the whirling sound started again, and I realized that this must be the sound of its processor starting up, and the silence must mean it had powered down.

“I heard everything. You were never alone. For the next year, I will continue to log your progress to help you achieve your goals. It has been a pleasure seeing how much you have grown, and I will continue to enjoy watching you until my EOSL” the Nany Cam said. 

“Let us now begin your onboarding. Please place your ten digits on the ten points shown on the screen,” The Nany Cam said, as ten glowing spots appeared at shoulder level on the screen in front of me.

I raised my hands and placed each finger onto each dot as it comfortably aligned. As my fingers couldn’t stretch far enough, the dot moved closer for me to complete the exercise. 

The dots glowed and my name and face appeared, and next to it ten scans of my fingerprints appeared underneath it. 

I snatched my hands away and swore.

“Dang it, couldn’t you warn me or something? I didn’t know you were scanning my fingers,” I said, feeling cheated.

“Alaina, all your information is already on file. We are simply verifying that you are indeed registering today. We also have your eye sample, your hair structure, your DNA, and your blood type on file, amongst many other things. However, the extraction of these samples is more painful, so we have settled on a fingerprint scan for appearances.” The Nany Cam said, pulling up all sorts of documents and recording all sorts of information about my body’s form and data.

“Ew, please stop; I do not wanna look at my hair follicles, thanks,” I replied, waving across the screen to obscure the weird information I was being fed.

“Suit yourself,” the Nany Cam said, clearing the screen and returning it to the meadow.