The Upper Town of the Exile district was basically made up of many school campus' surrounding a central community area called the playground. Of course it did have several playgrounds, but it also had a small mall where students went to buy whatever they need for class as well as several entertainment services like a cinema and several fast food services.

The movies they show were out of date by several months though, as they would need to be processed and approved before we could view them. The little kids like us would hang about nearer the playgrounds while the older students hung out in the malls.

The closest school to the playgrounds was School Twelve or S-12, which only took in Class One students, while S-13 on the opposite side would take in Class Two and occasionally some students in the high Three's.

The rest of the students were then classified under a spectrum of Class Three's and Four's and separated throughout the remaining thirty eight schools spread about, with those in the high Three's nearer to the playgrounds, and the low Four's nearest to Campus One which was technically School One.

S-2 was the worst of the lot and many troublesome students were held there. They were not yet criminals, but the school placed heavy emphasis on rehabilitating them often with the use of force that I hear would make Campus One look like a childcare in comparison.

They were trained to be engineers and mechanics during conscription as they were regarded as too dangerous to be trained in firearms, and at the very least it trained them in some skill so as to be useful in the workforce. They made up a small proportion of the population, about the size of S-13 which was the smallest by far not counting 42.

That being said, one could transfer schools depending on the performance of the students, and every year most of the mid tier schools would experience heavy shifting of students as some went up in rank and others dropped down. By the fifth year when conscription is about to start, most of them would have found their place.

S-42 was different. It is possible to drop out but I am told that would rarely happen, but you can never be accepted in after the Selections in Campus One. It was also situated at the edges of the Upper Town and was the furthest campus from the playgrounds.

In exchange, we had stuff like a mini cinema, a pool and a field for football and baseball, various courts for basketball and volleyball and even tennis with different terrains and finally a full scale library.

These amenities could only be used by students and staff of the school and no one else could enter the campus grounds without authorisation. To get to the playground required me to take a shuttle service available only on the weekends and once every hour.

There were ten dormitory buildings for students and one which together, though only one building was currently being used. Each building was separated into three floors with one room on either side of a small central area with a lift and stair well at one end and two showers and toilets flanking it for the girls and boys.

I say room but each room was more like a 3LDK sized apartment, with a small central living space and seven further personal rooms which was somewhat small but spacious enough for a single bed, a small cupboard, and a desk.

There was a smaller building just by each dormitory that had a small laundry room for us to share, and behind it was the trash collection site, but only one was operational at the moment because there was only a single batch in the entire school.

There was two apartment complex on the opposite side of campus that could hold about three hundred people for staff. It was more conventional as compared to our living arrangements, but from the looks of things it was rather generous in terms of size.

All things considered, our campus was likely to be the largest per capita considering it was the size of Campus One but with only eight hundred odd inhabitants. Although most of it was in the amenities. From what the girls in the chat group from Campus One described, their dorms layout was similar to Campus One's. Same goes for the other Schools.

This was apparently were we would be staying for the next ten years, and honestly I was kinda glad I came here. Save for the fact that Michiru was so far from me, it was heaven. The actual school itself was rather large, and was basically a giant circular building. After we had settled in, we were brought out for an orientation to the building at center of campus which we were told we would be where be spending most of our time.

The guide was a tall man smartly dressed in a brown vest and a shirt with a black tie, and brown pants with black shoes. He had short, black hair and looked to be about thirty and had a name tag pinned to his vest that read Matsumoto Takuya. That of course meant he wasn't an Exile, but he seemed rather at ease in our presence so I assume he was like Ms Rikka.

We were then brought through a sheltered pathway connecting the dorms to the main building, which on the outside seemed to be heavily inspired by Greco-Roman architecture.

"This campus was designed by an architect from Italy who escaped here during the European Conflicts some twenty years back, with some of my suggestions of course." He said, seemingly rather proud of that fact. "A good friend of mine, his daughter who is the head librarian here was one of the pioneer batches of Exiles so he agreed to do it free of charge."

This architect, apparently by the name of Antonio Bianchi, was apparently an idiot parent who doted on every one of his children even as they became older, much to their chagrin. That said his work was excellently done, and his wife had done the tasteful interior decorations.

The inside is best described as a hollow cylinder and was basically a library basically with forty two rooms at it's circumference except the ground floor which had a snack bar in place of a room, and a large balcony at each floor.

There were two glass lifts at opposite sides that went all the way up and every inch of the walls was covered in books covering a wide variety of subjects. The rooms itself did not have books in it, but had a board to write on and was where we would have our classes.

"Each floor is it's own section of subjects." Mr Takuya proudly said, "The ground floor is for general literature and languages, the second for the hard sciences. The third floor has the social sciences, law, and psychology, the fourth is only for medicine. The last floor is for the theoretical subjects like philosophy, music, and so on. The last floor is the administrations and staff office"

There was a large beautifully decorated pillar at the center which stretched to the ceiling, with five coloured flags that draped down and the front desk at it's base. Basically the building was shaped something like the Colosseum with a roof attached and a pillar in the middle and a spiral escalator that ascended each floor.

The balcony's at each floor overlooked a greenhouse garden on the ground floor and had a waterfall flowing down the sides that provided a place to read with ambience, and a snack bar that delivered food and drink to every level of the building if required 24/7.

"Though it is mostly for the staff who have to pull an all nighter. Which happens quite often..." He said.

For now the staffing was mostly gardeners and the maintenance and cleaning crew, but eventually there would be more teachers and librarians as the student population increases.

After our orientation, we were given some time off to get some food from the snack bar and told to head to one of the rooms with our roommates to get to know each other better. The food was good though the coffee wasn't as good as Kou's but it was alright.

As for my roommates, we were a squad of three boys and four girls. A squad because we would also be acting as a military unit later on. My unit was designated Unit-00A with the other squads following the same designation up to Unit-00F. As we were the first in this new school, we were basically test pilots for the system for the future Unit-01's coming in next year by which the curriculum would have been properly tested by us.

Firstly in order of age, for the girls we had Shiho Lb007F, Natasha Lf731B, and Reika Lh997G, and finally myself. For the boys we had Kaoru Lb019J, Sora Ld923C, and Kouta Lh104A. Kouta and Kouya were by no means rare names, but I was surprised to find someone who shared a similar name as my friend. I was quick to observe though that I was the youngest of the group.

Shino was rather talkative, and had already established herself as the leader of the group being the oldest, and she quickly facilitated the ice breaking session and went first for our introductions and greetings though she was a ditz. Apparently she had known Kaoru since Campus One as he came in exactly one day after her and has been with him since. Kaoru, was largely quieter, but he would correct Shino if she made any mistakes and supported her through her introductions.

Following her was Natasha. She had fluffy light brown hair and blue eyes owing to her mother being a foreigner. She wasn't particularly talkative like Shiho, but she spoke clearly and confidently and had a rather carefree feeling to her. Up next was Reika, who had a Kansai dialect like Kou. By far the least talkative of us, she gave just her name and sat back down.

"Ahahaha...alright then, say hello to Reika everyone!"

"Hello!"

Other than the two airheads, the rest of us just murmured our greetings. Next up was me. I opted for a quick and simple opening, with the clarity of Natasha and the brevity of Reika.

"My name is Hotaru. Nice to meet you." I gave a short bow before sitting back down.

"Oh Hotaru! Aren't you that girl that got lashed five straight days in a row?" Quipped Natasha. "Then you got that other group of girls in trouble for that."

Everyone else seemed to have heard about it, because they seemed to nod in recognition.

"Oh you're the one! My dorm was talking about that for some time. I didn't know it was you." Said Shiho. "You even scared Miya into behaving ahaha!"

Miya was the girl that took over Mei's group, and apparently she terrorized Mei to prevent the same fate befalling her because she was extremely frightened by the lashings.

"Must've been painful." Kaoru said, the other two boys nodding vigorously.

"It was, but well worth it I'm the end." I replied, "It is better to get it done with in one go then have to suffer at their hands for the whole year."

"Are you an M by any chance?" Said Kouta, which earned him a slap from Reika and Sora.

"It's impolite to ask that." Sora said, Reika too nodded just slightly.

"Come on it's not like as if we're in etiquette class. Besides we are all about twenty years old right, its not like as if we're all naive little fourteen year olds right?" he said in objection as he began talking about more inappropriate subjects like the number of lovers he had and stuff that they liked to do.

"Um, I am fourteen." Kaoru said quietly, looking rather sheepish at our crude discussion. Of course this meant Kouta got more slaps by Sora and Reika for talking about improper things to a former girl of that age. As for me, I was sort of relieved that I technically wasn't the youngest after all.

For now, we seemed to get along better. It was generally taboo to talk about our past life before becoming an Exile, but we shared some snippets as we got more comfortable with each other. For example, other than Kaoru and I who were still schooling, the rest were already working in society and were in their mid twenties to early thirties. 

Kouta himself was a rather successful businesswoman before he came here, and Reika was finishing a thesis for her doctorate in mathematics. Shiho surprisingly, was a volunteer at the refugee camps in Okinawa, though she had returned to her home town in Shizuoka for some time when she fell ill and became an Exile.

Our time was cut short though, when we were called to the greenhouse to listen to the opening speech. The garden was very spacious and we all sat comfortably in our units chattering quietly as we waited for the speech to start. I heard the familiar clacking of several heels, and to my surprise Ms Rikka and Dr Komachi with a little baby bump came strolling in and took the stand.

"Good afternoon, boys and girls." Dr Komachi started, "I'm Dr Senju Komachi, along with my sister parliamentary member Ms Tanaka Rikka. This campus has been in the makings for sometime now, and I had envisioned it since the day I stepped foot on this island."

She paused as she briefly looked at us, her face visibly hardened.

"Today marks the first day of the fruits of our labour. Each of you are here for a purpose, this school," she emphasised, "is here for a purpose. This one goal that will represent the first of many steps forwards for us Exiles. But before we can get to that, there are several issues that must first be resolved. First, I would like to lay out the overall plan for the next ten years of your stay." 

"As you know, there have been several developments in geopolitics over the years. Some of you might remember China's conquering of Taiwan in the early years of Exodus." At this, several students had a hard look on their face, especially Shiho who looked as if she chewed something bitter. "Had it not been for the fall of Beijing due to the virus, we might have lost our nation."

The Sino Conflicts as it came to be known, had been devastating to say the least. Along with the conquering of Taiwan, they had expanded their influence down southwards almost to the Malay peninsula and eastwards in Korea ad Japan. Despite their best efforts however, the eX virus somehow managed to find its way in to Beijing that led to the fall of the capital and subsequent halt to their aggression.

"Recently however," Dr Komachi continued, "there have been developments in Korea, as skirmishes and brinkmanship by the North along the demilitarised zone has sparked tensions once again. We do not want a repeat of Taiwan. As Taipei resumes its aggression along with its allies, we must be ready."

She produced a hologram behind her of a map of the region, highlighting Taipei and Pyongyang. "You will be trained in the arts of deception and infiltration. Espionage. Assassination. Your time here for the first five years will consists of conventional military theory as well as education in whatever subjects of your choosing, along with several languages like Chinese, Korean, Russian, English and so on."

"You will be attached to several low level diplomats and ambassadors as their children, and every so often will be sent out to masquerade in public. Your main goal is to appear as a family and establish yourself." With this, there were several murmurs about, and I heard saw Reika shaking her head and saying it was impossible.

"Quiet down!" Ms Rikka said rather sternly, and the murmurs fizzled out. She gave Dr Komachi a look as she continued her speech. "Of course, your real mission starts after your fifth year. It is unfortunate that you all will be putting your skills into practice so soon, the original plan was to train you without having to send you out. But as developments continue, this will be your purpose for now."

She pressed a button and a red arrow pointed to Taipei and Pyongyang. "After seven years, your 'family' will be attached to China and Korea as ambassadors. You will go with them and you will conduct investigations for three years while there. The situation with Korea is a little difficult however, and this specific mission itself may be cancelled where some of you will then be repurposed for wartime espionage."

The garden was silent as Dr Komachi laid down her report. We looked at each other uncertainly, as the reality of war and conflict dawned upon us. Certainly we were on average old enough for war by then, but our bodies would still be that of an innocent child. 

"Excuse me doctor," I raised my hand to as a question and she gave permission with a nod of her head, "In seven years time, we would only be twelve years old. How do you expect us to fight?"

"Good question Hotaru, but you will not be fighting. The actual war and fighting will be left to the adults fifteen or older. I'll also be participating as a war doctor, but you are to simply infiltrate and collect information by blending in. For the mission in Taipei, mainly collect information and keep an ear out. Sometimes you may be used as bait for kidnappings to lure out targets." I began to object, but she held out her hand to stop me, "that is decided, nothing I can do about it. For Korea if a war breaks out before then, you will infiltrate and pose as an orphan child, feeding information to friendly units."

"So we are simply just going to be sacrificial lambs?"

"Yes and no I'm afraid. But worry not, you will not be acting alone. Several units of special forces will be attached to you during such times, and they will try their best to prevent the worst both when you act as bait and when you infiltrate. But of course you yourself have to be responsible for your own safety, which is where the two years of practical training and genetic modifications in the second phase of your time here comes in handy."

At this, she changed her slides to something a little more technical.

"Your bodies will be modified over a period of several years so that your dynein count is significantly higher than the average person and your muscle density pushed to the utmost limits physically possible, resulting in you being about thirty to fifty percent stronger compared to the average population. Your muscular and skeletal structure will be altered only to the extent that it won't break your cover to give you as much energy efficiency and dynamical and kinematical advantage as possible, so you should be able to hold your own against a young adult or surprise a veteran soldier by the time of the mission."

Basically we would be genetically modified to be physically superior in every way as much as possible. Of course a muscular gorilla of a child would arouse heavy suspicion so it was only to the extent that we could maintain our cover as young energetic 'children' while still giving us a fighting chance.

"Permission to speak doctor," another girl from a different squad raised her hand, "but to go through all this trouble and danger, do you really expect us to accept this? We can just choose to opt out."

"But off course Sayuri we don't expect that you will want to stay for this mission, no no no. It's just that unfortunate circumstance brought about by the current situation means you have to be in this mission. Ideally your training would have been used for a different purpose, which is why we expect you to stay. Because of the actual," and she said this in a sharp tone, "actual main purpose of this school."

"The real reason I had this school built, the culmination of years of hard work and legislations and strong arming the government in various matters into funding this project that I have envisioned for so long." The doctor said, rather proudly as she spread her arms wide. 

"The purpose is Social Reintegration."

In other words, having infiltrated and established ourselves in the general public, we might be given a shot to live in the outside world as normal people. We might get to leave the island. Of course, with the implicit condition that we would survive at all.