Franz Ebenwalder, the Engineer

The bell woke Sophie again. Her head and limbs still ached, but nowhere near as bad as they had on her first morning in Vienna. Like the others she followed the now familiar morning routine, before being ushered back out onto the street.

She had learned from her previous experiences. Since her third day she always made sure to get to the stables as early as possible. While she sacrificed a bit of the day, she got a hammock in the front in return. That mattered a lot since the morning of said day. Since she had a hammock in the back then, she was one of the last to get back her possessions, and almost didn't catch that bitch who tried to steal them. While loosing her clothes wouldn't exactly have been fine, she could deal with the humiliation of walking naked in the city, and it would have been a good punishment for being so stupid.

Loosing her bag, on the other hand, would have been devastating, as her locket (containing a picture of her family) and notebook were inside it. They were her only reminder of her life up to now, and she didn't want to lose them. It actually made her pretty nervous about giving herself, and by extension them, to an owner. A woman can't own things any more than a house can own the furniture inside it, after all.

That, of course, didn't nullify her duty to find herself an owner. But it made her wish the traditional system was still in place. From the beginning of time until about a hundred years ago, women were the property of their fathers until he sold them on. That, however, had enabled rich merchants to corner the whole market for new women, and basically price everyone but the nobility and themselves out.

After a major rebellion by womenless farmers the emperor enacted the current system, where women got to choose their first owner. It was as unnatural as it was effective. Since a woman can't own anything once she is owned herself, the merchants were unable to buy them up in bulk. Instead women found their owners themselves, and usually those owners kept them for many years.

Once Sophie was back on the street she reconsidered her options one last time, checking if the decision she reached yesterday evening was really the correct one. She could aid a brilliant professor who didn't know how to tread women, an otherwise dumb but effective officer who did, or an important engineer who was somewhere in between.

After a minute or two she once again was certain that Franz Ebenwalder was the correct choice for her. The professors weakness would mess with her head, maybe even think of her as his equal. Upity bitches like that were bad for everyone, including themselves, their owner and society at large. The lieutenant could have kept her in check, but his needs would be served by any slut just as well as by her. For the engineer, however, she could be a positive influence.

And thus she made her way to the Hauptverwaltung (main office) of the WEBG.