All characters are over 18 years old and this story is solely a figment of my imagination.
My language is Spanish, I apologize for any grammatical errors I may make when translating the stories into English).
This series derives from the one already published a few months ago of 'The Master', and some of the characters appeared in that series.
The End-of-Year Trip 1 - Arrival in Kanaan
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying with us, it is 10.00 a.m. local time, in a few minutes we will land at Emir Yussuf Al Dilial Airport, I hope you enjoy your stay in Kanaan."
As I listen to the public address system announcing the arrival at our destination, I observe the passengers seated around me, most of them are men in suits, executives of great multinationals flying to the Emirate looking to do good business.
When I look closer at the group composed of my classmates, I shake my head negatively, not quite believing that the University Management has authorized the Emirate of Kanaan as the destination for the end-of-year trip.
The Emirate may have become very fashionable in the United States in the last four or five years due to the press appearances of its current ruler Prince Caleb, the most desirable bachelor in the world according to the tabloids and the pink press (although to the disappointment of many women, a few weeks ago he announced his upcoming marriage to the new California Attorney); But it is still the smallest Emirate of all those that make up the Federation of the United Arab Emirates, and its society anchored in the Middle Ages still has more shadows than lights despite the attempts of its ruler to modernize the country.
I have no doubt about who has convinced the University and the students in charge of organizing the trip to come to this secluded place in the desert, I am sure it was Prince Caleb's sister, Princess Yaiza (although I still do not know if she holds that title) who has manipulated the University Council to come here.
Yaiza has only been studying since just before Christmas at the elite George Washington Private University in San Francisco, but her arrival, with her overwhelming and rather domineering personality, shook the hierarchy established among the students several years ago.
Until Yaiza's arrival, the girls who had controlled practically all aspects of life at the small and quiet university for three years were Estela, Linda and Mary Jane, three blonde beauties in their twenties, with perfectly sculpted bodies based on hours of gym and plastic surgery, all three are daughters of some of the richest and most important businessmen in the United States, and are therefore accustomed to everyone around them submitting to their whims without protest.
Yaiza is quite the opposite; a natural olive-skinned beauty with C-cup breasts, who despite being certainly the richest person in the university, since I have known her, she has always been discreet, trying not to let much be known about her private life and who has never had a problem sharing chats and lunches with any of the other students regardless of their social status.
Evidently, due to this difference in characters between Yaiza and the triplets (as some of us call Estela, Linda and Mary Jane), we were all sure that sooner or later it would end in a confrontation between them.
It all happened just two weeks after Yaiza's arrival, the triplets gave the order to make her leave the University, something that most of the students accepted with the exception of a young girl named Selene, a couple of other students and myself.
A few days after giving that order, seeing that they did not get their way, leading a group of students, the triplets tried to intimidate Selene in retaliation, but Yaiza interposed herself and I did not take long to help her.
The ensuing fight was quite short but with a rather outrageous result, one of the students who was with the triplets ended up with a broken arm, two others with their balls battered by kicks, Mary Jane and Linda with a black eye, and Estela with a broken nose; and all this by an enraged Yaiza whom I had to restrain with the help of three other boys to get her away from the triplets before she caused them further damage.
After that fight I thought that the course was going to be very difficult for all of us who stood by Yaiza's side, but during the Christmas vacations, the triplets discovered Yaiza's identity, and when they returned to class, they seemed to forget all their differences and approached her as if nothing had happened, with the main objective of getting her to put them in contact with her brother Caleb.
As we fly over the Emirate's sky one last time before descending, I can't help but notice the three clearly distinct areas visible from the air: the City, full of modern apartment and office towers, surrounded by the sea on three sides, where the Emirate's economic and political elite (barely twenty thousand habitants) reside, and the Old City, inland and mostly surrounded by the millenary stone walls, where the life of its almost two hundred thousand habitants goes on in a way not much different from what it would have been more than a thousand years ago. These two areas together make up the capital of the Emirate, Xandros.
A few kilometers from the capital stands the Mining City, founded by African workers who arrived in the mid-twentieth century after the discovery of the mineral deposits in the mountains that separate Kanaan from the desert. Although to call a messy collection of adobe huts, barracks and prefabricated sheds a city is a gross exaggeration. Currently, the Mining City is home to more than sixty thousand people, mostly of Central African and Asian origin, making it a kind of country of its own within the Emirate, with customs and even laws different from the rest.
The rest of the Emirate's fifty thousand inhabitants, reside in a couple of small coastal towns of about ten thousand inhabitants and above all in dozens of villages of no more than five hundred inhabitants, who live mainly from fishing on the Emirate's coasts and from agriculture in the fertile strip of land formed by the river that flows from the mountains to the sea.
In short, and in my opinion, a place too dangerous for twenty-five rich, spoiled and capricious university students between eighteen and twenty-one years old, with only the control of three substitute teachers, not to end up getting into trouble.
As soon as we get off the plane, we board the bus that will take us to our luxurious hotel in the trendy area of the capital, before starting the bus, a young woman dressed in very formal clothes hands each of us a booklet before speaking to us: "I'm Tracy Connors, Aggregate at the United States Embassy in Kanaan, in the booklet I just handed you, you have a list of everything you can do during your stay here, and another of everything you are forbidden to do;" she says with a tone more like a tour guide than an Embassy Aggregate.
My companions begin to protest as they read the list, making Tracy have to speak again, raising the tone of her voice, "You all signed the visa papers before leaving San Francisco, all this that I am telling you now was reflected there, although as far as I can see no one bothered to read the papers."
"I am going to repeat it to you now again so that you will all be warned;" Tracy continues speaking, "As soon as you leave the terminal, you are subject to the laws of the Emirate, and I must warn you that skipping any of the prohibitions on the list I have given you, is punishable by slavery, if that should happen, not even the Embassy can interfere to free you. When you arrive at the hotel you will see some young Western girls who ignored these warnings and ended up enslaved;" Tracy continues to explain.
"Although legally I cannot do so;" Tracy adds, "From the Embassy we expressly forbid you to visit the Old City after sunset except in the company of one of your teachers and with an armed escort, and the Mining City at any time of the day;" Tracy finishes before ordering the bus driver to start the bus.
As we make the barely ten-minute ride to the hotel, most of my classmates do not stop talking among themselves about the Embassy Aggregate's words, although most do it quietly so no one hears them, the triplets raise their voices as much as they can, not caring that Tracy and the teachers hear them.
"My family has enough money to buy the whole country, so I'll do as I please and go where I please;" Mary Jane says loudly directing her gaze at Yaiza.
Hearing Mary Jane's words I look for Yaiza with my eyes, she is talking quietly with Selene ignoring completely what the triplets are saying, when we cross our gazes, Yaiza gives me back a smile and when I see her, I can't help thinking that she is up to something.
As soon as we arrive at the hotel and get off the bus, I notice how a little further on there is a limousine parked with the Emirate emblems waiting for Yaiza, who before getting into the vehicle approaches me, "I'm going to stay at the Palace and meet you for some of the excursions, I hope Jake that you don't let Selene get into trouble, if by any chance something should happen you know where to find me, come and see me right away; "She says to me observing the girls with a curious gesture, "Anyway I expect you both at the Palace in a few days, I can't wait for your visit and to see Selene's reaction when you get there;" she adds without letting me say anything before getting into the car after giving me a soft kiss on the lips.
As I watch Yaiza's limousine drive away, I wonder how she could have discovered about me and Selene, we started dating a few days after the fight with the triplets and due to Selene's very conservative and religious family, we have made sure that no one at the University knows about our relationship.
Luckily, it will not be much of a problem for me to follow Yaiza's 'orders', although only she and Selene know it, it is not the first time I visit Kanaan, although my girlfriend ignores that I have known Yaiza for more than six years, this knowledge of the country implies that I know where to move to avoid the problems that tourists usually have.
My family's mining company, some thirty years ago, was in charge of building the entire infrastructure for the extraction of caltenium, the new mineral that they found by chance in the depths of the mountains, and that thanks to its incredible energetic uses, turned the late Emir and his family into one of the biggest fortunes in the world.
Since my father's illness, which has kept him bedridden for the last five years as his only son, I try to combine my studies with the management of the company, although this double job has meant that at twenty-three years of age, I still have several subjects to pass before obtaining a double degree in Economics and Commercial Law.
