Unger was his species equivalent of 15 when he arrived at the PPC. At some point I established that he had set off on a kind of walkabout where the intention was that he find adventure, kill things, and come back with trophies. The better the trophies, the more of a man he is. (He was a Barbarian, afterall.) Not everyone makes it back. Some presumably die and others just find a life they like better. He is probably never going back. He likes the life in the PPC.

Cali was 15 almost 16 when he arrived at the PPC, but he had been living in a kind of low-rent home aimed at teen boys whose family's couldn't support them since he was 13. He was from a sort of dystopian world, so even though nothing like that was mentioned in the canon, I felt like it could make sense in the world. He does feel guilty for not at least sending his mother letters though, and we (Caddy-shack and I) have actually written a story where he goes home, but never finished it. Anyway, that's how I see his continuity.

My others were of age (more or less in Kelok's case).

I posted this before I got to school, hoping to get a response by the end of the day- and I come back to find that even the Marquis de Sod himself dropped by! O_o

Thanks, hS and Neshomeh, for giving me some ideas to chew on. (Though for future reference, I prefer strawberry flavor to grape, but whatever.)

Assuming that the then-underage agent works for the PPC for several years? decades?, and go back to the same point in their home that they left (no aging, no time passing), they would probably be very frustrated/disappointed/slightly excited to seem smarter when they have to go through growing up again.

Oh jeez, the plot bunnies won't stop breeding!

The average age of new agents tends to follow the average age of Boarders. Back in 2004-ish, most agents were 14 or so. The youngest (human) agent was Ella Darcy, who was ten when she joined.

The old answer to this question is the one used by Vemi in 'The Un-Sueing of Vemi', and it goes like this:

Since time passes differently in the metaverse than in the Earth of normal human experience, she'd re-appeared only a few days after the day she'd originally left to join the PPC.

In fact, I'm not sure that doesn't still apply. There's a more recent example - 2007 - by Laburnum. It... hmm. Agent Laburnum does imply that time passes the same - “I joined up over a year ago and haven’t been back since, because I’m either a wanted criminal or a missing person and I wasn’t too keen to find out which one.” - but also mentions that "...of course the OFUs de-age you and put you back five seconds after you left...".

She also mentions that "For all I know Makes-Things and Techno-Dann might have staged my death here, I know one or two agents who specifically asked for that when they joined."

Ultimately, then, there are several options:

-Use OFUesque timeline shenanigans to avoid anyone knowing you're gone.
-Fake your death so's no-one asks.
-Follow the example of Constance Sims and have a parent who knows about the PPC.
-Or... yeah, just tell them. The PPC isn't a secret organisation - Phobos just wandered in one day to see his wife - though you should expect that a) they might not believe it, and b) might not like what they hear. As Laburnum puts it, "Hi, Mum, Dad, all this time you thought I was dead I was actually working as a contract killer, here, meet my coworkers who are actually giant mustelids currently in human form ..."

I'd be interested to know, actually, what other examples we have of agents dealing with the passage of time in the Real World. Ella Darcy's farewell is still as emotional (for me) as it ever was, but does mention that 'She’d done a first year of college by correspondence (ironically enough), but was planning on finishing it in person, and making her way in the Real World.'. Nyx Nightingale pays a brief visit at the end of her intro... but what else have we got? Anyone? We might get a wiki page out of this.

hS