Meliora - Emanate - 21

[lady_mab]

No Kaito

Lysander is visibly nervous, hands twitching around his glass. He sits hunched over, practically folded in half over the bar. His eyes aren't focusing on anything, except for the occasional glance he sends his phone.

Temple Fusion is packed, everyone done up in various Halloween costumes as they try to cram as much as they can into a Monday evening. I can't get over to talk to him, as much as I want to.

The fact that it's Monday and Lysander is here is not entirely a good thing. As a teacher, weeknights nights are generally off-limits. He's here without Rhys at least, so that rules out another secret meeting.

Different people, only a few that I recognize, move in and out of the bar stool beside him -- the one normally occupied by Rhys. It's a whirlwind of makeup and glitter and people of all genders in barely-there costumes and he sits still in the middle of it.

I finally get the chance to theoretically corner him when I notice that his glass is mostly empty and the other bartenders are busy. I scoop up his glass, and he finally manages to give me a startled stare.

"Don't look so surprised. This is my bar, after all." I fetch a new glass for him and hold it under the tap. "What's wrong?"

Lysander doesn't reply right away. He doesn't even make much of an indication that he's heard me, so I'm about to repeat the question when I pass over the glass. Except then his shoulders heave and he rubs a thumb over the swell of his cheekbone. "Nothing, really. Things. Non-Meliora things. I don’t know.”

“Anything you want to talk about? We haven’t really seen each other outside of these bar occassions"

He snorts in laughter and bats his eyelashes in my direction. “We have got to stop meeting like this.”

“I can’t stop you from being drawn to my bar all the time.”

“Well, are you going to get out from around the bar to chat with me, or am I going to have to watch you split your attention between everyone else?”

I'm about to tag out for a break, but I catch sight of a wave of purple curls pushing through the crowds towards the bar and I very nearly drop a glass.

Despite having invited him to make himself at home at Temple, and to join in the resources I attempted to pool together with other Informants, I had never once seen nor heard from Jonas. And yet, here he is.

He slides onto the stool alongside Lysander without the slightest hesitation. His gaze flicks to mine for a brief moment, and I'm caught off-guard by what looks to be a bad case literal of pink eye before he flags down one of the other bartenders.

Lysander stares at Jonas with his jaw slightly open and the rest of whatever conversation we had been having dying on his lips.

Jonas orders in a fashion that, from my spot a bit further down, I can tell is filled with flirting as he twirls his fingers around some purple curls. Then he looks at Lysander, says something I can't hear, and reaches out to physically snap my friend's jaw shut.

Well, all the more reason to take a break.

I inform my employees as I move out from behind the bar. At least I don't have to go too far. I squeeze into the space between Jonas and Lysander and lean against the counter as Jonas' drink arrives. "Fancy seeing you here," I tell him as Lysander moves to make space for me.

Jonas doesn't budge. Just smirks. "What, am I not allowed to visit a bar?"

"I invited you over a month ago. I didn't think you would show. Those contacts?" I finally realized that it wasn't a contagious disease that had turned Jonas' eyes a bright shade of pink, but colored contact lenses.

He bats his eyelashes at me. "Yes, you like? I have a friend with the cutest hair that matches." His gaze jumps to Lysander as he says this.

Lys puts the reference together faster than I do. "You know Jun?"

"Oh, so you are her Informant. I wasn't too sure that she was talking about the same person when she spoke of you."

I don't know anything about Lysander's team, except that they are students at his school. Rhys mentioned meeting them, a young Chinese girl and an Indian boy. According to Lionel, a very strange combo.

Must be, if the girl has pink hair that rivals Jonas' contacts.

Lysander narrows his eyes and hooks his elbow onto the bar to turn himself in towards the conversation better. "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, of course," Jonas replies with an airy wave of his hand. "I don't know you well enough to make any sort of judgements."

That is clearly a lie, and both Lysander and I know it, but it's a very polite way of delivering an insult. Jonas made his mind up about each of us when we met at the Informant event.

"Anyway." Jonas takes a long and deliberate sip of his drink, drawing out the pause between his words to ramp up the anticipation. "Just thought I'd drop by. Halloween and all that." He raises his glass in a mock salute and shifts on his stool to face the dance floor in the back of the club. "To the drunks!"

"Hey, my success hinges on those drunks, so I'd prefer it if you didn't insult my customers."

Jonas winks at me from over his shoulder and takes another pretty sip. "Right now, I am a customer, and I'm not in the habit of insulting myself."

He is also very far from drunk, especially compared to some of the others who have been at it since eight in the evening. Nearly three hours of partying.

At my side, Lysander jerks upright and winces as he sloshes his beer over his glass.

I arch an eyebrow and move out of the way as he shifts for a napkin. "What is that all about?"

"My phone just went off. I had forgotten it was on vibrate. Startled me, is all."

Jonas snorts into his drink, leaning over to the bar and flicking the screen on his phone open. A faint jingle is barely audible through the music of the club. As his finger flicks over the screen, he asks, "Do you have it down the front of your pants or something?"

Laughter sputters out of my mouth, though I make a valiant effort at stifling it with the back of my hand.

Lysander takes the high ground and doesn't rise to the bait. Instead, he wipes his hand, and I'm forced to move out from between the two of them as he reaches for his phone. I'm about to move back to my spot behind the bar as a new rush of patrons enters, but Jonas catches onto my wrist before I can get too far.

"Wait," he says, without looking up from his phone. The casual expression is gone. "You might want to see this."

I take the oversized, gaudy phone case and have to take a moment to orient myself to the size of it in my hand.

"It's from the APM," Lysander murmurs, texting.

It takes a few seconds for my brain to catch up to what he said and the scant few lines of the message. By the time it sinks in, Jonas is tugging at my sleeve with one hand and holding out the other, wanting his phone back.

I push away without saying anything, depositing the phone onto the bar and ignoring Jonas' grumbles. I also ignore the calls from my coworkers as I disappear into the back office where I have left my phone for the evening. None of them know about Meliora.

Though I did notice several other people in the crowd tugging out mobiles and staring down at the screens in confusion.

A beat later, Lysander follows me through the door into the back room, Jonas trailing along behind like a curious cat. Pink eyes do a quick once-over of the room before he drops down onto one of the chairs.

Subject: In the spirit of things. Message: All Hallows Eve, 23:00. A modern Charon, the tracks are his Styx. Please inform your team that participation is mandatory.

"They need to get a move on very quickly, hm?" Jonas hums, kicking out his legs as he taps away at his phone.

I call Rhys.

The phone rings four times before going to voicemail, so I send a quick text to Lio before calling again. This time, Rhys picks up.

"What is it?" he grumbles. I hear water running in the background.

"A message just came through from the APM. Mandatory meeting."

Rhys says something that I can't understand, and then there is a rush of water. "Sorry, I was brushing my teeth. A mandatory meeting?"

"Halloween themed, I guess." I glance at Jonas, who is speaking in quiet tones to someone on his phone, then to Lysander, who stares at his phone in confusion.

"What's it say?"

I recite it back to him. "I've already texted Lio, but I haven't heard back from him yet."

Rhys mutters something about a weeknight when Lys waves to me, and I move over to see what he's pulled up on his phone. "Charon -- ferryman of the dead."

"There are train tracks under the city, aren't there?" Over the years, I've learned of the tracks beneath the city, and how they were blocked off years back when ALICE first moved in. There is no need for them now -- there are new forms of transportation that run better, safer than the subway system. And with Eminence moving away from where London had been centrally located, many of the tracks didn't connect with the new parts of the city..

"So... dead people... and train tracks is what I'm getting," Rhys says into my ear. I had forgotten that he was still on the line. "Are we supposed to go somewhere to check in?"

"No clue," I admit, and I earn a sigh through the earpiece.

"What about the Dead Body Train?" Lysander offers, and across the room, silent with his phone in his lap, Jonas snorts. I can't tell if it’s in amusement or not, because he looks away in feigned disinterest.

"What in the bloody hell is a 'Dead Body Train'?" Rhys asks.

I lean in to read over Lys' shoulder. "It used to take the bodies from the hospital to some sort of temporary morgue. Ugh, was it like an actual train or people carrying these dead bodies down?"

"Are you suggesting Lionel and I go dig up some dead bodies and use them for entrance into the underground?"

"Nothing of the sort."

He sighs again and I can just imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm going to call Lionel. Text me when you have a decent answer." He hangs up before I can get another word in.

I forget how grumpy he gets when he's tired.

"Well... what are they supposed to do?" Lysander has a group chat open with his team.

The door to the back room bursts open and one of the bartenders shouts, "Kaito--!" before pausing to look at Jonas and Lysander.

"What?" I start to open up a new text message from Lio, but then a warning starts to tick across the top of my phone.

Her words echo the news flash. "Reports are coming in that the trains have been shut down. There's nothing on the transit website, though."

ALICE sure is putting on a show tonight. It also means that I can't keep hiding in the back. People are going to come flocking in and it's going to be a mess of sorting through those participating in the game to warn them of what's going on, and soothing those who are just confused as to why the trains aren't running.

I pat Lysander on the back and look up at my employee. "I'll be out in a moment, Laura. Just handle any confusion best you can."

She nods and retreats.

"I need to go back out there, but you two are free to stay back here. Let me know if you figure anything out."

Jonas rolls his eyes and unfurls from his spot on the chair. "Okay I didn't want to have to do this, but watching you two made me feel a little guilty keeping this to myself. Especially since I'm so fond of Jun."

He strolls up to us like he's doing nothing more than taking a walk in the park and places one hand on our shoulders. "Consider having your team walk the tracks to the hospital." With that cryptic message delivered, he pushes past us and back into the main bar.

Lysander and I exchange glances. "Well?" he asks.

"Got nothing better for it but to try and hope for the best." I text the plan to Rhys.

"Is this what it's going to be like? A scramble to see who is more clever or who has more friends?" Lysander jabs out the message to his team and then tosses the phone onto the table. "We hardly do anything except for 'hope for the best'."

"If ALICE is going this big for this event, they'll leave little clues around the tunnels. It's our job to ensure that those participating complete the first leg of the task." I watch frustration flicker across Lys' face.

I can hear the growing chaos from beyond the door and know that now is definitely not the to sit and chat plans of action.

I clap him on the shoulder once more, pocket my phone, and move into the bar with a confident smile in place.