Meliora - Emanate - 27

[lady_mab]

Liala Darcy

This is, quite possibly, the worst-case scenario that we have avoided talking about.

Lio types frantically at his computer after having disconnected the SIM card from his phone. “Don’t you have like… a friend’s house you can go to or something?”

“Um, not at 8:30pm. Besides, all my friends are also participating in this game. I wouldn’t be able to go hang out with them.”

We already dismissed the idea of pulling off the same excuse we did last time. It’s probably what landed us in this position in the first place.

Lionel makes a frustrated sound in response. “Then hide in the other room or something until they’re all done.” He sits back, watching the green progress bar rush across the screen. He's chewing on the thumbnail to one hand.

I don't move. I remain seated at the kitchen table, staring at the brief text that Rhys sent not too long ago. Lysander's going to stop by. I'll call you after.

Perhaps we should have seen it coming when they told us not to involve anyone not invited to the game. Or when the event happened on Halloween and a team went after the organizers with a gun. Put a collection of people together in a high-tension environment with the promise of freedom, and it becomes a shit show.

"I have no idea how they're going to do this check in," Lio says suddenly, making me jump with the break in the silence. "I don't even really know where to start. I think... our best bet is to just remove all traces of ALICE from my phone."

I glance down at my mobile. "Wouldn't my phone be easier? It's got less on it."

He waves a hand, though he doesn't glance away from the screen so I don't know what he's trying to indicate. "People get new phones all the time. This shouldn't prevent people from doing that. I've got stuff on here that I shouldn't, so I want to back it up, encrypt it, and hide it."

A knock reverberates through the apartment. I jump again, this time a squeak of surprise emitting from my throat. Lio starts to type on his computer, another command screen popping up. A string of "shit shit shit shit" pulls from his mouth.

The knock comes again, and I jerk to my feet in automatic response.

ALICE is here. ALICE is here, and Lysander didn't make it in time, and Lio isn't finished, and somehow--

Somehow I'm the one opening the door.

I press my hand against the smooth surface, rising up on my toes to look through the peephole.

The first thing I see is a shock of bright red hair that I don't recognize, but then Lysander's voice floats through the door. "Liala? Lionel? You two at home?"

Lio shouts something incomprehensible and most likely foul from the back of the room. He doesn't get up just because it's not our deadline.

My knees almost buckle with relief as I pull open the door and offer a shaky grin. "You made it."

"Sorry it took us so long to get here," Lysander says, raking a hand back through his hair to try and tame the wind-swept look it has going on. He holds his jacket over his arm.

Us?

The source of the bright red hair waves as my attention lands on her. She stands at Lysander's shoulder, her coat still on and small smile in place. "Hello."

Lio's voice rises again, but this time it forms a coherent sentence. "Lysander, get in here and help us think!"

The two step into the apartment, and Lysander pats my head as he walks past me. "Do you have a plan of action yet?"

"God, plan of action? Really? How old are you?"

The rest of Lysander and Lio's conversation turns to background noise as I glance back at the young woman. She hovers in the entryway, unsure of what to do with herself. She's poised on the balls of her feet, leaning forward as if under a strong breeze.

"You can come in," I tell her, jerking my thumb at the apartment. "I'm sorry you had to interrupt your evening."

An easy, practiced smile slips into place as she settles back onto the flats of her feet. "That's fine. It wasn't too far out of our way, and ALICE would have interrupted our movie anyway."

"I'm Liala. The swearing is Lionel." The rest of the introduction sticks in my throat. How am I supposed to phrase we're participating as one person and we might be the cause of this impromptu check in?

She accepts this all the same. "I'm Ayn. It's nice to meet you. Lysander mentioned that he knows your brother?"

"Our older brother, Rhys. He's the other half of our team."

Ayn tilts her head to the side, and her brow furrows. I imagine that she's already putting two and two together. I brace, waiting for her accusations or her scolding to come -- to tell Lysander that it's not worth it to help a family that can't 'play by the lenient policies' ALICE runs their game by. "How do you manage to participate as a family?"

My stomach knots and condenses into an uncomfortable weight at my feet. "Lio created a fake person, I guess you could say. He put our joint accounts under it, so... I guess... it sort of looks like a real person if you were pulling searches up. It doesn't really make sense, I know."

She holds up a hand to stop my rambling. "So the person who was invited is under a different name?"

"I--" This isn't exactly the sort of question I expected. "Yes. Lianel Lions."

"Hm." Ayn glances across the room, watching Lysander and Lio crowded around the computer and arguing over what they want to do. I hear my name mentioned several times, but the rest of the words are a blur.

"We might have been caught a few days ago," I blurt, then immediately slap my hands over my mouth -- as if that will take back what I've said.

She turns to me, but there's nothing accusatory in her wide-eyed expression. "How so?"

"Lio, he..." I drop back down into the chair I had been sitting in, and Ayn pulls out one as well to sit next to me. I have to lower my voice, because Lio and I agreed not to tell anyone, but I feel like I'm about to burst if I keep it in. Though for all I know, she could tell Lysander, and Lysander would tell Rhys, and then Rhys would scold us.

I take a deep breath and forge on. "He created a sort of net to collect all the messages that go to other Informants. So we were out, I mean, I followed after him when he got a message, and someone was still there, and he wanted us to check in." My voice hitches, and I shiver with the memory of the man who stood at the end of the alley. "And I thought, well, fuck, this is it, you know? We'll be caught and he'll say, you're removed from the game, and that would be it. How would we explain that to Rhys?"

My fingers move on their own accord, picking at the nail beds in an attempt to distract myself.

Ayn reaches out, covering my hand with her own and guiding my palms down against the table. She doesn't push, waiting for me to gather myself so I can finish.

"He told the man that we were both Lianel Lions. The man didn’t check my phone, nothing about us trying to check in twice..." I steal a peek over at the other side of the room. Lio is back to chewing on his thumbnail.

She makes the 'hm' again. Then she shifts to lean in closer and drops her tone to match mine. "You know, my partner is cheating as well. His brother is participating, though they're on different teams."

This catches my attention. I hadn't stopped to think if anyone else would be trying to same thing we were. "How? I mean, why aren't they on the same team? How is he participating?"

"Unlike Lionel, my partner is friends with criminals. I don't know the whole story, because it was two years ago, but he got a new identity."

My eyes widen. "Is he a wanted criminal?"

Ayn laughs, and the sound is so incongruous with the atmosphere that Lysander and Lionel look at us. "Perhaps." She props her chin up with one hand, drumming her nails over her lower lip. She keeps her back to the rest of the room, her entire focus settled on me. "My partner is a bit reckless because he knows he has a safety net that is very secure. And he is convinced that there is little chance of him being caught, despite his brother participating as well."

"Aren't you worried about him?" I ask, thinking about how worried I am for Lionel, how worried Rhys is for the two of us.

"I am. Sometimes, I'm terrified. I don't know what would happen to him should the truth catch up." Her gaze is distant, and her eyes shift away toward the door behind me.

I turn her words over in my head for a moment longer. "But what about what happens to you?"
This brings her back to the present, and a perfectly sculpted eyebrow lifts at my question. "What happens to me is of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. He is the one that is cheating, and it will be easy enough for him to pin innocence via ignorance on me. So I'll be left alone to forget about this game, and about what happened to him."

The word 'pin' sticks out to me. She speaks like she knows something else, but even in our tiny little corner of confidentiality, she won't tell me. "What do you mean? What would you forget?"

Her expression softens, though not with anything like amusement or compassion. It's a memory of an emotion that she's fighting down. But instead of speaking, she releases a huff of air instead and shakes her head.

"Almost done!" Lio calls, loud enough so we can hear. "Lia, go wait in your room until--" The rest of his sentence is cut off in a strangled garble.

Ayn and I shift to look at them. Lysander leans in to study the screen. "Connection lost. The wireless is gone, but it's still encrypting."

"Fuck." Lio's hands hover in the air, and I can feel the tension in his limbs from across the room. He wants to throw something, and my fingers tense around my phone as if to do it for him. "Fuck fuck fuck--"

There's a knock at the door, and all four of us freeze.

I stare at the peephole, afraid to get up and look through it. All sensation leaves my limbs. From across the room, I can hear the air leaking from between Lio's teeth in a whine. He waves a frustrated hand at me.

Ayn and I rise to our feet at the same time -- she does it in one graceful movement, and I clamber upright with the table for support. Her expression is closed off, sharp, and dangerous. She catches onto my wrist as I start to move, and then points at Lio. "Stay out of sight."

He wants to argue. I know he does without even having to look. I have the same desire.

I want to yell at her, this woman who doesn't know our situation. She might think she's trying to help by taking charge and making the choice for us, but it isn't her team that's currently at stake.

It's mine, and it's my family.

She moves to the door before anyone else can and pulls it open. As soon as the bright light from the hall washes over her, the beautiful smile returns and she stands aside to graciously allow the suited woman to enter.

A breath leaves my lungs in relief. A part of me was convinced that the door would open to reveal the man from the alley. I can't remember his face, but I know I would recognize him the moment I saw him. I wouldn't be able to forget his eyes or his voice. He would enter our apartment and finally prove the suspicions he had since running into us.

But it's not him.

The woman stares down at a small tablet in her hand, but she doesn't explain what is making her frown. Perhaps her face is just naturally like that.

There's a muttered curse and the sound of equipment moving from around the retaining wall that separates the kitchen from the living room. It protects Lio's computer corner from the door.

Lysander emerges from around the wall, once again raking a hand back through his hair and offering a dashing smile. "Sorry, got caught beneath some cords."

The woman's mouth creases. "Phones, please."

Ayn is the first to respond, holding out her mobile to the ALICE agent.

Her long, tapered fingers navigate the screen with little effort, pulling up the app that we've installed. On her tablet, she activates a QR code and scans it with the phone.

Welcome, Ayn Starling.

Satisfied, she hands it back. "Next please."

Lysander picks up the slack that I create by being unable to move. The process is repeated, and Welcome, Lysander Stavros fills the silence.

Her eyes shift to me. "Yours, please." When I take too long to respond, she prompts, "Mr. Lions?"

A giddy laugh works its way up through my chest but I press it back. I hope my trembling isn't too obvious as I hand over my phone. My touch activates the screen, and a message across the top reads No Service. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Her eyes narrow as she accepts it. The tinny Welcome, Lianel Lions eases the tension in my chest for a fluttering moment.

"This isn't the same number that we have on file for you."

I have to force out the words that I've rehearsed several times in my head since Lio installed the app. "I had to get a new one."

"Why?"

"I--" My voice breaks off with a croak, and I have to cough before forging on. I probably pull off a very convincing prepubescent boy at the moment. "I was having problems with that number. Someone kept calling, convinced I was their ex or something."

Lysander makes a small noise, and the woman's attention shifts to him long enough that I can breathe again. "It was my idea. He happens to be one of my students, and friends with my teammates. He came to me for advice about the situation, and that's what I suggested." His smile is so charming that it's a wonder the ALICE agent hasn't started swooning.

"I see," she says, completely unaffected. "And that second reading for Lianel Lions that I registered while in the hall?"

I scramble for an answer that makes even the slightest bit of sense without having to wait too long. Any sort of pause would make it suspicious. "I was transferring some old files. My old phone still puts out a wireless signal, even though I've already deactivated the SIM card to avoid those calls."

"Then you wouldn't mind getting that phone for me, would you?"

I would mind very much. It would involve more movement than I think I'm capable.

Lysander takes it in stride, swinging about to head back into the living room. But the woman speaks up before he can take two steps.

"I want Mr. Lions to get it."

I'm going to be sick. My stomach churns and my breath catches in my throat. But I forge on without allowing my nerves to take over. Hesitation admits guilt.

I round the corner and find Lionel tucked into the back corner of the room. He's huddled between the metal racks that hold his computer equipment. His eyes are filled with fear.

After a quick glance doesn't reveal what I'm looking for, I start to panic. I need to hurry before she comes looking to see what is taking so long. The phone? I mouth.

He points, the sleeve of his oversized sweatshirt nearly dwarfing his hand. We're practically wearing the same thing due to the weather and crummy heating in the apartment. My own sweatshirt covers what little curves I have that might give away 'female'. My hair is a bit longer and styled differently than his, but we are twins.

That man from the other day saw it easily enough.

I pull the phone free from where it's hooked up to his laptop and pick my way back toward the kitchen.

The woman doesn't even offer a curt 'thank you' as she takes the phone from my outstretched hand and pulls up the ALICE app. I just hope that Lio managed to hide everything else that he had added in time.

Welcome, Lianel Lions, his phone says.

That's it. That has to be it. We have passed, and she will leave us alone.

The woman switches the screen on her device and three red dots clutter together. Whatever he did to it once it lost the signal must have prevented it from showing up on her list a second time.

This seems to satisfy her. "Thank you all for your continued participation in Lacryma," she says in a way that does not seem thankful at all. The woman shows herself out of the apartment.

Seconds pass before Lio wanders into view, gaze distant and distracted.

Ayn stands with a finger to her lips and her eyes trained on her phone. As soon as the error message disappears, she unlocks the screen and starts to type.

Lysander rubs the back of his neck. "Well," he says for the sake of saying something. "That was exciting."

Ayn snorts, sliding her phone closed and tucking it into the pocket of her jacket. Something glints in her eyes that doesn't match the tone of her voice when she says, "This is not what I signed up for."

"I don't think this is what anyone has signed up for." Lysander moves to wrap his arm around her waist and place a kiss on the top of her head.

She looks like she wants to say something else, just like she did before when she and I were talking. Once again, she changes her mind and lets out a soft breath.

Either Lysander doesn't notice, or he knows better than to question it. He scoops his jacket off of the back of the chair and looks at Lio and I. "Call Rhys and let him know you guys are okay."

Whether we're okay or not is debatable. Lio and I exchange a look, and I can see my exhaustion mirrored in his posture.

"It was nice meeting the two of you." The smile that Ayn wears is more honest than the one she wore with the ALICE agent. "Good luck." She and Lysander leave the apartment and close the door softly behind them.

There's a long silence in the room as the sound of the couple's chatter fades.

Lionel pulls in a heavy breath and flops his arms against his side. "I'm not going to bother putting everything back on my phone."

"It might be safer."

"We need to find a way to work this out for the rest of the game."

I want to tell him that it's his responsibility, because he's the one that started all these issues in the first place.

Instead, I move across the room and pull him into a hug.

Lio relaxes into it. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I'll fix this."

I just shake my head and try to steady my breathing.