Meliora - Emanate - 44

[lady_mab]

Rhys Darcy

Kaito and I sit side by side in silence, both of us unwilling to be the first to break it. We arrived at the restaurant early, opting instead to sit in the waiting area for Lysander and Ayn to just us for dinner.

He slouches in the bench seat, hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks and eyes staring holes into his shoes. He had arrived shortly after I did, took a seat next to me, and didn't say anything.

I don't like this feeling -- like we're fighting, because we're not. We're just being awkward. Or at least, I'm the one being awkward, which is nothing new. I'm always being awkward.

To top off the awkwardness, I nudge him gently with my elbow. "Hey."

Kaito starts, then turns to look at me with wide eyes. "Hey."

"Are you alright?"

He takes a bit longer than I would like to answer, keeping my gaze the whole time. "Good enough, you know? Got the night off. Get to actually go out with you and Lysander again. Feels like it's been ages."

I allow a small snort of laughter. "It's been like... since the holiday party."

"Yeah, almost three whole months. That's like, ages for me." He slips easily back into his usual bright personality, eyes automatically lighting up as I watch the energy return to his limbs. "You don't go into the nightlife business for things to move slow."

"Your version of slow is a normal pace for the rest of us. Sometimes I worry about you."

It's his turn to nudge me with his elbow, and he leans into my space so his shoulder is flush to mine. "Worrying gives you wrinkles."

"So does frowning, and I'm not about to stop that."

"Got me there," he concedes, grinning.

I try not to think about how close he is, because that is bound to just make my heart hurt more than necessary. Instead, I take a deep breath and say, "I wanted to officially apologize for being so shitty earlier."

Kaito's brow furrows and his head tilts to the side. "What do you mean?"

Habit tries to take over, to get me to retreat into myself and avoid confrontation, but I force myself to maintain eye contact. "For not letting you apologize, for saying that it was not your problem either."

He's the one to look away first, though it's a quick sweep of the restaurant before returning his gaze to mine. "You want to have this conversation here?"

"Well, better here and now than me continuing to put it off and avoid it for as long as possible." I lick my lips, nervous, but I immediately regret it as his gaze flickers for just a second. Please don't, I want to tell him, but my mouth is too dry to force out the words.

He laughs, though the sound surprises both of us. "Then you finally admit to having experienced the same moment?"

I roll my eyes and lean against the wall. "Yes, Kaito, I do. It was a weak attempt at evasion, because I can't keep this up for long."

"Oh, good. I was beginning to wonder if I had ruined something with my usual rash actions." He settles back as well, legs stretched out into the tiled foyer. He doesn't seem all too concerned with the fact that now people have to step over his legs or around his feet. "I'll forgive you if you forgive me for doing that without thinking."

The response that comes automatically gets bitten back and I snap my mouth shut. Would he have done it if he had the chance to think about his actions?

The important thing is that it's not something I have to consider. It's over and done with, and my feelings can continue on their normal path. The kiss might be there in the back of my mind, but I would much rather have us back to our usual routine than anything else.

"Yeah," I finally say, and I see him practically sag with relief. "Yeah it's fine. It's behind us."

Before we get another chance to say anything, someone kicks my feet and I jump in surprise at the sudden intrusion.

Lysander stands before us, arm around the shoulders of the young redhead that I saw from across the room during the holiday party. She smiles prettily, and I suddenly see what Kaito meant by the fact that she doesn't seem like Lysander's type. Five seconds in and already I can tell. She's too polished.

"Kaito, I already believe that you've gone ahead and introduced yourself at the holiday party. Rhys, this is Ayn."

I rise to my feet as she extends a hand, taking it and shaking it warmly. "Liala spoke fondly of you. Thank you again for going to check on them."

"It was no problem at all." She gives my hand a reassuring pat with her free hand before releasing my grip. "She's very sweet." Her wide, dark eyes switch over to Kaito and she grins. "A pleasure to see you again."

"And how many drinks did you end up getting through Rhys' cleverly designed system?" He had filled me in on the strange collection of drink tickets that, between her and her Informant, they had apparently amassed.

Ayn lifts a hand airily and shrugs. "Not too many. Enough to leave still standing, if that's what you were worried about."

"Mostly on Jonas' end."

She laughs, and the sound is as polished as she is. "Point taken. Fletcher would have left him there otherwise, so he had to be careful."

Lysander draws away from her to approach the maitre'd, double checking the wait time now that our entire party is here. We still have a few minutes before our reservation was set for.

Tucking her hands into her pockets as she stands before us, Ayn glances between Kaito and I. The smile is still in place, though it has faded from the initial brightness to something more casual. "So, I understand the two of you work together, is that right?"

Kaito lumbers to his feet as well. "He's my accountant. Does all the fancy number stuff to make sure that I can keep running my club."

Her expression shifts at the mention of that, and she turns to me with a renewed energy. "My step-father does accounting as well. He was so disappointed when I went for a literature degree instead of anything to do with numbers."

"You know... Kaito aside, I think that is the most enthusiastic I have ever seen someone talk about another accountant," I say. "My whole family is very big on numbers, though Lionel tends to see them as more of an abstract concept as part of coding."

We're lead to our table. Kaito takes the extra step to pull out the chair for Ayn, which she accepts with grace and not an ounce of hesitation.

She checks her phone briefly as she sits, then flips it face down onto the table with a slight frown at whatever she sees on the screen.

I clear my throat and she lifts her attention to me. "You're a student at the University, right? Did you come all the way out to Eminence to study?"

"No, it sort of came as an afterthought. I was accepted to the New London Ballet troupe, so I moved down here for that. I'm originally from New Oxford."

Kaito leans across the table towards our friend, teasing grin in place. "Lys, didn't you say that you lived in New Ox for a spell? Is that where you two met?"

Lysander and Ayn exchange a brief glance, and she arches an eyebrow in response. "It's your story to tell," she says.

"There's not much more to what they already know about my history," he adds with a pointed glare in Kaito's direction.

He sighs and props his chin in one hand. "I was hoping for something a little more dramatic now that she was here."

Ayn mirrors his pose, though not looking as defeated. "I'm sure I could spin you quite a tale if you'd like, but I actually have something that I wanted to talk to you about."

Kaito straightens up, eyes widening. "Me?"

"Well, all three of you, to be exact."

This catches Lysander off guard as well, who has a similar reaction to Kaito. "What?"

"Something I have been thinking about--"

"Oh? Not with Fletcher?"

She makes a tired, annoyed frown in response. "Don't give me that."

The waitress appears at that moment, and we all scramble to order a round of drinks without having actually taken the chance to consider the menu.

The tension between Ayn and Lysander is painfully palpable at the mention of her teammate. It sounds like this is a point of discord between the two of them that is worn thin.

Once our appetizers are ordered and the waitress leaves us with a jug of water, Ayn forges on without hesitation. "What do you know about the blog The Lady and the Ghost?"

"I know Lionel has talked about it..." I start, uncertain. "I haven't read it myself, but he seems quite interested in it."

Kaito's host instincts take over and he pours everyone a glass of water. "Jonas mentioned it back in January... How they wanted to make a post about the twenty-second.”

For his part, Lysander has his arms crossed over his chest, staring uncertainly at his girlfriend. He clearly doesn't know where she is going with this.

Her fingers drum on the edge of the table. At first, I think it is out of nerves. Then I take a closer look at her expression and I can tell that she's waging an inner debate with herself. "I knew the original hosts of the blog. Lainey Ruiz and Cade Hargraves. Their Informant, Jordan Hughes, is in one of my lit classes. That's how I met them."

There’s an obvious shift in tenses between the team and the Informant. "What do you mean?"

"Their security wasn't all that great. Easy to track, from what I learned later. One day, they didn't show up to our weekly coffee shop meetup. I waited for a good two hours before finally approaching Jordan." She leans back and makes a vague gesture with her hand, fingers fluttering into the air around her. "Nothing. He didn't even remember being friends with us. Cade, Lainey, and myself."

The silence that descends upon our table is interrupted by the waitress bringing our drinks and a quick round of orders. It's a little hard to force cheer, considering the words that Ayn just dropped, but somehow she and Kaito manage quite skillfully to pick up the slack.

What is it about our group and wanting to have serious conversations at restaurants? They always get interrupted by one thing or another.

Still, once the waitress leaves us again, taking the menus with her, Ayn folds her hands on top of the table and continues with her story.

"I asked Jonas to look into it, because his crew has a very far reach. He turns up with a grand total of zero facts about the two of them, except for the fact that I remembered them." She struggles for a moment, and I can't even imagine what sort of things must be going on in her mind. "I decided it would be a good idea to keep the stream of information flowing."

There's a few seconds of silence before Lysander jerks to attention and grips the edge of the table to lean in toward her. "You’re fucking running that blog now?"

Ayn doesn't flinch at his words. If anything, her spine straightens in challenge. "I am, yes."

"And you didn't think that this would catch up to you somehow?"

"It hasn't yet," she returns without the slightest hint of backing down. "Besides, let's be real here: You're not in a position to be telling me what I can or cannot do all things considered."

Lysander jerks back, frown deepening. "How long have you been doing this?"

She shakes her head and settles in her chair. "They only made one post. The rest were me. Jonas helped, of course. He had DECO set up all the security."

This is a conversation that can clearly get out of hand if we don't step in to stop it, so again I clear my throat to pull her attention away from Lysander. "And your partner, Fletcher. How involved is he on this?"

A flicker of something that I can't read dances in her eyes. "To be perfectly honest, I think Jonas is playing us both -- in whose favor, I don't know. I have the feeling that Fletcher and I are both trying to do what we can to ensure success, but he's thinking on a more personal level than I am."

The three of us exchange uneasy glances. Kaito shifts in his chair before asking, "How is what you're planning different?"

Her gaze passes over each of us in turn, holding on for a moment before flitting on to the next in the line. Even though we're seated at a square table, it suddenly feels like she is at the head of it, holding court over us. When she speaks, her voice is low, controlled, and we all lean in towards her to hear better over the din of the restaurant. "We need to get people to vocalize their protests. The threat of fear is a blanket keeping us all silent, and ALICE is keeping their hand firmly in place to suffocate us. I've seen first hand what they could do. I never planned on taking over the blog until I saw what happened on that Halloween event."

She lowers her gaze to her hands, folded demurely on the table before her. Her shoulders and back are straight. "By that point, I was already aware of what happened to Cade and Laney, in the barest of senses. They were gone, and Jordan couldn't remember them. It occurred to me then that the team that acted out on Halloween would have a similar fate. The fear was palpable in that room. And I thought... This cannot be where it ends. One team, then another, to raise their heads only to have them cut off."

Her words bring the weight of the knife against my throat, the press of the blade at the imagery. "Very Queen of Hearts."

A small smirk plays at the corner of her lips and she inclines her head in agreement. "My thought exactly. Halloween was a public show of what they would do should anything else happen. And that is 'nothing'. The Participants were escorted out of the room, and then there was nothing. So we did nothing about it." Her hands move on the table, unfolding and folding again. "My plan is to ensure that ALICE cannot keep controlling us with fear. People fear the unknown -- people fear the blank space of nothing, of not knowing. It's how rumors start. It's how misinformation is spread."

"So that's what Jonas had been talking about," Kaito says, realization dawning in his expression. “A desire to fill the silence with facts instead of fear.”

Ayn nods. "We set up an email that, from a basic standpoint, is untraceable. We had Rain check it a few times to ensure that, if there are any other programmers out there who might be curious, they could not trace it back to me. They are the only ones who use it... Though I think your brother might have gotten his hands on it," she adds, lifting her head to look at me.

A groan works its way up through my throat and I rub a hand over my face. "He did mention leaving a comment on one of the posts. Has he sent over anything else?"

"No, just mentioning that he had been the one to leave that comment. Sent a document as well with details for the drug he had mentioned." Ayn breaks the charade of a commanding leader by sighing and raking her hand back through her hair. "ALICE cannot be allowed to keep doing what they're doing. I would love to see them be honest with us for once. They're a medical company, so if the knowledge of them injecting us with unknown formulas gets out, this could be detrimental to their reputation. They never publicly disclosed what was in them. No one asked."

Lysander taps a finger against the table, studying her with a frown. "Why would you put yourself in this kind of danger, Ayn? You've seen that speaking out hasn't been well rewarded in this game."

"I thought it was obvious, Darling," she says with a pretty smile that is altogether very sweet and dangerous. "I want the people of Eminence to start fighting back."

I pause in the middle of lifting my glass for a drink, staring at her in surprise. At my side, Kaito makes a small 'huh' but otherwise doesn't react.

Lysander sputters and coughs, sitting upright once more to stare at her with a mixture of emotions on his face. "You what?"

"A riot. A revolution. I want the people of Eminence to fight back."

"Historically, that is a horrible idea. A lot of people get angry, a lot of people get hurt, and in the end, nothing changes."

Ayn grips the edge of the table and cuts the distance between them in half. "They're doing things to us without our permission. They're not telling us what they are doing, and they are removing anyone from the picture that tries to bring attention to it."

"Then the safest thing is to keep your head down and get out when they offer you the golden ticket out of the city."

She makes an offended noise. "You of all people--"

"I'm a historian, Ayn. I have seen the way these things play out."

"And you don't even want to try?"

"No!"

Awkwardly, the silence returns to the table as they notice that their voices have been getting a bit loud over the course of their conversation. Kaito and I sit, uncertain of what exactly is going to transpire between them.

Our food is delivered, and this time, I'm the one who helps with the conversation. Ayn sits with her arms crossed and replies with a curt, 'Thank you', before the waitress leaves.

There's a few moments of silent eating as the tension simmers. I'm considering the pros and cons of her idea. The monsters from the cemetery and the event in December linger in the back of my mind. Things like that aren't natural, and the question remains of their creation. What are they in relation to ALICE?

Kaito speaks up first. "I, for one, support this idea."

Lysander nearly chokes on a mouthful of food, but keeps whatever retort he might have to an angry glare.

Ayn hesitates, spoon halfway to her mouth.

He pushes on before anyone else can get another word in. "I'm a resident of this city, and I run a business that relies on people being able to come in and spend money. I started this game thinking that it could act as an information hub for Participants and Informants alike, but it's been clear over the last few months that people do not take the idea of 'sharing' at the same level of consideration."

"It's true," I add. "Lionel was among those people who hoarded information for himself, until he realized what sort of consequences it was bringing." I don't like the idea that I'm here being the spokesperson for my siblings. But I think of Liala, who has had to spend so much time in the hospital over the years because of her health. The knowledge that ALICE could be running trials, could be working against the very people they took under their protection, worries me.

They claimed they came in to save the city from falling to waste and ruin, like so many others along the banks of the flooding Thames. So many smaller cities and townships have been abandoned and forgotten, yet they took what was left of London and her surrounding districts and condensed it into Eminence. They slapped a shiny label on something that was in danger of crumbling and called it the New World Eden.

Relief washes over Ayn and she smiles at both of us in turn. "Thank you." Then she turns to Lysander, eyebrow raised. "And can I count on you as well?"

"What do you even expect us to do?" he replies, neither agreeing or directly dismissing her invitation.

"Get other people in on it. Don't be afraid to talk about it. Don't keep it to yourself." She shrugs and lifts her hands in an imploring gesture. "They cannot contain what they cannot control. We breathe the fire of truth. Will you help me?"

He huffs and I can see the disappointment in his eyes. "Yes, but don't say I didn't warn you."

"Noted." Again, she looks at each of us in turn. "So here's to claiming our ticket with our own two hands instead of waiting for them to hand it to us."

I reach for my glass, and she watches me as I lift it in the air above the table. "Moments like these call for a cheer, don't they?"

A brilliant smile takes over her expression, and she lifts her glass to meet mine. I remember when Lysander told me about her at the holiday party, how he described her as someone with stars in her eyes, and I pictured a naive girl from a sheltered upbringing.

But now, sitting across from her, I see that her eyes burn with fire.