Meliora - Emanate - 55

[lady_mab]

Lionel Darcy

I arrive to find Rain and Jun already tucked into one of the booths in the far corner of her uncle's restaurant. This is my first time here, yet the woman at the host station knew exactly where to send me.

There's a plate of dumplings on the table, and Rain is listening to Jun describe something about the sauce when I plop down into the seat alongside her.

"Nice of you to show up," Rain says, though there's not the usual bite of sarcasm to his tone. It's tired, dragging the same way my feet do. "Why did you call us here?"

Jun sits with her hands folded in her lap. There's new bandages wrapped around the digits.

I scrub my face with both hands and try to reign in my exhaustion. "I'm going to ask the two of you to hold on to something for me."

She tilts her head to the side, trying not to look curious. "Something new? Beyond what we got from Zakariah?"

I nod and place two micro drivers on the table by the plate.

Rain picks one up immediately and studies it -- much like I did when I first received it from Chuck. "What is it?"

"Answers, I think. I feel like it changes every time I look at it." And I have looked at it constantly over the last few days. Barely a week has passed since I received the notice from Chuck, from when he gave me the drive that contained the chemical code of a second drug. Every time I open the files, they seemed to shift before my eyes. Meaning something less and less coherent as time passes.

Jun leaves hers on the table. "Why us?"

"The two of you have the furthest reach of people that I can trust. Rain, you know the email for the Lady and the Ghost blog, and you would be able to distribute things securely should it come down to it. Jun..." I trail off, and I watch her expression harden in anticipation. "I honestly don't know what is going on with you, but I think you would know what to do with it."

She nods, once.

Rain doesn't pocket the drive. He places it back down next to the second one and leans in across the table toward me. "Okay, but why us?"

My hands are trembling on the table, so I clench them into fists to try and control the shaking. It doesn't really work. "A backup plan."

"What, in case you die?"

I don't flinch, though Jun does. "No, in case I forget."

The tension from Jun's flinch shifts into something else, and she lifts her head to look at me with wide eyes.

With a low whistle, Rain crosses his arms over his chest and bites the inside of his cheek. "So the drug that you told the Lady about...?"

"The one in the shots we get monthly. It wears off surprisingly quickly, but I guess they are using pretty Old World memory enhancement drugs." I close my eyes and try to channel a sense of calm. Anything to make the words easier and the fear less of a weight in my chest. "It's... terrifying. To know that I'm forgetting things, to be aware of them slipping from my mind."

I couldn't tell Rhys that the shot that Lia received was meant for me. I didn't know how to explain the fact that I didn't even really do anything wrong.

Besides, Jun was perfectly fine after the last shot. Or perhaps Chuck decided that she had already served her time after the event in December.

I glance down at her fingers again, noting the way they curl awkwardly despite her best effort to remain poised.

Liala was poisoned with a shot ladened with an excessive amount of Vitamin E. For me, I might have just been woozy for a few hours, and should avoid blood thinners. It would have served as a warning that I was on their radar, but nothing more than a cursory attempt to shake me.

For her, with her weak system and low blood pressure to start with, it was worse. She could have ended up like Glen, bleeding out on the hospital floor because a glitch in the system failed to recognize that I would come in as a second Lianel Lions. I know that Rhys still worries that she very well could worsen.

I worry that Chuck will order another shot -- but I know that's an unfounded fear.

An attack on Liala serves as more than enough of a warning to me, and he knows it.

"We'll hold on to it," Jun finally says, breaking the silence.

My eyes open, though it feels like a tremendous effort to do so. I glance at Rain, and he nods in confirmation. "Thanks."

"Can you tell us what you found? I'd rather hear it from you instead of finding it out from these files." Rain's smirk manages a bit of cheer, and a small laugh manages to work its way as far as my mouth before falling short. "I'd rather not it read like an obituary, okay?"

"Lighten up a little, will you?" I ask as I roll my eyes. But it's enough to help focus me on the task at hand. “You’ve read the posts, right?"

Rain takes a dumpling and considers it for a moment before biting into it. "I saw your comment awhile back. And I'm not even going to pretend like I wasn't sure if it was you." He smirks and takes another bite.

With a sigh, I adjust my position so I can lean in over the table. My voice takes on a low tone, even though there is no one nearby that will be able to hear us over the din. That, and I trust Jun enough to know that her uncle's restaurant could be considered a 'safe space' from ALICE influence -- unlike Zakariah's lab.

I pull my tablet out of my bag and bring up the files on its screen. "The drug that they are giving us is a form of memory enhancement as we know by now. I'm evidence enough that, without it, short term memories are having a hard time holding. Even memories made but I'm not reminded about." Kaito and I both have docs on our phones of important facts in case something else starts to slip. I have been looking at it with alarming frequency lately.

I don't want to be one of the people that has forgotten Glen, or what is happening here.

"From what I have been able to figure out, and this is in conjecture with what we learned from Zakariah, is that Eminence as a whole has been suffering from mercury poisoning. When they attempted to dam the Thames, and break down the nuclear power plant, an excess of heavy metal started to form in the environment." I tap the drivers on the table before me, then push them back toward Rain and Jun. "ALICE came in when people started to die from the mercury poisoning. It wasn't too bad at first, but over the years as the plants broke down further, the water became more contaminated."

"I've read about clean energy dams causing a lot of mercury build up, too." Rain pushes his glasses up his nose, but still doesn't grab his driver again. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to have to force it into their hands. "It infected the entire Thames River Estuary. All of the fishing has been pretty much banned because of the poisoning."

Jun chews on her thumb, though she notices a moment later when she accidentally starts to chew on a bandage. She might have just kept on gnawing until it started to bleed. "Uncle Bao's mentioned about having to get fish shipped in from further because of the recent ban on the estuary."

"Doesn't stop people from fishing there and eating, nor does it stop the mercury from forming and spreading." I indicate to her hands. "As evidence by your fingers."

Rain studies her curiously but doesn't press the topic. He knows of some of the effects from the night of the twenty-second. It was apparently his team that found Jun, after all.

"The thing is that ALICE swooped in to the city, formed Eminence, and suddenly no one wants to leave, right? It’s perfect and wonderful, and no one realizes they’re trapped." We all learned that during our ALICE history lesson back at the start of the game.

"The city is so perfect, who would want to leave?" Rain corrects, sounding like an advertisement for Eminence. "Come join this eminent city and die of mercury poisoning!"

This brings a small snort of laughter to Jun. "You seem to be very hung up on people dying."

He shrugs and grabs another dumpling. "Look at the record so far. I've personally known two teams who have been affected. One person has been forgotten, two 'no longer exist' by any technical standpoint." He's smirking, but there's a callous tinge to the expression that almost turns it into a sneer. "ALICE has been doing whatever the fuck they want for too long now and I'm really pissed off that they have been getting away with it because we're all too damn ignorant or powerless to do anything about it."

Jun and I exchange a glance. We both know how this affected Glen. We've personally seen the aftermath of his death. Not just as something we've had to deal with emotionally, but having to watch others simply forget him because they're not in 'the loop'.

Without looking away, I press on with what little I know. "What if there is a way for them to induce amnesia? The inability to form short-term memories."

Her face pales, the blood immediately draining from it as her gaze remains glued to mine.

Rain wavers in his spot, uncertain of how to respond. "You think they would do something like that? On a city-wide scale?"

My shoulders heave a shrug, unable to manage anything else. My hands won't stop fidgeting nervously in my lap. In an effort to try and distract myself, I rub a knuckle over my brow and try to will myself into stillness. "Why not? It would fit in with why no one wants to leave. Just... make them forget."

"You can't just pick and choose what you want people to remember."

"No, but if you aren't reminded of something daily, or weekly, then what is to stop you from forgetting it?"

Rain's mouth opens, a strangled sound working its way free, but then he snaps it shut.

I keep going, because if I don't say everything now, then I run the risk of not remembering what is even on the drive. "It's in the name, isn't it? ALICE."

Jun makes a small noise in confusion, but Rain picks up the slack. "Assisted Living in Controlled Environments."

"They keep us in one place, and they can keep an eye on us."

"Shit." He buries his face in his hands, shoulders pinched tight. "What the shit."

Jun has resumed picking at her nail beds. I want to get her to stop before she hurts herself, but she doesn't look like she wants any sort of physical contact right now. "They can try and fight the progression of the mercury poisoning."

"Sure, but why not just let us leave? Why keep us here? The easiest way to start on a cure for mercury poisoning is to remove the source of the mercury." I tap a finger against the table, irritation rising up in me as I keep thinking about our situation. "Or, in this case, just fucking shut down the city as a hazard and relocate everyone."

Rain is shaking his head, but if it's in disbelief or denial, I don't know. "Too expensive. There are people who might not have another place to go."

"But why keep us here?" I repeat, finger jabbing into the wood a bit too hard. "There is literally no point to it, except for the fact that it needs to be a controlled environment."

Silence descends over the table. The chatter of the restaurant carries on at a normal level, the smells overwhelming me in a blanket of humanity. It's nothing like my tea with Chuck and Mary Ann. These are all people, living, carrying on.

I'm not going to turn around and see a mirror image of something that I can't remember -- and not because my memory is failing me, but because it never had a true face to begin with.

Rain takes his driver and pockets it. "You slip too far, I'll make sure this gets heard." He slides out the booth with a cursory nod to Jun, and then disappears into the crowd of people shifting and moving throughout the room.

Jun and I sit another moment longer. The mood between us hovers somewhere between awkwardly melancholic and depressingly broken. We're both not at our best. Her body is failing her, and my mind is failing me. We're both victims of ALICE, and yet all we can do is keep fighting.

"Do you think this will change anything?" she asks, breaking the silence as she leans forward to nudge the drive with her fingernail. "If we tell the world, would anyone listen?"

I drop back against the booth, closing my eyes and letting the tension out of my limbs with a heavy breath. "I honestly don't know. But lying to myself while I still can is better than the alternative."

She inclines her head in agreement. "This is true." She takes the drive, knocking it into the palm of her other hand. I wonder if she can't manage the motor function to pick it up properly. "I'll give this to Lao Wantong."

The urge to press the topic rises anew each time she mentions it. The best I can manage at this point is a tired nod and I push myself out of the booth as well. "I'm sure he'll know what to do with it."

A small smile flickers at the corners of her lips. "Good luck, Lionel. Zoné and I are here if you need anything."

It feels odd that she would be the one to comfort me, especially after everything that she has been through up to this point. She has been through too much to be the one offering comfort.

"Thanks," I manage, my voice small and strangled. "Same for you two. Lia and I... whatever we're worth, we're here."

The smile takes a more solid form. "Yi fan feng shun," she says, and a laugh follows on the tail end of the statement as bewilderment takes over my expression. "You might say 'smooth sailing', I think. Good luck, Lio."

"I'm not even going to try and say it back to you."

Her laughter rings with the hint of her old cheer, even if it is short lived. "I'll see you at school."

I hope that I do, even though I don't say it. I wonder how well I'll be able to keep up with classes, or how much longer we're going to be expected to play along.

I solved the puzzle as best I could, though I have to entrust the answer to two others. A part of me is certain that Chuck will know that I've completed my end. I just hope that I don't have to wait too long before he upholds his end.