Meliora - Emanate - 56

[lady_mab]

No Kaito

All told, there's only twenty Informants remaining.

Twenty-one, if you include Jonas. He doesn't accept my invitation, though after our last interaction, I'm not too sure I want to see him.

We're huddled in my apartment, a little squished, and I have to bring in chairs from the storage room in order to make sure that everyone has a seat, but it's far less than I had been hoping for.

We started the event in late August with a hundred of us.

Our ALICE sanctioned meeting on January 6th did not show such a dramatic drop in numbers, but perhaps it’s only more noticeable now because there are so few of us.

Rain, Lysander and I stand in my kitchenette, with the others seated and watching. I called the meeting, I’m the one sort of in charge. Yet with all of them staring, I don't know how to proceed.

In the front of the group, Lia’s friend Catalina raises a hand. I’m glad to see that she is still a part of this. Lysander, on instinct, I suppose, points to her. "You said you wanted us all on the same page. What’s happening?"

To my right, Rain chews on his thumb in thought. He has a tablet tucked under his arm, looking about as prepared as I feel.

Lysander is the one who takes control. "I don't need to point out how drastically our numbers have changed. Less than a month ago, our teams witnessed the death of one of their friends and fellow Informant, Glen Willis."

There's a small collection of sounds. Glen had been young, easily noticeable among the rest of us. Catalina lowers her head, fingers going white where they grip the edge of her seat. Had she even known what had happened to him until now?

"How many of you have been reading the blogs posted by the Lady and the Ghost?"

Again, some light chatter as people murmur in response. It's not terribly helpful.

"Last I heard, that blog was cursed," someone says, his arms crossed over his chest as he sulks in his chair. "Didn't the original owners go missing because they got caught?"

Rain steps forward now. "It is true, the original pair have gone missing, as you put it. Their Informant didn't remember them, or a mutual friend they had made during the course of Meliora." He runs his fingers over the tablet before holding it out and pulling up the screen. There’s a portable projector installed, turning the facts into a shimmering screen between us and the rest of the Informants. "Since then, the blog has been run by the same people, though I'm not a hundred percent certain who they are. I have an idea of course, but in an effort to conceal their identity, I don't ask. My team and I merely collect data to send reports."

One of the notes I have on my phone mentions that Ayn is the titular Lady of the blog, and that Rain has an email address to send information to her. I glance over at Lysander. His lips are pulled into a thin frown, but he doesn't speak up.

"Now, what I am curious about, is why none of you seem to respond to the blog," Rain finishes, pulling up one of the recent posts made by Ayn.

"Like I said," the young man repeats. "It's cursed. Everyone who has responded to her call has ended up missing, haven't they?"

This is the first I've heard about it. Rain and Lysander too. We're all taken aback by this information, despite being personally involved with the blog runner herself.

"They're what?" Lysander prompts. His face has gone pale. He's been worried this entire time about Ayn, without realizing that ALICE might have been picking at the lowest hanging fruit. She's been calling people to action for months not knowing that everyone who tries has been removed.

It does little to make our revolution sound successful.

Lys rakes his hair out of his face, starting to pace in a tight little line. "How many of you have known that this is what happens?"

A few people raise their hands. "Jenny was one of the first that responded, back after Halloween," another girl says. "What happened then... with the team acting out. It really got a lot of us spooked."

There's a murmur of agreement from the others. "We thought it might have just been better to stop participating, you know? But my team wanted to keep going." Another woman tucks hands hands beneath her thighs as she leans forward on the edge of my couch. "I've seen a few of the other Informants around Temple sometimes, but they don't recognize me."

I feel like I should add to her statement, to agree with it. But I can't remember enough of the faces to say. I can barely put together the names with the faces here, and I'm the one who invited them.

I wonder how many people received my message and wondered who it was from. I never removed Glen's from the group chat, but when I checked today, it wasn’t there. So probably not that many.

A sound of frustration makes its way out of Lysander's mouth. "We didn't know. I'm sorry for those of you affected."

There's a moment of silence, and a few people bow their heads. We've already lost so many among our numbers, and I hate that there is only one that I can remember personally. Is it because I just stopped paying attention to how many people didn’t come in over the months, or is it because I honestly cannot remember?

Rain pulls up two reports and puts the tablet on the table. "Is anyone here good with chemistry? Chemical compounds, anything like that."

One middle-aged man raises his hand. "I studied it a bit in uni." He waves at the projection. "Those are Benzene and Diazepine. Commonly known as Benzodiazepine."

Someone else laughs and says, "You mean those drugs that's in insomnia medicine? I've stared at the pills often enough that I've got those strange chemical names memorized."

"Isn't that... like... not recommended?"

There's a shrug in response. "I'm sure I've done a lot worse things than using temporary insomnia medication for long-term."

One of the other Informants snorts. "Yeah, like whatever this city is doing to us."

The attention in the room focuses back on Rain, who stares at the screen of his phone instead of the projection hovering before him.

He must have been researching the compound's purposes, because when he speaks up next, it's with muted frustration. "Then what Lio suspects is true."

I can practically see the curiosity bubble visibly in the waiting crowd.

"Care to share with the class?" Lysander murmurs, though the room is small enough that everyone can hear. There's a scattering of laughter as Rain brings himself back to the moment.

"Benzodiazepine is used in relaxants, insomnia medication, and medically induced amnesia." He lets the words sink in for awhile before continuing, "For those of you who have read the blog, you'll know that the drug we are being injected with has an enzyme designed to help combat diseases affecting the brain's ability to form memories."

He splits the screen and brings up a document with other chemical compounds. This I recognize from when Lionel received from Zakariah.

The implication clicks together far faster in my head than I thought it would. "What is the source of the second drug?"

Rain hesitates before shaking his head. "I don't know. I don't think Lio found out. He gave me and Jun the data just in case he forgot, and we're supposed to distribute it if worst comes to worse."

As in if he is no longer capable of posting the information himself.

“And where did he get this information?”

Again, Rain holds my gaze steady. “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

My hands clench into fists at my side. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to force them to relax. There’s only so much I can do to protect him if he doesn’t let me. I wonder how much of it we can blame on the memory -- if he’s forgetting his promise to be better, if he’s simply reverting back to his old ways.

“It’s got to be the reason we can’t leave.” An older woman near the back snaps her fingers a few times in thought. “How was it phrased in that first email?”

“The one that was sent to the Participants?”

“Yes. I was invited to participate originally, but I turned it down. Was asked by a few others at the meeting to be their Informant.” She pulls out her phone and after a moment holds a finger aloft in victory. “We do not dream of leaving. What I am here to tell you is that it is not a problem of desire: You cannot leave.”

Someone reaches for the phone and she hands it over to them to let them read the message. “It even hints right in the initial email that we would simply forget about the message if we didn’t want to participate.”

I rub a hand over my chin. Lysander leans back against my counter, looking exhausted. “Do you think…” I start, hesitating when everyone looks at me. I suddenly realize how quiet it is in this room. The music from the club does very little to fill the cold silence.

I make the effort to push myself to finish my thought. “Do you think that we should do something? All of us at once?”

“What, and all of us get eliminated?” The person who recognized the drug from the insomnia medicine crosses their arms over their chest. “I’m tied between saying ‘fuck it, why not’ and ‘fuck no, why should we’.”

That seems to be the general consensus between the rest of the Informants.

Rain, who has been spending the last few minutes typing at his tablet while leaving the two drugs floating ominously in the middle of the room, sits up and raises his hand.

One by one, as the Informants notice, they fall silent and we all turn to look at him.

“Why are we going to let ALICE keep pushing us around?” he asks. He looks so tired, and I can feel that exhaustion in my bones. I just want this to be over and done with, so Rhys and Lionel and Liala can get what they deserve: Freedom. That’s why we’re still here, still fighting.

Rain carries on when no one responds. “There’s a fifth of us left. We’ve watched people forget, be forgotten, and in the end, we still don’t know how much we will remember.” He taps the screen of his tablet, and an email comes up. I don’t have enough time to make out the details before I notice movement out of the corner of my eye.

Lysander growls and pushes himself forward. “Don’t you dare--” he starts, but with another tap at the screen, Rain sends the email.

“Nothing can be done about it now!” Rain shouts, scrambling away as Lysander all but lunges across the distance at him. He jostles the tablet, and the projection rocks wildly about. “She’s brought us this far.”

Too late, I realize that it must have been an email to the Lady and the Ghost blog. It’s sending the information to Ayn, asking her to make one final call to arms.

I pick up where Rain leaves off as he hugs the tablet to his chest, keeping my kitchen table between him and Lysander. I address my words to the crowd, but my focus is on Lysander. I know how much this move means to him, because it involves Ayn. I am the same way, because whatever happens to Lionel and Liala affects Rhys. “We are weak because we’ve been divided for too long. It’s a game, and we’ve been divided into teams. So the best solution is to band together into one team. All of us. One united force against another. That’s how battles are won, right?”

He glares at me for taking Rain’s side, for taking the side that he thinks is against Ayn.

But I remember her expression that night when we had dinner. I remember the determination in her gaze as she stared down Lysander. She’s not a woman who will cower.

If her safety hadn’t relied so much on the anonymity of her identity, she would have made the perfect figurehead for this revolution. Instead, it is the faceless, nameless Lady.

It’s up to the rest of us to be the knights that stand up to protect her from anyone that would try to attack.