Meliora - Extricate - 12

[lady_mab]

Zoné Altair

September rolled in on a heat wave, which doesn’t break at all by the time that fall term starts. It’s miserable and muggy, and I would much rather be back inside where there is at least air conditioning.

But I’m tempted outside with talk of popsicles. Once I have the delicious treat in hand from a street vendor pandering to the rush of students, my friends immediately hem me in against the wall I’m using for shade.

“Are you and Jun dating?” Mal asks without any sort of pretense.

I freeze with the popsicle halfway to my mouth. Three pairs of eyes turn expectantly in my direction. Glen, for his part, isn’t staring, but I can tell he’s curious. “Are we what?” Artificial blueberry stains the back of my hand in sticky hues.

“Dating,” Robbie repeats, even though I really didn’t need him to. “We’ve all been wondering.”

My popsicle continues to drip as I struggle to decipher the question. “We’re not.”

Beat’s response is automatic and honestly somewhat expected by this point. “Good. Because I want to ask her out to dinner.”

I make a face in confusion before I can stop myself. “Why?”

“Why?!” He sputters into his soda and ends up choking on it. “Because I want to!”

“Oh.” I try to think of something else, another way out of this conversation, because it’s not my concern. They’re all my friends. I’m not about to start dictating who they hang out with.

Of course, they probably only ask this because I’ve started hanging out with Jun a lot more after school. And the fact that we’ve got plans today probably doesn’t help either.

As if on cue, Jun’s voice calls out from behind Mal. “Who wants to what?”

This time, all four of them explode in a round of strangled shouts and scramble to pretend like they weren’t just cornering me.

Beat whirls around and attempts to lean casually against the wall, misses, and swings out his hand to catch onto Glen’s shoulder before he can topple over. “What? Nothing. We’re not planning anything.”

She gives him a look that clearly says she can see through his blustering, but lets it pass a second later with a smile. “Alright.”

“But, you know, hypothetically, if we were to, I dunno, take you out to dinner?” His face is very red, bordering on puce, and I wonder if he’s got something lodged in his throat to keep him from breathing. It’s a wonder he manages this all without bursting into embarrassed flames.

Glen, however, still lending his shoulder for literal support, looks like he might just die from second hand embarrassment.

Jun puts this to thought. “When?”

“Today?” The question jumps out of his throat a few pitches above his normal tone.

A sound of disappointment leaves her on a gentle breath. “Sorry. Zoné is taking me to the museum.”

If betrayal had a sound, the silence that overcame our small group would definitely be it.

While the museum isn’t entirely true, it’s the story we decided on yesterday when finalizing our plans to visit ALICE. It’s a good enough substitute.

Beat clutches a hand to his chest as Robbie rolls his eyes. Glen looks a little uncomfortable, and Mal’s trying not to laugh. “You’re a liar and a horrible friend, Zoné.”

“Listen, we can not be dating and still go to the museum together.” I toss the popsicle stick into the nearby trash bin and nab several napkins from Robbie’s giant wad of them. “Ready?”

Jun arches an eyebrow, putting together the rest of the conversation that took place in her absence. “We can do something tomorrow. To celebrate the end of the first week of school. I promise I will let you spoil me your usual fashion if you forgive Zoné for today.”

And she smoothly turns an invitation for a date into a group thing while taking blame off of me. Or maybe she just didn’t realize that.

They groan and gripe, but no further protests emerge. Jun and I take the chance to slip away. When I reach for the bag filled with lunch boxes, she lets me take them.

“Nicely done,” I tell her. “I think you somehow managed to make that simultaneously awkward and the most peaceful let down in the history of ever.”

She glances up at me curiously. “What do you mean?”

“He was asking you out on a date.”

Her brow furrows. “Really? Why?”

“Well, that’s what I asked, but he didn’t give me an answer.” I laugh when she reaches out to give me a teasing shove.

“I think Beat was serious when he said he hated you.”

“That wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Over a girl?!”

I hesitate, watching the top of her head bounce along at my side. “Well. No. But I think this is the first time we’ve really hung out with a girl as a part of our group. Not Ayumu, he’s oddly popular and yet still hangs out with us. In general, though. We’re not really the cool kids.”

She gasps and presses the tips of her fingers to her mouth in feigned surprise. “A bunch of charmers like yourselves? I never would have guessed.”

“Rude.”

“I do not know how I put up with you.”

I honestly don’t know how she does either. It could be because I was one of the first ones to reach out to her when she was still new. She hadn’t exactly protested when I invited her to join us, but I have no doubt she could have become an addition to any other group of friends.

We reach the bus stop and join the small queue of students already in place.

“Seven stops,” Jun says as the bus lumbers to a halt before us.

“What?”

“To the center of the city. The stop we want is the one right across the street from the ALICE building.” She turns her eyes up to me as I watch a student hauls himself up the steps. “Did you not you read Lysander’s text?”

“Yeah, but that was like…. Ten texts ago.”

All I can see from this vantage point is her shaking her head, but her voice, when it comes back to me, is light and amused. “I will keep an eye out then.”

We clamber up the steps and swipe our passes and turn to find a forest of limbs before us. There’s one seat available, and Jun takes it -- pulling the lunch boxes from my grip so I can catch my balance on the railing overhead.

The bus jerks into motion as the last of the students boards, and the crowd jostles around me. I watch the city outside the window, breathe a little easier as the bodies diminish with each stop.

Stop five is when I can finally sit down, though I’m back on my feet again as soon as we roll away from stop six. This close to the city center, the only people getting on or off the bus now are in suits.

Jun latches onto my sleeve as we shuffle to the nearest exit, clutching our belongings to avoid smacking fellow passengers with our bags. The doors open, and a whiff of dry exhaust fills my nostrils.

Transportation of the future and medicine of the future really need to get together and figure out just what it means to be “of the future”. No more of this exhaust and needle nonsense. That is so Old World.

Of course, I don’t really know what the busses run on these days, since fossil fuels are a thing of the past. Maybe Lysander knows.

Jun tugs on the sleeve in her grip and points across the plaza. The tall white facade of the Project ALICE headquarters gleams before us. Even the hospital is dingy in its shadow.

Three men in suits have gotten off at the same stop, and two of them head straight for the ALICE building without hesitating.

“I wonder if they’re here for the same reason.”

“It is a Friday,” Jun agrees. “If they are here for work, it is a little late.” She shoulders her bag and steps off the curb.

Now that the bus has disappeared around a bend, the foot traffic rises to reclaim the streets. People in well pressed suits, carrying briefcases or blazers over one arm, talking on their cellphones or to each other, rush in the direction of the subway station not too far from here. We’re walking against the tide, weaving between fast-walking business people.

“Do you know what we are looking for?”

“Haven’t a clue! We have to meet the hosts, so… let’s go say hi?” I find myself hesitating at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the building in all its imposing, brushed steel glory.

Jun look to me, then starts the trek -- me close on her heels.

We reach the doors at the same time, her smaller legs keeping up with my long stride. They slide open and the fumes of the late summer city are vacuumed away, replaced by the sterile smell worthy of a building this pristine. There is only one woman at the desk, though I see the businessmen leaving her station and moving into a room on her right. She’s dressed in a light grey suit, her hair hair pulled into a neat ponytail over her shoulder.

I stand out like a bruise, my dark skin the most colorful thing after Jun’s bright pink hair.

We’re completely out of place, and the look that people milling around the lobby give us lets us know how much they agree.

The woman behind the counter paints on a pretty smile that draws us in like flies. “How can I help the two of you today?” ‘Mary Ann’ is etched into her shiny name badge.

“We would like to take a tour of the building, if we can.” Jun’s accent feels just as awkward in this setting as our appearances do. “I read online that tours are open to the public.”

Something in her expression shifts, and when she moves, the light slides off her badge to obscure the words on it. “Certainly. My I see your phones?”

I reach for mine, but Jun reaches out and touches my wrist to stop me. “Why?”

“The entire tour is run digitally. We are busy here at ALICE, and we are run on a minimal staff. This way, you can take your time between each of the locations.” Mary Ann smiles again and this time holds out her hand.

Still skeptical, Jun passes her phone over all the same.

Behind the desk, Mary Ann types at a screen floating just out of our line of sight. Our phone screens light up and I realize that she has opened the app we’ve had to install for Meliora. So Jun’s guess was right after all.

In the span of a breath, she’s finished, and hands them back over to us. “Just hold your phones in front of the QR codes throughout the tour. Your phones have access to the map of the stops on the tour so you won’t get lost.”

As tempted as I am to tell her that me not getting lost is highly unlikely, I tap Jun on the shoulder and tell her, “I’ll follow you.”

Before we turn away, Mary Ann’s smile shifts into something mildly amused. “Please enjoy your tour of ALICE, and welcome to Meliora.”

We wait, as if expecting something to happen -- a sign or indication that there might be a private tour, or balloons congratulating us. But nothing does, and Mary Ann’s attention shifts away, so Jun and I move on.

We move from the lobby into the first room, where there are several pictures along the walls and a collection of plush ottomans collected together in the middle of the room.

I’m distracted by watching the two other pairs watching their phones while standing before displays. Jun stops so suddenly that I almost trip over her.

“First stop,” she says, and points.

A square of squares stares at us from the wall, completely unassuming and very nearly blending into the grey of the room’s accents. It sits beneath a picture of a gloomy beach, nothing but the coast stretching from one end of the frame to the other.

She slips her headphones on and holds her phone up before code, and the map turns into a camera to scan the mess of squares.

I quickly follow suit, fumbling the tiny earbuds into place. A voice that sounds oddly like Mary Ann’s floods through the speakers. “Welcome to Project ALICE’s virtual tour. In here, you will learn a little about our history and what it is that we do here at ALICE. We would like to start with a thank you to everyone in Eminence for making us feel so welcome. It is because of you that we can flourish, and we hope that our endeavours will help you bloom in turn. Please move on to point two on your map to learn more about how we came to be in the illustrious capital of the New World.”

Jun is saying something as the voice fades from my ears.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. It is a saying. Seeing versus hearing.”

“I’m not sure I get it.”

She shakes her head and tugs at the strands of pink that have fallen loose from her braid. “This is just very different for me, though not at the same time. A lot of China has not changed over the years, so I see how this is strange and new for western civilization. But do they not seem very…. “ She struggles to find the word that she wants. “Controlling?”

To be perfectly honest, I never thought about it. Even after the tiny hints have been dropped through the short span of this game, nothing about why we are being expected to visit ALICE has seemed out of the ordinary. As soon as Jun and Lysander came up with the idea, I thought it made perfect sense.

“You’ve been in Eminence for how long now?” I ask her.

Her head cants to the side as she does the mental math. “Just over three months.”

“I’ve only been here two years, so I guess I’m not really an expert on this or anything. And I suppose the tour is supposed to teach us this, but…” I wave a hand around the room. I recognize a lot of old London landmarks, things that have no place in the New London. “ALICE has done a lot for this city. I’m from New Oxford, which isn’t all that far from here. An hour by train. It’s still a topic of conversation for a lot of people, wondering if it could happen to us, or to somewhere further south or north or whatever direction you want to pick.”

Jun gives me a strange look, and I wonder if I’ve said something wrong. I’m not all that well-read, or even brushed up on my recent history. Lysander should be the one giving her this pep-talk about the benefits of ALICE.

So I sigh and let my arms flop back to my sides. “Isn’t that the point of Meliora? ALICE lending another helping hand to the people of the city?”

Her expression flickers and she turns away. Did I miss something? Some underlying message that she has picked up on and I haven’t? “I suppose that is true.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“It is like you said: I have not been here that long. I come from somewhere that is very strict, and names spoken with the same weight as ALICE are not always kind.” She rolls her lips, still struggling over a language she’s not fluent in. “Let us move on with the tour then, hm? I will learn more from hearing their point of view.”

The tour takes about thirty minutes, leading us on a meandering path through the first floor of the building. Jun and I don’t speak during the rest of it. I watch her brow furrow in concentration, and she occasionally looks up words on her phone for some of the more technical and medical aspects.

We learn a lot about ALICE that I didn’t know, beyond my limited understanding of their presence here in Eminence. We learn about how they started in the States, back before the SD era even started. They weren’t always a medical company -- they were a division of Marines on the west coast that worked to undo nuclear damage from a decommissioned facility threatening the coastline. They picked up the slack during the tumultuous era that preceded SD. As they expanded, they found the easiest way to help people in need was with a well funded and well stocked hospital.

The last few stops talk about their more recent presence in London, helping boost a city that was on its last legs trying to run from the flooding Thames.

Jun and I find a spot on the ottomans in the middle of the room. It’s set up to mirror the first one. This entire building is a display of controlled appearances.

I wonder if this is what Jun meant, if this is how she interpreted their name. Assisted Living in Controlled Environments.

I hadn’t even realized that I said it out loud until Jun glances at me from the tour log on her phone. “What was that?”

“The acronym, ALICE.”

She makes a small sound and slouches in her seat. She looks so small and tiny in this drab room. “I suppose I understand it better now. This company and this city.”

“Really? Because I don’t.”

A smile touches the corners of her lips and she pats my arm. “It is like you said.” There is a lightness to her tone that it hadn’t held before. “Perhaps this is the point of Meliora. Another attempt for ALICE to help the people.”

It’s reassuring to hear that from her. Because now I at least don’t feel like there is something that I don’t know but everyone else does. “Did you enjoy your trip to the museum?”

“I think I did. But I think dinner with everyone else would have been preferable.”

“You say that as if I don’t think that way constantly.”

Her laughter rings out a bit too loudly in the muted din of the room, and her attempt to smother it does very little.

Together, we get to our feet and make our way back to the lobby. There are more people milling about or moving between the displays in the first room. I wonder how many people are here for Meliora, or are just here because they work here, or are genuinely interested about ALICE in a day-to-day sense. I wonder how everyone from Meliora figured out the riddle on their end.

Mary Ann is busy with answering an older man’s questions, but she spare us a parting smile. When we reach the automatic doors at the front of the building, our phones both go off with a quiet little ding.

Thank you for visiting the ALICE’s headquarters.

And, immediately after that, the Meliora app pops up with a notification across the top of my screen. Welcome, Zoné Altair.

“Okay. Mildly creepy.” I shove my phone back into my pocket and stretch my arms up over my head once we step out of the building. “But I guess that is one challenge down!”

“I hope the others are that straightforward.”

“Straightforward? I don’t know how ‘meet the hosts of this ambiguous game where we haven’t told you anything about us at all’ is straightforward.” My hands ruffle my hair in frustration. “I’m so glad you figured it out.”

She shrugs as she follows alongside me. “You and Lysander would have figured it out eventually.”

I suppose we would have. Lysander had been putting some serious thought into finding alternates in case this wasn’t the correct answer. “I prefer the fact that you were the one to come up with it so quickly.”

“Thank you,” she replies humbly. “I am happy to hear that.”

It was sheer luck that we teamed up for this, but already I feel like we will work well together. I hope that she thinks the same way.

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