Meliora - Extricate - 43

[lady_mab]

Lysander Stavros

Ayn never explains why exactly she wants to meet up with Rhys and Kaito. Not really, at least. She tries to brush it off with the fact that she's met Kaito at the Christmas party, but only because he introduced himself.

"They're you're friends, so why shouldn't I want to meet them?" she says, and I would have believed her if it wasn't for that teasing smile on her lips. It's a jab at the fact that I never got around to introducing her to them, despite the fact that I know several of her friends.

I can't explain why I’ve never brought her to Temple. A part of me thought that she might not like the atmosphere there. Another part didn't want her to meet the people that I hang out with. She can be judgmental, and her opinion of me is already very rough. I don't need it to plummet because Kaito says something to her.

She picked the restaurant, and told me to invite them out for dinner.

So I did.

I pick her up at her apartment like usual, and she greets me with a customary kiss on the cheek that feels more like routine at this point. At least she is comfortable enough around me to do that. I still remember the way she tensed up when I kissed her back on her birthday.

Ayn and I chat about school, both her classes and my students as we walk. It seems to be one of the go-to topics of conversations.

Routine.

I wonder what I need to do to change it.

When we reach the restaurant, I lean forward to pull the door open, and Ayn ducks under my arm -- but instead of passing all the way through beneath it, she stands so that my arm settles around her shoulders and looks up at me with a smile. Good to know that we're both awkwardly trying to figure this out.

Kaito and Rhys are already seated in the foyer, leaning close to one another and talking without noticing anything else going on around them.

Ayn hesitates as soon as we enter, unsure of how to proceed. I lead her over and nudge Rhys' foot with my own, and he jumps as he whips around to stare at me with wide eyes.

I feel more like I disturbed two deer than I did two people. "Kaito, I already believe that you've gone ahead and introduced yourself at the holiday party. Rhys, this is Ayn."

Polite to a fault, Rhys rises to his feet and Ayn extends her hand. "Liala spoke fondly of you," he says, clasping her hand warmly between both of his. "Thank you again for going to check on them."

She returns the gesture, pressing her free hand to the back of his. "It was no problem at all. She's very sweet." In the months since we were asked to check on the twins, since I found out that Ayn was participating in Meliora as well, she's asked after them a handful of times. Wanting to check in on how they were doing.

I hated to admit that, beyond what I saw of them in class, I didn't really know. It's been harder to keep track of Rhys and Kaito between this game and trying to maintain a functional relationship with Ayn and still create lesson plans.

Ayn's attention shifts to Kaito and her smile broadens to a grin. "A pleasure to see you again."

He leans back against the bench and returns her grin. "And how many drinks did you end up getting through Rhys' cleverly designed system?"

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

Kaito tilts his head to the side and Rhys rolls his eyes fondly. "Mostly on Jonas' end."

Watching her like this, engaging in casual banter with two people she doesn't know, it's easy to remember who she was back in New Oxford. Polite, polished, and quick to chat.

I excuse myself from the conversation so that I can check in with the maitre'd. We still have a few more minutes, with one other party sitting across the foyer. When I turn back to the group, Ayn has positioned herself with her hands in her pockets and her shoulders squared.

"So," she's saying, glancing between Kaito and Rhys as I move to stand behind her. "I understand the two of you work together, is that right?"

"He's my accountant," Kaito explains, finally pushing himself to his feet. "Does all the fancy number stuff to make sure that I can keep running my club."

For the first time in awhile, Ayn's expression brightens to something close to childish curiosity. It's open, innocent, and so much more like the girl I knew ages ago. "My step-father does accounting as well. He was so disappointed when I went for a literature degree instead of numbers."

Rhys is easily affected by her charm, and he rubs his ear in embarrassment. "You know... Kaito aside, I think that is the most enthusiastic I have ever seen someone talk about another accountant."

Kaito and I exchange an amused look. I'm sure he agrees with the idea that I don't think anyone would be excited about being an accountant except for Rhys.

The hostess steps in to announce that our table is ready, and the conversation is put on hold as we are lead through the restaurant.

Kaito cuts in front of me and pulls the chair out for Ayn. I half expect her to take it from him, or to ignore it altogether, but she accepts it without hesitating and he tucks her in as Rhys and I take our seats. It annoys me more than it should, if only because she gives me frustrated sighs and eye rolls whenever I try.

So I stopped trying.

"I sort of picked this place at random, so you cannot blame me under any circumstances if it is not to your tastes," Ayn teases as she sets her phone aside, wiping away the trace of a frown that had started to form.

Rhys, seated directly across from her, folds his hands on top of the table. "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." She starts to fiddle with the ends of her hair, twirling her fingers through it, before she realizes what she's doing and forces her hands into her lap. "I was accepted to the New London Ballet Troupe, so I moved down here for that. I'm originally from New Oxford."

Kaito leans in and I know that I'm going to regret anything that he says. "Lys, didn't you say that you lived in New Ox for a spell? Is that where you two met?"

I glance to Ayn, only to find that she's already looking at me. New Ox is only an hour by train. She's always been close by. Meanwhile, I put countries between us after I left, and I never gave a second thought to how she had been.

After a beat, Ayn gives a one-armed shrug. "It's your story to tell," she says to me.

I shake my head, not wanting this responsibility. "There's not much more to what they already know about my history."

Kaito props his chin in one hand and tosses me a look to combat the glare I turn in his direction. "I was hoping for something a little more dramatic now that she was here."

Ayn takes this in stride and mimics his pose, leaning in to close the distance between them. In a conspiratorial tone, she says, "I'm sure I could spin you quite a dramatic tale if you'd like, but I actually have something that I wanted to talk to you about."

This catches us both off-guard. "Me?" Kaito asks, sitting upright.

"Well, all three of you, to be exact," she concedes, leaning back to include me and Rhys in the conversation.

"What?" The question falls from my mouth before I can stop it. This isn't what I expected to hear. It's a bit disappointing that there's another reason to this meeting, but I should have known. Of course that there was something beyond just wanting to meet my friends.

Her fingers return to play with her hair. I've learned that it's not a coy motion. It's something she does when nervous. "Something that I have been thinking about--"

"Oh? Not with Fletcher?"

Darkness steals into her expression. We rarely talk about Meliora, and we never talk about her partner. I don't want to think about the conversation that I had with her team when left with them at the end of January. "Don't give me that," she says, voice tight and edged in warning.

I almost don't drop it, but then the waitress appears and I'm forced to put aside the conversation as we order a round of drinks and appetizers.

Ayn waits long enough for her to leave before speaking. Not giving me the chance to pick back up. "What do you know about the blog The Lady and the Ghost?"

I know absolutely nothing about this. I think I might have heard a few people mention it, but neither Zoné, Jun, or Glen seem to care about it.

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

Kaito pours out a glass of water for everyone as he speaks. "Jonas mentioned it back in January... How they wanted to make a post about the twenty-second."

I don't know where this is supposed to be going. I lean back in my chair and watch her, uneasy with the lack of information.

She doesn't meet anyone's gaze. Her fingers tap tap tap against the edge of the table. "I knew the original hosts of the blog. Lainey Ruiz and Cade Hargraves. The Informant, Jordan Hughes, is in one of my lit classes. That's how I met them."

The tension around the table tilts and leans in towards her. Rhys clears his throat. "What do you mean?"

Her gaze is focused on her glass of water before she pushes herself back in her chair. "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 meeting. I waited for a good two hours before finally approaching Jordan."

This is new to me. She never mentioned it, though it could have happened any time before I learned she was in Meliora in early December.

What was it that she said at dinner a few weeks ago? I know that ALICE is hiding something, and that it's dangerous as fuck to try and get anything solid on them.

Ayn's fingers flicker before her in a vague gesture. "Nothing. He didn't even remember being friends with us. Cade, Lainey, and myself."

The waitress arrives with the drinks and appetizers, and the table fumbles with trying to order our actual dinner. I'm having a hard time with words, but Ayn and Kaito carry on well enough for the rest of us.

Once we are alone again, she folds her hands on the table and rubs one thumb against the back of the other. "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."

I'm caught up processing this reveal -- the fact that people have vanished to the point where a group of criminals wasn't able to find them -- that I almost miss what she says next.

"I decided it would be a good idea to keep the stream of information flowing."

The words sink in and settle, and then I sit ramrod straight. My hands clench the edge of the table as I lean across the corner to close the distance between us. "You are fucking running that blog now."

Her head tilts and she levels me with a stare that I don't recognize. "I am, yes."

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

She doesn't flinch, doesn't draw back. "It hasn't yet." This is a challenge to her, and I don't know how to tell her to not be so blind about it. "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."

I don't know how to tell her that my concern comes from being in a relationship with her. That I'm worried that she might disappear like her friends did. But she turns it right back around on me, that I'm the one treading a fine line with my team's safety by announcing that I plan on leaving. "How long have you been doing this?"

Ayn settles back into her chair as well, not a hair out of place. "They only made one post. The rest were me. Jonas helped, of course. He had DECO set up all the security."

I still don't quite understand just what DECO is or how Jonas is involved with it, but Ayn has made it clear that she doesn't intend to explain or to divulge 'secrets' that aren't hers to tell. Not that Jonas seems to make any secret of his criminal dealings.

Rhys clears his throat and Ayn looks away. "And your partner, Fletcher. How involved is he on this?"

There's obvious hesitation in her eyes. Her posture shrinks a little, she draws in on herself. "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."

Ensuring success for whom, I wonder. Just his team? Or does he take Zoné into consideration with any of the plans that he is making?

I still haven't found the best way to bring it up to Zoné that I know about his relationship with Fletcher -- if only because I don't really know what the relationship is. I just know that there is one, and Ayn refuses to speak about it.

Kaito shifts his weight in his chair, interested despite himself. "How is what you're planning different?"

Again, her expression is distant and unfamiliar. She levels each of us with a steady glance. "We need to get people to vocalize their protests. The threat of fear is a blanket keeping us all silent, and ALICE keeps 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 Halloween."

Her gaze drops, but her posture remains regal and rigid. "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 could 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 knuckles are white, hands gripped together to keep from trembling. I could reach for her, but I don't know how she would respond.

"Very Queen of Hearts," Rhys mumbles, looking simultaneously awed and uncomfortable.

A smile flits across her face, but it doesn't last long. "My thoughts exactly. Halloween was a public show of what they could 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." She shifts, hands folding and unfolding, fingers curling restlessly. "My plan is to ensure that ALICE cannot keep controlling us with fear. People fear the unknown -- people fear the black space of nothing, of not knowing. It's how rumors start. It's how misinformation is spread."

Kaito makes a sound of understanding, tapping at his lower lip with his thumb. "So that's what Jonas had been talking about. A desire to fill the silence with facts instead of fear."

Ayn's head bobs once in a nod. Her lips are pressed into a thin line, cheeks flickering with shadows caused by the dim overhead lights. I can't look away, captivated by the sight of her. Despite the need to argue with her point of view, my eyes are glued to her.

"We set up an email that, from a basic standpoint, is untraceable. One of the members of DECO checked 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. Jonas passed it on to Rain as something more of a curiosity, and it doesn't appear that anyone has suspected us as being behind it." A flicker of a smile lands on her lips and she tosses it in Rhys' direction. "Though I think your brother might have gotten his hands on it."

He groans and covers his face with his hands. "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 rakes a hand back through her hair, the image of a tired commander. Weary and downtrodden, but still trying her best. "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." She spits out the last sentence with a dollop of sarcasm.

Because that is how ALICE has always played. You never asked, so we didn't tell.

There's an ache in my chest that I don't know how to interpret as I watch her. She's beautiful, but in the way that a painting of a martyr is achingly so. She believes in her words so strongly.

"Why would you put yourself in this kind of danger, Ayn?" I finally ask. I need to try and get her to understand. "You've seen that speaking out hasn't been well rewarded in this game."

"I thought it was obvious, Darling." The look she turns towards me is one that I don't recognize, and as she speaks, I finally accept the fact that I don't know her at all -- not really. Not in the way that I thought I did, or thought I was finally starting to. "I want the people of Eminence to start fighting back."

The entire table goes still, but the confusion finally comes to a boil inside of me. "You what?"

She returns my question with a challenge. "A riot. A revolution. I want the people of Eminence to fight back."

I snort and shake my head. Anything to try and shake off the illusion that she's trying to wrap us up in. "Historically, that is a horrible idea. A lot of people get angry, a lot of people get hurt, and in the end, nothing changes."

Her fingers grip the edge of the table, the tips of them turning white with the pressure. "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."

You will be one of them, I want to say. After a beat, I tell her the same thing I have told myself after starting this game. "Then the safest thing is to keep your head down and get out when they offer you the golden ticket."

Ayn's scoff is enough to make her frustration palpable in the distance between us. She has pulled herself across the table to get closer to me, to drive her point home without having to raise her voice. But I feel the inches stretch like miles. "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?" She's not begging me to help. She's honestly curious as to why I'm rejecting her idea, but it's clear she plans to carry on with or without me.

"No!"

In the silence that follows my declaration, I become immediately aware at how loud we had been getting over the course of our conversation. The other two at the table sit uneasily, but no one else has seemed to pick up on it.

Ayn leans back with a huff and crosses her arms over her chest. She doesn't even respond or play nice when the server returns with our food, and I'm too busy trying to figure out her thought process to be any help.

We start to eat in awkward silence. I don't know what to say. I can offer an ultimatum, but I won't help.

Kaito is the first one to break the silence. "I, for one, support this idea."

I take a sharp breath and end up choking on my food. A couple of coughs clear my throat, but I keep my thoughts to myself. It's one thing for Ayn and her team to go act like fools. It's another when others want to join.

"I'm a resident of this city," he continues, matching Ayn's gaze as she watches him. "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," Rhys cuts in, and my stomach drops even lower in disappointment. "Lionel was among those people who hoarded information for himself, until he realized what sort of consequences it brought."

Her posture doesn't relax, but relief is visible on her face. "Thank you." When she turns to me, the smile fades and I get a raised eyebrow. "And can I count on you as well?"

I sigh and ask, "What do you even expect us to do?"

"Get other people in on it. Don't be afraid to talk about it. Don't keep it to yourself." She raises her hands in a vague sort of gesture, losing the meaning as she moves. It's defeat, exhaustion, knowing that she's made her point and that I won't listen. "They cannot contain what they cannot control. We breathe the fire of the truth. Will you help me?"

No.

I open my mouth, try to force out the word, but nothing comes.

No.

It runs around in my head, but refuses to be spoken.

"Yes," I say instead, and every inch of me winces. "But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Noted." Ayn looks away from me, and it feels like the end of something. "So here's to claiming our ticket with our own two hands instead of waiting for them to hand it to us."

Across the table, Rhys lifts his glass to her. "Moments like these call for a cheer, don't they?"

She smiles, fierce and reckless, and she lifts her glass to meet his.

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