Meliora - Extricate - 51

[lady_mab]

Zoné Altair

Catoir doesn’t quite glare at me from over the rim of his glasses, but I sort of wish he would. He definitely doesn’t speak -- he leaves that to Ayn, who accepts the responsibility with a frustrated shake of her head.

“I know you would rather not be here with us, but this is the only weekend that they’re good for,” she explains, passing an aquarium ticket to me and one to Jun. “I thought that you could use a break from....” Ayn suddenly looks very tired as she exchanges a glance with Catoir. “Well, from a lot of things. A non-Meliora break.”

“Thank you,” Jun mutters. When she takes the ticket, her hands are free of bandages but have more tiny scars than I remember.

I take my ticket without saying anything, but no one really expects me to.

Ayn and Catoir head in first, and as I watch them walk off -- his hand landing briefly between her shoulder blades to help guide her around a woman with a pram -- I can’t help but wonder just what their relationship is supposed to be.

She’s dating Lysander, and yet she is very close to my brother. It really shouldn’t be any of my concern, but I’m still not used to the way that Catoir acts when he’s around her. It’s like he’s a different person, though the snobby jerk personality of his tends to rear its head whenever I’m around.

Whatever. Not my problem.

At my side, Jun holds the ticket before her in both hands, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. “I’m really glad that he gave us tickets.”

I grunt in response and resist the urge to shove my hands into my pockets or cross my arms over my chest in frustration. “I’m still amazed that he invited me.”

Jun’s laugh is soft and barely audible above the gentle hum of the aquarium entrance. “He’s probably just as amazed as you are.”

“He’s probably definitely something.”

We head to the turnstiles and hand our tickets over. We’re given a map, a list of the shows, and a polite smile on our way in. There is a giant beast of some kind twisting above the doorway, scales glittering in the soft light and teeth dangerously sharp in its open mouth.

"Alright," I say, once we're in the cool darkness of the first exhibit. "Where to first?"

Jun studies the map with a great degree of seriousness. She wasn't kidding when she said she's wanted to come here for some time. I've always thought about going, but never had the time or the money to make a trip. It's a luxurious sort of day-trip that I can't really afford.

A chance for Eminence and ALICE to show off all the technology at their disposal. A display of monumental proportions, just without real fish. Everything inside is digital, from the water, to the schools of fish, the sharks, the plants -- a trip into a techno oceanscape.

Our earth sciences class has talked about how pollution has ruined a lot of the oceans, runoff from chemical plants and trash having nowhere else to go except out to the sea. I've never been to the actual ocean, but from what I understand, there's not much that makes it worth it.

The aquarium, however, is a chance to bring back that former glory. They look and move like real fish, and the strands of kelp wave in a lazy pattern like they are being tugged by ocean currents. It is, strangely enough, very relaxing.

Jun takes my hand and guides me into the room, map held before her, and determination in her gaze.

The first thing we come to are seahorses.

"These used to be used in a lot of ancient medicines," she explains, leaning over to peer into the tank. The tiny creatures have their tails wrapped around the plants, unaffected by everything going on around them.

I tap at the glass, and nothing happens.

I can see Jun's smirk through the yellow glow of the tank.

We walk around in relative silence, pointing out a few odd looking fish or crustaceans here and here. Most of the time, I comment how delicious something looks and her smile brightens a little more each time I do. It doesn't take long before she puts the map away and we just wander wherever our feet take us.

Jun takes pictures as we go. "Feng is going to be so jealous. We never got to go to the aquarium in Beijing, but it is supposed to be the best in the world."

We walk through a tall, narrow hall that arches over us. Sharks mingle with stingrays and tons upon tons of fish swim overhead. In the distance, obscured through the haze of water, I can see the shadow of something massive passing through and everyone in the hall points and whispers in awed shock. "Even better than this one?" I ask, finding that hard to believe.

She laughs, finger tracing over a plaque introducing a species of fish that has long since been extinct but can live on in this digital environment. "Far more amazing."

"Maybe one day we can go."

Jun's shoulders stiffen, and she glances back at me with some sort of unreadable expression on her face. She opens her mouth, and I hear the intake of breath, but then it quickly jerks into a gasp of surprise as she rushes to the other side of the hall.

I whirl about to see a huge shark, not big enough to be the mysterious shadow in the distance, but still massive, meander down the hall at a lazy pace. I'm pretty sure its dorsal fin is as tall as Jun is, and I tell her that.

She smacks my arm, grinning. "I am not that small."

"No, I'm saying it's that big."

She laughs again, and I think this is the first time since Glen that I've seen that sort of expression on her face.

My heart lurches, and I reach for her hand without thinking. I want to apologize -- for not being there for her when she clearly needed me, for not being a better friend and trying to take the easy way out.

Instead, she tangles her fingers with mine and says, "Zoné, I am sorry for being so distant."

My own apology stutters to a halt, and I look at her with my mouth hanging open. Whatever sort of follow up I should say completely abandons my brain.

She squints up at the lights of the tank, and the pattern of water dances across her face. "I have not been completely honest with you, and there is much I have kept from you."

"You don't have to tell me this," I say, and she shakes her head.

"No, I do, because it affects you too. I am being very selfish, and you are being very nice in not calling me out on it.”

I still can’t find the words to say to her.

A group tries to squeeze past us in the narrow hall. Jun pulls me against the railing and presses up against my side.

She keeps her gaze focused on the tank, watching the schools of fish, and slowly, quietly, begins to talk.

She tells me about her conversation with Lio in the hallway of the hospital -- of how he requested a tissue sample from one of the nurses so that they could try and look into what had really happened. She talks about her trip out to the eastern district, out on the very edge of Eminence, to meet with the lab technician Zakariah Jenkins, to ask him to investigate the sample outside of ALICE's sphere of influence.

"In the end," Jun says with a tired laugh, her hands tapping over the plaque before her, "he was caught and punished for helping us."

"Punished?" I repeat. The word has not had good connotations with us these days, and I can't imagine that she would be telling me this story if something awful had happened to him while they were there.

"He is a scientist, Zoné. All of his work from over the course of years was destroyed. He got one thing back, the one thing that must have mattered more to him than all of that but... still..." Her fingers curl into weak fists and flex open a moment later. They still don't stretch out straight, remaining awkward and cramped when at rest. But she seems to at least be able to use them when she puts in a bit of effort.

"The worst part about all of it, though, is that he just confirmed what Lionel had hypothesized: That Glen died because of an accident." Her eyes are hooded and lack their usual spark. "I sort of blamed you at first for not confronting the rest of the boys about it. And that was unfair of me. We did not discuss what we should do, and I left that responsibility on your shoulders."

I hate that she's trying to shoulder the weight of this mistake. Lia might have said that I could try mourning, but that's a piece of my heart I don't want to give away. I want to keep it close and help others find their way out instead. "You had your own shares of worries, you know. I wanted to try and lift that burden a little. I don't know how well I did, but..."

"It is the thought that counts."

"Yeah, I don't know about that either."

A small smile flickers across her lips. "I want to try and be better about this. I once scolded Lionel for keeping things to himself, and now here I am. I used my uncle's contacts to get a favor, and that is not something that I want to do again. I do not like who I have been these last few weeks."

I don't like who I've been either, but I don't know where that version of me begins and the rest of me ends. I don't really know where to reach to pull my better self free. "It's this fucking city," I say with a heavy sigh. I cross my arms over the railing and stare out into the water. A sea turtle floats by, flappers moving in a lazy pattern.

"I truly think it is," she agrees, and we slip into silence side by side.

Time passes, my watch beeps to signal the hour, and still neither of us move. It's not until another large group tries to surge past that we finally disengage from the side of the wall and let ourselves flow along with them.

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