Meliora - Extricate - 55

[lady_mab]

Zoné Altair

Lysander arrives at my apartment with Jun in tow, even though I hadn’t asked for her to be here. She immediately moves to my side, throwing her arms around me and giving me a fierce hug. I hug her back with as much strength as I can muster.

There’s an awkward distance between Lysander and Ayn, though he attempts to cover it up with a hand on her shoulder as he speaks to her in a low tone. Ayn has stopped crying, and keeps her gaze lowered. Her shoulders slump, and every inch of her sags with exhaustion.

Lysander takes us all to the Temple Fusion -- the bar that belongs to his friend Kaito, the one that hosted the Christmas party. We make the walk in silence.

I don’t even realize I’ve been holding on to Catoir’s glasses the entire time until Jun tries to take my hand and I look down to see them in my grip. So I slide them on top of my head, afraid that if I leave them in a pocket I would sit on them.

Kaito opens the door a few moments after Lysander knocks, disheveled and distracted this early in the morning. “Ah. Hey. Come in.”

The bar is an entirely different place in the morning. The chairs are all on top of the tables, creating a strange little forest of legs sticking into the air. Warm yellow lights are on, and there’s no music.

“Do you guys want anything? Water? Coffee? Tea?”

Jun and I get water. Ayn says, “Tea would be lovely, thank you.”

Lysander doesn’t say anything.

As Kaito moves back into his apartment, I slide into one of the booths, and Jun takes a seat beside me.

Ayn drops into the booth next to ours with a tired sigh. Just like I have been holding onto the glasses, she’s been holding onto the phone. She made a few attempts to crack the encryption, but it was beyond her minimal understanding.

Lysander pulls down one of the chairs from a table by the stage in the back. He sits down and gazes out across the room.

Kaito returns with water and tea, and takes a seat at the table with Lysander. He looks like he wants to say something, but after several failed attempts, falls into silence with the rest of us.

It’s close to half an hour after we arrive that the door pops open and Lio’s head pokes inside. He’s shortly followed by Lia and Rhys, and Kaito is on his feet in an instant.

I can see the top of Ayn’s head over the edges of the booth seats. She brushes her hair out of her face to try and tries to make herself look a bit more presentable.

“Hey,” Kaito says as soon as he reaches Rhys.

The twins are dressed in their school uniform and fidget awkwardly beneath the attention. I had barely remembered to get changed out of my PJs before Lysander came over, and Jun had been caught in time that she has on her normal clothes as well. With everything that had happened within the last hour or so, I’ve completely forgotten that it’s a Wednesday.

“What’s going on?” Rhys asks. “The game is done?”

Ayn moves to the edge of her booth but doesn’t get up. “I’m sorry for having Lysander call you here so suddenly. Lionel, I was wondering if I could have you do something for me.”

He glances at his brother before moving across the room to slide into the booth across from her. “Yeah. Anything I can do.”

“There are documents that I can’t access. I need you to get them for me.” There’s a sharp tap, and I know she must be putting the phone on the table between them.

“Didn’t you tell Lia once that you’re friends with criminals?”

I don’t know what sort of face she makes at this, but her voice is thin and clipped. “It’s important to know who to trust.”

Lia slides into the seat across from Jun and I, using her backpack as a pillow as she settles against it. We all look tired, but she looks the most worn down. Like the hours between each day have ground her to pieces.

Across the room, Rhys and Kaito remain standing, side by side. Kaito grips Rhys’ arm, possibly to keep him steady.

“Is it really all over?” Rhys asks, voice wavering about as much as he is.

“Yes,” Ayn responds. “There’s just a little bit more work that needs to be done before we can leave.” She runs her hand back through her hair, and I repeat her words in my head. ALICE is going to be pulled down. We get to go home. “I think we’ll be able to catch the four o’clock train to New Ox, if everything goes according to plan.

A strangled noise comes out of my throat. There’s a touch to my shoulder, but I can’t spend enough attention to it. My head swims at the sudden realization that there is not going to be a pause.

The game is over. There is no reason to stay. We have to go before they change their mind and take back the prize they offered forward.

When she said that we get to go home, I didn’t think she meant right now.

Rhys stumbles in his spot, and Kaito catches him with an arm around the shoulders. Lia sits upright, gripping the edge of the table as she watches her brother.

There’s a muttered conversation -- or at least, Kaito mutters something and Rhys wheezes a response.

Lia pushes herself to her feet, starting to slide out of the booth. “Is it a panic attack?”

“I think so. I’ll take care of him -- you rest.” Kaito pulls Rhys to his apartment, guiding him carefully around the tables and the bar.

She watches their progress, not settling back into place until the door closes behind them.

“I think this caught us all a little unprepared,” Jun mumbles.

From her spot, Ayn releases a small groan and shakes her head. With a great deal of effort, she pushes herself upright and glances back at us. “I’m sorry. I was speaking for everyone when I shouldn’t have. There is the option to leave this evening, but I honestly don’t know when the next train out will be. I’ve… I was told that I would be able to take a group of people with me, but the invitation was intended for me alone. I think he said I could bring others just to be nice.” There’s a heavy dose of sarcasm in her voice, and she rolls her eyes.

“The Assistant Program Manager?” I ask. “Is that who you keep referring to?”

Our eyes meet across the seats. “Yes. He worked with Jonas and Catoir against Patrick Mercer. From what… I was able to understand… There was some internal power struggle.”

“Wait,” Lysander says from across the room. “Catoir? That’s Fletcher’s real name?”

Lia’s eyes go wide as she twists around to look at Ayn. Lio keeps working, head bent over the table.

I answer before Ayn can. “Yeah.”

Lia looks back and forth but doesn’t say anything. I can practically see the gears turning in her head. I’m glad she doesn’t ask. I don’t think I have it in me to explain.

“Until all the data is pulled from his phone, I won’t be able to fully figure out what they were after.” She’s breathless, like this is taking too much out of her. But then she’s on her feet in a flash, filled with energy as she paces between the tables. “He and Jonas found their way into ALICE’s systems via back doors and whatever sort of routes that DECO has established. This is what brought them to the attention of the Program Manager, and he asked his Assistant to recruit them.”

Everyone is silent. The only sounds in the bar are Ayn’s frantic footsteps and the steady typing as Lio works to undo the security that Catoir and Jonas set up on the phone.

“The Assistant Program Manager approached them with an offer: Give him the information, and he will spare them that fate. He will use that information to destroy the company to spite Patrick Mercer.” Her hands rake back through her hair, tugging and tearing at the strands in an attempt to do something with her hands.

“That doesn’t… explain how we’re here,” Lysander says. “That doesn’t explain what happened.”

She stops and whirls on him in one graceful movement. Her dress is wrinkled, like she slept in it, and her eyes are rimmed with red and hardened with anger. And I know that her heart is breaking as much as mine is. Yet she still manages to hold herself with grace and dignity. “You think they would let themselves be used like that?”

“So? That doesn’t add up to the level of severity at hand.”

I surprise everyone but Ayn by laughing. “I think you underestimate how petty he might have been. He has the same sort of shallow single-mindedness that drove this Assistant Program Manager to want to destroy this company.” It’s what caused Catoir to abandon New Oxford and his family without even looking back all those years ago.

“Not let himself be used, ever, at any point,” Ayn concludes, and gives me a despairing look. I know exactly what she means by that.

Before any of us can react further, the door to the Temple swings open.

Lysander gets to his feet, ready to step forward, probably to tell the possible patron that the bar is currently closed, but instead it’s a plain-faced man with deep blue eyes and sandy blond hair and a well-pressed suit that steps into the room.

It’s the Assistant Program Manager, the one that took our names at the meeting, the one that hid in the shadows and removed the rebellious team from the game on Halloween.

Ayn freezes, body tensing, hands curling into fists. “What are you doing here?”

The man gives us all a cursory glance, lingering on me a bit longer than comfortable, before focusing on Ayn. “I was wondering where you had run off to.”

“I don’t belong to you. You had no right keeping me against my will.”

The context for the conversation goes over our heads. I know she had mentioned that she ran from Jonas and the Assistant, but beyond that, she never explained what had happened. I didn’t really want to know.

He doesn’t address this accusation. “You have something that is mine. I had an agreement with Mister Quinn and Mister Oswin to receive those documents.”

“Oh yeah?” she challenges, setting herself in the middle of the room. I want to get up and stand with her, but this isn’t my fight. I don’t know all the details. She’s shouldering the burden on behalf of her team. “Under what conditions?”

Frustrated, he shakes his head. “They were--”

The door to Kaito’s apartment opens, but I can’t look away from the lines of Ayn’s back. She stands stronger than she did in my apartment hours before.

She doesn’t pull her gaze away from the man in the doorway. “Now that we’re all here, let me introduce you to the Assistant Program Manager: Henrik Braum.” Her voice is venomous, laced with the same anger in her posture.

His strained breath is a bit too agitated to be a sigh. “Ayn--” he starts, but her hackles rise and I see her shift to the defensive. “Miss Starling,” he tries again, and I realize how odd it was that he used her name first. “I asked you once before: please hand over the documents that your team stole.”

Stole. Just what kind of arrangement did Catoir get himself into?

“Lio.” Ayn holds out her hand without looking behind her. “If you could.”

Lio slides out of the booth and moves between the tables to drop Catoir’s phone into her palm. His eyes are wide, curious.

She tests the weight of it, fingers curling around the device. “You got everything?” Once she receives a nod in confirmation, her muscles tense. “Good.”

Nothing prepares us for her hurling the phone at the floor, and everyone flinches at the sound. “Go to hell,” she spits.

Henrik closes his eyes and tries very hard to appear in control of himself. “You are making this very difficult. You’ve already won--”

Ayn’s laughter takes over her entire body. It strikes so hard that she has to double over, clutching at one of the tables to keep herself upright. “Oh, I am making things difficult? You mean this whole farce was, what, a walk in the park?”

As quickly as it started, her laughter stops. Her step forward is a warning. “Tell me again how we are the ones making things difficult for you.”

I’ve had enough. This man comes in and acts like he can just get whatever he wants. After he’s already taken so much, and stood by while everything else was taken from us. “Just fuck off, yeah?” I tell him. When he glares at me, I glare back. “I think you ALICE lot have done enough damage around here.”

Ayn turns and when she does, there’s a glimpse of the girl from this morning. But then it’s gone, and she’s standing ramrod straight again. “We’re done here. We are the first group that gets to leave the city.” She glances at each of us in turn, then settles on Kaito. “You’ll have to take the shot a few more times before the effects of the Benzodiazepine are cycled out of your system. Two or three months, tops.”

“How…” Kaito attempts. “What is even going on right now? I feel so out of the loop.”

Her jaw strains and clenches. There’s too much to explain, and she’s not in the best state to do it. I don’t blame her. “You have five hours to pack anything that you need, make any calls you have to. I’m sorry for such short notice. When you’re done, Henrik here will personally come to pick you up and drive you to the station.” She turns her knife-thin smile to the man. “Won’t you?”

His attention is glued to the broken phone on the floor.

“We’ll call you when we need you.” Ayn waves a hand dismissively, and I feel the chill to her words.

Jun’s hand slips onto mine, and I grip it tightly.

Henrik doesn’t say anything. He gives Ayn a meaningful look, then leaves. The tension in the room spikes the moment the door slams shut behind him.

Lia looks at me, as if I’ll have the answer. “Do we really get to go home? Today?”

For the first time, Ayn doesn’t attempt to speak up. She’s done with her role as the intermediary. Lysander, silent this entire time, finally makes his way to her side and puts a comforting arm around her shoulders.

It’s Rhys that answers. “Yes. We’re going home.”

Ayn had said earlier that we could leave if we want to, or we could stay here. But looking around the room, at the hope that lingers beneath everyone’s expressions, it’s obvious that we’re ready to head out as soon as possible, regardless of the work still left to be done.

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