ONE HUNDRED FORTY: Waves VI

 

140

******

 

“I love grocery shopping!!”

The voice was joyful, warm, and golden as honey. It sang out over the cacophony of thumping music, ringing argold slots, noisy laughter, and the squawking of the flock of macaws currently displayed on the arched screen that formed a roof over the crowded street.

Natalie Choir stood in front of a casino that was decked out in flashing green lights. She was spinning in place, her outstretched arms full of takeout bags with restaurant names emblazoned on the sides.

<<This is not grocery shopping,>> said Emilija. <<Shopping means you pay money.>>

“Grocery getting then!” said Natalie. “I love it! Everyone in class said it would be hard to find some of this stuff, but the chefs are all so friendly. I have kitchen scraps from five different planets in here!”

Emilija shook her head.

“She does offer them all money.” Hadiza was watching a woman across the street who was wearing glowing silver wings and a matching leotard. The performer was six meters above the pavement, leaping through the air.

“Adjuster?” she guessed as the woman paused to take a bow over the watchers’ heads.

The other two followed her gaze.

“She could be a Wright? Maybe the wings are tools she made,” Natalie suggested. “Oh! Do you think they are? Do you think they’re the kind of gear that only works with one of the creator’s skills, or does she sell them?”

She started to head toward the performer, but stopped at Emilija’s voice.

“Agility Brute,” the older girl said confidently. <<Using a very popular spell impression.>>

“Awwww…are you sure?”

<<She’s always sure,>> said Hadiza. Then in a teasing voice, she added, “Anesidora nerd.”

<<I’m here to live the whole life!>> Emilija announced. <<You girls can’t even find the bus stops sometimes. You’d be lost without me.>>

“I probably would,” said Natalie. “My Mama thinks you wear a halo, Emilija. She’s like, ‘That’s a young lady with good sense, Natalie. I wish you wouldn’t go out after nine PM, but if you do, you stay with her.”

“Ha!” said Hadiza. “Next time your family calls, let me talk to them. She has fooled them.”

Emilija bowed dramatically.

Hadiza glared at her. <<Why were you so polite in front of Natalie’s parents, and when I introduced you to my father, you were wearing a fake tattoo on your forehead and eating a whole cured sausage? He is so strict. Now I have to pretend I left you behind after intake.>>

<<You didn’t give me enough warning,>> Emilija replied. <<Was that seafood restaurant the last place on your list, Natalie?>>

“There’s one more! They officially closed at midnight, but one of the uni girls who works there said I could come by. They have these big soft-shell eggs. This big.” Her bags smashed into her as she tried to hold her hands up to show them the size. “Laid by an eppy-eppy. Ebby-ebby? Am I saying that right? They’re supposed to be really creamy and taste like apples and mayonnaise.”

Hadiza made a face.

“Let’s <<find>> the eppy-eppys!” said Emilija. “Breakfast for tomorrow!”

“You will eat anything,” said Hadiza.

“Actually, I was going to turn them into a dressing. For—” Natalie’s words were cut off by sirens.

All over the street, performers and revelers stopped and looked around in alarm.

“What is this?”

The girls drew closer together.

Emilija said something in Lithuanian, and Natalie and Hadiza both stared at her in confusion. No translations appeared on their interfaces, but a moment later, System alerts did.

 

[Disaster Alert: Attack on Matadero]

 

[Disaster Alert: Low Probability of Chaos Exposure]

 

[Disaster Alert: Oceanic Anomalies – Imminent

Avoid seawater. Seek high ground. Beware of possible tsunami.]

 

******

******

 

Flat on his back in bed, Lute clutched a pillow shaped like a fried egg to his chest and yawned. It’s so late. I should sleep.

Instead, he pulled up another interface window. He had three arranged in front of his eyes now, all showing things worthy of deep contemplation. In the one on the lower left, Hazel was absolutely losing her shit. He set it to play in slow motion.

I still can’t believe that happened.

Hazel blowing up, even in such a phenomenal way, wasn’t that big of a surprise. She’d never been hesitant about dishing out humiliation and criticism to others, but she sure didn’t like the taste of them herself.

A steady diet of praise and being told you can do no wrong must make someone saying they don’t like you because you did something wrong really hard to swallow.

He was glad she was off Earth. He wasn’t sure that working for the Palace full-time would cure her, though.

Maybe being separated from her parents, Corin, and Aulia will be enough to help her grow a functional personality, but with her usual job…she might end up even more of a monster.

If Parethat-uur had had anything to do with managing Hazel, Lute would’ve called and warned the guy.

Aulia confirmed Hazel’s crimes, outed her skill, and apologized on her behalf on camera.

That was the part Lute was still marveling at. He wished he could see inside his grandmother’s twisted mind for just a second so he’d know what percentage of her behavior was based on her interest in Alden and what percentage was her irritation with Hazel. Surely politics was also in the mix somehow.

And me too. Unfortunately.

He turned his attention to the middle video. The volume was on so he could listen to it. It was the kora player who had come to Lute’s seventh birthday party. The man had been filmed playing in Parc des Batteurs a couple of months ago.

He was still one of Lute’s favorite street musicians.

Would he teach me to play the kora? Would it be rude if I asked?

He had been wondering about it for a while. It wouldn’t have felt rude before, when he was bound for a normal human life. Now it was more complicated.

Just like everything else.

He wanted to think that if a high rank with their hearing, hands, and brain all upgraded had approached him in June of last year and asked to learn the harp, he would have politely said, “I’m too busy to teach you, but good luck.”

But he was afraid it would’ve been something more akin to, “Never. How dare you ask? Take your magic fingers and shove them where the sun can’t shine.”

What if he thinks I’m just a show-off dilettante like stupid Hugh?

“My Daddy says I don’t need piano lessons like you, whiff boy,” he muttered, imagining Hazel’s voice in his head. “The System will turn me into a natural musician as soon as I get Chainer, and then I can pick up any instrument I want soooo easy.”

I wonder if Aulia’s right, and one day I’ll be old and I just won’t care about any of the things she said or did to me anymore.

He couldn’t imagine it.

He glanced at the third window. It was a picture from Emilija’s social media page. She’d posted it an hour ago, and he’d been staring at it ever since, trying to think of exactly the right comment to make.

Something casual and friendly. Something that would make her smile. Something that said, “I’m a naturally engaging person who didn’t have to spend an hour thinking up this comment.”

But it also needs to be mature. And a little funny. And smart. And not long.

A universe contained in a single sentence. The poetic masterpiece of comments.

If she’d been somewhere he was familiar with, he could have offered her advice for things to do. But her picture was of a team participating in a human stacking challenge outside of a casino.

She was down in F, in New Sybaris. Lute been there just once, not long after he’d affixed, to see what it was like.

What it was like was very loud and crowded and full of so many adults trying to age check him that he’d left without even setting foot in the restaurant that had been his intended destination.

He’d mentioned it to Aimi, and she’d told him that Chainers weren’t allowed in the casinos anyway. She’d said it in such a sorrowful voice that Lute wondered if she really wanted to gamble or if the ban was somehow her fault.

What if Emilija is there because she loves poker or something? If a girl agrees to go on a date with me, will she get a lifetime casino ban by association? I could learn a luck chain and put it on someone else just as easily as my—

His concerns were shattered by the sound of a siren. He almost fell off his loft bed.

Is that the fire alarm?

A guy had set himself on fire last night, so the idea was fresh in his head.

Then the System notices arrived.

Lute had just enough time to read them a few times, get out of bed, and start pulling on clothes before the sound of a woman’s magnified shout came from outside.

“Garden Hall residents!” she said in a clear but hurried voice. “All of you should have received instructions to report to campus shelters. That means the MPE Building for you. Please head there now. If you don’t know the location of the MPE building, ask a student in the Talent Development program. No running! No panicking! No staying in your rooms! We will be sending people in to check shortly!”

Lute threw a jacket on. His mind was racing.

Matadero? But nobody ever…

And what does ‘oceanic anomaly’ mean? Giant whirlpools? Have the whales risen up against us?

“System, I feel like you’re being a little scanty with the information here. Do you not know what’s going on for sure or something?”

He started to zip up the jacket, but his hands stopped halfway through.

Avoid seawater.

Where’s Libra tonight? Where’s mom?

******

******

“Listen, Jeffrey,” Reinhard whispered, dragging the Aqua Brute a few steps away from Astrid, who was calling a car for them. They were all three waiting under a shelter near one of the Rosa Grove Mall exits. It was designed to look like an oversized umbrella, covered in bright tube lights. “I’m trying to do you a favor here.”

“Jeffy’s not short for Jeffrey.”

“It doesn’t matter. Now listen.”

“It’s long for Jeff.”

Reinhard’s mouth closed.

“A lot of people make that mistake,” said Jeffy. “I don’t mind or anything.”

“Do you want to ride alone with Astrid or not?” the archer hissed. “I can go separately.

Jeffy stared at him. “But we won’t be alone. There’s a driver.”

“She obviously likes you, you blue-haired—!”

“What are you two talking about?” Astrid asked. She was using the umbrella shelter’s curved handle as a prop while she tightened the laces on her shoes.

“I was just telling Jeffy that I’m heading to the train station instead,” Reinhard said loudly. “I’ll go to my house. Sleeping in my old room’s more comfortable than campus anyway. Good night! Have a safe trip, you two! Bye!”

Before either of them could ask questions, he took off.

“That was absolutely my good deed for the week,” he said to himself several minutes later as he rode an escalator toward a train platform. “They both owe me now. I have done Cupid duty.”

He mimed shooting an arrow at one of the lights overhead.

A loud, rising wail broke his concentration.

Reinhard stumbled off the escalator, squinting at the alerts in front of him disbelievingly. “Tsunami?”

The word was being repeated by several people around him, in equally shocked tones.

“Like big waves?”

He gasped, then ran for the other escalator. He flew up it and then down the street, heading back toward the mall.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Jeffy!” he shouted as soon as he could see the glowing umbrella shelter. “Astrid! You guys haven’t left yet, right!?”

The sirens were howling.

“Jeffy!”

When he reached the spot, he found Astrid waiting for him.

“You did come back!” She grabbed him by his shoulders and then let them go again in a gesture that was more reality-confirmation than embrace. “Good. I thought you might, so I waited. Didn’t want you to be alone. But I was getting reallyworried that was the wrong move. Reinhard, the System—”

“I know,” he said. “Where the hell is Jeffy? Did he leave?”

“He’s gone,” she said. “It took him.”

“What did?” he demanded, still looking around as if he expected to spot the Aqua Brute’s mohawk in the shadows.

“Reinhard…”

At the baffled, slightly helpless tone in her voice, he went still.

“Oh,” he said. “You mean he got summoned.”

“Yeah. That.”