Chapter 37: Exile
"
Earth Palace, November 15th, 9:22 AM
"We're going to be very busy for the next few years," Serenity said, looking around the small table at her comrades. "I would not ask this of you if I did not strongly feel that it will greatly benefit both us and the world around us. We've had about a week to enjoy the fruits of our labor in defeating Queen Beryl, now it's time to move on to the real challenge ahead of us."
"I'm prepared to do anything," Lita replied, from her spot to the left of Serenity's chair.
"As we all need to be," Serenity continued. "Me and Endymion have been discussing general things that need to happen for us to get what we need. The people like us, we need them to love us. They believe us to be superhuman, we need them to believe us to be gods. They think they need our influence to thrive, we need them to think they need our influence to survive. And at all times, remember this." She leaned forward towards the table a little bit, looking at each of them in turn. "What we sit on now is not an empire. What we have now is a furnace, where we might forge an empire."
"Mars, we need you to travel the world," Endymion began, seated to Serenity's right side. "You are an excellent public face for us, you need to continue expanding things. Not just money, we need influence. We have a lot of friends to make if we're going to do this. We have to completely transform the very infastructure of the world, and we can expect it to fight back. Venus, Jupiter, we need you two to focus on currying favor in the world. Our efforts in this city can only do so much to impress those in other countries, so we need to bring our brand of protection to every corner of the globe. This may seem daunting now, but I assure you, when you re-awaken, you will find yourself capable of things you never thought possible. You're all very close."
"Uh...if I might...we seem to be down one member today," Mina said suddenly. Every eye at the table turned towards an empty chair, to the left of Endymion. "Could I ask why?"
Serenity paused for a few seconds, swallowing down. "Mercury has taken a leave of absence," she said slowly.
"She didn't say anything to me," Raye said slowly. "That's...weird. Where did she go?"
Serenity again contemplated her answer. "Unclear."
"How long is she going to be gone?" Mina asked, tapping her chin with her left index finger.
"Also unclear," Serenity said.
"W-wait..." Lita squinted in thought. "She...she ran away, didn't she?"
Serenity gave a tiny sigh, still smiling to herself. "That would be one way of defining it, I suppose."
"Unbelievable," Lita said, sitting back in her chair, crossing her arms, and rolling her eyes. "Y'know, I'm trying to be understanding, I'm trying to give her some leeway, but...I'm sorry, Serenity, you deserve so much better from the people you're trying to help."
"I'm not angry," Serenity insisted. "It is what it is. She needs time, time away from us. We should respect that. Deep down, this is her place. This is her home. And she will come back, ready to help us in whatever capacity we need her to help in. Give her a couple weeks at most. She'll return."
Raye snorted. "I'm really sorry, Serenity. I don't get her. We're trying to do something great here! I'm not surprised she was...hesitant at first, of course, but this is way too much."
"Well, when she comes back...promise me you'll forgive her," Serenity asked. "All of you. I know it's difficult to understand, but try to. I have waited a thousand years for things to be as I remember. And I won't let something trivial like this rob me of that." She cleared her throat. "Now, do not worry about Mercury. We will not help the situation by tracking her down and forcing her to come back. All we can do now is wait. Focus instead on advancing our cause. This is the start of a new age for Earth, and all who reside on it. And we are the only ones who can steer it properly."
"
Caracas, Venezuela, May 8th, 10:32 AM
Of course, it just had to be the hottest month of the year. Of course, it had to be a city that had been built inside a small valley. Of course, there had to be an especially hot summer in this part of the world, complete with higher than expected humidity.
Sigh.
Caracas was hardly a popular vacation spot for the rest of the world, despite the tropical temperatures that appealed to many a prospective sunbather. A combination of a high poverty rate, the lingering memory of Hugo Chavez's regime that had fallen apart near the end of his reign, and a high crime rate kept those looking for a good time away. In truth, the last point was overblown. Venezuela had the third highest crime-rate in the world, but tourists were not placed into execution lines upon exiting the airplane, as many seemed to believe. And there was a bright side to the country. A rollicking gastronomical scene, all kinds of culture from all across the world to take in, great mountain ranges to view, and a slew of attractive beaches.
Still rather low on the list of places that this particular teenage boy wanted to be.
Rather, he felt silly in his white tanktop, khaki shorts, sports sandals, and backpack that felt heavier by the second. A far cry from the professional and cultured look he had wanted to have upon meeting his friend in person for only the third time in his life. Still, with the dial pushing thirty-four degrees and humidity just short of eighty percent, he dare not try anything else.
Trying his best to not make eye contact with anyone, the brown-haired teenager walked through the front lobby of the ten-story building. This was not the happy side of Caracas. In fact, this was the kind of neighborhood that gave Venezuela it's negative reputation. Full of poverty and depression, this sad little apartment complex was no different. Creaky floorboards under every step, a dangling ceiling fan lazily rotating up above, peeling white paint on the walls, un-repaired dents and holes in surfaces, a rather surly looking man behind the desk, and half-torn propaganda posters scattered about.
He knew that the receptionist wasn't going to try to stop him, as he headed past the front desk into the right-side hall, but he couldn't help but nervously anticipate an aggressive hail from the large man as he went by. Just some sort of natural human instinct to prepare for aggression, probably. Sure enough, as he headed down the hall, there was no interest from the receptionist. Probably assuming that he was a client of one of multiple working girls throughout the apartment and not wanting to get inbetween a woman and her income. After all, his pay came from the tennants.
A few doors down the hall, he took one look at the elevator before moving on. A rickety cage that seemed a hundred years out of date, he wasn't willing to bet his life on whatever safety mechanism the lift may or may not have had. He instead opted for the stairs, hardly preferred in these conditions, but not life-threatening.
In no real hurry, he took his time up the sets of stairs, each time coming onto a roughly identical floor of halls of doors, although dilapidation that nobody had bothered to fix marked each one with some individuality. The floor with the hole in the ceiling, the floor with the missing floorboards, the floor with the water damage, and so on.
No matter how slowly he went, he found himself tiring with each flight. He wasn't used to this kind of heat. It wasn't a pleasant heat, but rather an oppressive one, the kind that seemed to want to beat you into the ground. But he fought through it, reaching the seventh floor, or as he preferred to call it, the floor with the broken light fixture hanging from the ceiling.
He plodded along the hall, coming to the door marked '805'. He looked down at himself. Soaked in sweat. Not at all the way he wanted to present himself to his friend after over a year apart. He frowned.
Have to make up for it with personality, then.
He knocked on the door a few times. As he expected, nothing. He waited some seconds, then knocked again. Not so much as a whisper of a sounds from the other side.
He turned towards the wall to the left of the door, up near the ceiling, immediately spotting a tiny hole in the wall. Of course, there were plenty of holes in walls in this building, but this one was different. Perfectly rounded, it had been cut by human hands, and was actually a little portal for a tiny camera lens. He waved at it casually, hearing what sounded like the squeak of a chair being pushed across the floor from within the room.
"I know you're in there!" He called out loudly. "And I know that you know that I know you're in there, so how about we skip this part and you just let me in?"
Nothing. He sighed.
"Come on, you know you can't trick me, you're wasting time," he insisted. "I already know the exact moment at which you'll let me in anyway." He waited for a moment. "If you don't let me in, I'll tattle on you! I'll send in an anonymous tip to Queen Serenity and—"
The door flung open, pulling inwards just enough for a single thin arm to emerge from it and yank him into the room, grabbing his wrist and jerking him in. He lost his balance and fell to the floor, quickly rolling over onto his back as the door slammed shut behind him.
Standing there by the door was a familiar face, though a not-quite-so-familiar everything else. He definitely knew that soft, little face, but the unflattering mop of black hair falling around it was definitely new. As was the fashion, a yellow sundress that would have looked appropriate on a hangar at Goodwill. And that face, though familiar, was trying quite hard to avoid looking so, adopting an enraged scowl. The woman pointed down at him accusingly.
He threw his hands up by the sides of his head. "Whoa whoa, at least buy me dinner first!"
"You...you..." she hissed, somehow managing to look menacing. "You listen to me—"
"Look, I know this place is a dump, but it's not like you've been living in the woods for the last six months, you have no excuse to have already turned feral—"
She approached him, still pointing down at him. "If...if you've been followed...if you've told anyone...I swear—"
"Nice to see you too, Amy," he said, sitting up and reaching up to pat her shoulder. "Been awhile."
She flinched slightly, but was quick to regain her anger. "No, no, you don't understand!" She pushed his hand away from her shoulder. "I-I spent a week planning to disappear, and a month travelling the entire globe to make sure that I was impossible to trace. If you blow my cover, I have to start over, so if you—"
He stood up. "First, it was six days planning and twenty-seven days travelling the globe, don't overembellish." He grinned and winked. "You can't lie to me. Second, if I wanted to tell someone you were hiding here, I would have done it when you got here six months ago. Third, if someone was following me, I'd know. Fourth...I need some water." He turned away from her and strolled into the tiny kitchenette, or at least what seemed to be one, and walked over to the sink. "Am I going to regret drinking from this?"
Amy stood there for a few seconds, expression slowly softening, until she couldn't help but crack a tiny smile. She closed her eyes, expelled a small breath, and shook her head. "Greg."
"Yes, that's me, now is this gonna kill me or not?" He turned the sink on and observed the stream of water emerging from the faucet. He frowned at the discolored liquid and quickly snapped it off.
"No." Amy walked over towards him. "You'll wish it did. Which is why I brought this." She opened a cabinet up above the sink and pulled a white round gadget from it, attaching an open end of it to the faucet head. "Try that."
He turned the sink back on, the water pumping through the device and emerging from the hole on the bottom after several seconds, having been purged of unhealthy particles for the most part. She took a glass from the counter to the left of the sink and handed it to him.
"I wonder if this is the only one of these in the country," Greg mused as he filled his glass.
"Okay, Greg, what are you doing here?" Amy asked incredulously, watching as he guzzled the water down. "What are you doing in Venezuela?"
"On business," he replied, setting the glass down. "Uh, real estate, I'm here to pursue the...the very promising opportunity to own the...the fine and well-maintained building structures that you can find everywhere in this area."
Amy couldn't stiffle a couple little laughs. "Since when you did you turn into such a comedian?"
"I'm trying to cheer you up," Greg replied. "I think you need it."
"Well, it's kind of working," Amy admitted.
Greg looked around the sad little apartment, dependent mostly on the sun to provide light, it consisted of just two basic rooms. The kitchenette, which he stood in, and the opposite room which served as everything else. He slowly made his way over into this chamber, a small couch and twin mattress the only pieces of furniture he could see. Beyond that, the room was filled with stacks and stacks of books, both paperback and hardcover.
"So...this all seems...horrible," he said slowly, looking around the room.
"No, really, what are you doing here?" Amy asked again, coming up behind him. "You, you shouldn't be here, this is one of the most dangerous countries in the world."
"Not as dangerous as most people think," Greg said, walking over to the far wall and peeking out the window, down to the dirt street below. "Besides, if I was going to be yanked from the airport terminal and thrown into a firing squad, I'd know beforehand, wouldn't I?"
"I suppose," Amy relented. "Sorry, I'm not used to talking to psychics."
"Maybe you would be if you gave me a call once in awhile," Greg said, faking hurt in his voice.
Amy's smile faded slightly as she wandered over to the far wall as well, leaning up against it and peering down to the street as well. "Well...I'm trying to leave that life behind, Greg...I can't just leave parts of it behind. Had to be everything, so...sorry, it's nothing to do with you, I...wait, you still haven't answered my question!"
Greg shrugged. "I can't visit my friend?"
Amy gave a little chuckle. "When your friend lives thousands of miles away in a third-world country in a tiny, disgusting apartment, then...well, apparently you can, but it's pretty weird. How did you explain this to your parents?"
"Oh...they think I'm on a field trip," he said dismissively. "I just thought you might want some company."
Amy pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't get many visitors...you're the first, actually."
"Well, I'm honored." He looked around the room, then back to her. "Could use a rug, maybe. Speaking of which, I'm sorry, but..." he pointed at her head, "...that...that is the ugliest thing in this room, that actually manages to make the rest of this room look decent in comparison."
Amy reached up and grabbed the mop of black hair, unable to resist grinning. "I know, it's...it's awful." She yanked it from her head, revealing her much more attractive and appropriate blue hair underneath. She tossed the wig at Greg and began running her fingers through her hair in an attempt to fluff it up a bit. Greg caught the wig and looked it over amusedly.
"Hey, maybe this was all you really needed," he joked. "You could have moved down the street from your mother, taken the name...Jamie, enrolled in the same school...nobody would have ever known."
"This might surprise you, but...Venezuela doesn't have very many blue-haired people in their population," Amy said, shaking her head back and forth a couple times violently, enjoying the feel of the wig leaving her scalp. "So...tragically, that piece has become more or less a part of my body ever since I got here."
Greg tossed it over onto the couch. "Well, you look much less ugly now."
She giggled, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. The two just looked at each other for several seconds, Greg pursing his lips and Amy shuffling back and forth on her feet, each of them trying to come up with a place for the conversation to go.
Finally, Greg managed to crack the silence. "Could I shower?"
"O-oh, sure, but...but you're not going to like it," she said uneasily, looking back towards the apartment front door. "One bathroom shared by the entire floor."
"Oh, goodie," Greg deadpanned, nevertheless trodding towards the door.
"
Caracas, Venezuela, May 8th, 11:09 AM
"I thought you said the shower got hot and cold water," Greg said, closing the front door behind him. He had changed into his other pair of clothes, which was identical save for the lack of sweatstains.
"It does," Amy replied, holding a bag of tequenos in her hand and sitting on the couch. "Hot water during the day, cold water during the night."
Greg cracked a smile. "Hey, you're working on your comedian talents too."
Amy sighed, beckoning Greg to join her on the couch. "Not exactly much else for me to do these days."
He nodded, taking the seat at her side. She held the open end of the bag out towards him.
"This isn't like...rat meat, right?" he asked, leaning away from the bag slightly.
"No, no, it's a very popular snack in Venezuela, it's just bread and cheese..." she paused for a moment, then turned towards him, "...which...you already know."
He pointed at her, grinning. "See, you're already learning." He reached into the bag and pulled one of the elongated sticks out. "So, thanks for the shower..." he chewed his lower lip for a second, then took a bite of the tequeno to occupy the time.
Amy just sat there in silence, though she had a bit of a wan smile on her face. Greg sized her expression up, wondering if he had brought her any joy with his presence. He thought that he had, though you never knew how a person truly felt inside. She hadn't taken his shower as an opportunity to lock him out again, anyway.
The silence had lingered too long. "So...how's life?"
Amy gave a little laugh, though it was a bit detached compared her previous laughter.
"Okay, okay, that was a...a dumb question," Greg admitted.
"It was," Amy agreed. "But you did ask it, so...every morning, I wake up and read. I read until I get hungry, then I go get food, then I eat, then I read. I repeat until I get tired, then I go to sleep. When I get really tired of reading, I practice my enunciation of Spanish words. I avoid human contact as much as possible, I only leave this apartment when necessary, I stay away from all news of the outside world, and with each passing day I adapt to the complete and utter lack of technology that has been part of my life as far back as I can remember."
"Except for the little camera outside," Greg threw in.
Amy bent down and reached underneath the couch on her side, pulling out a small tablet. "I allowed myself a couple of things, like the water purifier, and this." She powered the tablet on, and it immediately began showing a video feed of just outside the apartment's front door. "Not that I really know what I would do if someone I didn't want to see got all the way to my front door...but a couple seconds' warning might make the difference." She placed the tablet back underneath the couch. "And that's my life."
Greg paused for a second. "Well, now I'm depressed," he said dryly. "You couldn't have popped for a nicer place?"
"I doubt any respectable place would allow a fifteen year old girl to rent an apartment by herself," she countered. "A place like this is just happy to get someone who pays in cash."
Greg nodded. "Just as a heads up...keeping your money inside the mattress is pretty much cliche at this point. The first place I'd look if I was a thief." He looked over at her sad little mattress. "Just a thought."
"I don't have many hiding places to work with," she said. "And why would a thief come to a place like this?"
Greg leaned back in the chair, taking another bite of his snack. "Caracas. I'll give it to you, it's a great place to try to disappear. Rich ethnic diversity, almost entirely a cash society...although an asian probably sticks out a bit."
"China was too obvious," Amy said, her voice getting a little sullen now. "I wanted some place that people wouldn't guess."
Quickly, Greg tried to change the subject. "So...lotta books!" He laughed nervously. "Impressive collection, where...where did you get all of this?"
"I pick them up wherever I can get them," she replied. "I brought some with me...I buy them sometimes...there's a library in the better part of town, though I usually don't go out that far." She slowly looked around at her large collection of reading material. "You get through them pretty quickly. Some days I...I spend twelve, thirteen hours reading." She nodded to herself slowly. "Really, if there are twenty-four hours in a day, and you spend a majority of them reading a story, then...when you think about it, it's almost like...like the story becomes your reality, you know?" She sighed. "Like...the reality around you becomes...becomes the fiction. And you just...just put yourself into the story you're reading and...and that's you." She paused for a second. "It...it becomes your reality, you...you choose it over the actual reality around you. But then...but then you put down the book for a minute, and you remember...no, it's just a book."
Greg swallowed down hard, carefully trying to measure his next words. He was spared this, however, when Amy took control of the conversation.
"You can drop the other shoe anytime now, Greg," she said.
"Hm?" Greg raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
Amy turned towards him, looking earnestly into his eyes. "Greg, I'm not an idiot. Now, I do appreciate you coming here to see me. I do. You've cheered me up, given me a chance to stretch my social skills for the first time in months, and I am grateful for that. But I know you didn't travel thousands of miles, into a dangerous country, just to see a friend."
Greg held his tongue, opting instead to shyly bite into his snack.
"You're here to...to try to convince me to go back. To go back to my friends and try to stop all this...this madness," Amy said, still looking into his eyes. "You've come a long way to see me, so I won't deprive you of your right to say your piece, so go ahead and say what you will." She shrugged. "My life isn't nearly interesting enough to sustain much of a conversation, so you may as well."
Greg hesitated. "Amy, I'm not here to do that."
"Oh, I think you are," Amy protested. "Come on, you're one of the few people in the world who understands better than me where the world is headed." A tiny, almost deranged smile appeared on her face. "Oh, I have seen it play out in my head so many times, Greg, it must be worse for you."
"A-Amy, I—"
She leaned in closer to him. "Go ahead, Greg. How bad is it going to be? You can tell me. You're probably the last visitor I'll ever get, so I guess I may as well ask about the outside world this one time."
Finally, Greg gave a tiny, reluctant nod. "It's going to be awful," he admitted. "Beyond anything your imagination can fathom. Right now all is well. Each of your old friends has their own palace, people are lining up by the billions to support them, they're ending wars across the globe...they're pretty much being deified." He nodded grimly. "About six years from now, the naysayers start to turn violent. Of course it's a massacre at first, but...they organize. They fight back. Oh of course, they lose, and they lose badly, but...that just drives them to desperation. They pull out the great equalizer." He shook his head. "Even one person can bring about the end of times if they happen to have a couple nuclear bombs."
"Sounds about right," Amy said.
"I'll spare you the exact details from there, but...uh...let's just say we end up getting the Morlocks much sooner than Wells ever imagined," he finished. "Yeah, I know how bad it is—"
"Which is why you're here," Amy interrupted. "You think I can stop it. Save the world." She shook her head. "I can't."
"Amy, I'm not here to ask you to do anything you don't want to do," Greg insisted.
"Greg, you're not going to have the chance to talk to me every week. This is your one chance to try, so I'm not going to make you leave without asking." Amy sighed. "I can't read the future like you, but...I know how this goes. You tell me how smart and great I am, how I can do anything I set my mind to, that the world needs me, and that I shouldn't be wasting my potential rotting away in a place like this. I'll decline. I'll refuse to go back. And then...then you'll get angry, as you have a right to be. You'll call me a coward, and you'll be right. You'll keep on trying to convince me, and nothing you say will be able to sway you. Maybe you'll storm out, and that'll be the end of it." She turned away from him a little, looking down at the floor. "If you prefer, we can skip to the part where you get angry."
Greg swallowed down hard yet again. "I can't lie...I do think it's a shame that someone of your potential and abilities has to hide in a place like this. But...I know your reasons, and I respect them."
"I know it's cowardly of me to...to run and stick my head in the sand." She sadly turned back to him. "But it was the only thing I could do. I couldn't stop them. I tried everything I could think of, as much as I could, and nothing got through to them. They're lost, and I can't bring them back. I couldn't sit there and watch them do it. I couldn't stomach what they had become, blinded by a formal royal a thousand years out of her time, obsessed with some...some absurd dream of a perfect world under their rule. I didn't want to watch what my friends had become, and I didn't want to watch the world burn. And I certainly couldn't help them...so yes, I ran away. Judge me for that if you want to, I'm more than happy to take it, but it was the only thing I could do."
"I could never judge you," Greg protested. "The things you've had to go through, nobody should have to shoulder all of that. I'm sure you did all you could, and I respect your decision. Of course I want you to go back, but I'm not here to...to try to make you. I'm just here to see a friend." Tenatively, he reached over and patted her near shoulder. He was happy to see that she didn't recoil away.
Amy nodded a couple times. "I failed." She leaned over slightly towards him, pressing her back up against his shoulder. "That's what really happened. No other way to put it. I needed to control them, to temper them, and I couldn't do it. I let things get out of control, and couldn't fix it once it had happened." She gave a shuddering laugh. "Think of this as some sort of exile. A punishment for my failure. I'll live out of the rest of my days here, praying that they never find me and accomplishing nothing of note. It's all I have the energy for." She closed her eyes.
Greg placed his hands on her shoulders, careful to avoid going too far with where and how he was touching her. "Amy. I swear on all that is good, I'm not going to try to make you go back, or judge you for your decision, or anything like that. If you wanted to go back, or thought that going back would be a good thing for you, you would have reached that conclusion on your own. I'm just here because I thought you must be lonely."
Amy gave a small smile. "You're a great guy, Greg," she said. "I'm sorry I let everyone down. Maybe there's someone in the world who can stop this, but I promise you...it's not me." She got up to her feet. "Thank you for being a friend, I'm...running low on those these days." She walked over to the kitchen, Greg watching her. "Important to stay hydrated in this country," she called out, going over to the tiny fridge and opening it. "You go too long without drinking something, and suddenly you're on the floor, and everything's spinning."
"If you drink the right stuff, that'll happen anyway." Greg got up and meandered over towards Amy as she pulled a pitcher of a pink liquid from the fridge. "Hey, it's a bit of technology."
She looked at the fridge. "I think it's the only thing in this kitchen that actually works." She glanced down at the singular stovetop. "Not even Raye could get this thing started."
She fell silent at her mention of her former friend for a moment, holding the pitcher in her right hand.
"Thank you again, Greg," she said. "It couldn't have been easy, cutting time out to come see me like this, and you've been a really nice guy ever since you got here. But...just so we're clear, if there's...any lingering bit of you that wants to see me go back and try to...try to fix all of this, I understand where you're coming from." She grimaced. "But there is nothing that you can say that will make me go back."
"Of course," Greg said softly. "I'm not going to try, I don't need to."
Amy poured some of the liquid into two glasses. "It's iced tea, little treat I allow myself every now and then. And hey, special occasion." She set the pitcher down, handing one of the glasses to Greg as she took the other one. She strolled back over to the couch, glass in hand, Greg following. "There was a part of me that always wished I'd have nothing to do in my life but just read. How...ironic."
"Think I saw that in a Twilight Zone episode once," Greg mused. "If it makes you feel any better, your former friends seem to have finally accepted you're not coming back, at least."
Amy sat down slowly on the couch, but her head immediately snapped up to Greg. "What do you mean?"
"O-oh, right, you don't follow the news..." Greg scratched the back of his head. "Well...for the last seven months or whatever, your old friends have basically totally ignored your disappearance, refusing to talk about it, brushing it off like it's nothing...you know, as if it didn't mean anything and you were going to come back any day. But three days ago...Serenity actually gave a short interview. Rare for her, and she...addressed it finally."
"Oh..." Amy looked down at her cup of iced tea. "W-well, I guess it...it doesn't really..." She looked over at Greg as he sat down beside her. "W-what did she say?"
Greg looked at her cautiously. "You wanna know?"
"I...oh, well...doesn't...doesn't matter..." Amy looked away, brow furrowing. "But...but I mean, it can't...hurt, yeah, what did she...what did she say?"
"Uh...well, if you really want to know, I could actually...show you," he offered, reaching over the armrest of the couch and unzipping his backpack, pulling a small laptop computer from it's largest pocket.
"We don't have a wireless internet hub here," Amy said as Greg set the laptop up on the floor in front of the couch.
"No worries, I can turn my phone into a wireless hotspot with 4G," he said quickly, pulling out his phone from his pocket and quickly playing with a few options. "This interview has been on basically every channel the last couple days, very rare for her to appear like this."
Amy took in a deep breath, chewing her lip as Greg got set up. She sipped her drink a few times, steeling herself for the moment when she would see Serenity for the first time in many months, knowing that it would not bring back pleasant memories.
After a minute, he had loaded up a video. "Alright, here's what she said." He pressed play and sat back on the couch, eyes on the video as well.
The video was quite simple. Two people seated on identical chairs opposite each other in a plain room. One, some journalist that Amy wasn't overly familiar with, an older woman with short blonde hair wearing a tan outfit. The other, on the right, was the one who had driven her to such a pathetic lifestyle, wearing the same dress as always. Immediately, the conversation started.
"—people really want to know, what's going on with Sailor Mercury?" the reporter asked, drawing a tiny flinch from Serenity. "She's been gone for over six months now, not a word from her, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask you what's going on there. So, Queen Serenity, what can you tell us about Sailor Mercury?"
Serenity hesitated for a moment, but plowed on, sounding professional and detatched. "Part of the reason I called this interview was for a chance to set the record straight and finally address this. Sailor Mercury is gone, and we can assume she will not be coming back. We don't know where she is or what she is doing, but we have every reason to believe that she has chosen to withdraw herself from our efforts."
"I see," the reporter replied. "Can you speak as to why this may have happened?"
"I can not," Serenity answered. "I can say little more, in fact, other than that nothing has changed, and my guardians and King Endymion will continue to work towards making the world a better place."
"That's good, but...but obviously there's going to be some concern over this," she pointed out. "You had six people, now you have five, it's a setback. So to those who express concern over your capabilities now, what would you say?"
"Well, it is true. We were a group of six, now we are a group of five, I can not dispute that. What I can say, however, is that I feel we haven't lost anything we will miss." She nodded.
"Could you expand on that?" she asked.
Serenity steepled her hands in front of her. "Well, this is obviously not something we wanted to talk about at the time, but being entirely honest, Sailor Mercury was quite expendable, and I feel very strongly that if we had to lose someone, it was best that it was her. We loved her, of course, and she was a good person, but in terms of contributions to our group, she had very little to offer."
"Interesting," the reporter said. "So she had minimal influence and importance in the battles your group participated in?"
"Minimal influence and importance in everything, actually," Serenity corrected. "Of course, she was able to find some ways to make contributions from time to time, but on the whole...I truly believe we don't lose anything of value in losing her. She was a warm body, but not too much else. Again, this is not something we'd say to her, or say knowing that she would hear it, but now that she's gone...I feel I can be truthful."
"So if you were to sum up her contributions to your group, and your efforts to make the world a better place...how would you do that?"
Serenity hesitated on her reply for a moment, then turned to the reporter. "I would say that...she gave us the ability to have six members instead of five. And that's about it."
"Alright, so you're confident your group loses nothing with her departure?"
"Nothing of real value," Serenity answered. "Again, I loved her, but she was capable of doing very little. Sad truth."
"Alright. Moving along, we've received a lot of requests to—"
The video froze there, the speakers no longer emitting any audio.
"Now, I mean, obviously, she doesn't actually think any of that," Greg said casually after concluding a sip from his iced tea. "It's pretty blatant spin doctoring on her part, I'm sure she was told by Endymion to say those things, it's all politics, but...I mean, I guess it's—"
Tshk!
Greg's next word died in his mouth, head snapping over to look at her. The glass in her hand was no more, having exploded into dozens of shards, now in her lap, on the couch, and the floor beneath her feet, joined by a splash of iced tea. It would seem that her fingers had insisted on making a fist, and the presence of the glass in her hand had failed to dissuade them from trying to make one.
He glanced up at her face. She was scowling quite deeply, eyes on the computer screen on the floor beneath her, glowering right at the face of Serenity. Greg wasn't sure, but she might have been shaking just a little bit.
Suddenly, he noticed the glass of iced tea in his hand starting to bubble and froth. He stared at it in wonder for a few seconds, then his fingers were scalded. He yelped and dropped the glass, spilling the liquid contents to the ground, just barely missing ruining his laptop. He quickly grabbed the computer from the floor, away from the iced tea, and placed it on the armrest at his side.
He looked back at Amy, still scowling, eyes fiery.
"Uh...I'm...I'm sorry, I shouldn't have shown you that, I didn't mean to...to upset you," Greg said timidly. He looked at her hand. Somehow she didn't appear to be bleeding. That was the least interesting thing about her right now, however, and he quickly looked back at her face. "I mean, she definitely doesn't...actually think any of that."
Amy slowly rose to her feet, looking around the room almost robotically, Greg watching, slightly fearful. Finally, she spoke, her voice now possessing just a slight edge and rawness that had been gone during his visit.
"How long can you stay?" she asked.
Maybe more like demanded.
"Uh...my flight leaves...leaves tomorrow morning," he said weakly. "W-why? I can go rent a room at a hotel if you don't...have room for me here—"
"Is your laptop okay?" she cut him off.
"Y-yeah, I think it's fine," he answered, nodding obediently.
"I need you to stay with me today. And tonight," she instructed. "Can you do that?"
"Of course," he said. "But can I ask why you need me?"
Amy marched through the sea of glass and iced tea, headed for the front door. "I need a second pair of eyes for a plan. Be right back."
Without another word, she crossed to the door, opened it, and disappeared out into the hallway.
Greg, even though he was sitting in a sea of broken glass and sticky liquid, gave a little grin. 4G coverage in a place like this? Oh, heavens no, there was no internet in this neighborhood. He had saved that video to his hard drive yesterday and tweaked the interface a little to resemble a generic youtube video, enough to fool a cursory glance. That was all he needed, as he knew she would have no mind for anything else once she had seen the video.
It was true what she said. He knew that long before he had ever entered this apartment. Nothing he said could make her go back.
"That's my girl," he muttered to himself, almost amused at her very strong reaction to what he had shown her.
He took a moment to surmise his difficult position, with perhaps a hundred shards of glass and a massive spreading iced tea stain.
"Last thing this place needs is an ant infestation," he thought aloud.
Down the hall, in the bathroom, Amy was hunched over the sink, scooping up the unsanitary water and rubbing it on her face, only after she used her mystical powers to distill it and render it satisfactorially cold. She needed to calm herself. She had to calm herself. It was only a calm mind that could give her what she wanted.
After a minute or so of splashing water onto her face, she was no longer burning up. There was a fury within her still, but she managed to contain it and focus it.
She had one goal now. One desire in life.
"Game on, Princess," she muttered quietly, looking down at the sink drain as the final dregs of water disappeared downward. "Game on."