When we get to the incredibly large room, each detail enchants me. But the view is the first thing that my eyes take in. The mansion is on the top of the many hills that cover the territories of region two, which provides an impressive overlook. I can't see the ocean, but I know it's beyond the sparkling lights. And the sky...it is even more starry tonight.
My feet take me towards the glass wall. The feeling to tiptoe this floor makes my chest grow with ambition. Down there rests many people who have humiliated me because I come from another nation, sleeping in their humble houses, while I am inside the Glass Mansion. It will be funny to watch their same eyes glisten as I walk between them. To hear their mouths calling my name...Well, not really my name. I will be called Johanna Smith. Maybe this will be a way of thanking her for keeping me safe so far. But this will still be me who they will see.
"The bathroom is to your right. It will recognize your bracelet, I have already granted permission. There are clean towels there, and clothes at the ready," Charlotte's voice sounds from behind me. "Clean yourself up and rest. Tomorrow I will pick you up at seven."
I don't need to sleep, I wanted to answer her. I work twenty hours a day in the sun, almost without any rest. Sometimes, when we got home from the docks, my friends and I would still spend the nights awake talking about our futures. We had hope, all of us. Unfortunately, it didn't work as we planned.
"Charlotte, is there a better way to ask Mister Allaberk to save my friend from the trenches?" I ask.
"If your friend was arrested, she deserves to go to the trenches."
There was something about her slender figure and big eyes that made me think she would act out differently when separated from Mister Allaberk. I was wrong.
"I deserved it too," I mumble, somehow ashamed of the fact. When her brown eyes stare at me, I regret the passive-aggressive soft power of my words. "Will I be paid for the position Mister Allaberk offered me? I will, right?"
The woman of stern expressions, lifts the corners of her lips. "Of course, Parsargadae is a democratic nation," With that she leaves, and the door closes sending a cold breeze in my direction. That's good enough. I will be able to keep providing for my family.
I curl up in the robe that was waiting for me. Its texture is so comfy I sincerely desire to live inside it forever. I lay on the soft couch and splay my hands around me. It wouldn't require much effort for me to close my eyes and pretend I only started existing now. But I know it's not true.
The faces flashing through my mind doesn't make it any easier to forget reality. My family may still have a future. Maybe they even got luckier, and I will be able to send loads of money. Unlike Coral, my poor friend. I should never have let go of her hands. Maybe I could've convinced Mister Allaberk if he had seen her. She's handsome, made for the screens! How can I sleep when she's awake worried about her upcoming fate?
The steel door slides open again, and I shut my eyes. I scrub my face slightly against the sheet to wipe the tears away. I don't cry in front of anyone, not even before my friends with whom I have shared a house for years. Charlotte must have come back to check if everything was under order, if I was in order. I don't want to talk to her again tonight, or anyone. I am still trying to process what has just happened to me.
"I know you aren't sleeping," The same pretentious voice I heard before sounds loud in my ears. Tyler Allaberk is in the same room I am, and for some reason, the face I had never lost a chance of seeing on the broadcasts, scares me.
Despite my efforts of maintaining my breathing steady, I feel his presence even closer, watching me like in the old bogeyman tales, and it's sufficient to make me uncomfortable enough to throw the covers away, and sit in an upright position. Life was made to be faced with the head held high.
"Did you come to see how I look cleaned?" It sounds harsher than I expected. The dim light provided from the outside doesn't allow me to see much of his face, and the same goes for me.
"No," He kneels beside my bed, and I flinch away.
"No?"
"I don't care how you look," The words hit hard on me. I am so disgusting to their eyes that they won't even bother to weigh their judgement on my features. I shouldn't want them to, but deep down, I do. Mister Allaberk must have picked me up for a grotesque character, whom not one citizen was willing to play.
"Then, why are you here?" I notice he's not wearing his bracelet. I know that he is a common rule breaker, but this is as primordial as breathing. As if realizing my eyes took a long time lingering on his wrist, he rubs it and points to my own. My fingers wrap around mine, protective of what has made me belong in this place.
He moves in closer and raises one finger to his mouth, signalizing I must remain quiet. But I am not. My heart is bumping against my chest like it's going to explode, and I don't know what I should do. Scream and wake the other inhabitants of this mansion? Whom will they protect?
He holds my wrist and touches the small screen to project the menu that keeps all my information possible to collect. It shows my heart rate is at 127 BPM, way too high for someone resting. For a long time, it used to alert me about my glycemic levels, which were too high for a living human being. I believe that Johanna Smith died from some related disease.
The bracelet only stops indicating this problem after a new blood exam. It performs the exam every day fifth, stinging us out of the blue. The last time, I dropped my knife in the ocean and had to jump in to find it, otherwise, my boss would fray me alive. I couldn't let him find excuses to dismiss me. But a few days after, the glycemic levels were high again. A technical mistake for a clandestine reboot. Or a ghost hunting me.
I see how he types a couple of numbers, and the bracelet detaches itself from my wrist. He takes it right away, throwing and locking it inside the bathroom. I almost yell out of his lack of care towards my bracelet.
"Where do you come from?" He questions making the way back to his precious spot, and now I know it's safe to speak again, even though I don't understand why it wasn't before.
"Libra."
"An ally nation, that's good,"
"Yes," I say. But that's not enough for them to accept us in, if it's not to die in the trenches. For that, we are extremely valuable. "What's your real name?"
"I've been Johanna for a long time. That's my reality now," I say, sullen. I have to cover for my friends if they are still out there. The fewer people that know, the better. But it suddenly hits me, and I curse under my breath. I remember Mister Allaberk's words in the limo saying no one remains unknown anymore. "But my birth name is Marjorie."
"Beautiful name," He kneels next to me again. "Not common on Pasargadae, though."
"Why did you take my bracelet off?" I blink. "We are not supposed to do this. e-ever."
"You were arrested," He says, somehow as if this was a plausible explanation for his wrong behavior.
"And you were never." The corners of his mouth tilt with my suggestion. He doesn't seem angry.
"I took your bracelet off because I want to have a private conversation with you, and I don't want anyone to listen or find out about it," I look down at the white mark on my wrist. Listening to us? How so? Perpetual surveillance is the Enemy Nations' procedures. Pasargadae uses technology to make our life better, like tracking our medical data.
I can't keep myself from flinching away from his figure. I jump over the bed to the other side of the room. There's a pottery jar in the form of an eagle and I hold in on my hands. I know these celebrities get whatever they want, even when what they want isn't an object.
"Calm down," He hisses from the other side, his hands in mid air.
"I am calm," I answer with gritted teeth. If I had my bracelet on, it would be screaming now. Saying my heart is going to explode.
"I just want to propose you something," He circles the bed, and a flash of moon light flickers through his body showing he is still in the same clothes he was before. A match of leather jeans and jacket. "Shall I?"
"I don't know. Shall you?"
"You told me you come from Libra. I bet you have family left there," I keep my face emotionless. I don't want to give him any possible leverage. They may presume I have family there, all of us usually do. But they can't be sure, since life expectations back there are low. "I want to help you keep them safe. I could give you enough money to make them filthy rich back there and you here, or there, whichever way you wanted,"
I narrow my eyes.
"In exchange for what?" I realize my prior conclusions were wrong. I am to put myself at a way to a higher level to even consider he would be attracted to me somehow.
"For you to run from this mansion, as fast as you can, without looking back."
The delusion hits me quickly. The idea flashed through my mind while Mister Allaberk was driving me here. I was scared that something would change their minds, and they wouldn't want me anymore. But I only could live a good life in Libra with my family, if I had a good amount of money. However, life isn't that easy. There's a big problem with this idea, that is fleeing from Pasargadae without being caught. My bracelet wouldn't be of any good for me, as it would only work to only offer my geolocalization and, I don't know if I would be able to avoid the drones without it, or the Global Soldiers. And, I would miss these lands, my home. This is too much of a good offer not to have a catch in it.
"What's in there for you?"
His ambar eyes grow even darker as he approaches me. As a young girl, I had dreamed over uncountable times, of meeting this man who stands in front of me. I had imagined me going shopping with him, buying a beautiful dress and dancing with him until the high heels I bought hurt my ankles. Then, he would put his arm around my back, to support me under a starry sky - like tonight's sky - and he would kiss me, and that would feel like oceans and ground meeting. Stupid girly daydreams. I don't blame me. There's many adult women - and men, whose lives revolve around the Darlings.
"You despise me," He snarls. "Every single part of you. And I am willing to do anything to not have to look at your face for who knows how long. Shootings can be very long sometimes," I blink in bewilderness. Where's the caring boy from the movies and propagandas? Maybe he keeps it for the citizens of Pasargadae, when he's not drunk. "It's a fair deal, for both of us."
"Do you have any idea of what's fair?" My grasp on the pottery eagle tightens, and I desire to break it on his head.
"When you learn I know exactly what's fair, it will be too late for you." He stumbles back. "Do you take it or not?"
I recognize a threat when I hear one. His mouth shows super white teeth, just like those of the big, wide man on the docks who tried to humiliate me. He was a rarity there, not even the poorest citizens of Pasargadae are willing to work scrubbing. Maybe, that's why he needed something to make himself feel better, just like I had the challenges with my friends, and he thought he could get it with me. But you have to know when to defend yourself.
I look into the boy's dark eyes in front of me. So beautiful that the evilness in him seems like blasphemy.
"Tyler Allaberk, I've known way scarier men than you, the kind that would make you look like a little child, who have threatened before over more sensible subjects, and I didn't give in. If you were as smart you try to make you look, you would know my answer is no."
He steps back, somehow disappointed. But I keep the pottery at throwing distance. What if he decides to do something to me out of anger? I see how his perfect silk skin flushes with red spots.
"Where did you learn to be sassy like this?"
"Surely, not in the movies," I mumble. They teach us the right thing is to be obedient, and to hate the Enemy Nations. Somehow, I'm being obedient, and I hate the Enemy Nations.
"Surely," He repeats my words. "Just keep in mind that pretended bravery is as worth as none. The offer will be up until the Annual Celebration Party."
He strides towards the door, and the words slip out of my mouth. "Are you out of yourself?"
Tyler stops. "What do you mean?"
"Are you high or something?"
I remember how he was at last year's Annual Celebration party. Photos of his deep dark circles and protuberant bones spread across the network. Never before has there been so much talk about the harms of narcotics, and Moon Murthy was there to support him whenever he needed to, accompanying him to the Medical Center each time. I remember that drug use fell dramatically during that period.
The gossip channels broadcast shared a conversation between the two most famous Darlings. It was during the Annual Celebration Party. Moon pulled him away from the red carpet, where he thought no one would hear them. But she was wrong.
"I thought you had stopped the drugs."
There was a hiss in the transmission. It sounded like a light laugh.
"You look beautiful today, Moon."
"You never see beyond your nose, do you?"
"Ah, Moon, honey. Stop seeing problems where they don't exist. Life is too beautiful, and you have to enjoy it. Promise?"
"I can't promise that, not with you like that. And you know that my life can't continue like this …"
"Because you love to hear me sing. Don't worry, my voice is still intact."
Maybe Tyler is really mourning the sudden loss. We are all in our own way. Maybe that's why he is acting irrationally. Maybe he should have sung at her farewell. I'd loved it, and Moon too, wherever she's now.
"Not today," He smacks his tongue, and leaves me alone again with the turmoil on my head. His offer still lingering on my mind, as I repeat it over and over under my breath. It could be a test to see if I am trustable, unless Tyler Allaberk hates Mister Allaberk enough to want to mess with his aspirations. But there are easier ways to get rid of a foreigner.