The next emotion to take his seat at the console, after Joy and Sadness, was Fear, and his individuality made him quite the polar opposite of them both.
Unlike the two ladies, who, despite not being exactly human, still mostly looked the part, Fear was barely recognizable as one. His body was very slender, making him nearly as tall as Joy, with rather short arms and legs, and it looked as though his eyeballs were displaced from his string-like head, hanging on top of his body like two large bulbs. His nose also hung from his head, forming a complete body picture that just screamed "tendrils". In the place of hair, he had a long, winding and spiraling purple strand, more reminiscent of an antenna than hair, and two "eyebrows" that floated above his body. It looked as though the color of Fear's particles was light purple, while his eyes were dark purple.
For the proverbial occasion, Fear had dressed somewhat formally, if in an out-of-date manner. He wore dark purple pants with a proper belt and a white shirt with layered sleeves, and the only decoration that adored his body was a red bowtie. Of course, his clothes were tailored to his specific, nerve-like body shape, but on a human, they could evoke any number of eras from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s — definitely out of place for an emotion working for a modern teenage girl.
That being said, Fear's entrance was anything but formal. Even from a distance, having just ran out of his room and to the front of Headquarters, he shouted out loud: "How long have we been flying? Have we been flying for too long? We're going to run out of fuel! We're going to crash!"
This, alone, alerted the ladies to his presence, and they turned to face him; however, they quickly found themselves turning back, as he plunged for the console, taking the seat to Joy's left, and pushed buttons around, turning the console color from a pale blue to purple. Thus, in turn, the view on the Consciousness Screen, too, changed radically; now, it seemed as though Riley was wide awake and frantically looking around, though she still remained seated. Even her parents, as brief as the glimpses of them the emotions got, seemed mildly worried.
"Relax!" Joy reassuringly spoke as she moved over to hold his hands, preventing him from punching more and more into the console. "I'm sure," she continued, "that they calculated the right amount of fuel for the flight. If they didn't, don't you think we would be hearing about crashes a lot more? However, what we do see is articles saying that flying is the safest mode of transportation!"
"Safest! I like safe." Fear said, his voice sounding as though his previous outburst hadn't happened at all. The emotions, in general, had a rather terrible habit of acting in the moment, completely disregarding what happened previously.
Seeing the elation, Joy returned to her seat, considering it a job well done; while Fear was calmed down, he would serve a rather important role in the mind at the present time, and that was ensuring that Riley would be awake for the landing, which couldn't be that far away by now. Meanwhile, Sadness only stared blankly at the two, seeing as this wasn't really a matter that directly concerned her, and in general, she thought that some moments were best left without her involvement.
However, the troubles Joy would have with the emotion team had just begun, and the last two emotions were definitely the "hardest to tame", so to say.
Signs of their frustration could already be heard, even before they appeared in person. It seemed as though one of them had splashed water all over her face and groaned to herself, making sure to groan into the towel so as to not cause a further disturbance. Already, she knew that it was going to be far from a pleasant day, with her preparations interrupted and Riley still en route to an impossibly distant location, and as she stepped down to meet the emotions already present by Riley, she was definitely not having the time of her life.
This emotion was Disgust, and she cared about looks big time. As far as her body build went, she could best be described as curvy, even more so than Riley's mother. She was shorter than Fear, yet taller than Sadness, with light green skin particles and dark green hair and eyes. Her hair was shorter than that of Joy's or Sadness's, only reaching the top of her neck, and in the front, was cut right at her eye on one side, while being brushed away from the other. Her eyes, on the other hand, were emphasized by eyelashes that stretched past her face, not being limited to neat little accessories like they would be in the human world.
Disgust's outfit was rather revealing, further accentuating her curves, but not too revealing, as she definitely hated those who appeared to be, in her own words, "all body and no brain". Her dark green jeans were about as short as they could get, and most of her legs were covered by thin black leggings, topped off with purple flats. Her top was also rather lackluster and small, lacking any sleeves and exposing her midriff — and in turn, revealing that she didn't have a belly button. The top was white, decorated with dark green outlines of splatters.
The sides of her head, where her ears would normally go, were decorated with a pair of thin, yet rather large metallic earrings, bent to form a "D" shape. Her neck was covered by a purple see-through scarf, placing it somewhere between stylish and practical for a colder day. Finally, she had donned a pair of white, latex gloves, so as to not come in contact with any germs or other, well, disgusting stuff; the gloves wrapped around her rather tightly, making some of her purple nail polish bleed through as a visible smear from the inside. It seemed as though today, she had decided to forego any makeup; given what she was alerted to, it was rather obvious as to why.
"Fear, I swear to Riley," she spoke up, "if you do something like this to me again, I… why are we sitting around like that?" In the middle of a scathing threat, her attention was suddenly caught by the Consciousness Screen, which showed Riley, still seated in her usual place on the plane, doing absolutely nothing and very likely being bored out of her mind — quite obviously from her own point of view, but still recognizable to Disgust. "Now this — this is completely unacceptable…" she muttered to herself.
Normally at this point, she would simply take her seat by the console and hit the buttons on it, just like the other emotions. However, as it stood right now, Sadness was sitting in her usual seat. Disgust thus walked over to the seat and loudly cleared her throat, and Sadness, not wanting to be a bother to anyone, scooted further over to the far right, allowing Disgust to take the now free seat.
Disgust then proceeded to enter her own input to the console, and as she did, Riley instantly reacted. The view from the Consciousness Screen didn't indicate much, but from the sounds, one could infer that Riley was reaching into her schoolbag, on her back and crunched up against the economy class seat, and trying to pick up something from the bag — in fact, the only thing that was there, at the moment.
"Disgust, what are you doing? Our tablet is still out of power…" Sadness pointed out, but Disgust wasn't exactly one to listen; if what Sadness said was true, then she would have to see for herself. Sadness, in turn, quietly conceded; not being properly heard was an issue she had with all her coworkers and not just Joy.
Finally, with enough struggling and frustration from Riley's side, the thing Disgust had made her take out was right on the panoramic Consciousness Screen.
It was a rather thick tablet computer, which, rather oddly for the type of smart device people were accustomed with, didn't have a touch screen at all. Instead, one would have to make do with two keyboards that were attached to its side; in order to use the tablet, you had to hold it like a gaming controller and use your thumbs to use the keyboards, which were labeled in the familiar QWERTY order. There were also two directional pads below each keyboard, so that the tablet could also be used for games. The tablet itself had black bezels, while the side keyboards were a light blue one on the left and a light orange one on the right
Any onlookers who saw Riley's tablet would most likely confuse it for something else; a gaming console that was particularly popular throughout the world at the time. They were absolutely right to see it that way; however, it wasn't actually that console, but rather, a Chinese knockoff product designed after it, that Riley's father had gotten for her via connections in the company he worked for. Nevertheless, Riley had gotten used to the device and its idiosyncrasies, and it had become the emotions' favorite too. In fact, each of them had an Imagination-based tablet just like it for their own personal use.
That being said, it didn't take much fiddling for Disgust to realize that what Sadness had said was true. As far as Riley's own, "outside world" tablet went, no matter how much Riley pushed the button on the edge of the right side keyboard or how long she held it, the device wouldn't turn on at all, and its screen remained a pale grey; she must have drained its battery during the fourteen-hour flight, before she got bored and fell asleep for a rather poor rest.
"Well, that's not happening." Disgust conceded, before making Riley stow the tablet in her schoolbag again; evidently, the teenage girl was struggling as she did.
"That being said… there's gotta be another way to entertain ourselves!" Joy suggested, not wanting to see a coworker brought down by a simple misfortune.
"Like what?" Disgust shot back.
"Like not accepting the horrid conditions that we've been put through!" a male emotion from upstairs shouted out, before beginning to descend, thus completing the team of emotions that took care of Riley.
This emotion was Anger, and his body shape, like Fear's, also trended towards the stylized side. He was by far the shortest emotion, only reaching up to Sadness's neck, but what he lacked in height, he more than made up for in width, thus resembling an oversized brick in the process. Also like Fear, he had no hair to speak of, and his eyes also took up most of his upper body. Of note was the fact that unlike the other emotions, he completely lacked a nose or a neck. His skin particles were dark red, while his eyes were bright red.
Out of the emotions, Anger took his job the most seriously, even more so than Joy, and reflecting that, he dressed to impress — or at least, as much as he could while still remaining in the bounds of male fashion. His outfit looked rather simple in comparison with the rest: dark brown pants, a dark brown overcoat over a white shirt, and black shoes, finished off with a tie, with red and white vertical stripes. Like with Fear, and indeed, like with all the remaining emotions, the clothes that he wore also looked perfectly tailored to his body, despite each of them having a unique physique.
That being said, while Anger certainly saw his own remark as serious, the others did not. "What conditions? Seems pretty normal to me." Joy even had the gall to ask, as she watched Anger descend and take the last remaining seat by the console, to the far left.
"Well, if the Spirit of Imagination had given you any wits instead of just eyes, you would realize!" Anger shot back.
"Woah!" Disgust suddenly stepped in between Joy and Anger. "We all have huge eyes; that's just the way we are. Does that mean we are all morons who can't see the real picture? Like, be serious now!"
"I suppose you are." Anger commented, having none of the peacemaking attitude.
"Being dumb is so difficult…" Sadness lamented, sighing and planting her face at the console, which ended up turning it light blue, and thus, making Riley herself look down. Of course, Sadness being Sadness and not wanting to affect Riley more than necessary, she quickly sat straight up again.
"Hey! Cheer up, will you?" This time, Joy stepped in and tried her best to lighten the mood. "I'm sure there's something to be happy about! Like… something has gotta come up soon enough, right?"
Anger, of course, was not one to miss even Joy herself lacking enthusiasm, and shot back: "Like what?"
A whole awkward minute passed, with each and every emotion trying to think of something that Riley could feel — that she hadn't already felt on the flight. However, they came up empty-handed, blankly staring at the console and each other, and the console itself, after not receiving input from any emotion, turned back to its original color, indicating a mild boredom and indifference in Riley.
However, this minute was not to last, as soon enough, the captain of the flight delivered a typical announcement in his typical tone: "Good afternoon, passengers. This is the captain of flight UA 835 speaking. The local time is 13:28, and we are about to land in Shanghai as scheduled in about five minutes. The local temperature is 7 degrees Celsius, 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Please note that for your own safety, your seatbelt must be fastened while the 'fasten seatbelt' light is on…"
"We're landing!" Joy shouted out, as she spun around in her chair. "China, here we come!"
"Wait a minute!" Disgust suddenly realized. "We're not actually ready, are we? How are we going to get our luggage back? And also… how far away from the airport was our new house, again?" Being in a state of confusion, herself, she started entering codes to the console, trying to bring up a more detailed map of Shanghai.
However, it seemed as though nothing came up, once she did so. If Riley was told about this new location, or, for that matter, anything about the city beyond where it is in the world, it would seem that she already forgot about it. Naturally, the emotions' next option would be to use the intermediate device, the tablet that Riley insisted that she take to the plane, but they already knew that it was out of question.
"Look!" Fear called out, as Disgust became frustrated. "The most important thing is that we follow Mom and Dad and don't let them out of our sight. If we lose them… if we lose them…!" Suddenly, he became terrified of the very prospect he was talking about, and as he, himself, motioned to the console, he made Riley squirm in her seat; if she was unbound by the seat belt, she would certainly have already tightly hugged either Mom or Dad.
"We won't lose them. Good advice, though!" Joy spoke, nudging towards Fear's side.
As the emotions pointlessly squabbled, none of them giving in, the plane slowly descended through the air. A multitude of effects was immediately noticeable: the air pressure rose, making everyone in the plane, including the Andersens, breathe more deeply, and the turbulence continued shaking the plane, waking the other sleepy passengers up.
Finally, the plane broke through the cloud level, and the emotions were treated to the pretty shapes of the Shanghai highrises for the first time. The view from the middle seat, as opposed to the window seat, was rather hard to fully appreciate, but nevertheless, it fully captivated the elements of Imagination in Riley's mind. Joy was quick to hit the console to capture the memory, and soon enough, it rolled in.
However, this memory was different; whereas the other memories, already in the winding tube, were almost lifelike and looked rather dull in the vibrant world of the mind, this was a Core Memory, which appeared in an entirely different tube, which didn't have nearly enough loops.
Core Memories were a special type of memory, indeed, as they had a higher concentration of Imagination than the rest, and therefore, couldn't be processed or recalled. Instead, their purpose in the mind, to put it simply, was to give Riley everything that made her unique; her personality, her interests, her skills, her deepest desires and darkest fears. Without Core Memories, Riley would be nothing but a blank slate, unable to say anything interesting about herself at a party or social gathering.
Given this, Core Memories were not intended for the Memory Lanes; instead, their dedicated place was high above Headquarters and other structures in the mind. The emotions only got to watch it briefly, its shine unmistakable for anything else, before it shot upwards in the tube. From there, it would find its place in the mind and shoot beams of light towards the other Core Memories nearby. These were known as lightlines, and once they settled, the Core Memory would become a part of the Consciousness Grid.
The Consciousness Grid, one could say, was the single biggest and most unique structure in the mind, visible from Headquarters and virtually everywhere else, all the time, and unable to be mistaken for anything else. During the day, it was far from impressive, being nothing more than a barely visible geometric pattern that fractured the sky. However, in the night, the spectacle of Core Memories and the lightlines connecting them was a sight prettier than any possible night sky, in the real world or even in one's wildest fantasies.
In the meantime, Joy's input continued to influence Riley, and odds were, it would do so for long enough for Joy to take a quick break. She thus launched herself up from the console seat and ran up the spiral catwalk, which could be seen to be much longer from this vantage point and lead all the way to the roof. She really wanted to see where, exactly, in the Consciousness Grid would the new Core Memory land; to her, it was critical information, as it would come to shape Riley's personality in China. While the catwalk's shape annoyed all the other emotions, Joy found the waving paths to be intriguing and unique, and ran until she reached the very top.
Once she got there, she was greeted to the exterior of at least some of Headquarters. The building was pearly white, with the main "bulb", at the top, being rather organic and curvy, while at the same time having lots of spires sticking out in varying sizes, making for a fractal pattern. From this particular point of view, the tower that held this main bulb up wasn't visible, but having taken trips outside of Headquarters, Joy knew that the entire structure resembled a princess tower; fairytales were one of Riley's earliest passions, and it seemed that nothing else could replace it.
That is, until Joy followed the newly created Core Memory with her eyes and realized that it would take its presence directly above Headquarters.
The science of how the mind's geography aligned with the importance of its structures was pretty simple: the closer to Headquarters something was, the more important it was. Therefore, to say the least, a Core Memory taking its place above Headquarters was a rather big deal. Joy wasn't even sure how she was going to break this news; it seemed as though everything about Riley was subject to change, and the other emotions wouldn't take to it lightly.
In the end, Joy decided to take her precious time. She watched the entire process of the Core Memory connecting to the Consciousness Grid, and though the daytime sky made it difficult to see fine details, the mere fact that Joy had to look directly up was plenty telling. She didn't even dare blink for those moments; even though she had seen the process countless times, she still didn't want to miss a single thing.
Finally, once it looked like the process was finished, Joy descended back to the console as quickly as she could, outpacing the so-called "wind of change" that ensued once the Core Memory was in place. Glancing at the Consciousness Screen, she could infer the plane was actually aligned with the runway and about to touch down and taxi, a process which would start in a few seconds starting from now.
It almost seemed as though Joy had skipped the "boring" part of the skirmish and gone right to the interesting part, and wouldn't have much time to act. However, with any luck, it would be just enough to calm the others' worries down.
"What was it, Joy?" Fear asked, right as she returned. "Why do you have that unnerving smile? Did the Core Memory permanently burn through your face, burning in the smile? Red alert! Joy has been incapacitated by the Core Memory!" He was known for jumping to foregone conclusions without thinking through them first, and furthermore, being frightened by them, himself.
And boy, do the worries come, Joy thought to herself. "Absolutely nothing!" she spoke, not much on her mind other than calming the worries, and immediately afterwards, began concocting a lie, her expression becoming an insincere one almost immediately: "The Core Memory… danced far away, and I am happy because life in China won't be that different from life in America after all! I…"
Before she could say anything more, though, she glanced above herself; it seemed as though her attempt to cover it up didn't last too long.
The wind of change was rather merciless and relentless. While the doors to the emotions' dorms, and most likely, the dorms themselves were unchanged, and so was the console, Consciousness Screen, the tube holding memories and everything else required for Riley's mind to work, virtually all the other details around the emotions began changing. All they could do at this point was bid the fairytale-like look of Headquarters a final farewell, as the unseen force swept through the building, transforming it into a highrise much like the ones on the Core Memory itself, with angular halls replacing curved ones and solid walls turning into ones made of glass, making the outside view more clear.
Finally, as terrifying as it was, the unseen force swept all the way down, taking a much shorter trip than anyone expected. It looked like the variety of chairs was also untouched; the emotions could still replace their usual console chairs with them if they felt discomfort.
"So, you meant to tell us… that the Core Memory took its place directly above Headquarters?" Disgust spat out. "You filthy liar! That has got to be…"
However, before she could finish her sentence, the plane finally touched down and began taxiing, shaking Headquarters quite a bit and interrupting her thought, as well everything else on Riley's mind at the time.
