Xenotober 2022 10 Rebirth
a/n: Lila hangs at the Mim Center and then Eleonora explains a few things.
Editing is not a thing that happened today.
All the good things belong to Monolithsoft.
Lila and her soldier escort exited BLADE tower into an ordinary morning. They marched down the steps, Lila a bit unsteady (it was the heels, it was just those ridiculous heels), the solider not exactly rushing her but clearly wanting to get this duty over with.
"What's it say on BLADE tower?" Lila asked as they rounded the corner of the building. The alley they were in led directly to the Mimeosome Maintenance Center, the equivalent of the main hospital for this artificial town.
"Your neck broken?" the soldier asked smartly.
"No, but I'm feeling dizzy."
"Mention that when you get to the center," advised the soldier. The soldier didn't look up at the tower, keeping a watchful eye on Lila, not moving closer. Did Lila imagine her making a small motion towards her weapon? Maybe. It didn't matter; Lila didn't intend to show any resistance. Lila's respect for the soldier increased though, and the whole interaction, 5 seconds at the most, confirmed a suspicion. Most of the BLADEs in the lobby of the tower weren't familiar to Lila, but the few she had recognized had been among the smarter, more reliable, least talkative members of her customers. They weren't a random collection of people pulled into a situation. It was a comfort to think that, no matter how negative today's events were, the BLADE administration had been well-prepared.
They reached the Mim Center and Lila was passed off to another set of guardians. The medical technicians weren't exactly kind, but Lila hadn't expected that. The group there was notorious for not caring about people's feelings, treating all visitors like senseless machines. Which they all were, if you looked at it from a certain perspective. The staff was efficient, however. Lila was scanned, scrubbed, and sucking on a nebulizer before the hour was out. After a while, they left her alone in the examination room with instructions to wait for a specialist.
Time was ticking away somewhere else, but Lila barely felt it. She wondered if there was a guard outside the room. They'd be smart to do that. She planned to wait until Eleonora came, but sometimes things didn't go as planned. She tugged at the shirt and pants they'd given her after she'd been cleaned up; they were standard issue, and the greyish color did nothing to improve her pallor. At least they'd given her some boots to replace those dreadful dress shoes. She thought about whether the station could switch to something nicer for uniforms; she never wanted to dress up in that suit and skirt again. She thought about the tower and the soldier's lack of interest in the news banners that scrolled on the jumbotron at the top. The few people that they had passed hadn't been craning their necks to read any breaking developments. Maybe nothing was being said yet. Maybe nothing would be said ever. What did it matter if there was one less civilian in the city?
Lila stopped thinking about things. She knew she had it wrong. Besides, she was tired of trying to balance all the possible truths and lies, letting only so much of each show on the surface. She lay down on the examination bench, ignoring the crinkle of the protective paper, and curled up with her knees almost to her chin. It was quiet in the room. Maybe she could take a nap. Maybe things would be different when she woke up.
She must have slept, because she didn't hear the door open. She did notice that someone had come in, and she had swung upright before her eyes had fully opened.
"Would you like a moment?" asked Eleonora.
"No, I'm fine," Lila said, ignoring the tilt of Eleonora's eyebrow.
"Good to hear. You'll want an explanation, I presume?" Eleonora looked around for a chair, settled for a rolling stool, and tilted her said. "So, where to begin?"
"Just make it short." Lila wasn't awake enough to be polite.
"Excellent. I'm sure we both have things to do." She smiled at Lila and then proceeded to say nothing.
"The box didn't work."
"Au contraire," Eleonora said. "The case contained the explosion perfectly. She wasn't lying about fusion being involved. If it hadn't, we'd have a crater just north of NLA the size of the city. To be clear, we do not."
"But there was still an explosion. Or did I imagine that, just like I imagined we rode up in the elevator?"
"Clever, wasn't that? A modification of artificial gravity. You felt the elevator move, but we were going the other way."
"I don't care! You left Avery to die in .. what? A controlled explosion? And those Outfitters, that Harrier, they ..." Lila choked and pressed a hand against her mouth, to keep both her words and bile inside.
Eleonora tilted her head for a moment, curious to see if Lila would keep shouting. Lila now had both hands covering her mouth, trying to keep silent, rocking slightly. When no more complaints were made, Eleonora reached over and patted Lila's knee sympathetically. "Another trick. Those were animatrons. Made from excess mim parts, repurposed for the situation. They may have looked lifelike, but I assure you they were only going through a small set of programmed motions. Just like Avery."
a/n: Look, I gotta make a snack for the kid, so we're stopping here today.
Next up: I am ignoring prompts until this is done so does it matter?