Author's note: Despite its length, you may find this chapter underwhelming. I had planned to do other things with it, but Tiana disagreed, and who am I to tell her how to act? Besides, after my laptop rebelled and deleted my writing not once but twice, this chapter was doomed from the start. If you're disappointed, know at least that the information included here is important to the events soon to take place in November of 2041 (yes, Marek, that means that at least some of your questions are soon to be answered). Enjoy, and review! -Anya
The elevator door dinged open, and I pulled my bag more firmly onto my shoulder before setting off down the overly bright hotel hall, checking once over my shoulder to see that both Tiana and her possessions had made it to the fourth floor. Tiana had fidgeted and spoken softly since reaching our temporary lodgings, and the tight lips and sideways glances at her black eye we received from the receptionist had only served to make her more nervous. I was unsurprised to see her make a bee-line to the bed as soon as I opened the door, and sit on its edge, hunched forward with her pale chin resting on her palms. I gathered up her discarded bag, set it next to my own against the small chest of drawers, and stood back to survey the silent room.
It was a no-frills hotel room, but still far out of our budget for a permanent residence. We had essentially gotten off the train in what I decided would be the cheapest area downtown, and wandered around with no strategic direction before deciding on a room here. This, I assured Tiana, was where we would make plans to bring ourselves into our new lives. This was the first step to freedom.
It didn't look like freedom. The carpet was regulation beige, and the walls something that might have once been cream but now looked closer to dirty butter; the matching curtains and bedspread were an off-white almost as unoriginal as the framed pictures of fruit adorning the walls. Across the room was a dark rectangle I assumed led to the en-suite bathroom, and the room's most tantalizing feature: a wide, clear window through which I could see thousands of lights representing cars on their way home, restaurants beginning to serve dinner, offices winding down for the day, rooms being illuminated to welcome friends, and other tiny flickers of the lives of happy people. The thought brought about an unexpected surge of nostalgia for the days when I, too, had lived such a mundane life, and I drew the curtains, blotting out the evening sky with another off-white wall. In my sudden melancholy, I could not be bothered to move the few steps to a waiting armchair. I sank down with my back to the closed drapes, and hung my head.
I looked up seconds later at the sudden light of the bedside lamp to see Tiana watching me from a couple of meters away. She regarded me seriously for a moment before venturing a smile. When I did not respond, she spoke.
"This place should be great! Seriously, I know it's not, like, lavish, but it could be an awesome base. And we're right downtown!"
I was as irritated by her false cheer as by the fact that she had ignored the price of the room completely. How very like her, I thought, to assume that her lifestyle could continue in its traditionally comfortable manner. How like her to forget my feelings, focusing on only her own outrageous standard. She, who had been given everything and more. She received everyone's love and appreciation without trying for it, while I was always a second though. At best, I was "Tiana's friend".
"Tiana," I suddenly asked, an undercurrent of venom in my tone, "why did you run away?" She seemed taken aback momentarily by this change of topic, but answered instantly.
"I needed to escape," she stated simply. It was as confident and as irrefutable as a mathematical solution, and I felt myself scowl.
"No, seriously, you can tell me. It's not like I'm going to tell. You have the ultimate blackmail against me, if you hadn't noticed," I said, referring to the way she had discovered me that morning. She paused this time, gnawing daintily at her lower lip.
"Answer me honestly, okay? I really need to know this," she looked me directly in the eye, and asked with a perfect deadpan, "Do I look fat?"
I couldn't help it; I burst into a giggle. "Oh totally Tiana," I snorted, drawing out the vowel sounds sarcastically, "You're so obese. I'm surprised you could fit through the door, actually." She frowned, and mumbled, "Shut up," but I continued, undeterred, "the elevator definitely shuddered at your intense weight. You have to get all you clothes tailored out of old duvet covers, right?" suddenly, I realized that I was the only one laughing.
"You can't be serious, Tiana," I said, looking deep into her brown eyes as though that would convince her, "you just said that to cheer me up, didn't you? You must know you aren't fat." She turned away, not meeting my gaze. I looked over her perfect, slender form in astonishment, still half convinced she was joking. My worst fears were confirmed when I saw her raise a shaking hand to dab away the tears which threatened to ruin her perfect mask of makeup. Silently, I pushed myself up from the floor and wrapped my arms around her.
"S-sorry," she said, smiling through her sadness. I rested my chin on her shoulder, close enough to breathe in the scent of her shampoo.
"Don't be silly. Of course you aren't fat. How many inches is your waist?" I asked, deliberately neutralizing my voice in an attempt to mask my concern.
"Twenty seven," she whispered, "but I used to be thinner. Anyways, I can see myself gaining weight. I can look in the mirror and be a little fatter each time." Her voice dropped an octave, and she murmured, "It's horrible." I looked down at my arms wrapped around her middle, and saw a body that was the envy of everyone she met. Bewildered as I was, I tried to keep a smile in my voice.
"Well, I'm thirty two inches, so don't worry about it. You're gorgeous, alright?" she turned and looked down two inches into my eyes, something unreadable in her tearstained expression.
"Thanks," she said simply, and, before I had a second to think, lowered her face to give me a peck on the lips.
I felt myself smile involuntarily, and busied myself with sorting the money still in a mess at the top of my bag. Tiana and I had been friends for so long that hugs and an occasional kiss on the cheek were to be expected, but I was always afraid of creating awkwardness. I felt my friend's eyes on me, and spoke to break the silence before it became stretched too thin.
"Now that we've clarified you still look like a model, let's go for dinner. What's the time?" Tiana leaned over to check the clock radio on the bedside table.
"Five thirty. What do you feel like having?"
"Probably just a sandwich or something, but I know I want to go to some little diner rather than a chain restaurant or whatever," I answered decisively. Tiana nodded, absently plaiting her hair, and declared she wanted the biggest veggie burger we could find. In moments, we were back on the street.
I shouldered my bag and steered our paths east, into a scummier area. Most of my load and all of Tiana's had been left in our hotel room for safekeeping, so the only things weighing me down were three ten dollar bills (Tiana had insisted I bring extra money, just in case) and the ordinary contents of my purse which, though deemed vitally necessary when I packed them, never seemed to come in handy after all. The handheld computer stowed in Tiana's jacket pocket dinged periodically, warning of a new email or a low battery, and, every time it did, she started.
I, on the other hand, was surprisingly relaxed about our situation. During our many years of friendship, we had spent countless days this way, riding the skytrain to its penultimate stop and alighting into a world wholly different from the monotony of Pusney, the suburb were our lives were centered. On weekends when my parents had been away on business, I would return alone in the evenings, when Tiana's sheltering family forbade her from leaving the neighborhood, and pretend I belonged. For some reason, I had kept these solitary trips secret even from her, and gave no explanation for the easy way I navigated the shadowed, notoriously dangerous streets.
It wasn't as if Tiana was paying me any attention, I reminded myself sharply. It was true. She had cast aside with ease everything told to her about the disreputable characters and their activities in this end of the core, and was plainly enraptured with the sights around her. Neon signs, decrepit in appearance by the light of day, flickered and buzzed everywhere, hanging in rows from buildings; foreign scents and streams of music bled through the doors and covered windows of restaurants, a tantalizing hint of the life within; and, most impressively, the first of the Nocturnal Populace had begun to creep into the pools of color cast by the florescent signs.
These were the last reminders of a brief government initiative to reverse the sleeping patterns of half the population. The Nocturnal Populace (or N-Pop, as they had come to be known) program had seemed a good idea at first, designed to decrease crowding and allow businesses to stay open twenty-four hours a day, but had soon gone awry. Despite tax initiatives offered, the N-Pop did not attract people from all walks of life. Rather, volunteers were crooks, partiers, and all manner of social misfits who preferred to carry out their seedy transactions under cover of night. As soon as their sleep-cycles were adequately reversed (a government provided service), these colorful N-Pop initiates began to swarm the well-off few who had also join the program, relieving them of their possessions, and, in a few cases, quickly hushed up, their very lives. The Nocturnal Populace idea was swiftly dropped, but a stubborn few held fast to their unnatural hours. Rather than following the clock, the modern N-Pop ventured out at nightfall, which explained their presence before six o'clock in late November. Fascinated, I watched a small, pallid young woman fixing band posters to the window of a thrift store, sipping at her "morning" coffee. Suddenly, she melted into an alleyway, and I spun around to look for the source of her discomfort.
I recognized the Youth Control Force worker immediately by his severe black uniform, and identified him as an officer by the shape of the burgundy cap pulled low over his eyes and matching braided cord ornamenting the cuffs of his long, woolen overcoat. A recent recruit, hooded and silent, was shadowing him. I watched the officer stop three young men in their tracks, and place his gun against the heart of the middle one. Seemingly un-phased, they exchanged a few words before the gun was jerked upwards, freeing the youth from his prison, and the three walked on. Tiana had seen nothing, and I didn't mention it to her.