Hospitality

They caught up to the others a few miles outside of Chevalier. Crow wanted to talk about what he'd seen, and loaded his cycle onto the back of the battleship so that he could have Yusei, Bruno, and Carly's undivided attention. Jack would have liked a chance to work through everything with an attentive listener, but he didn't want a discussion group, so he resigned himself to driving alongside and apart from them on his cycle. Kiryu seemed to feel the same way. They drove silently over the wasteland, alone in their thoughts.

It took four more days to make it across the desert. It should have taken less time, but their machines had taken damage in their wild flight to escape the city, and the group had to take two days to wait for Yusei and Bruno to make repairs. Jack spent a lot of that time chatting with Carly or winning small fortunes off of the others with a deck of cards Crow had produced, until no one wanted to play poker with him anymore. By the time they all reached Arcadia, they were all tired, dirty, sunburned, and low on food and water rations. None of them were sorry to see the curve of the dome up ahead.

"It's about time," said Crow. "I wouldn't even mind being arrested, as long as it got us inside!"

"Don't say things like that! It might come true!" Carly protested.

"We're not going to get arrested," said Jack, hoping it was true. "We're refugees from Chevalier. No one is going to turn us away as long as that's the story we're using."

They approached the gate, and Carly fed her passcard into the reader. It hummed a bit, and the doors slid open without hesitation. Everyone hustled inside, a bit guiltily, as though afraid the doors might change their mind. Once they were all safely inside the airlock, the doors came down again. A moment later, a voice came in over an intercom.

"State your business," it said briskly.

"We're refugees," said Yusei. "We came from Chevalier. We were hoping we could at least rest and buy food here..."

His voice trailed off hopefully. There was a long pause.

"Identify yourselves," the voice said.

"I'm Yusei Fudo," said Yusei. He looked around the room, apparently realizing how dangerous it was for all of them to give their right names. "This is Carly Nagisa, Crow Hogan, and, ah..."

He didn't get any further than that. The inner door swung open, and a crew of uniformed armed guards marched in.

"We've been waiting for you people," the leader said. "You're coming with us."

Jack might have liked Arcadia better if he wasn't visiting it in the presence of armed guards.

Where Chevalier had been a city of innumerable small details, Arcadia was a place of soft colors, clean lines, and elegant simplicity. They had no time here to waste on fripperies. That was because while Chevalier had dealt with the claustrophobia of living in a sealed-off dome by devoting itself to the arts, Arcadia had primarily devoted itself to making money. They dealt primarily in industry - much of the metal and stone used by the other colonies was mined and refined in Arcadia and its environs, and they also had a thriving glassmaking company. Jack's own cycle was Arcadia-made, and now that he was here, he could see how the city's pared-down aesthetic had influenced the machine's pale color and sleek shape. It was attractive to the eye, but there was something cold about the place, and Jack found himself thinking that if he'd been forced to make the choice, he would have preferred to live in Carly's cluttered soundhouse or the mismatched warrens of Satellite, rather than this clean, sterile city.

The guards halted them outside the doors to a particularly large and unusually ornate building, one whose windows were built in pseudo-gothic arches rather than simple squares, and which even enjoyed a few decorative cornices and gables. The doors were double ones, painted slate-gray, with polished steel fittings, elegant but somehow forbidding.

Then they burst open, and a man came sweeping down the stairs. He was older than Jack, but not very much so, probably in his early thirties, and dressed far too well to be a factory worker or even an office worker. Nobody who wore ruffled sleeves and frilly cravats that way could be doing anything serious. This, Jack guessed, had to be the mayor.

"Ah, good, you're here," he said. "I've been expecting you."

"You have?" asked Jack warily. He didn't trust people in fancy clothes as a general rule; they always wanted something from him, and at the same time thought they were better than him because he went out and dodged storms and monsters to deliver their mail, while they stayed home where it was safe. He felt the opposite way, for the same reasons.

"Absolutely," the mayor replied. He waved the guards away. "Back to your stations. I'll take it from here."

The guards marched off without a backwards glance. The mayor half-turned towards the doors, beckoning Jack and the others to follow him.

"We can talk more comfortably inside," he said. "By the way, I'm the mayor of this colony. You can call me Divine."

"Pleased to meet you," said Yusei, with more politeness than Jack would have used. "We're..."

"I know all about you people," said Divine, "but we can talk more about that in private. Please, come in. You must be tired and hungry after your journey."

Jack followed warily. The rest of the group seemed to feel the same way; they stayed close together, constantly looking around and glancing back over their shoulders. The inside of the house, at least, was more inviting than the outside - it actually had some color, in the form of cool green carpeting and softer green walls. A few still-life watercolor paintings and the occasional white marble statue livened up the otherwise plain décor. Divine led them to a larger room, a sort of foyer where several hallways intersected, and looked back at them with a smile.

"Which way should I send you?" he asked. "Food or baths?"

"How about information?" said Crow. "Why did you drag us out here? How do you know about us?"

Divine's expression turned serious. "Ah, forgive me. I'm afraid I got carried away. The fact of the matter is, I try to keep tabs on what the Yliasters are doing, as best I can without being noticed myself. When my informants told me that a message between two of the organization's leaders had gone astray, I started looking more closely." He bowed his head. "Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make contact with you before you reached Chevalier."

Jack frowned a little, but Bruno piped up, "But you can help us now?"

"I'll do my best," Divine said. "My resources are limited, you understand. I don't have the leisure to do anything that would attract the Yliasters' attention and bring the roof crashing down on my city's head. But I can give you a safe place to stay for a while, a few good meals, some supplies, and some good advice."

"We'll take it," said Crow.

"A bath would be nice," said Carly wistfully.

Divine smiled, as though that was exactly what he'd been hoping she'd say. "I'll have someone show you to the guest rooms. You can clean yourselves up, and someone will be along with fresh clothes. Dinner should be on the table by the time you're finished."

"More beautiful words were never spoken," said Crow, grinning.

Divine summoned his staff and excused himself, and the group was content to let him go. Jack in particular was not sorry to see the back of him. Even if he meant well, his facile manner made Jack's teeth itch.

There was nothing wrong with the man's hospitality, though. A servant showed Jack to what was plainly the best of the guest rooms, with windows on two sides, a bed that would have comfortably slept five, and its own private sitting room and bathroom - practically a house to itself. He ignored the amenities in favor of a bath. He wasn't sure he'd ever been so filthy in his life, and he felt entitled to a long hot soak.

While he scrubbed the sweat and grime off his skin, he let his thoughts wander. He wondered why, if Divine was so concerned with the doings of the Yliasters, he was apparently more concerned with Jack and his friends than with helping the refugees. If he had sent anyone to their aid, Jack and the others would have seen them on their way to the city. It was possible that Divine felt avoiding the Yliasters' notice was more important than sending help to the ruined city, but Jack wasn't buying it. There was some other game going on here.

Why did LeBlanc tell us to come here? He doesn't seem like the kind to be taken in by a fraud, but I'll eat my delivery cycle if Divine isn't up to something.

Still, the bath did him a world of good, and clean clothes improved his morale further. He still wasn't sure what he was getting himself into, but he at least felt better prepared to deal with it now. He rejoined the rest of his friends in the hallway and followed one of the servants down to the dining room. Jack noted that his friends had undergone subtle and not-so-subtle transformations as well. He wasn't sure what surprised him more: seeing the other men wearing clean suits, or seeing Carly in a dress. She would have looked better in it if she hadn't been so plainly ill-at-ease in it.

When they arrived at the dining room, they found that the meal had already begun without them. It appeared to be an informal affair, and people were already helping themselves. There was a cluster of free seats left, apparently reserved for guests, so Jack and his companions sat down and began filling their plates.

If he'd needed evidence that Arcadia was a wealthy city, Jack could have found it on that table. He never went hungry when he was staying inside the colonies he visited, and was regarded well enough that he usually ate better than most people did, but he'd never seen anything like this. It was decorative. The meat and the vegetables and fruits had been arranged artistically on trays. Some of them even had flowers scattered over and around them. The variety of different dishes baffled him.

"What is this?" asked Crow, holding up a piece of something on his fork. "Is this fish?"

Jack sampled it. "It's fish." He tried another bite, considering it more closely. "Saltwater fish."

"Wow," said Bruno. "Where are they getting this stuff?"

Jack made a disapproving noise. In a world that was mainly desert, raising fish was not considered the most worthwhile pursuit - at any given moment, hundreds of gallons of precious water would be occupied in providing swimming room for fish. After the first couple of water shortages, anyone with sense would give up and find a less costly pursuit. Catching wild fish was worse. No one wanted to be caught on open water when a spiritstorm blew up or a monster came to call. If you wanted to show off your affluence, having fresh fish on your table was a good way to do it.

"I'm pretty sure this one is beef," said Carly. "I got to try some, once, when one of the dairy cows died."

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?" Crow remarked.

He didn't say what it made him wonder, but he didn't have to. Jack was already wondering. Had this lavish spread been laid out to impress them, or was this sort of thing normal? And if it was normal, where were they getting it? Arcadia was miles from any ocean where they might get fresh fish, even if someone was brave enough or crazy enough to go out fishing for it, and cows just weren't raised for meat. If you had a cow, you kept it alive as long as possible so you could milk it, or had it stand at stud so it could make more cows. The only time you ate beef was if something died of natural causes or there was an overpopulation problem. Even then, space was at such a premium that it was uncommon for someone to raise cows at all. Most people stuck to raising smaller things like chickens or rabbits, with perhaps the occasional goat or pig thrown in. Someone had to be paying a fortune for this.

Yusei took a sip of his drink and winced a little. "This is strong."

"Too much for me," Carly agreed, pushing her glass away.

"I've had worse," said Crow. "I gotta admit, though, it's pretty potent for table wine."

"You don't think they're trying to..." Bruno began, and Yusei shushed him.

"I think they're just more used to this than we are," he said.

Jack felt a little better - not because of Yusei's reassurances, but because he'd been wondering, too. He couldn't help being a little paranoid, and a small part of his mind had been thinking that the lavish feast and strong wine had been meant as bait for a poison or drugs. It was irrational, of course - everyone else at the table was eating and drinking from the same dishes, and none of them were showing ill effects. It was only that he was on guard for something, and the suspense was making him edgy.

It was apparent, though, that no one else at the table found anything unusual about anything they were being offered. He allowed himself a moment to look around the room. It was full of well-groomed men and bejeweled women, talking and laughing with each other, looking perfectly at ease. Most of them were older than Jack and his friends – presumably the movers and shakers of the city, the factory owners and the heads of wealthy families. The only one who didn't fit the pattern was a red-haired young woman who sat at Divine's right hand. She was wearing the best jewels of them all, but she didn't seem intent on showing them off. She ignored everyone around her, eating her lavish meal with the enthusiasm of a small child who knows she won't be allowed to leave the table until her vegetables are all gone. No one paid much attention to her – she might as well have just been another flower arrangement. Jack wondered who she was and why she was there. It dawned on him briefly to wonder if it was her and not Divine they had come to find. She didn't seem to belong here, but he didn't feel safe in asking about her with so many people listening in.

He turned back to his meal with diminished enthusiasm. The food was good, but too rich to want to eat much of after so many days of short rations. He pushed his plate away with his food half-eaten.

"I'm going to bed," he said.

He stood up and walked away. No one besides his friends seemed to notice.

When he returned to his room, he found it had already been made ready for him: someone had put out all the lights but the one closest to his bed, and had turned down the blankets. A set of pajamas lay folded neatly at the foot of the bed. Normally he would have taken it as his due, but tonight, he could only think uneasily of people slipping in and out of his room without him noticing. He changed out of the clothes he had barely worn, pulled on the night clothes, and lay there in the semidark with his eyes open, staring up at the ceiling and letting his thoughts run in circles. His mind kept going back to the people of Chevalier, the ones who hadn't been quite dead yet, the ones he couldn't stop to save. He thought of what could have been done with the money that had been spent on the lavish meal that was still going on downstairs.

After tossing and turning for far too long, he got up. He'd spent the last several days sleeping on the hard earth, and now the mattress felt like it was trying to swallow him. He'd gotten used to having Carly sleeping next to him, too. They'd had almost no time alone since the night they'd met, and the closest to privacy they could get was sleeping next to each other. She had generally ended up nestled against him with an arm draped over his chest and one leg flung over his. It had annoyed him at first, and he had thought he'd be glad to have a chance to sleep without her, but now he found himself missing the contact. It unsettled him to keep expecting someone who wasn't there.

I'll go see what her room is like, he decided. Maybe they could talk through some of the things that were troubling him. She was better at working things through to logical conclusions than he was; he was more inclined to identify a problem and then rush at it with his metaphorical sword drawn. She might be able to calm him down enough that he could sleep. He got up, put on a robe, and slipped down the hallway.

All of the guest rooms were on the same hallway, with Carly's being the furthest from his own. He knocked on the door and waited, hoping he had remembered correctly which room was hers. He didn't like the idea of explaining to Crow what he was doing knocking on his door after lights-out. Admitting who he'd really been looking for would open him up to a round of embarrassing comments he was too tired and stressed to deal with without hitting someone.

The door opened a crack, and then the rest of the way.

"Oh, it's just you," she said. "What are you doing out here?"

"I wanted to see if your room was better than mine," he said.

"Probably not," she said, "but come in anyway."

She stepped aside so that he could enter the room. He saw immediately what she'd meant - the room was little more than a ten-by-ten cube, with a plain white bed, a dresser, and a lamp.

"They put you in a closet," he said.

She shrugged. "I guess they ran out of good rooms."

"They should have spent less on dinner and more on building," said Jack.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Carly asked. "Everyone kind of seemed to take it for granted. I could understand if it was a special occasion, but... something is funny here. These people are too... too... complacent."

"It's a wealthy city," said Jack with a shrug.

"I don't care. No matter how much money they have, the supplies for this kind of thing just aren't there. They don't exist. So where did they come from? How did they get it? And why doesn't anyone else have it?"

"And why did Professor LeBlanc send us here, of all places?" asked Jack. "There's something weird going on here, and he sent us here for a reason. There has to be a connection somewhere."

Carly frowned. She began to pace the floor, hands clasped behind her back. "Okay, let's get the facts straight. The storms are happening because we're pulling energy from the other worlds. Someone is controlling the storms to make them happen wherever they want them to, as a tool to keep people in line. Something is going on in this city connected to that. Arcadia is an industrial city, so they probably go through a lot of energy, so I'm guessing a lot of the storms are at least indirectly caused by them. The guy in charge here seems to know a lot about the Yliasters, and he says he's working against them, but he could be lying..."

"You don't trust him either, do you?" asked Jack, giving her an approving look.

She adjusted her glasses self-consciously. "Well, I live in a tower in the middle of nowhere, so maybe I'm not the best judge... I mean, he seems nice. But it's like he's not interested, you know?"

"You're right," said Jack, perking up a little. "That's what's bothering me. He's not interested in us at all." If his motivations had really been what he said they were, he would have been asking them for eyewitness accounts of what had happened at Chevalier, or what they had learned from LeBlanc. He should have been pressing Bruno for inside information. He could have at least asked to see the letter from Mayor Goodwin. Instead, he'd hustled them off to their rooms and thrown a dinner party. Divine was lying about something... lying, or trying to distract them, or both.

"Where are the others sleeping?" he asked.

"Huh?" said Carly. "Um... Yusei and Bruno are sharing a room, and Crow and Kiryu are sharing the other one. I think they gave me a room to myself because I'm the only woman."

"I fail to see what that has to do with anything," Jack muttered.

"Hm?"

"Never mind," said Jack. "I just don't feel right being cut off from everyone else. We should both have someone watching our backs."

"You could stay here, if you want," she offered. She smiled, as though guessing he had motives beyond the pragmatic.

"You should stay in my room," he replied. "It's got a bigger bed."

"Oh, well, I can't argue with that logic," she said.

"We might as well make the most of it," said Jack. "I'll tell you one thing - tomorrow morning I'm thinking of some excuse and going to find somewhere else to stay."

"I don't blame you," she agreed.

She took his hand as they left the room. He wasn't sure he liked it, but he didn't try to stop her.

He reached the door to his room, and then paused. He felt certain that he had pulled the door shut when he'd left, but now it was slightly ajar. Had some roving housekeeper decided it needed closing? He didn't think so. He held out an arm to stop Carly from walking any nearer, and held his other index finger to his lips. She got the message and nodded, standing behind him and watching over her shoulder for any danger from behind. Jack crept closer and reached for the door handle.

The door sprung open. Jack dropped into a defensive position, wishing he had a weapon. The man in the door jumped backwards, colliding with his companion. Jack used that moment to lunge forward and seize the man in front by the collar.

"Who are you? What are you doing in my room?" he demanded.

The man clearly wasn't willing to give any answers. He twisted in Jack's grasp and swung a dagger at him. Jack shoved him away again, so that the knife passed two inches from his chest, and the attacker staggered backwards but quickly regained his footing. At the same time, the second man began forcing his way forwards, slipping out from behind his companion and into the hallway. Jack snarled. The hallway behind him was a dead end, with the only way out blocked by at least one armed man, and Jack was unarmed and wearing only pajamas and a bathrobe. Well, if that was the way it was going to be...

The man in the hallway drew a long knife and held it at ready, while the man in the doorway shifted his grip on his dagger.

"Settle down," said the one in the hall, who seemed to be in charge of the operation. "It'll hurt less if you don't fight it."

"It'll hurt less if you get out of here while you still can," Jack retorted.

The man with the knife tensed to lunge at him, but this time, Jack was ready. He whipped off the belt of his bathrobe and held it in front of him with both hands, using it to catch the man's wrist and snare it. He stepped back and made a quick twist and a jerk with the belt, pulling the man off-balance and making him drop his weapon. Jack kicked him away and stooped to snatch up the fallen knife.

The second man started forwards before his comrade had even begun to fall, but with the knife in his hand, Jack was ready. He spun and drove the knife at his attacker. His aim wasn't good - instead of hitting the man's chest, the tip of the knife skated across his arm and lodged just below his shoulder. He grunted and dropped his weapon, clutching at his wounds with blood streaming from his fingers. Jack swung the fist he was holding the knife in and struck the blunt end against the man's attacker, and it struck with a solid thunk against his temple. The man staggered against the wall and leaned there, dazed.

The first man scrambled to right himself and to grab for the weapon his friend had dropped. Carly bounded forwards and stepped on his hand, and he howled in pain. Jack kicked the dagger and sent it spinning down the hall.

"Now, let's try this again," said Jack. "Who are you and what are you doing in my room?"

"Wha's goin' on?" The doors up and down the hall were opening, as people were drawn to the commotion, and Crow shuffled out of his room, yawning. One by one, the others joined him.

"Jack, were you fighting?" asked Bruno. He stared at the two fallen men, the knives, and the blood on the floor with a look of incomprehension.

Jack glared at him. "No, I was working on a dance routine. What does it look like I was doing?"

"What's this all about?" asked Yusei. "Who are these people?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Jack replied. "I found these two sneaking around in my room, and I don't think they were there to change the sheets."

"Well, that explains a lot," said Kiryu. The man on the floor began trying to pull himself up, and Kiryu kicked him down again.

"Like what?" Carly asked him.

"Like why they were serving such strong drinks at dinner," said Kiryu. "That's what I would do if I planned to kill someone in their sleep. They probably figured that after a heavy meal and a few glasses of that wine, we'd all sleep like the dead. We'd never notice anyone sneaking into our rooms until it was too late."

Crow gave him a deadpan look. "Why does it not surprise me that you think about these things?"

Kiryu ignored him. "Doesn't speak well of them that they couldn't manage to kill anyone even with that advantage. What were you doing outside your room, Jack?"

"Reconnaissance," said Jack tersely.

"What is all this racket?" called a voice.

Jack tensed. He had a feeling that this was not someone coming to save the day.

His suspicions were confirmed a split second later, when Divine arrived, gorgeously clad in purple silk pajamas and a matching bathrobe and slippers. He was rubbing his eyes as though he had just woken from a sleep, but Jack was not convinced. His hair was still too neat to have been slept on, and Jack was willing to wager that this little scuffle hadn't been loud enough to be heard wherever Divine had been sleeping. He'd also managed to obtain an armed guard on the way over, and Jack doubted that meant anything good.

"These guys attacked us!" Carly exclaimed.

"Really?" asked Divine, raising an eyebrow. "You expect me to believe that when your friend is standing there holding a bloody knife? Do you take me for a fool?"

"But... we were just defending ourselves!" said Carly. Jack felt sorry for her. She'd been on her own so long, she'd forgotten how people could lie to each other.

Divine turned to the man who was still clutching his bloody shoulder, leaning dazedly against the wall. "Well? Is what these people say true?"

"They jumped us!" the man said. "We were just walking down the hall, minding our own business, when this maniac came at us with a knife!"

"He's lying!" Jack snapped. "These men were lying in wait for me inside my room. They attacked me. Why would they even be in this hall? There's nothing here they should be getting into."

"Why they were here is irrelevant," said Divine smoothly. "My people have the right to walk wherever they choose within my halls. If someone wishes to take a late-night perambulation before bed, that's their business. But I can't have you fighting with people, especially not drawing blood. I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you all into custody until we can sort this mess out. Gurads, take them away. All six of them."

"What, all of us?" Bruno exclaimed. "That's not fair! We weren't even awake!"

"Don't you get it?" Jack said. "We've been set up!"

"Your theories are very interesting," said Divine tolerantly. "We'll be happy to listen if you have any proof - later, at your trial."

Guards moved forward to seize Jack and his friends. He struggled, but it did no good - he was in good shape, but these men were built like walking boulders. He might have taken on one or two if they were on equal footing, but against eight of them armed and armored, it would have been suicidal even if the others had joined in to help him. When the men came to grab him, he shook off their hands.

"I'll walk myself there," he said.

The guards marched everyone down and down some more, forming a ring around the group and hemming them in, making it clear that escape was not going to be an option. Jack fantasized about wresting a sword from one of the men, carving out an opening, and making a run for it. He stayed put.

Down they went, past what he would have guessed was the basement, and still further down. He caught brief glimpses of a pantry filled to overflowing with jars of preserved fruits and vegetables, bunches of herbs, and slabs of smoked and dried meat. Below that was a row of storerooms filled with assorted junk. Even further down was a boiler room to supply water and heat to the building above it. Then, for a long time, there was only stairs and flickering lights. No one spoke. Carly pressed against his side. She closed her hand around his, and this time he didn't mind. Closed spaces did not make him happy.

It was almost a relief when they finally reached the bottom floor. The hall opened up into a series of passageways. The guards turned without pausing and marched their captives down a hallway off to one side. It looked uncomfortably like a less lavish version of the guest rooms they had just left, but with fewer doors.

"Separate rooms?" asked one of the guards.

"No, just put them with the others," said Divine. He smiled at Jack and his friends. "You see, I'm not a cruel man. I'll let you all stay together and keep each other company."

The lead guard unlocked a door. It was a solid-looking door, made of thick metal, with a hinged hatch near the bottom, through which meals might be pushed. As soon as it was open, the guard shoved Jack inside, and he hurriedly got out of the way before anyone could be shoved on top of him. He would not suffer an indignity like that on top of everything else.

Instead, he inspected the room. The lights were out, but the light slanting in from the hall was enough to show him that there were lights set into the ceiling. Much to his surprise, the room didn't even look terribly uncomfortable. There was a carpet laid over the floor, and a row of tidy beds along the back wall. There was even furniture, in the form of a circle of well-padded armchairs and a low table, and some shelves with books and boxes of what might be games. Jack tried pushing one of the chairs; it was bolted to the floor.

So this is a place to hold prisoners, but not to punish them. Hmm.

"I trust you all will be comfortable here," said Divine in his falsely pleasant voice, as the last of his captives was marched inside. "I'll speak to you more about this tomorrow. Or whenever I have the time. Goodnight, gentlemen, lady. Rest comfortably."

The door closed with a resounding clang, leaving them in darkness.

"Well, that went well," said Crow. "What do we do now?"

"Sleep, I guess," said Bruno. "I mean, there's not much else we can do, is there?"

"Kind of hard to plan an escape when we can't see what we're up against," said Kiryu pragmatically.

Jack groped his way blindly across the room and stubbed his toe against the base of a bed. He swore, venting both his pain and his frustration with the situation in general.

In response, there was a small sound. It was a voice, drowsy and unfamiliar. Jack froze.

There was someone else in the room.

To Be Continued…