Escapism II - SCP Foundation

Chapter II

by Faeowynn Wilson

Alison might feel oddly calm if Alison could claim to feel anything at all, but the roar of the portal is more than just a noise, and it strips her of everything she might consider "self" or "feeling" — even the concept of that very consideration. Her body exists nowhere, her mind is even further removed, and the world is only bright colors, light, heat and electricity, every-so-often arranging into a familiar yet incomprehensible shape, the shape of a feeling or a place she's once been, but never so clear as to be named, merely dream-like feelings evoked by everything all at once. She rapidly approaches the horizon, past which there will be no way to say whether she exists at all — past memory, place, and space — but right as she feels herself on the cusp, as much as she can feel anything at all, the effect begins to reverse, colors winding down, pulling inward, coalescing, until reds and greens and yellows and blues twist into the shape of a hand, her hand, her arm, her torso and then the rest of her, the roaring settling down into the seashell-sound of the ocean in her ears, the heat of the portal presses into her until it settles into her heart, and she understands at once that the ambience of everything was all her, and in its absence, now, all she sees is black — pure, untouched, objective black.

She hears only her breathing. Her heartbeat. Her feet hang in the air. And then they don't. Beginning with the dangling balls of her feet, she feels something solid, a little cold, maybe very smooth stone, and she is gently placed upon it, now her heels coming down, and suddenly she has weight again, and her whole being settles. It seems other things settle into existence around her as well, starting with a sense of space. Of place. Shapes catch her eye, and they aren't the familiar, self-stained shapes of the portal. The next thing to enter her awareness is a loud pop, and hands settling on her shoulders, one with a wet and swelling finger.

Beatrice.

The cheer comes shortly afterward. She tilts her head down, to view the hands, and finds other things come into view — that the black she observed was just over the tops of everything. Below her, she sees a crowd — an unfamiliar crowd, of a type she's never seen before. Only some wear masks, but most go without. The clothing is varied, each person standing out with stark individuality, as if the natural wear-and-tear on equipment were intentional and exaggerated, made into entire outfits. They're wearing their fingerprints, she thinks, especially caught by one with a long black dress patterned with a band of eight or so white, waving stripes.

The environment, too, is colored and decorated. Strings hang from poles, draping over the gathered crowd, spotted with colored lights Alison can't find the meaning of — startling reds to remind her of some kind of emergency, but confusingly interspersed with greens, blues, yellows and others.

Is this meant to be so opposite to anything she could understand? She looks down at herself, and startles at her naked body. She feels over herself, then stretching her arms over her head, bending her elbows, feeling at her shoulder blades to check for — and her hands are taken by Beatrice's.

"It's alright! It's nothing we haven't seen before," Bea comments, as Alison turns and gives her a confused look, mixed with some alarm.

"We're indoors," Alison reasons. Beatrice looks ready to respond, but Alison asks first, "Where are we?"

"Not indoors, exactly."

Alison's eyes widen. Is this the place? Far away and clean?

"We're in-between places. But don't worry about it, because this," Beatrice steps back, and gestures around them, "is your welcome party!"

Alison looks around, taking a second glance, and her eyes seem to have adjusted some, as she gathers more points of context. She stands atop a kind of platform, off the side of which are steps down to the level of those around. The floor here is smooth and gray, and out some distance there is a fence, made of a metal similar to the stairs aside the platform, that seems to mark the cutoff for any depth: beyond it is black, impenetrable, the hanging lights and other illuminating fixtures making no headway into its surface.

Deep underground, Alison decides. It's the only option that makes sense.

"Everyone!" Beatrice shouts, startling Alison. "Welcome our newest Queen!"

The crowd roars again, a kind of whoop that Alison can only recognize from the ends of long, successful outings, among compatriots debarking the ship. For her, alone.

Some amount of pride enters her heart automatically, though she's unsure of its worth. She doesn't question it for very long.

"Alison," Beatrice talks low enough that only she can hear, "introduce yourself. This is where I'm from, this is who we are. Everyone out there is you, they'll understand."

She hands a device, something with a handle and a bulbous end, to Alison. "Speak into here," she says, pointing at the bulb. "It'll make you heard."

Alison approaches the edge of the platform, facing half of the crowd. She hesitates for a moment, her eyes roving over. Indeed, everyone here looks like Beatrice — looks like her. The tight features, almond eyes, the black hair, slender figure. But not all, not exactly. Her eyes pause for a moment on someone with more definition to their arms and legs, like she'd seen on her diving partners. She, too, sees people with even less muscle than her own. She is taken aback, too, that she can make out these details so finely — the clothing so sparse, leaving entire arms and calves uncovered, sometimes much more than that. Even then, there are some who are just as covered as she expects them to be, but with hard faces, not matching the conviviality of the rest of the crowd. All me, she thinks. She's unsure of that. But she lifts the device to her lips.

"Hello —" the sound comes out much too loud, and she blinks, giving the device a glare like she'd just been tricked. A mic, she realizes, it's just an oversized, wireless mic. "Hello," a second time, and the crowd cheers. Some hands raise, and in them are some drinks in cups Alison can only recognize from posters. A party, she thinks. For me.

"Hello," she says a third time, with confidence and the correct distance between her mouth and the mic. "I'm Alison Chao. I… think you know that." Some chuckles. "I come from…"

Where does she come from? How was she supposed to define her place?

"The city, I think," she continues. "I'm an aquadiener. I find the sunken dead and resurface them, to give them proper burial rites for their families and loved ones. I'm not rich, like you are." Another chuckle, though she doesn't understand the context of this one. "I think I've heard of places like this, but I wasn't really sure they existed. Beatrice brought me through just a moment ago. It's a pleasure to meet you all."

Some small claps. Beatrice moves to take the microphone, and Alison gives it to her, stepping back towards the center of the platform.

"She lived in a choked city of smog and destitution. The world was decaying around her, more and more dead and dying, the dead sunk beneath the waves so their bodies wouldn't come back washing upon the shore, and dissolved before the bloating tore them free of their bindings because the ocean was acid and filth. She lived under a fascist regime that had even lost its own steam, crumbling as everything around it crumbled, putting in as much effort as it could just to keep some facsimile of civilization it could parasitize off of, literally clouding the air so the denizens couldn't see any other way of life. I couldn't idly gaze upon our sister in suffering, there on a dying world, the end fast-approaching. I foresaw the end, as much as the end can come to a place so thick in the muck of ending already, and I saved our sister from it. Dear newest Alison Chao, Black Queen of the Rusted City, celebrate your freedom with us as we celebrate your company! Cheers!!"

Another roar from the crowd, and cups raise again. The alcohols are colors she wouldn't trust from a tap.

Beatrice flips a switch on the underside of the mic, and then held it at her side, smiling wide and urging Alison down the steps and into the crowd.

"Celebration? Just for my arrival?"

"Of course!"

At the bottom of the steps, previously hidden from view by the side of the platform, an Alison with a white sleeveless undershirt and tight bleached-white jeans stands from a seat at some panel: a keyboard and a screen, technology Alison had seen in the libraries but much sleeker, smaller in bulk and yet with a screen as large as those in the windows in the thoroughfare. They extend a hand, and Alison shakes it.

"Cobra," she introduces herself. "I managed the portal. Welcome!"

"Thank you." Suddenly, her ear is drawn to the sound of music, crisp and loud, its start accompanied by the milling crowd's conversation. It's like no music she's ever heard before. "These are incredible speakers," she comments.

"Oh? Thank you! They're a design of mine, actually, though nothing special — just speakers made in-house, from —"

"I think she's commenting on the music, actually," Beatrice follows Alison's "gaze," as she twists her head around towards the source of the noise. "Those aren't speakers."

Alison's attention returns to Beatrice. "What?"

"Come on, I'll show you." They weave through the crowd, towards the source of the sound, but are stopped often by those meaning to make introductions and give welcomes. They are hurried along, as Beatrice explains to them that she's trying to show Alison the "band."

Soon they come upon it, a gap in the crowd and a space cleared of the occasional tables and chairs that dot the rest of the area, replaced instead with a confluence of wires, mic stands, and alien instruments — musical instruments, Alison recognizes from pictures she has seen. Their shapes are so strange she hesitates to describe them — they resemble organs in shape, smooth and curved but with bends that indicate purposes lost on the intuitive mind. At the front is a singer, who makes eye contact with Alison as she arrives and smiles. Her own lips, her own face, aimed at the construction of sound like she'd never put her mind to, smiling and singing. For a dizzying moment, she wonders where she found the time — or, where she, Alison, lost the time.

"Incredible," she mutters, "I forgot about the creation of music, I've only ever heard it in recordings or over the airwaves."

"You'll find that between us, there will be a you that specializes in everything you've forgotten, or even things you've had deep interest in, or things you didn't know existed at all."

Alison nods, but her eyes remain affixed on the stage.

"Our new Queen!"

Her heart flutters at the title, something she associates with fantasy, and as her brain passes over that thought she finds it hard to again convince herself this isn't some kind of fantasy. Nonetheless, a face similar to her own approaches her, though the body is slightly taller. The owner of the voice had somehow added a red shade to their hair, which drapes over the obsidian black of their dress that mimics and fades into the black backdrop of the scene. The dress has a texture that reminds Alison of the iridescent surface of the oily black beach, if the colors were guided into a perfect gradient between purple and dark blue.

"Hi," Alison says, flat.

"Well, hello yourself," the woman replies. "I'm Erma, this is Belle," she indicates a woman next to her, "though it seems you don't need a name first, hm?"

Beatrice chuckles. "Let up, Erm."

Alison takes her eyes off the dress and looked the woman in the face, and Erma smirks like she knows something Alison doesn't. The woman comes close enough that Alison instinctively steps back, bumping into Beatrice in the process, who puts her hands on Alison's shoulders again, repositioning herself to Alison's side.

Erma puts her own hands on Alison's upper arms, and Alison bats the arms away on instinct. Erma puts her hands up in a defensive gesture, expression wounded.

"Let up," Beatrice says with slightly less humor.

"I'm nothing to be afraid of, dear," Erma's voice purrs. "I'm you, aren't I? Aren't we?"

It's strange, because Erma's voice resembled her own, as does everyone's — but she always hears her voice through the filter of her own head, not the filter of open air as everyone else must hear her. Somehow, Erma's voice is modulated one way or another such that it more closely resembles the voice she thinks in, which she didn't realize has a distinct air to it until now.

Erma seems to sense some releasing tension in Alison's posture, and gently reinstates her hands on Alison's arms. Beatrice's hands at her shoulders seem to tense on her behalf, but Alison remains still and calm, eyes cast towards Erma's extended arms. The hands trace inward, arriving at her breasts, Erma's fingers brushing along the surface so tenderly as to illicit only ghosts of sensation, little things that make Alison's skin prickle. And then she moves on, hands tracing down Alison's sides as Alison gently lifts her arms to give Erma more purchase and ground, until Erma's hands rest at her hips, Erma taking one step back, making an appraising once-over of Alison, before then cupping Alison's cheek, at which she flinches and Erma's hand retreats.

"You aren't nearly so malformed as I might have expected from your background, you've got volume and your body knows work."

Alison can feel Beatrice's hands tense again, and Alison is bothered enough by their grip that she motions to brush them off, and Beatrice obliges.

"I swim," Alison replies, "it's an exercise that requires the whole of my body. I haven't had much choice about what I eat, but I have found and work within my limits so I don't go hungry."

"Then you've adapted well to your circumstances, a strong will and clever mind on you!"

"Thank you for saying so, though given the situation, I'm wondering if you're enjoying complimenting yourself?"

Erma laughs. "We share many things, but none of us are exactly alike."

Alison's eyes drift to Erma's partner, somehow standing exactly so that she appears behind and yet in support of Erma by presence alone. Shorter, closer to Alison's own height, Belle has glasses and rounder cheeks than the rest, appearing younger. Belle transitions smoothly from a stony, neutral gaze to a bright smile as Alison's attention is directed her way. "Hi, I'm Belle," she extends her hand and Erma steps aside.

"Alison," she says, and feels a little stupid.

"So I hear," Belle says, smile widening. "I've been hearing about you for some time from Beatrice."

"How long is some time?"

"Time is hard to keep track of when you're in-between places, and sometimes if you drift far enough away it stops going at the same rate between two people. There were some Queens who were my age when I met them and are a decade older than me, now."

"What?"

Belle shakes her head. "Sorry, that wasn't an answer to your question. Months, maybe?"

"Yes," Beatrice confirms, behind her.

"How did you observe me?"

"We have various ways, some more reliable than others. Small portals through which only light can travel, concealed. When we want to know more we might send in bugs."

"Bugs? Cockroaches?"

Beatrice and Erma laugh and chuckle, respectively, while Belle grins and shakes her head. "No, small things that we can hear through —"

"Recording devices, remote."

Belle looks taken aback. "Y-yes, routed through portals. Sorry, I was told you were uneducated, I'm not trying to — I don't want to sound like I think you're, uh, dumb, just —"

"It's fine," Alison's forehead creased with confusion. "You recorded me in my home?"

Belle seems to glance at Beatrice for assistance.

"Yes," Bea says, and Alison steps back and to the side, putting herself with Erma to her right and Beatrice to her left. "We don't want to act presumptuously, we want to make sure you'll adjust to the new life. Some… don't."

There seems to be a weight to that statement that carries to the other members of the group. Alison's eyes pass over the acknowledging expressions, and in the doing sees past her conversation partners and into the crowd, noticing the eyes on her, like everyone here is watching her like she imagines Bea watched her: behind a screen, no fear of being caught staring.

"Can we move?" Beatrice asks. "I know the music is a novelty, but if we're going to talk, it makes it a bit hard."

"Of course," Alison says, and the four of them begin to walk, led by Erma. As they pass some small cliques, there are waves and greetings aimed towards Alison which she responds to with varying amounts of attention.

"So, were you rescued?"

"Who are you asking?"

"Any of you."

"I was," Belle says, as Erma motions to a small table, unoccupied except for one Queen. They sit.

"Where are you from?"

"I don't know if…"

"You don't have to share, if you don't want to," Beatrice says to Belle, glancing at Alison.

Belle hesitates, and the woman who was already sitting picks up the slack. Her voice is gruff, her arms large, and she wears only a gray shirt and black pants. Her hair is cut short, buzzed at the sides. "I'm from an earth that was hit by something big, immaterial, still nobody really knows what it was. Somehow didn't eliminate the planet, but did send it out of the solar system. Happened before I was old enough to remember, but somehow the strife stuck with me. Sun getting smaller in the sky. Mom talked about the stunning beauty of passing close to the planets — I got to see pictures, Jupiter huge in the night sky. They were practically myths to me, but the planets are a big touchstone to a lot of Queens here, so now I know all their names, got really into astronomy when I got back, comparing the star charts other people have to the night skies I grew up with. Anyways, planet got colder. I didn't grow up able to go outside, that place was cold and dark and desolate. Population used to be enormous. Shrunk down to some thousands. My parents were scientists, so our family got saved, valued for our engineering knowledge so that we could upkeep the bunkers. Still luck. Plenty of scientists died, less valuable, not in the right place at the right time. Their bodies were preserved by the temperatures outside — mounds of bodies that wouldn't decompose in the freezing temperatures, piled at the doors and walls of our structures.

"It was somber. But I didn't know anything else. Became a mechanic — didn't get all the science knowledge from my parents, they gave that to their apprentices, but I took their theory and pared it down to the practical. Repairs."

She took a drink from the glass in front of her, something orange-yellow and frothy, and Erma put a hand on her shoulder.

"As I said, still luck. I had the right skills, but in the end, I was just in the right place at the right time. Or wrong place at the wrong time, depending on the mood I'm in when I remember. Issue with the ventilation, big deal. We could siphon in air from the outside but it was a lot of energy to heat it up to something breathable, ended up making a closed system instead when our farms really got going, just breathing the oxygen that our plants gifted us. But a lot of our machines made exhaust we didn't want polluting the airways, we siphoned that outside. Just our luck, one of the exhausts broke, stopped venting outside. The buildup of fumes wasn't even the bad part, the bad part was that without the outpouring of hot air, cold air got in. We tried to keep our systems very efficient, so the ventilation was being used to heat up some of our pipes, some of the fluids that kept the machines moving. Cold air crept in, and it turns out that stuff froze instead, caused a chain reaction, broke the other vents, and now the pileup of fumes was really bad — and it hadn't been reported, because the issue had happened at night. I don't know why no one was there, watching. Wish I had anyone left to ask, now."

She breathes deep, and Erma rubbed her back.

"I had the equipment to breathe clean while I worked on repairing the overflowing air filtration system while other people scrambled to figure out why there was so much exhaust flooding the rooms. People coughing. I couldn't fix much because the problem was really coming from the overflow. But I'm stubborn, so I stuck to the task. Only when I truly realized there was nothing to be done did I realize I hadn't talked to anyone over the comms for some time. I checked in. No one responded."

Erma leans on her now, a sad expression on her face. But the gruff Queen, for her part, smiles slightly. "I ended up fixing it all, but it was too late at that point. The plants were choked and dead. I had decades of food reserves, but no one to share my life with. They found me like that, the tender of a dead place, keeping everything in order because it's the only thing I knew to do. Broke the cycle by coming here."

"Wow," Alison says.

She's waved off. "It's not the saddest story you'll hear, if you keep asking where people come from. I'm Petra, pleased to meet you." Petra stands from her seat and reaches across the table to give Alison a firm handshake.

"It's occurring to me no one here is named 'Alison,'" Alison mentions.

The table laughs. "You're Alison!" Belle exclaims.

"Right, but —"

"We were all Alisons, once," Erma fills in. "Of course."

"Of course," Belle echoes her.

"But if we were all still Alison, it would be very hard to keep track of, hm?"

"You can choose a new name soon enough. Of course, I know it won't feel quite as homey as 'Alison,' but we all know, we all understand that we're all still Alison," Beatrice explains. "It's just not practical, is the only thing."

"Right," Alison agrees.

"You'll want to skip over the 'A' names, too," Erma suggests. "When we were a new group, we tried to do variations of 'A' names to keep at least our initials, but you'll find those run out quick. If you go that route, you'll be sharing a name with ten other Queens and you'll wind up with the exact same problem a second time."

"That makes sense. Do I have to come up with it now?"

"No, not even for a little bit. You're Alison, while the transition is fresh. It can be a change for later."

"So… where are they?"

"Who?"

"The 'A' names."

There's a smile and a shake of the head from Beatrice. "Oh, you won't be meeting them for a while. They're basically the founders, the original Queens."

"Oh. Then… what's this group?"

"My friends!"

"Oh." Alison gives Beatrice a look, which Bea seems to reciprocate on seeing: a look of confusion. You're not friends with all of them? Alison wonders.

"Okay," Belle says, head bowed slightly. "My story isn't nearly that big a deal, I can say it if Petra can say hers."

"You really don't have to," Erma says, reaching across Petra to place a hand on Belle's.

"No, it's short. I just, I got hit by a drone. Ended up in the hospital, and I wasn't going to make it. Apparently the Queens had caught sight of me, liked me, picked me up and healed me like I couldn't otherwise be healed. That's it."

"That sounds awful," Alison says. "Sorry to hear."

Belle cocks her head. "Sorry to hear? You didn't… nevermind."

"Hm?"

"No, nevermind. It's not a big deal." Belle flashes a smile that doesn't last long.

"So did Beatrice come and get you?"

Belle laughs, and Petra joins in a chuckle.

Yet again, Beatrice's hand on Alison's shoulder. Alison brushes it off reflexively. "No, no one here was saved by me, except… you! You're my first rescue!"

"Oh. Is that why it was so graceless?"

Beatrice flushes, brow creasing, and Alison grins, before laughing. The table laughs with her. Beatrice looks around, and loosens, chuckling, though not fully recovering.

"We really should look at that finger," Petra says.

"Yeah, yeah," Bea looks embarrassed, avoids eye contact and shakes her hand with the chewed finger.

The party proceeds into lighter topics, though often halting with the necessity to explain something to Alison. Food arrives and it's better than anything Alison has ever had — the abundance of it makes her head spin. She warms to the situation, hypnagogic though it is, sometimes losing herself to staring into the middle distance and wondering if any of it is real.

* * * * *

Alison and Bea wave to leaving partygoers, many of whom tag Alison for further conversation — though secretly she suspects that she will only follow up with some few. She gives it little thought: her mind is elsewhere. Soon enough, it is only Bea, herself, and a few stragglers that they elect to give no notice.

Bea looks at Alison with an expectant smile. "Did you enjoy yourself?"

Alison nods, in earnest. Bea's smile widens.

"I don't know if I really said it outright. I'm so excited you're here. It's… it's wonderful." She pauses, and when she receives no feedback from Alison, asks: "Are you tired?"

Alison nods. "I've been tired."

"Good. Uh, or — I know where we could sleep." We? Alison wonders, but isn't so bothered as to bring it up. "I have a place, um, a cottage — do you —"

"Yes."

"Alright. Well, but, I don't want to overwhelm you. I — so I was thinking we could — I could show you places, tomorrow, but I figured this was already a lot. Is it?"

Alison considers, and nods.

"Right. Then, maybe we should stay in the bunks, keep things consistent. Follow me?"

Alison obliges, and trails behind Bea as she makes her way towards the edge of the premises. Alison wonders what exactly she's going towards, but as they make their way to the fence, Bea pauses, takes a deep breath, and reaches to open a latch Alison hadn't noticed, swinging the gate wide into black oblivion. As she does so, a path Alison hadn't seen seems to be birthed from nothing. Long, gray panels mark something of a sidewalk on the side of void and black, which Bea strides out onto.

Alison hesitates.

"It's not so dangerous. Come on."

Alison approaches the gate, and looks down. Bea reaches a hand back, and grabs Alison's, pulling her along. The motion overtakes her vertigo, and she allows herself to follow.

"If you fall, it's not so bad. There's nothing here except what the Queens have put in it — not even space. If you fall into it, you'll have nowhere to go except back to something we've put up. You might get lost, but you won't go far."

Alison shakes her head. "That makes no sense."

"Sorry. I know. Come on, though, it's a short walk."

True to her word, the end comes in sight just as the party behind them becomes shrouded in nothing, its lights submerged in oil, not a hint of its existence left. Before them is revealed a large, brutal gray building, which extends further both up and down than the blackness allows sight of. The path widens as they approach white double-doors, and Bea opens them into what looks like a kind of lobby.

Alison's brow furrows. "What is the design of this place? Why have a singular path that leads between the lobby of a building and a… party?"

Bea chuckles. "Right. I guess that would seem a bit strange, but —" Bea's eyes drift to an entrant to the lobby, from a door behind a counter "— the paths here don't really lead places. Ashton!"

Ashton extends a wave, and the two approach. The Queen has cut their hair relatively short, with the ends brushing against the top of their shoulders. Alison notes the lack of a chest — or, the existence of a chest of a different sort, more triangular, with broader shoulders. Ashton wears a mahogany vest over top of a slim-fitting white button-up, and matching mahogany dress pants and shoes.

"Getting a room?"

"Yes." Bea turns her head to Alison. "It's like a hotel, like, temporary lodging. Um, for one night."

Alison's eyebrows raise in acknowledgment, but she is engrossed with Ashton, too attentive to reply.

"You're the new one? Nice to meet you." Ashton extends a hand to shake, and Alison shakes it.

"You're an 'A' name," she puts plainly.

They laugh. "He's a special case," Bea supplies, "not one of the big 'A' names we were talking about."

Alison turns to Bea with an inquisitive look.

"I'd already changed my name, before they found me," Ashton clarifies. "I wasn't going to let them change my name for a second time. And besides, not as many male names here, there aren't… too many Ashtons." He smirks.

Alison continues to give no response, eyes darting between Bea and Ashton, though lingering more on the latter. "You're not a girl."

"No."

"Are you a Queen?"

"Yes."

"How are you —"

"I was born Alison Chao, but I changed my name to Ashton Chao."

"Were you born a girl?"

Bea puts a hand on Alison's shoulder, and makes a noise to start a sentence, but is interrupted by Ashton's reply: "Yes."

Tension loosens in Alison's shoulders, and tension in Bea seems to loosen with it. "Okay."

It wasn't stranger than anything else she'd heard today.

"So just a room for two," Bea says, in a notably hurried tone. "Um, separate beds. No view."

"Right." Ashton turns around and fishes a key from his pocket, and uses it to open a small cabinet made of red wood, the opulence of which startles Alison once she notices it. Inside hang rows and rows of keys, alongside empty pegs where Alison assumes missing keys could fit. He pulls two keys off of the same peg and extends one to herself and the other to Bea. They have a tag for a room 412.

"What happened to your finger, Bea?" Ashton asks, as they take the keys.

Bea groans, and Alison chuckles.

"I bit it," Alison answers for her.

Ashton raises his eyebrows.

"Have a good night!" Bea interjects.

"Oh, you too!"

Bea's voice sounded odd. They began to walk to the elevator.

"He's the concierge," Bea says in that same tone, as if she's trying to fill the space. "Which is like, the caretaker of the building."

"A landlord?"

"Not exactly. But close, yes."

They take the elevator to the fourth floor, where they then walk through hallways to their room. They walk by a Queen standing in the doorway and holding a burning stick of some sort, that fills the air with a pungent smell. The Queen gives Alison a curious look as she passes, very intentionally peering up and down her nude figure. Bea waves away some of the smoke as they pass through.

Once they reach their own door, Bea speaks in a quiet voice: "The fucking gall of some people, Christ."

"What was she doing?"

"Smoking. It's a, uh, a drug."

"Medicinal?"

"No. Recreational, I guess, but, I don't know why you would ever smoke tobacco in the first place."

"Tobacco?"

"Yeah, uh, a plant —"

"I know what tobacco is. You 'smoke' it?"

Bea works the key into the lock and opens the door. Inside is a somewhat spartan room, furnished only with two beds, a table between them with a clock atop it, and a dresser. A door in the entryway leads to the bathroom. The shape is similar to Alison's own room, if it were longer than it was wide. The far window shows only black.

Alison stands in the entryway as Bea flops onto a bed, bouncing a little before the bed settles. She looks at Alison expectantly, and Alison follows suit onto her own bed.

Bea chuckles to herself. The energy is somewhat contagious, but only enough to make Alison smile back. Bea twists over herself and gets to a position on her knees, looking over at Alison.

"We're going to do so much tomorrow. God. I have places to show you. Clean places, open air."

Alison can't imagine it. This talk about horizons and skies made her dizzy.

She nods, as she stares up at the ceiling.

"It's going to blow your mind. It blew my mind. I'm — I'm just really happy you're here. You're happy to be here?"

Alison craned her head forward to look at Bea, who was still in that same position, staring at her.

"Why did you come through the portal with your clothes, but I didn't?"

Bea's face drops some. Alison knows she hadn't answered the question, but why is that so weighty?

Nonetheless, Bea answers: "When you reconstitute, at the other end of the portal, you only keep what you can hold on to. It's kind of a skill, it takes a bit to… function, while in the throes of the transportation. Holding onto things can be hard. It takes, ah… knowing yourself, in a way."

Alison held onto that, and laid her head back down.

"I'm happy to be here."

She could practically hear Bea light up on the other bed, in the sound of her shuffling around and getting into position.

"Good," Bea put simply. "I'm really happy to hear that. I think I'm gonna turn out the light."

"Sure, go ahead."

Bea clapped twice, and the light from the ceiling went out. Alison might have been surprised if she had any surprise left to give.

In truth, she is exhausted, in a way that is difficult to put to words. Exhausted more than just the day's work and the fight with Bea can explain. It's as if she'd reached some limit she'd never known of, where the brain could no longer take in anything and required sleep to file the information before it could accept anything new. That, and Alison had never talked more in her life, except maybe at some aquadiener meetings, but the context there was different. That was business. This was celebration, camaraderie.

She sleeps atop the blankets, the warmth being enough for her. She turns to her side, and curls.

She attempts to sleep, and it is hard to tell that she is still awake. When everything is so dreamlike already, laying down in the dark makes her feel as if she's been laying in her room the entire time. With her eyes shut, she tries to listen for the city outside, she tries to locate the smells familiar to her in her bedsheets, of her own body and sweat, but can't find them.

She twists, and forgets the endeavor. She tries instead to think of what she was going to do. She pictures her work, the fishery, the assembly line. She smiles lightly at the dream, that she can believe for this moment that she doesn't have to go back. That the assorted viscera will no longer be a part of her life. She doesn't believe it, but it's a pleasant dream.

She thinks of the food she wants to buy from the company store, spices for her rations — and reminds herself that food is abundant here, handed to her for free. The rations here have more spice than she's ever put in one of her fish. It is a pleasant dream.

And she imagines the ship, sailing out onto the ocean, the turbulent waters and the grinding noise in the lower deck. She imagines the murky purple-black waters — and as she does, she imagined the murky black-black void beyond the window — and the chained, sunken bodies. She imagines diving. She remembers Orn and Sean — and Desiree, and Adelaide, and Coleman, and all the rest of her diving partners. She thinks of the rounds this next week, the return trip to D, female for April Donhower.

Her mind hangs on the strip of high-vis tape waving in the water, attached to her arms and head.

Arms waving in the water.

She sits up, eyes open, and sees nothing, except the afterimage of that luminescent tape. She reaches for her lamp, and finds it missing. She thinks back, and claps twice. The lights come on. It's the gray, stone room, the red furniture. Bea stirs, and turns over, groans. "What is it?"

Alison looks around the room. Her hands pass up and down her body. She looks out the window, and sees nothing.

"Mm?"

"Nothing," Alison assures. "It's fine."

She claps twice and the lights turn back off. She falls into bed, and turns opposite Bea.

"Hey, I get it," Bea whispers. "A little unreal, right?"

"Hard to believe," Alison admits.

"I know. You don't have to, yet. It'll come naturally. Just try to sleep, okay?"

Alison nods, though Bea can't see it. Still, no more conversation happens.

She watches April Donhower be lost in the blackness, until all that's visible is the tape, in three strips, gently waving. And eventually, that too is gone.

Orn and Sean surface, but Alison doesn't. They look around, and they wonder where she's gone. It isn't a pleasant dream.

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