19 - Syianne

I like the swish of the fabric of my skirt as I move and the muffled sound my black boots make on the ground when I walk. I focus on these things and not on what is waiting for us in room 551. We pass through the large sliding doors of the main dome, entering the vast open space of its reception hall – or whatever it is, I heard some people refer to it as "the Portal". There's a big round glass elevator at the centre of the hall and a long line of Jewels dressed in silver jumpsuits waiting to fill it. I pause to watch as the full elevator sinks into the floor and vanishes out of sight. Cello touches the small of my back and steers me towards a very different kind of elevator.

"Do you think it's because we're self-destructive?" I ask in the silence and privacy of the empty office elevator.

"You mean, because we're drawn to the Zephyr even though we know it's dangerous?"

I nod.

"And the thought of never going in is... depressing."

I nod again.

Cello shrugs "I don't know. I can't even pretend to know myself anymore." His words make a shiver run down my spine. We have both become strangers to ourselves. It's creepy but also sad. The elevator doors open with a cheerful ding and we step out into the maze of office corridors above the Zephyr. We don't speak as our feet pad quietly over the carpeted floor while we search for room number 551.

A curly haired secretary looks up from her computer screen when we walk in through the open door of the office. She's somewhere in her thirties, with bony wrists and a gaunt face. Naturally, she's an Undefined. "Morning," she says in a flat voice as we step up to the desk.

"Good morning," we both say in unison.

She picks up a tablet from her desk and taps it several times. "Cello Riles," she reads and looks up at Cello who nods. "Door on my left," she casually points to one door on her left.

"Ss..." she wrinkles her forehead, "Saline Locke?"

"Syianne," I correct her; I'm used to people getting my name wrong in a variety of ways.

"You're to go to room 553, just next door."

I hesitate and so does Cello. I'm suddenly nervous to be separated from him, even though I shouldn't be. Cello Riles didn't exist in my world until two days ago, I was alone when I came here and I can't allow myself to fear facing this on my own. He grins at me and ruffles my hair, "Stop looking like you've swallowed a lemon." I glare at him when he pinches my cheek.

But I feel better, well enough to turn away from him and walk back out into the corridor. I knock on the door of room 553.

"Enter," a man's voice comes from within. I turn the knob and walk inside.

Sagastus looks up at me with one pale blue expressionless glass eye, and one equally cold brown eye.

His gaze freezes me in the doorway.

"Please be seated, Syianne Locke," he says.

Oh boy.

*

The silvery metal chair has a black cushioned seat and I press my hands into the rough fabric. I'm sitting on the back of my palms — it's as if the weight of my body on my hands will hold me from bolting to the door. I stare up at Sagastus with wide unblinking eyes.

Yesterday, before the whole Core, I felt calm and brave. It was because of the mixture of emotions in the room. Some were against me and others were pleasantly curious. I also felt stronger because I wasn't alone. Cello was there to defend me, to protect me. My thoughts fly to him, wondering who he's meeting in the other room. I pass my mind's eye over every single face I can recall.

Sagastus is easily the most frightening figure. It's as I thought — they cannot punish Cello, so they will make do with punishing me; sticking me in a room with no doors or windows, forcing me to perform a monotonous task for the rest of my life.

I think that I'd much rather die than live a life devoid of hope.

"So you decided to return to us, Miss Locke." Sagastus, alone in the small office is not less intimidating than Sagastus sitting mightily in the centre of the Core. He looks just as cold and smug, confident in an uncompromising way. The only difference is that now he seems annoyed, as if I'm wasting his precious time. He is not used to dealing with little matters; he belongs in the bigger picture, whatever that is. He doesn't make an effort to be polite and hide what he's thinking.

I choose the option of saying nothing. In this situation; keeping silent and a passive expression are my two only advantages. What people are most afraid of is to sit in the company of another and be silent; it makes them awkward and embarrassed.

There's no embarrassing Sagastus though.

"So, you acknowledge that your behaviour yesterday was unacceptable." He sneers at me.

I say nothing, he can think what he likes. I have a whole lifetime of experience facing people who think what they want about me.

"Our society, as you might have realised, is vastly different from the mundane human society you have grown up in," he says. I could speak or not, it would change nothing for him. "There are currents within our community which you will never even begin to understand. Most likely, you will spend your days being bound to this place, feeling bitterly disgruntled and wonder, day after day, why, with the gates to the rest of the world wide open, you are unable to leave. You will cower in fear at the thought of the endless human world, a girl with a human heart but an inhuman purpose."

He pauses, as if waiting for my response. There's nothing I could say, my lips remain sealed.

"Perhaps yesterday was your last opportunity to leave, if such an opportunity ever existed," he says this so quietly, it is almost a whisper, but there's a budding darkness about him. These Black Jewels with their Black magic, I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who had slugged Cello. I briefly wonder if what Tiger said about their power being harder to come by is a myth. Sagastus could never be powerless.

"Truth be told, I wished to be the guide of the boy. Claimed by an Alprine, he is of higher value to me than you are. I would have profited from a study of the Alprine qualities and growth. In fact, I have been waiting for this very opportunity for many years. But that old prune argued to have the right to mentor the boy. Since I had already put myself forward, I was left with no choice but to receive the odious task of seeing you through your first Plunge."

His one-eyed glare is particularly disturbing; I don't respond to his demeaning speech and obvious insults. Actually, I feel entirely tranquil, the world isn't disappointing me — it's tossing at me exactly what I expect of it. If there's any feeling at all inside my heart, it's that of relief – no need to expect the unexpected any longer, from now on things are very clear.

"But before we shall proceed to your initiation, there is no need to leave certain matters unfinished. Syianne Locke, it is time for you to answer my question. If you cannot tell me how you saved the boy from a full Overflow without the use of any device, you must explain your origins to me."

And here I am again, as expected, required to answer the mystery of my birth parents. My parents – that is, my adoptive parents – never tried to hide the truth from me. When I was old enough to understand, I knew about my birth parents, their names and their strange circumstances.

When I was seven I learned in geography class that the world is shaped like a palm. It has a beginning and an end. The world ends somewhere in the east and begins in the west with a mountain in the Darabin so high its peak has never been found, not even with a spaceship. The Darabin Mountain goes up and up forever and no one knows what lies beyond it – if beyond the Darabin Mountain even exists. Because of it, though, many strange things happen in that part of the world.

My birth parents' peculiar story is just one of many, many similar stories. They lived in one of the Deep Towns, as close as is possible to the mountain. My father told me that he was told that one day lights appeared from the sky, and then a creature that was neither man nor beast was seen there. It roamed through the streets for a while, curiously looking about, and then it vanished.

And some people, like my parents, vanished with it. Not like missing persons, but as if they had never existed. There was no trace of them left behind; not physically, not in memory. No one remembered their faces, what they did, where they came from or why they chose to live in one of the Deep Towns. Their house was wiped clean, the beds stripped of its sheets and not a single plate in the kitchen cupboards. All that remained was me, a small mystery in a mysterious world.

My dad had known my birth parents from his days as an archeologist working in the Darabin. He remembers their names, and won't ever forget the close and dear friendship he had with them – although he could not recall anything else about them. Their disappearance saddened him and he loved me as strongly as he had loved them.

No one knows if they are dead, or alive, if that creature had forced them to leave or perhaps they had voluntarily gone with it. There is only one thing about this story that not even my father knows, one detail that only I know. A secret which I have told no one, a secret I have felt the need to keep no matter what.

It is why my parents were taken in the first place: the creature, whether hostile, or simply assertive, had taken my parents to lure me in. For some reason, it couldn't take me, so it took them. It calls to me, I feel it like a string connected to my spine. It gently, persuasively, pulls me to the west.

Maybe that would explain the embarrassing attraction I feel toward Cello, because he's from the west.

"The answer is in your thoughts," Sagastus says. "It is time for you to speak it. You may think your origin bears little importance, but a Jewel born so far from the Zephyr is impossible."

As shadows grow in the corners, casting deep lines inside Sagastus's face, a breeze passes through the room; it begins from him and knocks into me, ruffling my hair before it bounces in all directions, howling its way out the window.

Sagastus waits, but my silence holds. He clicks his tongue with impatience, his nostrils flaring as he inhales and a purple vein appears in his forehead.

A powerful surge of wind returns and knocks me backwards off my chair. I cry as I fall off the chair to the carpeted floor, where I choose to stay until the wind stops blowing.

When all is silent, I glare up at Sagastus through the tangles of my hair..

But now there's a glint in his one dark eye, his lips form a smirk that makes me feel more uneasy than any of his words did. He rises to his feet, fixing me with a meaningful look I cannot understand.

His fingers rest lightly on the tabletop, his grin filled with frightening enthusiasm. "So, that is how the boy survived the Overflow," he muses, his voice dripping satisfaction. "Rather than a basket, child, you're a breaker. A dispeller of energy. The question is, how much power can you wring away and deflect from yourself and others?" He gleefully rubs his palms together and I realise that this had all been a test. Whatever he had been looking for, he had found — and he was triumphant. "I have never encountered someone with such an ability. This will require some testing and research." He scratches his chin. "You may just be useful to me. You may just be exactly what I need."

I fight the shiver that runs up my spine.

"Whatever you are, I will find out. It is human nature to accept the energy of the Zephyr, but you are not an ordinary human. Begin preparing for your Plunge; it will happen in a week. Take the tour and keep to a strict Plunge diet. That is all for today. You are dismissed."

*

I feel bitter. Something about the word "guide" inspired within me the feeling that I was going to be guided. But I wasn't. I had a short confusing meeting with a terrifying person and nothing came out of it. Oh, certainly, Sagastus seemed to benefit, but he learned what he wanted and then so easily dismissed me. I was in such a hurry to leave; I couldn't bring myself to ask what everything he said meant.

I'm beginning to understand that, last night's interview with Tiger was a rare encounter. Information in the Zephyr always comes in the form of a cryptic mess.

I've never been this intimidated by anyone. Part of me was always wary of people in general, but not because they frightened me, rather because the prospect of growing attached to them was scary. Now that I'm out of room 553 I can breathe again, as if I was holding my breath the entire time I was there. I go back to room 551 and the secretary looks up at me coldly. "They're not done yet," she says, "please wait outside."

I don't say anything, I just walk out to the corridor and because there's nowhere to sit, I get down on the floor with my back to the wall, hug my knees and wait for Cello to come out.

*

"...I had a dream once that was almost exactly like this."

The sound of a woman's voice floats toward me down the winding corridor accompanied by the padding of feet on the carpeting and the swish of Zephyr coats.

"Everyone was Black, except us, and we were Undefined," the woman continues.

"Not everything written in the Scribbles will come true," answers a man's voice.

"What makes you so certain, Rimtake? So far, we've got the Spares coming in, and now the thirteenth Black, with the diminishing source of power, it's all according to the order."

"We're going to stop it. The Spares are nothing special, just a warning. I'm not saying we haven't erred, but it isn't too late to repair our ways. Some steps have already been taken to ensure that the changes that are needed will take hold. You needn't be alarmed, Ordita."

"What do you mean to do? Go back to the old ways?"

"The old ways were wrong, and now the current ways are wrong as well. Since it's the future, wouldn't it be best to try the new ways?"

"That idea was overruled a long time ago."

"That won't stop it from happening, Ordita."

"Don't you think Sagastus will hear of it?"

"Of course he will," The footfalls have come nearer now; I bury my face in my arms and pretend to be sleeping. "I'm going to tell him personally. But it's too late — he won't be able to stop it. None of us will. Besides, his own arrogance will be his downfall. He is too occupied with his mission of untrapping the energy — only Sagastus would boast that he is capable with finding a way. But he can't succeed and in the end it will just be an embarrassment for him."

They're next to me now and at first I'm hopeful —I think they're about to pass by. One set of feet stomps to a halt; I hear the woman's voice right above me. "What have you done, Rimtake?"

"Not me, you know I never lead. I just chose the winning side."

"Then who?"

There's a pause in the conversation, my whole body tenses and my heartbeat is racing. I hear the swish of movement as a hand touches my shoulder. Slowly, as slowly as I can, I look up into the faces of two Blacks I had seen yesterday, though neither of them had asked me any questions. The woman is around Sagastus's age, she seems plump, not because she is fat, but because she is solid and strong. A long silver braid runs down her back. The man is younger, with indistinctive features that make you forget his face the moment after you've seen it.

He's the one who touched my shoulder; he smiles without bearing his teeth when he sees my face. "Hello, Miss Locke."

"Hello," I answer quietly.

"This is an unusual place for a nap."

"I am waiting for someone."

"Wouldn't you think it would be wiser to wait for them on the comfy sofas near the elevators?" He's speaking to me in a suggestive way, as if he is the grand adult and I am just a feeble child.

"No. I don't think that's wise," I reply, because after taking on Sagastus and surviving, I don't find these two the least bit intimidating. "I don't want the person I'm waiting for to miss me."

He straightens up and nods. "Well, at least you've proven that you're entitled to your opinions," he pauses, allowing me to answer with my silence as if it was expected. "But don't think you haven't made a few enemies by your grand departure yesterday. Your age and innocence won't protect you for long, dear girl. The game demands to be played from the moment you step through the gates of the Zephyr."

I let the wall help me rise to my feet. This man, Rimtake, is actually rather short, only slightly taller than I am. Is he threatening me? "Does that mean you're my enemy, or my friend?"

Again he grins with only his lips, and then gently pats my shoulder. "I'm everyone's friend." I look beyond his shoulder to the silver-braided woman; she's frowning in a way that makes me think she doesn't believe Rimtake's friendliness is sincere.

"I'll be seeing you soon, Syianne Locke." Rimtake bids me farewell. The woman, Ordita, doesn't even grace me with a last look. They both hurry away. When they're safely out of sight, I shudder. I've never met such a slippery man before; the interaction with him makes me feel so slimy I wish I could take a shower.

I resume my quiet waiting.

The snatch of conversation that I overheard ripples through my mind and despite my better judgment, I'm trying to make sense of it all. Is the Scribbles some prophetic text that foresaw our arrival at the Zephyr along with a thirteenth Black Jewel? Why did they use plural for Spares? Does that mean that Cello and I are both Spares or have others arrived beside us? And then there was that thing they said about ensuring change. That sounded oddly enough like a really huge conspiracy.

But if it was, would they be discussing it while casually walking down the corridor? I always thought conspiracies were supposed to be very secret and not talked about somewhere that could so easily be overheard. And a conspiracy against whom? Sagastus? Is he the leader of the Core? He certainly behaves as if he is. But does the Core, and the entire Zephyr for that matter, really have a leader? Yes, decisions are made, but in the end, is there anybody standing at the top of the pyramid?

I shake my head to clear it and sit back down on the floor. I don't understand why I'm getting so worked up over this. I decide to put it out of my mind. It has nothing to do with me anyway.

While I usually bide by my own decisions, as the minutes tick along my mind swirls with conspiracy theories. I move restlessly on the floor, feeling apprehensive over all these secret things that are happening behind my back.

When finally I hear someone moving about in room 551 I nervously leap to my feet and am ready to thrust the terrible news of evil-doings right into Cello's face.

But it's the curly haired secretary who looks as displeased to see me as I am disappointed to see her. "You're still here?" Her voice is dry and bored, "Flent told me to tell you that you ought to go take the tour yourself. Your boyfriend won't be coming any time soon, they've gone out."

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Then why're you waiting for him?"

I blink, why am I waiting? I suddenly feel embarrassed. How could I allow myself to be so dependent on Cello? It's not as if I can't do things on my own. I feel my face flush. "I didn't see them going out," I quickly change the subject.

She smirks, her cold demeanour melting a little bit. "They didn't leave through the door." She crosses her arms and moves aside from the doorway of the office, nodding toward the door behind her desk. "Just have a look for yourself."

I hesitate, and then gingerly walk past her and the desk, toward the door left ajar. The smell of dust assails my nostrils, I pull the door open exposing myself to a gust of spring wind. I gape at what I see. The room is littered with mounds of rubble and in the far end, where a wall and perhaps a window should have been, there's a huge, gaping, round hole through which I could see a portion of sky and one of the other smaller domes.

I close the door and turn around.

The secretary sighs and nods at me. "I had the same reaction."