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21 - Cello

I walk through the library-quiet white streets of the Zephyr campus with Risa draped over my shoulder like a towel, her soft furry head rubbing against my collarbone and everything around me still feels like a dream. Even after I regain control of my legs, my knees are still shaking. Even after my knees stop shaking, I still feel like bits and pieces of me aren't completely with me.

I think that maybe parts of my guts have been left up in the air, I know that my soul is still up there.

The swirl of clouds is still so strong in my memory that I see them wherever I look, and the wind cutting its way up my nose is still tickling my brain. I sit on a bench outside the main dome next to a fat Orange Jewel with a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth and try to control my excitement.

The Orange pulls the cigarette out with his thumb and finger. Exhaling, he squints at me. "You have that look of a man who just had his first Plunge."

"Nnn" I rasp, my throat is dry and crispy from the wind. I also can't remember how to speak.

He nudges me, "good, eh?" he puts the cigarette into his mouth again. "This place's got so much downside to it you'll be sliding in mud and cursing the day you were born, until you go down that Portal Hole and step through the hatch. 'Course, you can't actually enjoy your first time, no one does. Too busy having the shit scared out of you. You wait until next time, bro, wait until next time." He puffs a cloud of smoke into my face. I usually hate being smoked next to. I like the air I breathe to be clear, fresh and cold. But I don't mind this time, the foul smell of smoke, the mysterious white haziness of it melts into my cloudy brain.

He whisks ash onto the ground and extends his hand, "I'm Blane."

"Dur – " I begin, but that's not the right name, "I mean, Cello." I say in a hoarse voice, shaking his chubby hand.

"Heh, aren't you that kid who trashed a Core meeting?"

I blink, uncomfortable with being the kid who trashed anything, "The Core trashed their own meeting."

Blane leans in closer, I cannot believe how many freckles are crowding around his nose, almost as if they're bunching together for moral support, "Hey what's the deal about what they're saying now? Did you really trash Old Flent's office too?"

"His name is Xeprim Tafflegripitt," I mumble. "Why does everyone call him Old Flent?"

"Does it matter?"

I shrug, "I guess not." All of a sudden, I'm not so sure about socialising with random people in the Zephyr. Something about this Blane fellow looks off, his interest in me doesn't seem entirely genuine. Maybe I'm still experiencing some paranoia from yesterday's slugging, or maybe I'm finally beginning to learn the ropes around here.

"What is it you do here in the Zephyr?" I try to ask casually, but my voice drips with suspicion.

Blane narrows his eyes, "I'm on a team. Leolan's team."

I nod, I don't know how to respond to this. I think I get what Tiger meant about not trusting Black Jewels, even Leolan who wants us on his team is sniffing about like a fox. "So, Leolan told you to ask me?"

Blane shrugs his pudgy shoulders, "It's the routine drill."

I feel exasperated, "Why?"

"There's a huge hole in the wall of Old Flent's office, the Core isn't pleased."

I shake my head, "I don't care why he's curious, it's the whole system I don't get. Why does it feel like everyone here is out to get everyone else?"

Blane sighs and throws the flaming cigarette bud onto the ground, crushing it with the toe of his boot. He clears his throat and is silent for a moment, as if pondering my question. "Habit." He finally says, "It's all habit. We get into the habit of lying about the important stuff when we're young, and then we grow into the habit of lying about everything else just in case it might turn out to be important. You'll get there too in a matter of days."

His words make me want to shudder, they crowd my mind unpleasantly. He has the scratchy voice of a heavy smoker, making it sound even more dramatic than it actually is.

But it makes no sense to me anyway. Maybe it's best that I don't try so hard to understand this place, I don't think I like the answers I get to all my questions.

"Anyway, cigarette break's over." Blane slaps his knees before rising from the bench, "See you soon."

*

I'm starving. I decide that it's time for lunch. I also told Fellin I'd eat with him but we never specified a time. I reason that the best chance of meeting him would be in the dining room, preferably while eating.

My stomach leads me to the dining dome. In the past couple of days I've missed more meals than I like. My mother always jokes that I look like a scarecrow, since I'm so thin. But it's her genes that are to blame for that. I eat six or seven meals a day and it all goes to my height.

The dining dome is made of glass with a huge stone knife and fork hanging over the sliding doors. Inside, it's just like the school cafeteria. Everything smells like chicken soup and cabbage, the clattering of utensils on plates and hundreds of loud voices boom and echo through the hall. Groups of Jewels crowd dozens of tables, deeply immersed in conversation and in the art of socialising.

I'd never seen the people of the Zephyr looking so lively; they're gossiping, arguing, cracking jokes and hollering with laughter. This is where the sense of humour of the place is hidden. I'm slightly reassured, since it finally seems less like a back-stabbing boot camp and more like some really bizarre high school.

I step into the queue for the food behind a group of hunched elderly women and pick up a tray. I've got plenty of food coupons to spend on lunch for the next couple of weeks. I crane my neck to see what's inside the trays of food. I spot stuffed bell-peppers and some sort of meat in thick brown gravy, roasted potatoes and fresh-looking white bread. It doesn't look so bad, my mouth waters.

"Cello!" I tear my attention away from the food. It's Risa Medrick coming toward me. She's wearing her sleek brown hair up in a high pony-tail today, enhancing the shape of her cheekbones and lips. She's awfully pretty, but I'm too hungry to feel excited about seeing her. I return to gaze at the food.

"How've you been?" She asks, standing next to me. The line moves up and I with it and only then do I look at her again.

"Paranoid," I reply. She doesn't appear to get it.

"Aren't you supposed to be on Plunge diet?"

"I don't diet."

She grins and grabs my arm, everyone stares, including me. "But you're before a Plunge," steering me out of the line, "You can't eat normal food before a Plunge, you have to eat Zribble."

"Is that a type of meat?" I ask. She leads me across to a different line. I crane my neck but can't see any food trays ahead. There's only a small table covered with white cardboard boxes.

"I don't know, maybe there's meat inside the Zribble. It's all I'm ever allowed to eat but I don't even know what it's made out of. You can get it in seven different flavours but avoid the pink one; no one knows whether it's supposed to be cherry or bubblegum, it's just foul." She makes a face to show me exactly how foul it is.

"What?" I feel like whimpering, this Zribble doesn't sound like anything I want to eat, right now or ever.

Risa Medrick is still hanging onto my arm; she pats it as the line moves on. "Honestly, it's not so bad, you'll get used to it in no time."

I like Risa Medrick despite everything that happened in these past two days. The tingling up my arm is more than just me enjoying the fact that she's touching me.  I love the public statement of her hanging onto me. I'm suddenly wishing that the Jewel on her forehead was any colour other than black, and that she was just some ordinary Zephyr girl.

But she's here because she's playing me toward some plan of her own, and she may have even been the one who slugged me.

"I'm proud of what you did yesterday, Cello," she says quietly. The line moves on and I face the small white cardboard boxes on the table, each one marked with a colour.

I look at Risa Medrick for help, she lets go of my arm and places two small boxes with the brown label on the tray in my hand. "Chocolate is the best to start with," she moves on to the next table and places two bottles of sparkling water on the tray. "And you can only drink water on the diet."

We move to the empty table. Risa takes one box and one bottle off the tray and places it in front of herself. I sit down and open the box, it has a grainy cereal smell that's only very slightly chocolaty. Inside are small round, hard, baked balls, resembling morning cereal.

This is what I'll be eating for the next week.

I'm stunned and look over at Risa, crunching on her Zribble, eating one ball at a time. She laughs when she sees my face. "It's just like kibble, darling, kibble." She laughs so hard that she starts to cough and has to wash it down with water. She wipes water off the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, "now you know how dogs feel."

I feel miserable as I frown down at my lunch. She's right, it looks exactly like kibble, it smells exactly like kibble, it's kibble.

Zribble.

I lift one up and pop it into my mouth. There's a somewhat satisfying crunch at first, but it's awfully dry and it feels sandy in my mouth. There's not much flavour --   a bit of salt, a tiny bit sweet with a very distant hint of something that may remind me of chocolate, but that may only be because Risa Medrick said it was chocolate flavoured.

I drain it down with water. "This is all you eat?"

"Blacks have to be ready to Plunge at all times," she says, waving a piece of Zribble in the air, "we're not allowed to eat anything else."

"No wonder the Core seems so strung up, what's the point of being alive if you can't enjoy food?"

She smiles, but there's something sad and unconvincing about her smile. "We're strung up because of so many other reasons too."

I've overstepped a boundary, I can feel it. We munch on the Zribble as if nothing happened, but I have made her uncomfortable. "Do you lead a team?" I ask, trying to change the subject.

She sips her water, "No. I'm in charge of the basic training for those who have potential to be on the teams."

"That group that ran me down?"

"More or less. They have to spend at least two or three months with me before they get to join a team — so there are always some dropping out and new ones coming in."

"You don't seem very happy about your job."

She looks away, idly toying with the empty Zribble box. "Someone has to do it, and the job is always given to the youngest Black. I'm the youngest, or was," she looks back to me, "until today."

"There's a new Black?" I lean back in my seat, surprised.

"He's only twelve, so it'll take some time before he can replace me," she's smiling again. "I replaced Leolan when I was sixteen and he's only three years older than I am."

"What sort of person is Leolan?"

She smirks and looks at me with a strange gleam in her eye. "Charismatic, smart, witty, handsome, fun, adventurous, great-singing voice and a fabulous kisser."

"So you recommend I kiss him?"

"Not unless you're looking for something long-term. He was a rotten boyfriend."

"It doesn't seem like anything around here can be long term." I wave in the general direction of the Jewels sitting round the tables. "This isn't exactly a family atmosphere."

"Some do get married, there's even housing for married couples in the Sarinade building on Crown Street. But having children for those of us who Plunge regularly is impossible."

The thought of the future in an ordinary human sense had never crossed my mind. Most people out there assume that when they grow up they'll meet someone special, get married and have a family. I guess I've always known that these biologically acceptable futures could never apply to me.

"Must be difficult for human kids with Jewel parents."

"It's more difficult for the Jewel parents. It's a bureaucratic nightmare, the Council is constantly harassing them. Their children live under the law but the parents don't, it's exactly the sort of thing that sends the Council clerks into a frenzy."

I rock the empty Zribble box between my hands; Risa seems particularly upset about this topic. I can't imagine her scheming, plotting or lying. Maybe I'm under her spell — maybe I want to be.

I lean forward over the table and lower my voice. "If this is a chess game, what's your move?"

She smiles sadly and leans toward me. Our faces are close, almost touching, "Does it have to be my move?" she whispers.

"You tell me. Did you slug me?"

"No." I catch a shadow of an expression pass over her face. For a split second she may have looked angry. "Do you trust me?"

And here we come to the matter of trust again. It's very hard to trust in people, hardest of all when you're a Jewel in the Zephyr. Do I trust Syianne Locke? Do I trust Xeprim? Do I even trust myself? I'm not sure what I need trust for, but it plays as a modifier to everything else around here. You have to choose carefully whom you place your trust in — it somehow determines if you stay on top or fall between the cracks.

When I don't answer she smiles again. Her beautiful smile, I hadn't realised how sad it is all the time. She touches my cheek, my skin tingling again under her fingers. She nods and her smile vanishes. "You're a quick learner."

I move away from her hand and can feel the energy seeping into me. I do not want another Overflow. She realises her error and moves her hand from my arm. "Let's have dinner together tomorrow night," she suggests.

"Tomorrow night?"

"You haven't made any plans, right?"

"Plans? No, but why...?"

"Tomorrow at eight, meet me at the Thertom Plaza," she pulls away and looks at her watch and seems startled when she sees the time. "I have to go to a meeting!"

"I'll see you soon," she says smiling, and then walks away before I could find anything to say.

Did Risa Medrick just invite me on a date, and did I just agree to go? I lean back into my chair, puzzled. My whole body is tingling from her touch and I know that somehow I absorbed some energy.

I start when Tiger sits across from me; everything around me seems eerily bright. "I'm not going to ask what the deal is between you two," he assures me. I guess he thinks that's the reason I look so startled. "Leolan wants to see you. Got time?"

"When?" I ask. My schedule is so busy, what with being knocked through walls, learning how to fly and my date with Risa Medrick.

"Now?" Tiger shrugs, "Later? Whenever."

I throw up my hands in surrender. "Ok. Now."

Tiger smiles, his white teeth flashing in his dark face. "Go grab a box of Zribble for Syianne, she's waiting for you."