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Elevator jazz.
A cramped cabin packed with people, their muttering blending into an irritating hum.
Even with her eyes shut, Cecilia felt every shoulder and elbow shifting around her. Opening them only made the cramped cabin feel worse.
So annoying!
The lift felt hot, like a desert made from nothing but bodies. Everyone around her stood stiff and tense. Cecilia was practically pressed flat between them, squeezed into a pancake while she held up her wrist and watched the edges of the screen warp like damaged film.
The overhead lights were dimmer than before, barely bright enough to see by.
No matter how she scrolled or pressed, nothing would load. Her irritation deepened, and a moment later, the speakers screamed to life, cutting in and out.
「Annou—ent....slig...e...or. W...keep y...up..ated.」
A loud voice.
Obnoxiously loud.
Like it was yelling at a crowd.
Her brows furrowed.
Then it vanished just as quickly, leaving everyone to stew in confusion. A few of them grumbled while Cecilia racked her brain, trying to piece together what the announcement had said.
Okay…'announcement', obviously. Something about a…slight delay? What's 'e' supposed to mean, or—no—error? 'We'll keep you updated', maybe. Yeah, that part sounded familiar…probably...
The elevator slowed.
A short ding chimed, and the doors slid open halfway. The lights flickered.
The doors paused for a second.
Then slid the rest of the way.
Cecilia stepped out with a few others, relieved to escape the pressure of so many bodies. She let out a quiet sigh and took in the dimly lit lobby.
The other elevators nearby were either packed tight or in the middle of unloading, and the people left behind wore all kinds of expressions.
She speed-walked through the river of bodies, then ducked into a corridor to put some distance between herself and the endless flow of people moving at every possible pace.
Leaning against the nearest wall, she pulled up her bracelet, logged in and flicked through the pages until the map appeared.
She tapped the air a few times.
Let's see…a few turns, then up a couple flights of stairs. Walk through some places, then down a floor—and my room there, right? Just a twenty-minute walk. Yeah. Just twenty minutes.
It's not like I'm in a hurry or anything.
Cecilia huffed under her breath, selecting the shortest route. The screen blinked, then returned to the home screen.
A simple white house icon took center in her sight before sliding off to the right. Cecilia followed it with her eyes until a number popped up beside it, only a couple hundred meters away, colored in green.
"You...thi...k we were attacked?"
Her ears perked at those words, though she kept pretending to fiddle with her bracelet while simple white arrows appeared on the ground before her.
"I mean, it's not impossible... but then we wouldn't be talking right now."
"We might even be dead."
A woman smacked the man across the shoulder, and he scratched at his arm.
"Don't say that!"
Their voices faded with every step, swallowed by foot traffic and overlapping conversations until their words softened into noise.
Even so, they lingered.
Attacked…
Cecilia glanced down at the slim arrows again, watching them subtly alter themselves with the shifting crowd.
I'll grab some cash, just in case.
She decided that much and pulled the map back into focus, adding a stop along the route. Another icon blinked into view at the edge of her sight, pointing toward the nearest banking kiosk some distance away.
Straightening from the wall, Cecilia headed right and followed the guiding light.
A few others were glancing around too, as if the walls might cave in on them at any second. Others kept their hands close to their bodies, like they were afraid to lose something.
Nervousness taken human form.
The arrows carried her around two corners and up a short flight of stairs, where her footsteps echoed. At the top, they pointed left into a narrower corridor.
Several banking kiosks sat inside a recess, half-hidden by metal pillars and poor lighting. One of the overhead beams looked like it had been left to the elements. The machines seemed functional enough, but the shadows made the entire corner feel worse.
Yeah…this looks sketchy.
Cecilia slowed at the entrance and looked over the shady little corner.
She followed the arrows to another kiosk instead. This one sat inside a well-lit recess surrounded by enough passing people to ease some of her suspicion.
Quickly, Cecilia pulled out her card and pushed it into the slot ringed by a blinking green light. After punching in her PIN, the screen changed to display her generously filled account.
I really just blew through everything I got paid—and then some. Why?! Dummy. It's way more than I thought.
With a sigh, she selected what she hoped would be enough to last a couple of weeks.
A few taps later, her card popped back out along with a printed slip, which she quickly tucked into her purse. The machine whirred, counting the bills somewhere inside itself before a thick envelope slid from a lower slot.
She grabbed it and stuffed it away, then checked the mirrors mounted above the kiosk for anyone watching her.
Five grand should be fine, right? Now that I think about it...we're lucky we make enough money not to worry about most things.
With that, Cecilia turned and picked up her pace, following the spaced-out arrows glowing faintly along the floor.
The closer she got to the center of the vessel, the more people appeared, their faces carrying a wider range of expressions. Every other corner—no, every third or fifth—held some kind of guard. With each step forward, the corridors slowly regained their color.
By the time she reached a main staircase, she slowed to catch her breath.
The steps were wide. Wider than her garage back home.
Muttering under her breath, Cecilia climbed up, fingers wrapping around the railing for support.
One flight, then another.
Twice, thrice, and once more until she reached her floor.
The floor, filled with the heavy steps of the others. padding her senses. Their expressions passing her by the minute.
Here, she eased her pace. Only a few more turns separated her from Ikade.
With every step, the scene shifted like a movie. The crowds thinned out, their voices fading into background noise while the air settled into a soft buzz.
Cecilia stopped in front of her room and pulled out the access card, unlocking the door.
"Hello? You in here? Hello? Kae?"
She closed the door behind her.
Looking down, she noticed the floor had been recently cleaned. Her shoes squeaked lightly with each step. Up ahead, sunlight poured through the large open space, the glare harsher than usual. She could practically feel the heat radiating off the metal.
"Was something spilled?"
The answer she got came from the sound of running water.
Cecilia took a few steps farther inside and stopped outside the bathroom. Ikade's soft humming slipped through the door, easing some of the worry weighing her shoulders.
With a small shake of her head, Cecilia turned toward the bedroom. She stopped at the foot of the bed and quickly unzipped her bag.
I should probably put these on, just in case.
She pulled out her shorts, followed by her shoes sealed inside a plastic bag.
Turning around, she opened the short closet and rummaged through a cabinet for some underwear, tossing them onto the bed. After a moment, she added a yellowish rain jacket on top. The edge of the hood carried brand lettering stitched in cursive, written in a language she could not read, just above the white trim.
Cecilia kicked off her shoes while she was at it, shrugged out of the jacket she had been wearing, then reached back for her pistol. She placed it into the bag resting on the bed, then quickly stripped out of her clothes.
By the next moment, she was mostly dressed, top and bottom on, the jacket zipped halfway up.
Chrrrrrk—
Her head snapped toward the door.
Ikade stood there with a towel in hand, still drying her face and hair. She froze at the sight of Cecilia, who had not been in the room when she entered the bathroom, and stumbled half a step backward.
The towel bunched between her fingers while her mouth opened, only for the words to collapse into a small, startled sound.
Cecilia paused too.
Her gaze moved over Ikade from head to toe, before she knelt and gathered the loose laces between her fingers.
"You could've used actual words."
"Your message." Cecilia added. "A thumbs up only tells me so much."
"Oh...sorry. I was cleaning everything up."
Cecilia held her gaze for another second, then smiled with a quiet breath.
"Just...use words next time, okay?"
Ikade's ears lowered slightly.
"Okay."
Cecilia pulled both knots tight and stood up. She then sifted through her bag, pulling out her belt and looping it through her shorts.
"What'd they say?" Cecilia asked, straightening up after tying her shoes. She sifted through her bag again, pulling out her belt and looping it through her shorts. "About the announcement. I couldn't hear it."
Ikade pulled her shirt down and made a face.
"Basically? Someone did something stupid and hit something they shouldn't have." She lifted both fingers briefly, making air quotes. "They called it a 'minor error,' which is a really fancy way of saying someone is getting fired."
Cecilia grabbed her pistol before closing the backpack.
Ikade's gaze dropped to it and stayed there. Her ears slowly pulled back.
"You don't actually need that...right?"
Cecilia froze, stiff like a board.
"Did you see something?" Ikade stepped closer. "Was someone following you? Cece, what happened?"
Each question came faster than the last. The towel twisted tighter between Ikade's fingers.
Cecilia looked down at the pistol, then back at Ikade. Her mouth opened, closed, then once more.
"For…self-defense. I mean—to keep you safe."
"That's what you said last time."
Cecilia's grasp tightened around the pistol.
"A-anyway."
"What about you? You didn't get hurt, did you? It was a pretty strong hit."
Cecilia fastened the holster against the small of her back while she waited for an answer. Once it was secure, she slid the pistol inside and pulled her jacket over it.
She still looked unconvinced, but lightly shook her head.
"No. Just juice."
Cecilia blinked.
"Juice?"
"It spilled on me and made my skin all sticky." Ikade glanced away, rubbing at the side of her neck with the towel. "So I cleaned up, picked up the stuff that fell and took a shower."
They moved into the living room and dropped onto the couch, sinking with the cushions. Cecilia leaned forward and switched on the screen bolted to the wall.
Sound filled the room almost immediately.
"We're just going to wait, then?"
Ikade asked, watching the screen change with every button press.
"Yep."
Cecilia eventually settled on something random and let the movie play, drowning them in anything other than the awkwardness between them.
They sank farther into the couch. Sunlight washed most of the color from the screen, and the air conditioning struggled against the heat creeping through the room.
It was a movie about a man who could kill with a pencil.
On-screen, he stood still, calm to the point of being unsettling.
「I'm thinking… yeah.」 He said, letting go of the corpse slumped over a table. 「I'm back.」
The body hit the floor with a pencil lodged deep in one eye.
Not long after, a smaller screen slid into view beside the main display, hovering slightly off to the side.
The movie continued, another fight breaking out, but the new screen stole Cecilia's attention. Centered on it was the vessel's logo and beneath it, sat a frozen timer.
00:00
No matter how long she stared at it, the timer refused to budge.
Cecilia watched the movie with Ikade, only occasionally flicking her eyes toward the frozen numbers.
At some point, a thought crossed her mind.
She slipped her pistol out from beneath her jacket with the muzzle angled toward the floor, then leaned to the side and set it gently on the ground beside the couch.
Its muzzle pointed away from either of them.
With that done, she let her shoulders drop.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, the sounds from the movie dissolving into soft white noise. Voices, thumps, impacts, and music faded into an afterthought.
Taking a deep breath, Cecilia let her chest rise and fall, trying to rest her mind.
'00:00'
░█░
'59:58'
'59:57'
'59:56'
'59:55'
'59:54'
'59:53'
"Are you really just going to stare at it?"
Ikade threw a quizzical look at her.
Cecilia did not peel her eyes away, letting the movie play in the background.
'59:44'
'59:43'
'59:42'
"Yep."
The counter was more interesting than the movie itself.