Chapter 10: 10 Unreal City, Part Three

Jin watched, taking in details.

Angharad looked really peppy, as they sat at a table in the mess hall, sharing notes with their friends. She'd been quiet when they were alone to investigate, but she seemed stronger in a crowd, like she drew in everyone else's energy. She smiled as she pointed a pen at Josephine, who also perked up, pumping a fist like she was in one of those annoying sports films about a team of losers winning against the odds. They seemed to get more and more energetic the longer they talked to each other, which he really should worry about.

"Okay, so, I feel like I feel better when I have goals and stuff. So obviously we have to break this down into bite sized pieces. Like, all the things we have to investigate, and how often we should compare notes, and also maybe if we work on figuring out who or what sabotaged the portals in the first place, that could maybe also help," Angharad said.

"Add another thing to the list," he said. "Sort out Josephine's love life."

"Yes!" Angharad said, and clapped her hands. "I can totally do that."

"Your concern is most touching but most unnecessary," Josephine said. "Eleanor and I have been reunited. Love blooms again."

"Ooh, that's so sweet!"

Sophie seemed happy about it as well, as she patted Josephine on the elbow and congratulated her.

"Eleanor promised that this time she can empty her heart of others and try to love me as I love her. It is as if the world has been reborn anew, and now I have the chance to woo her more effectively," Josephine said.

Angharad's face seemed to fall further into confusion with every word. "Empty her heart of others? Was that an issue with you guys?"

"Oh, Eleanor was in love with someone else," Sophie said, taking the lead in the conversation. "But she promised to give Josephine a chance to win her over. She keeps trying to be wooed. I think it'll work eventually."

"That's—" Angharad scrunched her face up. "Way less romantic than I expected."

"It's the longest running drama in Zapville," Jin said. He got a lot of entertainment out of it, anyway, whenever he wanted to avoid getting down about not being able to talk to Freya. It was a good distraction – constant and lightweight.

"Oh, just everyone is invested in it turning out well," Sophie said.

"Really," Angharad said.

She tapped her pen against her mouth, then set it carefully down. He'd noticed that about her, the way she was careful with small objects and smiled like she'd practised in front of the mirror, but spoke with a tone you couldn't help but pay attention to. It reminded him of politics, of Tabitha's parents on news broadcasts. But in private Angharad didn't seem so self-assured, speaking in a softer voice that trembled when she was surprised, reacting in shock with her whole body.

Now, Sophie, she was an open book – fifteen, but a very young fifteen, unable to conceal anything. She bounced when she was excited and leaned into romantic gossip like it was her favourite subject. Angharad looked like she felt a little ashamed to be so interested, sometimes.

But maybe he was reading her wrong.

"Mm, you know," Angharad said, and leaned forward across the table to run her fingers up Josephine's arm, "I mostly prefer to go on the offensive, romantically, so I see why you want to do the wooing. But maybe you deserve to be wooed, just once." She tapped Josephine on the nose and Josephine's face bloomed red. "Maybe if you make her jealous enough."

Sophie squealed with laughter. Angharad leaned back and winked at Jin, like he was in on the joke. He was pretty sure girls were just plain crazy.

When they'd finished sharing all the romantic drama in Zapville he started walking out of the room, only pausing at the door to watch Angharad pick up her things.

She caught up with him quickly enough. "Okay, what are we investigating next?"

"We need a day to let the data sink in to our brains," he said.

"Why?"

"Are you in a hurry for some reason? It's not like we're going somewhere."

She crossed her arms and sighed, a big, melodramatic gesture. "Fine. I guess."

He paused a moment, then leaned in so he could speak quietly. "I'm going to see if I can contact my girlfriend through the barrier. If you promise not to tell anyone about it, I'll let you come with me."

She squeaked and clapped her hands. "That would be so cool!"

"Be less obvious about it."

"Right. I can totally do that."

They stood by the barrier for what felt like hours, flicking a flashlight on and off. When he looked over at Angharad, he could see her getting bored – crossing her arms, then tapping her feet, then walking up and down. He looked back towards the other barrier. He could stay like this all day.

But eventually, Freya. It was hard to see her in the distance because of the vision warping effects of the barrier as it slowly rippled across their vision, but he was sure that was her emerging from a building. That was the way she moved, tall and strong and sure in her body. He flicked the flashlight on and off again, and the distant figure of her moved around, doing something he couldn't quite see, then slowly came closer and closer.

She got close enough that he could see her properly, and smiled and waved. Then she pointed to Angharad and made the confused signal with her eyebrows.

Jin looked at Angharad and tried to figure out how to explain her when he couldn't talk through the barrier. This was a bad plan. No, worse, it was no plan at all. His superiors would be embarrassed for him if they could see it.

Angharad smiled and did a bunch of complicated, confusing hand gestures. He looked at Freya, who did some weird hand gestures of her own. What? Was there some kind of international girl language he didn't know?

"Oh, Freya! That's a nice name," Angharad said, voice bright.

"What the hell? How did you know that?"

"Oh, one of the programmers in the English office liked to use sign language to talk in noisy bars. I picked up, like, letters. I just kind of took a chance she might know it."

"Freya is a language expert."

"I like non-verbal languages. You don't have to worry about pronouncing them wrong."

Through the ripples of the barrier, Freya smiled at them. She waved and he waved back.

"I like her," Angharad announced, whispered something about alone time, and left.

*

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Hours later he saw Tabitha glaring at him from her side of Zapville, as he walked to the supply shed.

A year earlier, she'd been just as much a constant, her stupid face on big screens everywhere as a symbol of the tragedy of the other side. He knew better. He knew she'd screeched and held a gun on one of his friends outside the embassy, that she'd shot Peter in the knee when he tried to keep her captive for her own good, that she'd killed, okay, maybe not as many people as he had, but enough to know she wasn't as pure and sweet as she wanted to pretend.

Freya had wanted him to let it go and he'd said, "I won't try to kill her. Isn't that enough?"

Sure, Freya had forgiven him for worse things than Tabitha had done. But it was still different. He couldn't explain how.

He shook his head and looked away, on his way to the supply shed.

Where he found Zelko taking up space intead.

In the supply shed, Zelko sorted through the ammunition, as if he was ever going to shoot anything here. He noticed Jin and tried to play friendly, with a smile and an open gesture.

"You're making friends with Angharad. She's a sweet girl," Zelko said.

"I don't know what your angle is," Jin said, "but already it's really annoying."

"No angle," Zelko said. "Just making conversation."

"She's not a friend. She's a strategic asset." Zelko smiled like he knew better. Douche-bag. "You're trying to act like you're a cool adult, but I'm stronger, faster, and a better shot than you. Don't bother."

"Yes, but I'm taller," Zelko said. He tried to ruffle Jin's hair, so Jin dodged back and hit the shelves, making them throw dust all over Zelko.

"What do you need ammunition for?" Jin asked.

"Practice. I don't know about your life, but I'm still going to need a job when we get out of here, and I don't want to be rusty."

"Because you've got nothing to do." Jin crossed his arms, unimpressed.

"I've got plenty. But if you need something to do, why don't you think about why a place like this would have the ammo I need in the storage shed. Work out what that says about our captivity."

That was something to ponder. He was so busy thinking, he didn't notice when Zelko left the shed, only looked up later to realise he was long gone.

Jin grabbed some of the bolts from his pocket, put them back on the shelf, and moved out.

*

If this place wasn't originally built as a prison camp, then what? What could that mean? He'd been swayed by Angharad's argument but something wasn't adding up. Of course, that didn't change the fact that they were all imprisoned there, but perhaps Zapville had been built for a different purpose.

He dragged Josephine into his room so he could talk it out – something about her non-committal humming noises when he said things always helped him think.

"If people see you dragging me here they'll get the wrong idea," she said, as he pushed her to sit on one of the beds.

He sat backwards on a chair he'd purloined from the mess hall. "Josephine, literally nobody will ever assume you're sexually interested in a man."

"Hmm, well that's fair." She put a hand to her chin and nodded – her standard thinking face.

"I'm trying to formulate a theory. Maybe this place was built for a specific purpose and just re-purposed as a place to imprison us by some kind of entity that took advantage of it being empty. But what?"

"Hmm," Josephine said. She tended to do that a lot. "A camping ground in the off season, like I suggested to you when we met."

"No, that's stupid. There's no trees except in the small greenhouse. There isn't even grass. And why is there a greenhouse? Who is taking care of that?" he asked.

"But you see, it could be a fancy camping ground with a greenhouse. There's a common room with karaoke equipment just like in the camp I stayed at for winter camp in middle school," she said.

"There's no reception area to greet visitors. And no trees. That's a big deal."

"Hmm."

"And there's multiple kinds of ammunition in the storage shed."

"Aha!" she said, and pointed in the air. "A camping ground where people go hunting!"

"Surrounded by an extremely high tech electronic barrier that seems to react semi-autonomously to threats to its integrity. Really. A treeless camping ground for people who want to go hunting animals that aren't here while being sealed off from the rest of the world."

"Ah, but, perhaps the barrier was added later by whoever took over this camping ground and replaced the kitchen staff with robots!"

"That's..." Jin leaned back to consider Josephine's triumphant face. "That does make a lot more sense. We're still trapped like rats until we find a way out, but at least I don't have to believe whoever is in charge built this trap from the ground up. I can assume someone who can steal expensive, experimental technology and take advantage of a situation, instead of the sadistic super rich. I can't rule that out, but this place is shabby, not slick and new. There's still the placement of the portal to consider. Why here? Why a portal placed to bring us here?"

"Hmm," Josephine said again. She shook her head, obviously out of ideas.

Jin's head hurt. He gave up for the day. Patted Josephine's shoulder and said, "Thank you. You've been helpful."

"I have? Ah, of course I have. May I be the one to tell Angharad?"

"Are you blushing?"

"No! My blushes are reserved only for thoughts of Eleanor."

She was definitely blushing.

"I'm going to tell Angharad," he said. "I have something to ask her as well."

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