Chapter 49: 49 Merge All, Part Three

Jin had missed the way Freya walked. It felt stupid to think that. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her walking through the layers of the barrier – sometimes it felt like that was all he could see of her, walking forward or walking away. But this, up close in his hallway, the way she almost skipped when she was excited because there was so much bounce in her step, this was what he'd missed.

"We have to share information, you know, and not just introduce our friends to each other," she said, her eyes bright.

"You haven't introduced me to anyone," Jin said. "What's that about?"

"I guess I got distracted. There was your doctor, and meeting your friends, and the whole process of joining the two camps together. Not that people are really mixing that much," Freya said.

"It's been two days. Whatever, Angharad will make everyone mix when she's not sick. It's her special skill. I doubt she'll notice that she's doing it."

Freya laughed, light like soap bubbles. "You would talk about being friendly like it's some kind of inscrutable super power."

He could feel his face starting to scowl and tried to smooth it away with one hand. "Where does being friendly ever get anyone?"

"It gets you wherever she is."

"Fine."

He pushed open the door to his room. Everything was neat, at least. He didn't know what he'd do if it wasn't. Hide under a suitably sized rock, probably.

"Ooh, boys rooms are gross," she said.

"You're not as funny as you think you are."

He took off his shoes and sat on the bed, waited for her to come in and follow him. She looked around, taking it all in, his tiny dingy little cell of a thing, and he wished he knew what she was thinking, what she saw when she looked at his things, him.

"You're still neat," she said. "That hasn't changed."

"As if it would."

She sat on the bed next to him, shoulders hunched over, smile small. Of all her thousand smiles maybe that was the one that undid him the most.

She put her hand next to his, fingers splayed over the covers. He felt like he didn't know how to move, what to do next. There was a weird heavy feeling in his throat.

She rolled her eyes, then shoved him down and climbed on top of him. Okay, that worked.

"You're such an idiot sometimes, Jin." Her voice was soft.

Finally he remembered how to bring his hands up to touch her face while he kissed her. That weird nervousness started to fall away and the rush of skin to skin contact took over. How warm she was, the way she laughed and bit at his mouth.

Of course, after five minutes an obnoxious knocking noise ruined all of that.

"Knock, knock," super loud in Angharad's suddenly super annoying voice.

"Go away," he said.

"Did you know," loud through the door," that the Colonel is down the hallway and heading this way, so if you're doing something that shouldn't be seen you should probably close the door properly instead of leaving it slightly open."

"It's seven in the morning," he said.

Freya laughed at him. Oh, great. Mood ruined.

He closed his eyes and slammed his head back against the pillow. Angharad had an annoying chirpy conversation with that even more annoying Colonel outside his door, as if neither had heard of the concept of being quiet in the hallways. When that guy's voice finally went away, Angharad flung the door wide open. Even her face was annoyingly smug.

He put one hand under the edge of Freya's skirt and raised his eyebrows like he was daring her to say something.

"Are you inviting me to watch?" Angharad said. "I'm so honoured. So touched."

"You're not going to go away, are you? You're supposed to be sick," he said.

Freya rolled over to the side and automatically sat up straight, legs crossed under herself.

"I feel better this morning. And in the spirit of information sharing – a conversation I totally overheard, by the way – there's been some overnight developments that I think are probably worthy of discussion. Like my phone mysteriously recharging after four months."

"Are you serious?" he asked.

"But still no internet, though, so don't get too excited," Angharad said.

"This is good news," Freya said.

"It's not seven in the morning news. I could have been asleep," Jin said.

"You weren't," Angharad said. "And because I'm such a good friend, I'm going to make sure your door is completely shut, and remind you not to be loud."

She winked and slammed it shut.

He couldn't relax. She was probably still out there in the hallway, cluttering up the space. What a pain.

*

Jin and Freya didn't manage to get out of his room until hours later. Not that they did anything that was much fun. There was nothing less sexy than the feeling like someone was listening in.

When they opened the door and walked out Angharad wasn't in the hallway, anyway. They could have been making out all that time and he'd wasted it.

They found her in the crafts room, instead, looking mildly uncomfortable reading a book while Eleanor Kim did something with red paper in the other corner.

"You look like you need rescuing," Freya said.

Angharad looked up at her voice, and the tension dropped off her face. "Yeah, I mean this book isn't that great."

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She dropped the book on a table as she walked out.

"I thought you'd be at the hospital," he said.

"The hospital is weird right now," Angharad said.

"I'll take your word for it. Are your room and the mess hall weird too?" he asked.

Angharad nodded. "Super weird. But, I mean, we could go to the cafeteria. I could watch you eat things I can't eat. That's always a fun time."

Freya smiled and pointed a finger in the air, like she'd just made a deduction and needed to make a point. It was cute when she did it. "Jin told me the girl who was unconscious in the barrier maze was your room mate, so it must be that she wants to be alone right now and you're giving her space."

"Exactly," Angharad said. "And, like, I totally understand. But when you meet Sophie you will definitely like her."

"I can't wait," Freya said.

"Are we just going to talk about everyone's friends?" Jin asked. "What was Eleanor doing in the crafts room?"

"Okay, like, I said my phone charged in the night, right? I guess whoever is in charge decided to finally furnish everyone with charging pads or whatever. And Eleanor is printing out pictures of people surfing from her phone and pasting them onto craft paper. Josephine is pretending not to mope about it in the cafeteria, for some reason, with Gemma and Mac. I probably should have been there. It would have been less weird."

"It does look like we're going to talk about everyone's friends," Freya said.

"Wait, I don't care about anyone's relationship drama right now," Jin said. He scowled at Angharad when she mumbled, 'that's new,' and crossed his arms tight. "Back up to that thing about phones recharging. Why would this place do that?"

"It's like a reward, see? Like, this place punishes us when we're bad and rewards us when we're good, right? And it's decided that I was good when I passed its test and gave us two good things. Though, I mean, it punishes us also when we're not breaking the rules."

"Maybe it's another test," Freya said. "It could also be a punishment in disguise."

"I'd believe that," he said.

"You both talk about this place like it has sentience of its own," Freya said.

Angharad looked at Jin, one eyebrow raised, and he looked back. Shrugged.

"I guess," Angharad said. "I mean, it's easier that way. I guess it's a metaphor, because we don't actually know who's responsible and it's just quicker to talk about this place as if it did things on its own. I mean, it doesn't though."

Jin drew in a breath. "Of course there is a person or persons in charge. Probably multiple people given the depth of surveillance they have on all of us. It's not like this place is a gigantic robot rising against us. We made the robots. They can't rise against us."

"But if we made the robots in our image," Angharad said, "why wouldn't they be as mean to us as we are? Garbage in, garbage out."

"Aren't you supposed to be the optimist here?" he asked.

"Is that my job now?" Angharad asked. "Because, like, I didn't interview for the optimist position."

"You're like a comedy duo," Freya said.

Jin sighed. "Let's go eat."

*

The kitchen area where the robots stood, standing guard over their trays of unappealing food, looked the same as ever. What had changed was how full the seating area looked with so many new people pushing their way into it so they could check out the set up. The air felt thick with the sounds of extra voices.

They stood together in one corner to survey the room, and all Jin could see was that there was almost no room to move.

He scanned the room for familiar faces before Freya could get started on pointing out the people she knew. Angharad had said Josephine was pretending not to mope, but all she seemed to want to do was stare at Angharad a lot. Other than that, the only people he recognised were girls he barely knew and didn't really like.

He looked at Freya instead and let her lead.

"First of all," Freya said, and pointed at an average looking kid with brown hair that was squinting at the kitchen robots. "That's Gael."

Gael looked over at them at that moment, as if he could feel all their eyes on him. Angharad smiled and waved at him and he almost tripped over himself, even though he'd been standing still.

"He's going to hit on me, isn't he?" Angharad asked.

"Definitely," Freya said. "Don't take it personally. He stops when you tell him to stop."

"Has he—"

But Angharad was already talking over him. "I've already met Ibrahim. He gave me great tips for stain removal and a new way to fold my clothes more efficiently. He's so nice."

"Wait, that guy really is a cleaner and it's not a metaphor?" Jin asked.

Freya gave him a side-long look. "He cleans. I can't guarantee that's his job in the outside world. He comes packaged with Milo, who is in NACEMC. I don't know their prior history but it's significant but unrelated to Milo's work as far as I can tell."

"I bet it'll be easy to spot Milo just because Zelko's going to be awkwardly conspicuous about avoiding him. He's weird about everyone he works with," Angharad said. "Oh, Zelko and Tsuyoshi are also a package deal, but that's because they're dating. Tsuyoshi's my best friend. I don't know if you'll like him."

"He's an asshole. You won't like him," Jin said.

Freya nodded. "You'll definitely have to meet our boss. She'll find you interesting. Maria O'Connor and Andrew Nguyen are from the other side, but that's no reason for you to not meet them. And—"

"This is inefficient," Jin said. "The doctor has files on everyone. Just read her files."

"Not on absolutely everyone!" Angharad protested. "Oh, but I suddenly have a plan to fix that. I'm so clever."

She clapped her hands and made a squeaking noise. Jin couldn't tell why that made him worry.

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