Chapter 50: 50 Merge All, Part Four

The photos were in striking black and white, perfectly framed. Angharad had approximately zero percent interest in surfing, sun and beaches, but even she could admit they were cool to look at. Jin elbowed her and hissed that this was her idea, as if that meant anything, but she didn't entirely regret agreeing to look at Eleanor's photos.

"I used to do photography as a hobby, too! Wow, we actually have a surprising amount in common," Angharad said.

Even that wouldn't make Josephine look up from the table.

"This is the best one," Eleanor said, slapping down a totally ordinary photo of two girls and a surfboard against the backdrop of a beach. Clearly not the actual best.

The girl on the left of the photo was obviously Eleanor, the ends of her hair bleached a frazzled blonde. In the picture her face smiled super wide, and she did some weird thing with her hands. Whoever fixed her hair after that should be awarded a medal. The girl on the right of the photo was a surly looking tall girl, dark haired and athletically built, eyes facing off in a completely different direction.

"So, that's Leila, I assume. Wow, she's actually pretty hot," Angharad said.

Josephine looked betrayed to her very soul for a brief moment before rearranging her face into a stiff and very unconvincing smile. Wow, that was super not the right thing to say. Angharad regretted opening her mouth.

"She's amazing," Eleanor said, eyes bright. "If you could see what she can do you'd be amazed."

"I mean, I don't really care about surfing. Freya, do you like surfing?" Angharad asked.

"No, my only competitive sport is shopping," Freya said, and winked. She winked a lot when she joked. It was kind of a fun quirk, really energetic.

"That's a lie," Jin said, face looking pained. "You swim competitively."

"Yes, that's true, but it's not as funny," Freya said.

Angharad elbowed him. "You'd look better if you smiled, Jin." That only made him scowl harder, but that was kind of the point.

"It's not like I appreciate Leila for how she looks," Eleanor said. "She has talent. I admire her talent."

"Because appreciating how another girl looks would be inappropriate when you're sitting next to your girlfriend," Angharad said.

"I don't think about people in that kind of shallow way. I'm not with Josephine for the way she looks. I can see past that to the beautiful person she is inside," Eleanor said.

"How deep," Angharad said. "Looking past how super hot Josephine is on the outside to see the beautiful person within. See, I'm totally shallow. The first thing I noticed about Josephine was those cheekbones."

Somebody gasped but Angharad was too busy wincing at herself to notice who. All she could see was the mildly panicked look on Josephine's face.

This definitely would not help Angharad's reputation at all but it would probably be funny later. Or at least, Tsuyoshi would laugh about it, and that was all that mattered, right?

"Ah, very funny. How very humorous this all is," Josephine said.

Angharad looked away and around the cafeteria. The place was filled up to the edges, more crowded than it had been in months. "I remembered something I have to do."

"Is it worse than this?" Jin asked.

Angharad pushed her shoes off and stood up on the bench, then said, as loud as she could, "Could I have everyone's attention? Okay, so, Dr Yeoh wants to make sure everyone has had a check up with her at some point, so if you haven't done that, go do that now, and make sure everyone else knows about it. Or she'll, like, track you down and extract your medical details by force. And I don't think anyone wants that. Okay, thank you, that's all I had to say."

She got down and put her shoes back on so she could make her exit.

"It was worse," Jin mumbled.

"And now I'm going to go bother Rod Spark. But you guys should definitely keep enjoying the personal photo exhibit," Angharad said.

Angharad's life philosophy was that by pretending things weren't awkward and embarrassing for everyone, you could almost make that real. But Freya did wink at her on the way out.

*

As soon as she got outside the building she stopped trying to fake a skip in her step and stood up straighter, let the looseness fall from her face.

Rod Spark was not hard to find, making noise and soldering something, of all things, on the other side of the camp. He was surrounded by heavy machinery that looked like it belonged in a factory, not wherever they were. She would definitely have to explore that later.

He turned off his burny thing, whatever that was called (Angharad had managed to avoid ever having to do a metalwork class), and turned to look at her.

"Angharad Silver, I presume," he said in his famously loud baritone.

"And you know my name, how?"

"You look exactly like Leonard and Nadia and I always pay attention to potential competition."

"You know, I don't know if I should be flattered on behalf of my dad given that we make, you know, cleaning robots and industrial washing machines, and not, you know, communication technologies and weapons of war."

"I'm not an arms dealer, Miss Silver."

He had the same kind of obnoxious, self-satisfied smile she'd found annoying in Brian Turner on his plane. Like even when disapproving of what she said he couldn't help looking smug.

"I mean, if we're being totally honest and open with each other, Robert Lukashenko – that is your real name, right? – then I have to say that there is no way I believe you didn't realise the kinds of things your de-oxygenation tech could be used for before you sold it to military dictatorships."

He crossed his arms. "You've done a small amount of research, I see, but I only deal with legitimate democratic governments."

She clenched her fists at her side so she wouldn't be tempted to cross her arms like he had. "I mean, that's still a political choice, but whatever."

His smug smile got even wider and more condescending. What a douche bag.

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"Was there a point to you seeking me out or are you merely admiring the view?" he asked.

She put her balled up fists on her waist and reminded herself that getting angry would be a really super pointless thing to do. "The thing that lured us here – do you think it was trying to catch me or you?"

There, that momentary flicker of surprise across his face before he smoothed it back to bland smugness, that's what she'd been looking for.

"I'm sure it was an accident and some poor soul installed an overactive prison guard AI here without doing the necessary tests first. It happens to the best of us," he said.

"Sure. Well, I had to know."

She dropped her fists and swivelled around to walk away.

She decided she would find Tsuyoshi so he could make her feel better. And that wasn't going to be hard because he was leaning against a wall of the hospital, smoking slowly and watching her. When she got close he threw his cigarette down and stubbed it out on the ground without looking, like he was some cool guy in the movies.

"What trouble have you been making now?" he said.

"Just talking to one of the richest people in the world," she said. When she leaned against his shoulder he immediately curled an arm around her and pulled her closer. His sweater was warm. He smelled vaguely of sandalwood and cardamon, somehow, so she buried her face in his clothes so she wouldn't have to keep smelling the vaguely burnt ozone-flavoured scent of the rest of Zapville.

"I hate him already," he said.

"Good."

If she was supposed to be the optimistic one then she couldn't say out loud that she hated this place as much as he did. But Tsuyoshi was a smart guy. He probably knew already.

*

In the hospital Dr Yeoh gave them boring, minor tasks, checking supplies and making lists, which was kind of nice in a weird way.

"As amused as I was by hearing about your stunt today, I'm not convinced that will get anyone to come through these doors," Dr Yeoh said.

"What stunt?" Tsuyoshi asked.

Angharad bumped him with her shoulder. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I've no doubt someone will tell you before the day is through," the doctor said, voice dry.

The camaraderie was broken up by the sound of Josephine's voice from the hallway. "Um, Angharad, could I talk to you alone?"

Tsuyoshi looked at Angharad, eyebrows raised. She looked out to see Josephine standing in the hallway, feet apart, hands awkwardly resting against her legs.

"No, I think that's probably a bad idea," Angharad said.

"Are you kidding?" Tsuyoshi said. "Talk to her alone. Nobody wants to watch something this awkward."

"Fine," Angharad said.

She tried not to stomp her feet as she walked out into the hallway. It wasn't Josephine's fault she was in a mood. It was basically all her own fault.

So as soon as she was close enough to Josephine to talk quiet enough that nobody would overhear she said, "I'm sorry. I was mean and weird and awful."

"Oh." Josephine blinked a whole lot and bit her lip. "I wouldn't have described you as mean and awful."

"No, I was. I meant to say that Eleanor has a good eye for composition and use of light and then all that other stuff came out and it was tense and gross and instead of fixing it I basically made it worse."

"Ah, well, she'll be honoured you complimented her photography. I know she takes pride in it."

"I mean..." Angharad blew out pointless air and looked away. "She probably won't believe I said that. Because, I mean, I wouldn't in her place."

"No, she's very..." Josephine cleared her throat. "She's very reasonable, of course."

"Right. Totally."

"But that's not why I came here."

"No?"

"I meant to say that, and this is a delicate matter, but I thought we talked about this. We can't do that sort of thing again. I don't want you to...lead me on like that again."

"Lead you on?" Angharad's voice came out in an outraged squeak. "I remember it being kind of the other way around."

"You said it was forgotten!"

"How can I forget it when you bring it up all over again? I'm deeply failing to repress here."

"I'm sorry."

"Whatever, just go and tell your girlfriend I'm sorry. Or don't, you know, what do I care? No, I mean... Just go."

She wasn't remotely satisfied when Josephine finally walked away.

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