Chapter 61: 61 Participate In Your Manipulation, Part Two

In the newly uncovered communications room, the light of a dozen monitors turned Jin's world into a shifting kaleidoscope. He stopped his arm in the movement of trying to throw the walkie talkie to the floor, and with a gentle, if reluctant motion, placed it on a stool instead.

"She's crazy," he said.

"Which one?" Josephine asked. The monitors tinted her face all sorts of crazy colours.

Jin couldn't grasp their overlord's plan with the monitors and all the confusing images they showed. There were images from around Zapville, yes, of people in motion, but also other images it didn't make sense to monitor; a bunch of artworks in a museum that people sometimes walked through; a badly lit street corner somewhere unrecognisable with a street lamp that sometimes flickered in and out; a fuzzy screen saying 'broadcast is finished for the day', as if playing an old video.

He shook his head to dislodge his annoyance. "Both of them. They're both crazy. Girls make no sense."

In one of the monitors broadcasting images from Zapville, Tabitha sat at a table eating a sandwich, slowly, her eyes downcast, while Dr Yeoh smoked and stared at the wall. In another, Eleanor paced up and down. In still yet another, Ibrahim and Tsuyoshi violently forced Neo to shower, holding him still under the spray while wielding liquid soaps, like all the most annoying people Jin had ever met had gathered to play with soap suds in the one room.

"I will certainly not argue with you about that!" Josephine declared. "Girls are very confusing beings."

"You're a girl," Jin said. "How can you find girls confusing? That doesn't make sense."

On another monitor the Turner sister walked into Darren's hospital room, made some shapes with her fingers, and started patting his hair. Jin suspected watching all this stuff would send him off the deep end.

One end of the communications room had a microphone and old dials that looked like they hooked up to the PA system. At least those might be useful at some point. The videos? No way.

"Well, that's how I know. You see, sometimes I am even confused at myself," Josephine said.

Jin looked over at Josephine again, instead of the monitor, as she looked at her hands as they lay clenched in her lap.

"Are we going to have a serious talk?" he asked.

"I don't know if I deserve a serious talk with such a good friend as you. You could not possibly understand why I did what I did, when you are so true to your principles."

"Just tell me whatever it is."

Josephine looked up, sad-faced, then looked away again. "Though I consider Eleanor to be my great love, it is possible that I kissed another girl. I'm not sure that I did. I'm very confused."

"What?"

"I'm fairly sure I... No, I did! I did do it."

"I don't get it. I thought Eleanor was supposed to be the one who flirted with other people and you were the one who put up with it for no reason, and now you're saying it's the other way around? Literally who could you have kissed? I know everyone you know."

"I, too, am confused by my choices. But I cannot tell you the name, for it would be unfair to that woman that I attacked like some kind of beast that lurks in the halls."

Jin looked at the monitors again, as if looking at all the people being surveilled would give him some clue about who had entered Josephine's romantic dramas. The monitor that had been mimicking old analogue television footage went black, and green text started to scroll across it, in imitation of old operating systems from the early days of personal computing. 'I'm watching you watch people.'

"We know you're watching us," Jin said to the monitor.

*

They didn't stay in the communications room long after that. One monitor showed Freya and Angharad heading toward the hospital, so he shoved Josephine out the door so they could catch up with them.

"Why are you rushing?" she asked. "Did you see something important?"

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"I'm not rushing," he said.

He was rushing, but it was only because he wanted to be around Freya again instead of staring at nothing much, trying to make anything make sense.

Josephine got weird as soon as they got near to the hospital doors where Freya and Angharad stood, talking. Freya waved at him with a big arm movement, then nudged Angharad with her shoulder. Angharad looked up with a small smile and gave a small wave, barely more than raising her hand. Josephine stopped still and wouldn't budge even when he pushed.

She made a sad face and said, "I need to go to talk to Eleanor."

So he rolled his eyes and walked past and let her go. At least Freya and Angharad wanted his company; Angharad even looked faintly amused.

"That's a little strange that your friend wants to avoid us," Freya said.

He shook his hair out of his eyes and blew out a breath. "She's having girl troubles again and it's making her super weird. I don't get it."

"She's not allowed to have girl troubles," Angharad said, "after all that trouble I went to getting her and her girlfriend back together. I'm, like, banning it."

"I don't think you're the boss of that," he said.

"Whatever. I'll be the boss of anything I like," Angharad said.

Freya laughed and pushed her through the doors before Jin could.

They had made it down the front hallway and turned to the right when they saw the robotic form, all shiny parts that shifted against each other and unnaturally still eyes.

"I've been waiting," the robot said.

"U-um..." Angharad let out, voice cracking.

Where they supposed to know what this was about?

"I'm going to go," Angharad said, turned and walked back out of the hospital. Then Freya said, "Me, too," and followed her. The robot stared at Jin, metal face unblinking, until he panicked and did the same.

"What was that?" Jin asked, when he caught up with Angharad and Freya. "Did someone make a woman robot with a sexy lady voice just for Angharad?"

"Shut up, that's so weird," Angharad said.

"We should go somewhere and talk, alone," Freya said.

Jin grabbed Angharad by the elbow so she couldn't go somewhere and cause trouble and said, "You're coming with us."

"To watch you... talk?" Angharad asked.

Freya laughed. "You did say you wanted that."

Oh, she meant... Jin felt himself get warm all over. It was too late to back out by the time he realised, and it wasn't like they could do anything it would be weird to have someone see. Or at least, so he told himself when he tried to justify not letting Angharad out of his grip, even as Freya moved to her other side to whisper something in her ear.

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