The easiest way to get to the box was to line up once, and Gretel found herself doing that exact thing again, quickly managing to get to the front of the queue and picking up a sheet of paper.
It was preserved inside two other clear sheets, and after a moment, Gretel realised that she had been holding plastic within her hands.
She ran her fingers down the smooth sheen of it, noting how the surface was slightly cloudy in colour - a clear sign of the plastic having been taken from an already used item and then being recycled and being made to be as clearly as possible - and how it seemed to quickly warm up underneath her fingers, not at all inviting the same screeching sound as glass did underneath her nails.
The first thing she noticed on it was the symbol Theta, and wondered if she had maybe picked up something that she would need to put back to try to get something else that she could actually solve, but as she took a c
When she had finally finished tracing over the top of the diagrams and more lightly marking out the mottled and burnt areas of the sheet to make clear which areas were the result of her own extrapolation, a hand suddenly lightly poked her shoulder, causing her freeze.Somewhere within Gretel, the instinct to turn around with her fists raised to retaliate against the shock to her system rose up out of a pit, but at the same time, the image of the spy, begging for his life, flashed through her mind, the scene playing out in front of her, forcing her body to stop to a juddering halt in fear of retaliation.So she did nothing."Sorry for surprising you," a voice called out, apologetic in tone and whispering to be heard over the deafening and ringing silence of the room.She recognised it immediately and turned around to face Green_One, who was leaning over with a slightly sheepish and worried look.
"I had to go to one of the city ones for that job, and they did pay for everything, but I had siblings to look after and work to provide for, so I couldn't move to one of the Border Schools to go and study. Where did you go?" Green_One explained to her, tapping against his arms lightly with his fingers, just as he had done to Gretel to try and get her attention.It looked as if he was fighting within himself to keep himself in the world of the outside."I went to R2," Gretel succinctly replied, knowing that the name of her educational institution was infamous enough to provide all the adequate information and context needed.It took anyone and everyone with almost legendarily low prices for their places, with the drawback being the general environment and the absolute terror that was instilled in everyone who attended.Green_One gave a visible flinch when he heard the words coming out of her mouth, a
Lila clenched her fists anxiously in her lap, outside sitting in the waiting room next to a small, painted radiator and a water fountain.There was a train station only two streets away where she knew was a coffee where she could buy hot chocolate for herself to warm up the freezing blizzard that was raging inside of her.Her hands were shaking, and she forced her fingers to relax, laying her hands over her knees. Taking several deep breaths, Lila made sure to focus on the mechanical motions of it, doing her best to clear her mind as best as she could.It only worked for a short time and, within less than half a minute, Lila jumped out of her rickety plastic chair and began pacing the room.Her right arm was beginning to ache again, so she brought up her left arm to begin massaging it from the shoulder downwards.To distract herself, she poured herself a cheap, Styrofoam cup of water, and willingly shivered and suffered as she downed the whole drin
“What happened to your shoes?” Kai asked her when they had turned off of the street.“I gave them to the woman in the waiting room. She looked like she had panicked and run there in a hurry, so I gave them to her,” Lila explained to him, her blood buzzing right under her skin.She leapt up onto one of his arms and whispered,” Did everything work out alright?”Kai took a larger than usual step, ducked down a little, and then grinned at her.“Yeah,” he breathed out,” Yeah.”“I’m staying with you for a bit, because it’s a safe place to stay, and because I’m going to be an adult in less than a day now, I don’t have to go into foster care or live like Tracy Beaker,” he went on elaborating.It was as if the clouds had parted, and Kai couldn’t stop talking.He confessed that the police officer had been perfectly polite and kind to him, notin
Lila was working the next day, when the social worker came to visit.The lady was dressed in a prim suit with a satchel by her side, entirely put together and professional looking. She wore a little badge, pinned to her blazer, that held the town council logo and took her time choosing the frosted cupcake that she would like with the expresso that she was ordering.It set Lila on edge, but the police did as well, and she knew that she ought to get over her fear of authority some day.“Kai’ll be here in a few minutes. Traffic’s worse today,” Lila gave as an unprompted explanation.The woman nodded, and sat back in a booth towards the back of the café in the corner opposite the door, handily hidden from Lila and to anyone who was going to walk into the café.Kai turned up within a minute, panting and slightly red faced. His first words to Lila were,” Are they here yet?”Lila pointed him towards
“Are you sure that you want to point your eyes there?” Lila hesitantly asked Jasper, watching him nervously as he continued to stare into the general direction of the sun.“Don’t worry. It won’t do any damage,” he reassured her mildly, sounding as if he wasn’t quite paying attention to her.Lila nodded perfunctorily, taking another sip of tea. She didn’t really believe him but didn’t have the heart to do anything about him right now.Fiddling with the tissue in her nose, her pulled out the pieces and unfurled them, watching the red blood that had absorbed into the fibres.She turned them upside down and stuck them back in her nostrils before pulling them out again. There were a few specks present from the brief test, but nothing major that she needed to worry about.Reaching over to the side of the island, she binned the tissues and settled back into her seat. She pulled out her phone and checke
It was alright.Gretel would be alright."I'm sorry you had to go through that. I've heard horror stories and stuff. It wasn't good of them to use students to get out of paying for services," Green_One consoled her, bringing a hand up to tap her a few times on the shoulder."If you ever need to talk to somebody about it, I'm here, and so is Blue. He's better than me at this," Green_One went on to explain, before his hand dropped down and he went quiet.None of them spoke afterwards, the sounds of pencils scratching and paper rustling filled the void between them.Gretel cursed herself.She should have lied.If she had lied and had said literally any other institution, other than the truth, then the situation would have worked out far better, but no.She had to go ahead and think that she could open to the man in front
Lila was eventually let out with an additional plaster on her nose and her hair in a complicated updo of two braided buns sitting side by side and just above her neck. A little bit of hair had been pulled outwards to frame her face and both of the buns had been tied with red ribbons whose ends trailed down to just past her shoulders.She idly thumbed the list in her hands, fiddling with the folded paper as she made her way towards the town centre and the shops. Her first destination was the bank, before anything could be bought, and Lila was already dreading the visit.She didn’t like going to the bank; it made her feel like she could be arrested by just messing up on accident. She didn’t like using the machines that told her to keep all of her pins safe, but hardly offered any protections to allow it, and she hated the noises that all the machines made.“I’ve never been to this part of town,&rdqu
“Why’re you sleeping on the floor like that? Come on, get up. You’ll hurt your back doing that,” Doctor Marigold chided, dragging all her bits of heavy machinery around the office space to prepare for her demonstration.Behind her, Lila remained still.“I know that you’re not dead. Come, get up already,” she called out, stepping over a few sheets of paper that she had laid out to grab Lila by the shoulder and heave her up into sitting.The stubborn girl just flopped down again, not opening her eyes.“If you get the fuck up, we can move the flight a week forward so you can stop worrying about it,” Lucy Marigold shouted across the room.Like a rubber band, Lila snapped back up and finally opened her eyes.It had been harder to see the bags below them when they had been closed and Doctor Marigold wondered if she should buy the girl some sleep tablets.“I’m awake,” Li
Yolanda seemed to understand that she needed to back off and stop teasing Gretel, when the other woman's eyes suddenly misted over, and it was if she was no longer a part of this world.She kept the bubbling annoyance within her away from her face, putting on instead a mask of concern as she reached out and poked Gretel's arms, trying to maybe prod her out of her stupor and bring her back from the recesses of her mind.Yolanda had never actually seen somebody collapse inwards to a catatonic state over her own actions.It was interesting to see it all happen and fold out in front of her.She poked Gretel again, touching her in the face lightly to see if that would possibly work to pull the other woman out of her mind and back into the world where she was needed proper.It wouldn't reflect well on her if Gretel didn't wake up within the hour.It didn't feel as
When she awoke, she was sat ready to eat and was dressed just like her mother, in a pastel blouse and a lungi down to the floor.Lila looked down at herself and jumped when she heard rattling, noticing the ten, or so, bangles on each arm and the lines of mehndi that ran down all the way to the hems of her sleeves, resting halfway between her shoulders and elbows. A pin held her blouse shut at the top and a quick once over of her hair, with one of her hands, revealed that it had been styled in a simple bun and adorned with flowers.“This is weirdly romantic,” Lila commented, staring at the lit candles nestled in the variously sized candelabrums set around the circular room.There was no door, but a giant window which led to a balcony outside. There was no ceiling but the walls reaching upwards, all the way up, until they formed a dome in the same shade of dull brown that coated the floor and the giant, round table in the centre.The only dishes
“So, is she finally asleep?” Emmet asked the boy stood behind the counter. He was exceedingly slim for someone surrounded by sugar all day and Emmet could make out the outlines of his spindly elbows through his shirt. His face held a no nonsense, blunt, and almost bored expression. “Yeah, she is. She’s been knocked out on the sofa since I sent her back there,” Kai answered the long haired man in front of him, his hair pulled back by a ribbon matching his eyes before being pulled over his shoulder once more. He looked vain. “Oh good. Don’t tell her that I was involved,” the man asked, putting both his palms up to face Kai. “I’m telling her that you’re a fucking weirdo for that,” was the scowled answer. “No. Seriously, don’t tell her. She doesn’t like me and I don’t like her. She’s known my partner for longer that I’ve known him. She doesn’t trust me with him. Why’re you making that face?” Emmet tried to justify himself before giving up
“Are you sure that you’re getting enough sleep?” Kai asked Lila, watching her sway on her feet and clutching the front counter.“Yes,” she gasped, dropping her head into her hands, elbows on the table.“Go and lie down on the sofa. Go to sleep for a bit. I’ll wake you up when I have to leave for college,” Kai instructed her, tapping her on the shoulders and shepherding her towards the office.“… fine,” she conceded, letting Kai move her along towards the back.“You know that this just proves my point,” Kai pointed out, pushing her through the boundary of the door and closing it behind her.“Fine,” she whispered back to him, talking into the silence of the office.She let herself fall over the sofa, draping her upper body over the arm rest and letting her head be cushioned by the pillows. Shuffling a bit over to put her body entirely on the sofa, Lila f
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now again!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now keep on going!”Lila landed each punch, timing her breaths to the count as she moved her fists, dodging underneath the swing that came towards her head, before blocking the second hit that came to her and moving along with the force of the fist that hit her arm.The swinging punching bag forced distance between Lila and Tweedle Dum, and she stepped back to where she was stood before, within the path of the moving bad, to put more distance between him and her.“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”Lila punched the bag once more, landing all of her hits.“Okay, time for a break,” Tweedle Dum announced, grabbing the punching bag and pulling it back to him as Lila moved away from the centre of the room, sitting down on one of the rickety plastic chairs at the side of the room.She took of
“Bitch! Why’d you run off and abandon me like that!?” Lila shouted from behind the counter when Kai finally walked back into the store.She was waving her hands about and wore an apron covered in flour as the single customer in the store, an old man precariously balancing on his cane, slept whilst leaning on the radiator.“I thought that you wanted some bonding time with your family so I left you to do that it private!” Kai answered her, tiptoeing past their unconscious patron, in a combination of whispering and shouting.“They’re hardly my family and you left us in the middle of a public café!” Lila cried, not modulating her voice at all.In the background, the old man began to snore.“But you still talk to them a lot like you do to me, so I let you, and besides, I got about fifty more pages of Good Omens done in Waterstones,” Kai appealed, finally at the counter and opening up the
Gretel and Silver had their fun as he continued to teach her how the interface worked and how he had managed to figure out that the system was an older model from the lack of integration between the screen and the touch pad, and explaining how easily it would potentially be to do so once the technology, as displayed in this device, had been demonstrated and established to work in a functional product."We were working on something like this as well, back in the workshops back home for the company that I was in the research and development department for. We were trying to get our motion sensors to be as small as possible for more commercial and personal use of technology that we could sell to the public and those who couldn't afford the contact computers.We had no idea on how their tech worked, because of trade and company secrets and all, but we managed to piece together a few things by looking at the patents and when we bought a few and m
“Alright, the shop’s free. Why are you actually here?” Lila questioned, crossing her arms and staring down at the tablecloth of Jasper and Emmet’s table.“I’ve got lesson now. I’ll be back in a few hours,” the teenage boy behind Lila announced, picking up a bag that had been hidden behind the counter the entire time and rushing outside.Lila continued to stand there, waiting for a reply.Jasper couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t meeting either his or Emmet’s eyes.“Are you planning to leave us?” he asked her back.Lila’s fingers dug into the creases of her shirt,” I’m going to be leaving for a trip soon, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Kai’ll be running the shop and will be looking after things, broadly. He lives here now and I scheduled my leave for when his school term ends so he can take care of things.”“On thi