[Aftermath Interlude]

Chapter 19 / 05

The Bonnair Hotel

The great building was called Bonnair Hotel. It was a multi-sectioned structure with pleasing arches and a sloped roof. On the lower floors, the walls were almost entirely glass.

Lamet was more interested in the HDF blockade they had to pass through. Officers had the front entrance cordoned off with their vehicles. They were not given any trouble, just a curt nod of acknowledgement as they sidled between the cars.

It was those ‘cars’ that kindled Lamet’s curiosity. A mystery beyond that of the shining white chamber pot. She took in every detail as she passed. Four doors. Enough room to seat two in the front and three in the back if they squeezed. The two sides were separated by a clear wall, but she already knew that was only standard in the HDF vehicles. A seam below the back window suggested it opened upward like a chest.

She also noticed a pipe at the bottom. She had seen the stations where they pumped liquid fuel into the machines, so clogged with vehicles now that the stations were useless. Any burning of fuel necessitated a way to exhaust smoke and fumes.

The last detail she noticed was the mirrors that allowed the operator to see behind them.

Despite her renown for exploration in Mount Flange she had in truth explored very little. Enough to amass a collection of Rites that impressed the lazy who could not even bother to complete all the ones they could perform at home, but nowhere near enough to satisfy her hunger for exploration. The wonders of Earth only deepened her yearning for adventure.

Inside the hotel, a chamber that would have been impressively spacious any other day was cramped with tents, leaving only enough space for an orderly path to an ornate desk. As they walked up to it, she peered into the tents to see that they were, as she suspected, occupied by refugees.

A middle-aged man and two pretty women in crisp uniforms sat behind the desk. His face lit up at the sight of them. “My friends!” he said, his voice excited but weary. He was covered in bruises. Was he a survivor of the Leviathan Train?

“I’m glad you made it out unharmed, Chrisk.” Richard said.

The man laughed. “Broke my leg in the crash.” he nodded towards the thick casing over his leg. “Nothing compared to what these folks are going through.” He sighed “There’s a lot of tough decisions to make in a time like this, you know. A lot of planning to do, organisation.”

Everyone just nodded along as he spoke.

“There’s only so much space to go around,” his arm swept out before him, “and you have bastards as rich as me trying to book up the hotel rooms for their families. Had to waive all the fees. No one can book them now.” He shook his head, a gesture that surely aggravated the bruises on his neck. “I’m shocked how hard it was to assign rooms efficiently. You hope that if you’re going to have to cram people in like sardines you can at least get groups who know each other together. We pulled it off thanks to the incredible HDF directors.” He reached into a drawer under the table.

Odd, Lamet thought. By his words he must be the hotel owner or someone close, yet she thought it was rare to see people with wealth, as he claimed, to mingle amongst the downtrodden and serve the poor from their own hands. Another detail to swell her curiosity.

“How many did you get in here?” Richard asked.

Chrisk placed a pair of small boards on the counter. They were bright blue with a black stripe. “Three hundred and fifty rooms… Average six per room, basement and lobby areas, all the outside courtyards…” He met Richard’s eyes and frowned. “Over two thousand? Nowhere near enough. It’s the same with all my hotels, but when millions are displaced it will never be enough.”

“I know how you feel.” Richard turned his palm face up, and surprisingly, Chrisk returned the gesture. Lamet was impressed. These men had taken the time to learn, and used the gesture for the benefit of the purens in their company. Some were not so open-minded.

“You guys saved the world so try not to feel too guilty in your room. Use these in the elevator.” He held out the little boards and Geoff accepted them with a grateful nod. “I’ll take care of everyone I can. Just as long as folk like you can keep us out of hot water. Go get some rest, and let me know if you need anything.”

They approached two shiny metal doors in the wall that slid open silently when a button was pushed. The chamber inside was covered in mirrors. The doors closed and Geoff pushed one of the boards into a slot above columns of buttons.

The chamber jerked subtly. She had seen a similar chamber at the shopping structure—minus the mirrors—that brought them to the roof, but she had not worked out its mechanisms yet.

Soon the shiny doors pulled apart again and revealed a tightly-ruged hall that had only one way to go. They ended at a pair of strong doors with elegantly curved handles and a black box embedded in the wall nearby.

Geoff touched the board to the box, teasing a soft click out of the doors. They glided open, revealing a glistening tiled floor the same brown colour as bino fur. Lamet narrowed her eyes at the device. The only unseen power she knew of beyond magic was magnetism. Did it use a pattern of hidden magnets like the unique teeth of a key? But that may be easily bypassed by a single larger magnet. Her only other thought was that it may harness electricity somehow, but she had not seen the telltale flashes or crackles of its use.

They stepped into the chamber. A couple of benches and a pair of elegant coat racks were the only furniture. Two pairs of shoes were tucked by the racks, one much smaller than the other.

An excited “Oh!” came from beyond another set of doors, and the moment Geoff swung them open a little girl with Geoff’s complexion sprang out and wrapped herself around him.

“Daddy!” He lifted her into his arms and squeezed her tightly. It was a bit awkward with all the flowers he was holding. Her long curly hair was tied into a fluffy tail at the back of her head, creating a puff of hair nearly as big as her head itself.. “Hi Rick!” she waved her little hand over her father’s shoulder.

“Good to see you, Marinda.” Richard replied.

“Hey baby girl,” Geoff grinned at his daughter. “Tough day?”

“Everything exploded,” she said. “Is that a costume?” she asked, looking at Sparlyset.

“It’s a long story,” Richard scrunched up his face uncomfortably. “These two are aliens from that world in the sky. Sparlyset and Lamet. Ladies, this is Marinda.”

Lamet gave Marinda a palm-up.

“That wasn’t long.” she said.

“Trust me, that was the very short version.”

They would all tire of telling the tale in time.

A woman marched over with a stern expression on her face. Her hair was short and tidy, a style Lamet was not used to seeing on women. But the curves of her body denied any thought that she was not feminine, just as surely as her cold stare denied the notion of cheer in her mood.

Geoff’s wife held out her arm to welcome them inside. As they entered she spared them only a glance and a quick, “Nice to meet you, I’m Geoff’s wife Beatrice.” She was fixed on her husband with a look that said everything they already knew. He was in trouble.

A brilliant cream-coloured crescent made the primary floor area, with an open room to the left full of white boxes and long counters. A kitchen much larger than Richard’s, though many of its fixtures were similar.

“I’m glad you’re safe, Geoffry Friction,” Beatrice said, putting an arm across his shoulder and kissing him gently on the lips. “You had us worried sick.” Her tone was calm, but there was a fierceness in her words.

Lamet looked to the opposite side of the entrance where there was a dark polished wood table that sat six.

“I know, baby,” Geoff said. “Everything happened so fast. As soon as that monster appeared they sent me to help the Pillars fight it. Couldn’t even find a payphone to call you.”

“Did you look for a payphone?” Her arm swung down to her hip and she leaned forward just enough to convey aggression without threatening him directly.

Lamet heard him gulp and laughed silently to herself. Beatrice gave her the impression of a woman with a fiery personality, but not of someone unreasonable. She may be judging too soon, but she suspected Geoff would be fine once Beatrice had vented the day’s frustrations.

The crescent floor stepped down to a lower area where thick-cushioned seats made a semi-circle around a low table of the same wood as the other. Marinda was already bouncing in one of the seats. Beatrice led Geoff down by the hand and sat next to him in a seat for two.

“I didn’t have time to look for a payphone to call you. It was eating the Unity building! And still all I could think about was how safe my girls were.” he clarified. “And Rick was missing so I was on my own!”

“Mhm, I know you were thinking about Rick.” She bit her lip, keeping whatever thought she had to herself. “Who are all these flowers for? I know you didn’t get me some roses.”

Geoff smirked nervously. “Nah baby I know you don’t like roses. We only stopped a second ‘cause the shop was in trouble. I was in a hurry to get to you but Rick wanted to help.” His wife took the colourful bouquet. Richard took the roses from Geoff and carried Sparlyset off down a corridor. Lamet slowly stepped in that direction.

“That thing has been gone for hours and still no call from you…” she said almost absentmindedly, turning the bouquet over in her hands.

A closed door marked where Richard and Sparlyset had gone. The corridor continued around a flight of stairs to another door, a washing room with an entrance into the chamber Richard was hiding in. Lamet could see at least four more doors upstairs without going up, but decided to lean against the wall instead of investigating.

Geoff was still defending himself.

“You had time to shower, get a change of clothes… Rick’s clothes.” Her eyes snapped up to meet his like a bow drawn and ready to fire. “I kept expecting—hoping—one of your fellow officers would tell me you were alright.”

Geoff sweat like a cornered beast. She almost expected scales to pop out of his skin defensively.

His wife continued speaking. “Why are these so dirty?”

Geoff looked for help, but found Richard missing. “That’s because… the dirt symbolises all the shit we've been through together.”

Beatrice surprised Lamet by bursting into laughter. It was a deep, genuine laugh that had her buckled over in her seat. “You dumbass.” She kissed him again. “Bring me some dirty-ass flowers but you’re ready with that sweet sugar hmm?” She kissed him yet again. Marinda looked away. “Tell me why they’re so beat up, missing petals like they’ve been stomped on and tossed around?”

Geoff smiled back at her. “So that every time you look at them you think of me.”

She laughed again, and gave his shoulder a playful whack that made him wince. “That’s my baby. You know just what to say. Thank you for saving the world.”

Geoff laughed, and Beatrice’s mirth vanished like smoke. “I’m still not happy.” she said. “And I won’t be until I know my husband is fed and proper. She stood up and strode towards the kitchen. “But you… you make sure we know you’re all right.”

Geoff sagged into his seat as he relaxed.

Beatrice turned a cold look to Lamet. “One of those aliens,” she said. “From that world up the sky. I heard rumours.” She pulled open the cold crate. It was packed so full of food that a haunch of meat tumbled out. “That pink one is cute,” she said, putting the meat back and pulling out something else. “Is she sweet on Rick yet?”

“Yeah,” Geoff said. He tilted his head back instead of turning in his seat.. “Called him her ‘romantic partner’. She’s the one that beat the monster.”

“Oh, so you’re saying you don’t get all the credit? And here I was going to give you an extra point.”

He waved his arm back towards her. “I’m taking that point. Finally catching up to you, babe.”

“By your count, maybe.” she laughed.

Lamet pondered the meaning of the scores they were tracking, but decided it best to just ask. “What is this competition?”

“It’s the number of times we’ve saved each other.” Richard told her. He was standing in the doorway with Sparlyset in front of him in a chair with wheels. She looked somewhat regal sitting with a blanket over her legs and her arms folded in her lap holding a single rose. “It’s something we started doing a long time ago to cope with the stress of combat,” he continued. “Hasn’t been much danger since then, though. Until, you know.”

“What are the points?” Lamet inquired.

Richard shrugged. “Depends who you ask.”

“By Beatrice’s count.”

He tried to stifle a laugh. “If you ask her, it’s hard to keep track because it goes up every time she feeds him.”

“You know that’s right,” Beatrice said.

Geoff shook his head. “One time I said that jerk chicken saved my life and now every meal counts. Don’t even get me started on Rick. What is it, twelve? Thirteen?”

“Doesn’t really matter.” Richard shrugged.

“Meanwhile I think I’ve got four on Rick, two on B–no four now on Bea.”

“Three!” Sparlyset said proudly, gazing up at Richard.

Geoff sighed. “One day and she’s caught up.”

While Beatrice prepared food with a little help from Marinda, Richard and Geoff relaxed. Sparlyset, unsurprisingly, sat in Richard’s lap after demonstrating that the bars over her chair’s wheels allowed her to move it on her own. She was small enough that she didn’t look too awkward on him.

Lamet gave into temptation and joined them. She sat in a single seat and it absorbed her weight like magic. She sunk into it enough that all the aches in her body vanished, yet she still felt the seat supporting her. If not for the periodic growling of her stomach at the rich aroma of roasting meat, she would have been able to sleep there just by closing her eyes.

Soon she did close her eyes, and let the conversation drift soothingly into her ears. Marinda sprinted up the stairs and called down that there were not enough bed chambers for everyone. Lamet understood, but it was like a background melody as she lay there half awake. There were a mere four. As if it were not unbelievable to share so many rooms when one should do in these times.

Sparlyset said something about sharing with Richard, and Lamet had no doubt that she would be blushing brightly if she cared to look. She did not.

It prompted a question from Beatrice, “Why am I the only one who can’t understand these aliens?”

“Magic.” Geoff’s voice explained enthusiastically. “Purens have real magic. Something called a Rite of Tongues that lets you understand anything.”

“An impressive oversimplification,” Lamet said dryly without opening her eyes.

“So you did some sort of magic ritual and you speak alien now?” Her tone was sceptical.

Richard shook his head. “Geoff barely even knows. There is a ritual, but Geoff is just borrowing the power of it for a bit.”

She ignored the conversation while Richard explained what he knew of Rites. The smell of all the foods Beatrice was cooking—more than just meat—permeated the room.

“Lamet’s the expert on Rites though, that’s why they call her the Riteweaver.” Richard finished.

“I am called the Riteweaver because I possess nine Rites, three more than are even obtainable in Mount Flange, and five more than anyone else in the village.” She could not help but swell with pride as she bragged. One day she may even tell Richard that she was the one who discovered the artefact he wore on his wrist. And Sparlyset’s Bearing Bag, and the Bolting Bar she kept inside it…

She found herself drifting off for real, but she was not worried. They would wake her when food was ready.