Borealis Twenty One - Perpendiculars in Parallel

     Ember smiled, "Yup, I was right behind you." She walked over to Aurora's side and looked out at the city along with her friend. "If it hadn't been for that champagne bottle of yours, I probably would have never noticed you."
     "You think so?" Aurora asked, somewhat rhetorically.
     "Yeah. I mean, you're lucky it wasn't more than just me and those guys--"
     "The Riser Dogs?"
     "Yeah, who noticed you. You know," Ember turned to face Aurora, but the city girl kept her face planted against the window. "You never did tell me where you got that bottle from."
     Sounding somewhat bored with Ember's question, the city girl responded, "Garnet."
     "What?"
     "Garnet. I got it from Garnet. He gave it to me. He gives me all sorts of things."
     Aurora watched the activity going on outside on the various visible roofs and buildings, partially glad that she wouldn't have to deal with the stresses of the outside for once, partially sad that she wasn't in between those stresses roaming the city with the wind in her hair. The air inside the city felt so stale. "Hey, Ember," she said.
     Ember was lost in thought.
     "Ember?"
     "Hm? Yeah?"
     "If you didn't know what eggs were until today, how did you know what champagne was when you saw me?"
     Ember walked away from the window to the back of the room. "We actually have that here."
     "You do? Why would you have that and not eggs?"
     "Eggs don't help you feel better."
     Aurora turned away from the window. "Feel better? How does champagne make you feel better. It just makes me sleepy."
     "That's just it. It makes you feel different. It numbs you and makes you forget about life for a little while. Isn't that why you drink it?"
     Bored again, the city girl turned back to her city, and said, "I suppose so. I've never really thought about it much. I just hate dreaming."
     The girls had been so excited a few moments ago. Now they both felt so tired, like they had used up all of their emotions in one go. It seemed boredom was the only thing that they could feel with any enthusiasm after going through everything that they had been through. They were thirsty too. So that was something outside of boredom that they could feel. Garnet hadn't had anything to drink on hand when they had eaten breakfast that morning, which was somewhat ironic, considering what had led them to be in his presence, at least in a round about way.
     Ember waved her hand in front of one of the white tiles on the wall perpendicular to the room's window. The tile pixelated away and revealed a cold, cloudy cubby that was self lit and glowing with a light pulse. Ember waved away another tile, the one directly below the cubby. Hidden there were a couple silver knobs and a dozen brass buttons on a black panel. There was a screen as well, black like the panel and filled with green, electronic lettering that changed with each button press. After a few minutes, Ember decided on a button combination and turned one of the knobs. A glass door slid over the front of the cubby, and the cubby slowly filled with white, puffy smoke. The smoke swirled around as it entered, pulling closer to the center of the machine as it spun. Within seconds, it congealed together and hardened, forming two glasses. Green and blue liquids then poured from the roof of the cubby, mixing together inside the two glasses to create a vibrant sort of glowing turquoise. Once the glasses were filled, the glass door slid away, Ember reached inside and grabbed the glasses, and then walked back over to her friend's side.
     "Thirsty?" she said.
     Her friend didn't respond, but there was an odd expression on her face, one that suggested dread and confusion.
     Ember moved closer to Aurora, "Are you okay?"
     The city girl swallowed nervously, "How are we here?"
     "What do you mean? We walked here. Garnet--"
     "No, I mean how are we here if the building I was sitting on, the one right there, is the second tallest building in Borealis?"
     Ember didn't understand. "Well, shouldn't this one be the tallest, then?" she asked.
     Aurora shook her head. "No. It shouldn't. Because that one is." She pointed at a building off in the distance that towered far above everything else in the city. "I was staring at it the night you saw me, and I certainly don't remember there ever being anything behind me that night. No building. Only sky."
     "Here." Ember tapped her foot on the floor twice, and a small, waist high cylinder emerged from the floor where she had tapped. She set down the glasses on the cylinder and turned her full attention to where her friend was pointing. "Well," she said. "That building does appear to be level with this one. Maybe it's one of those buildings. If it is, I can't believe I've never noticed it before."
     Placing her index fingers about two feet away from each other, both above and below Aurora's pointing finger, Ember drew a nearly perfect circle around Borealis' tallest building. The second the circle was finished, the entire window went black, with the exception of what was inside the circle. Aurora gasped and jumped back. Ember laughed and pinched the center of the remaining piece of visible window. Just like a camera, the window began to zoom in on the building off in the distance. In less than a minute, the girls could see the side of the city's tallest building as though it were only five feet in front of them.
     Ember looked over at her friend, who was now sweating, smirked and said, "Mirage." She turned back to the window and saw in it what she expected to find. Herself and her friend staring right back at her.

Borealis Twenty - Adroit Anomalies

     The long, metal hallway was purple and cold. Aurora didn't like it. It was too small and cramped. Where was the sky? Why was it so dark?
     Ember walked along in front, quiet and cautious. "You okay?" she said, looking back, a faint echo following her words.
     "I'm fine," Aurora lied. Her new clothes were too tight.
     "Loosen up, will ya?" Ember said with a slight smirk. "The goal is not to stick out." She thought for a moment. "Not that that's really achievable given that there are no records of you ever living here. Your name isn't on file. Your face--"
     "I thought you said you watched us somehow, even though you're in here. Doesn't that mean other people watch us too, people that know my face?" Aurora said as she tugged at her white shirt and pants with some futility, hoping that they would suddenly free up and stop clinging to her so snugly.
     "Yeah... I guess." Ember turned back around. "I just mean that you're not supposed to be in here, which is sort of 'duh,' right? People can't hide stuff like that with new clothes and a hair brush."
     That was of little comfort to Aurora. "Then what do we do?"
     Ember was silent. "Um," she started. "I never really thought that far ahead. I just wanted to meet you." Ember sighed. "And, it didn't help that Garnet practically forced us through that false wall. What was he thinking anyway?" She threw her hands in the air. "Oh no! A little boy's coming to get us! Oooo!"
     The girls walked on for a few minutes, mostly listening to each other breath. Their footsteps were largely muted by their rubber soled shoes. Aurora wasn't used to shoes either. She very well might have been better off as a new born, pigeon toed duckling. Her movement and posture was almost as awkward, and she wouldn't have looked so much like someone from the desert had she actually been a duckling. Aurora frowned.
     At the end of the hall was the only light the girls could see, and it was the one responsible for all the purple in the hallway. The closer the girls got, the more white the bulb and its light seemed to become. Next to the light, on the right, was a rusted metal door. Aurora didn't like the look of it. Perhaps it led to an even smaller and darker place. She shivered. The thought of it was absolutely dreadful to her.
     Ember, unaware of her friend's fear, started talking again. "Really," she said. "I thought you would have been left shivering on the floor by now."
     "Because it's cold?"
     "No. You have to be claustrophobic on some level, I'd imagine."
     She was. She didn't know the word, however, but she was. Had it not been in her nature to mask any weakness, even around those she trusted, she probably would have just collapsed into shivers upon entering the hallway. She was beginning to have some difficulty breathing as it was... Despite the look of the door and her concerns about it where it might lead, she just wanted something to open up this hallway and give her some more space.
     At the door, the girls stopped and looked at one another. Aurora gave Ember a sheepish smile, but Ember didn't see it in Aurora's silhouette. The silly Roof Rat was standing right in front of the now purplish white light. Ember, rolling her eyes and showing yet another halfway amused smirk, put her hands on the door's wheel handle and turned. It opened with little fuss or force and with almost no squinging or screeching to accompany it.
     "Huh. Wasn't expecting that, " Ember said drollfully.
     They both walked through the door, Ember first and Aurora second. The door closed lightly behind them.
     "Huh. Wasn't expecting that either."
     Before them stretched another hallway, this time well lit, nearly too well lit for the poor outside girl who had never seen artificial light before. The hall was wide, littered with closed doors and intersections, and the end of the hallway wasn't even visible. This was a new source of stress for Aurora.
     She looked over to her friend who had by now gone forward a few steps. "What do we do now?"
     Ember shook her head. "I don't believe it. I can't believe we're just right here."
     "What?" Aurora was confused and starting get a headache from all the fluorescent lighting.
     The fiery blonde whipped around, her grin toothy, straight, and ear to ear.
     "What?" Aurora asked again, this time nervous.
     "Haha!" Ember jumped up and down. "We're on the other side of the city!" She ran up and grabbed Aurora by the shoulders. "Garnet teleported us to the other side of the city! And look!" Aurora followed the girl's finger toward the way they had come. "That door's not even a door anymore! It's a wall! It's a freaking wall!"
     There were no words. The Roof Rat simply raised her eyebrows.
     Her friend ran over a few feet down the hall and then pointed at another wall. "This is my room!"
     "It's a wall."
     "And it's my room! It's hidden! Watch!" Ember ran her finger along the wall, drawing a large rectangle.
     The wall fuzzed briefly and then revealed a simple white door, much like the others that lined the hallway. The door opened. Inside was a room with three large white walls and one giant, wall-sized window that looked out onto a rooftop, the one where Aurora had been captured and the place she had slept after getting tipsy that night. The shards of glass and even a little blood, all of it was still there, glistening in the midday sun.
     Aurora rushed inside to the window, glad to see the outside again. She pressed her face against the window, much like Ember had done before. "I can't believe it," she said. "You were right behind me the entire time!"

Borealis Five - Yester's Eve

     Ember pressed her face against the window and stared at the girl who was sleeping outside. She noticed that the girl had a giant champagne bottle lying next to her. "Where did she get that?" Ember wondered. The Unfortunate Ones had no access to such items. The Business Types had made sure of that fact. Every room inside Borealis' buildings was airtight. Every window was one way, allowing the Business Types to keep constant watch over the Unfortunate Ones. And every door and every gateway on the outside of the buildings opened up to nothing more than a metal wall. All of the real doors were hidden, and the Unfortunate Ones had no knowledge of this cruel truth thanks to the robots the Business Types had built to guard the false doors and gateways.
     "Maybe we can be friends," Ember said to herself as she watched Aurora sleep. "I had no idea there was anyone out there like me." She removed her face from the window, brushed her short, blonde hair behind her ears, and walked over to the door of the small, empty room she was in. "Time to get busy."
     Without a sound, Ember slipped out of the small room and shut the door. She then traced her finger along the lines of the door's frame, activating a hologram that made the door appear as though it were just another part of the wall. Once she was content that no one had seen what she had done, she made her way down the hallway and disappeared.