28. The Other Journeyman #2
An and stood behind another reception counter while other disks-shaped automatons floated around to clean any speck of dust or serve drinks to the silent guests who sat on the spotless couches.
The few people in the lobby wore white robes that looked too ceremonial for bathing.
Everyone was either in their neurospace or reading without noting our arrival.
We left the main hall, passing by a few guests on their respective panels, who didn’t even look our way as we gawked at them. I looked at Ralia, shrugged, then grabbed onto her as our panel came to a stop. I readjusted my stance and turned to see elevator doors open.
The doors started to close, so Ralia stepped forward with my hand in hers to stop it before it could. Our panel remained behind, which was a nice change to our automated tour.
She tapped the button next to the thirty-eighth floor and the elevator began to ascend. I looked around, trying to sense what was off. It was clean and white, but it matched the rest of the hotel, which should not have been as off-putting as I felt.
“Oh my,” I said under my breath.
Ralia looked at me and raised her eyebrows as if she also felt the pressure to maintain peace.
“There’re no advertisements!” I pointed at the bare door before us where a screen would have played an ad anywhere else in the world.
I had to remind myself that we weren’t in the same world.
This was not Republic property. No country had direct ties to the moon, which had always left me confused by its capitalist purpose as a resort, but now I knew why.
Maybe the other hotels had ads, but this place was an exception.
Were the other people here guests? Or were they members of the Correction as well?
Their robes were certainly fitting, but then again, all we knew about the Correction was based on rumor, brief mentions, and guesses.
The doors opened to yet another silent corridor with ethereal synth music.
White. Empty of life. Violet lines of light were the only sign that I had not been sucked into some madness-inducing white purgatory.
Ralia laughed under her breath.
“Do you think this is as weird as I do?” I asked.
“Absolute zegging whack.” She looked at some of the numbers on the doors, then pointed to the right. Our room was only five doors down. She looked into the retinal scanner. The door pulsed violet. then opened for us.
At least there was furniture. I half expected to walk in on another empty room with some kind of pod for sleeping or a float pool for an embryonic sleep simulation.
“Awe, two beds?” She sat on hers. It was white, as was everything else besides the black screen on the wall and a few golden decorations. “At least I won’t have to explain anything to Naoma when we get back, right, babe?”
“Right.” I sighed as I collapsed on my bed.
Despite the lack of coziness throughout the entire hotel, I knew instantly that I was laying on the softest mattress I had ever touched.
I turned over to look at Ralia, who sat and looked around the room.
If anyone else had made the comments that Ralia did, I would have been uneasy and in need of distance.
Looking at her, I saw the same Ralia I had always known.
One of my closest friends and the light amidst the darkness, Ralia was unbreakable.
Aside from the slight deviation with Sha, I wondered if she was actually that happy when she was alone.
Everyone has low moments, but did she experience more to compensate for her ceaseless joyful output.
Was she lonely?
Of course she had us. Friends made up for a lot of loneliness, but there was a certain hole only a closer friend could fill.
Naoma was filling my abyss.
Did Ralia have someone? Not everyone felt like they needed a companion, but Ralia’s continual flirty remarks led me to believe that she was yearning for something more. I had heard her mention dating a Finian before joining Deleon, but I leaned more on the side of believing that it was a joke.
I let my hands lay back above my head. One of my hands landed on a piece of paper.
“What is that?” Ralia stood and walked over to my bed
She grabbed it, but I kept one hand on it to keep it between us.
Welcome to Hadrian Palace,
We look forward to hosting you and hope you find your room comfortable. Please scan the code below to enter an encrypted chat with your Correction representative. We eagerly await your response and look forward to meeting you in person.
A black rectangle of pixels had been printed on the bottom. We both scanned it and entered a group chat on our neurospace.
Ralia: Hihow?
Advisor: Welcome to the moon. We hope your journey was not too fraught with difficulties. Are you ready to proceed with your membership?
Ralia: Yes.
Advisor: Thank you for your timely response. Please head to the lobby where I will meet you. Look for a red robe amidst the white.
Ralia: Then what?
Advisor: What good is a bright mind without patience?
Ralia: Right. See you there.
Advisor: Likewise.
She was already at the door by the time I exited my neurospace. I opened my mouth to ask for another minute of rest but knew that she was not in the mood.
I burned some of my light reserve, giving me a surge of energy. Hunger would catch up soon despite the excessive amounts of teeth we had eaten to prepare for such a long trip.
Neither of us spoke on the way down. I wanted to say something but had no idea what I could say to change or improve our circumstances.
I could steer as much as I wanted, but our vehicle was cliff bound regardless of our direction.
Zhou had been nothing more than an odd obstacle.
Perhaps that was undermining his influence but meeting him had not changed everything.
This could. If the Correction was everything the Luxists led us to believe, the world’s understanding of the entire existence of their planet was on our backs.
Fail, and their ignorance would perpetuate and feed Gong’s planetary appetite. Succeed…
Could we change the world’s view?
What would it take to convince humanity that everything they knew about their world was a lie?
What could a failure like me ever hope to do?
I waited for Zhu to whisper a sentiment of peace or assurance, though that was not a common occurrence from him. It never came.
The elevator chimed.
Ralia led the way. I followed, trying to keep confidence in my composure.
Someone stood beyond the pillars, that red robed man who might be the final step towards pivoting the world towards destruction or freedom.
The man bowed as we approached. He eyed us, never extending a hand to shake, then pulled back his hood, revealing milk-white skin that could only be found on an and. “Are you ready?” His voice was clear, mellow, yet obviously lacking the emotional inflection of a human.
I turned to Ralia, hoping she would at least give me a second to exchange a silent agreement.
She focused on the and, never turning to me as she said, “Yes.”
He checked me, those pale blue eyes reading me and scanning deeper. I opened my mouth to say “yes” with her, but it spoke before I could.
“Please follow.”
We walked down the hall a few steps before a summoned panel floated towards us. This one was a few feet larger than the one we had taken.
The and watched us step up behind it. Once we found our balance, the and nodded and the panel obeyed its silent command.
We passed through various rooms and common areas, some with pillars and fountains, others with nothing more than a monochromatic tapestry of the Hadrian Palace as if it were a blueprint rendering.
Some of the people we passed noticed us, but most kept to themselves and spoke to one another in calm, quiet voices which increased the pressure of uneasy solemnity that filled the hotel like dense mist.
We reached an elevator, this one much wider than the one we had used. We entered and the and pressed the button for floor negative fourty. The floors counted backwards, providing no access to the upper residential levels, but descending from negative one to negative fifty.
Our descent began and my stomach followed.
I felt an odd reassurance in seeing that the hotel’s absurdity could be explained by this new enigma.
A new puzzle did little to explain the other, but at least I could feel somewhat justified in giving up my hope of understating everything that was happening.
Our silent ride ended and the doors opened with a quiet, synthetic chime. The decor was similar to the sterile white of the hotel above, but there were more light lines and people to give it life.
That still did little to comfort me.
Those we passed left lingering gazes on us.
I couldn’t blame them. I wore my dark work jumpsuit and Ralia wore spandex.
Not everyone down here was in robes, though many still had them over their business attire.
High collared button ups, ironed pants, and so forth made them all feel like colorless individuals whose light lines were even the now too-familiar white.
“Where are we?” I asked.
The and pointed ahead to a large pale blue veil of light. The people we passed were either leaving it or mingling in the hallway to gossip about the odd intruders, or so I felt inclined to believe.
I kept my head down until we passed through the veil.
As we did, my neurospace connected to a new network and received an abundance of notifications that granted me access to a variety of chatrooms and cognitive libraries.
The chamber we entered was larger than Hadrian Palace, at least above ground.
Straight ahead a railing blocked us from the open center of the room.
The paths to the left and right met on the opposite end and the rings continued above and below as if the entire basement was connected by the empty space in the middle.
About ten floors above us a holographic pyramid rotated in the air with an eye on each side.