If You Take My Meaning - Charlie Jane Anders Page 0,2
you. I love you.”
“I love you too. Both of you.” Alyssa started to say something else, but a massive, dark shell was rising out of the darkness on the far side of the mountain. “Shit. I need to go.”
Alyssa let go of Sophie, clutching the satchel, and gave Mouth one last smile, then turned to face the writhing tentacles of the nearest Gelet. These two slippery ropes of flesh groped the air, reaching out to her.
* * *
As soon as they swathed Alyssa in woven moss and lifted her in their tentacles, she freaked out. She couldn’t move, couldn’t escape, couldn’t even breathe. Her inner ear could not truck with this rapid descent down a sheer cliff, and somehow she wasn’t ready for this disorientation, even though she’d talked through it with Sophie over and over. Alyssa wanted to yell that she’d changed her mind, this was a mistake, she wanted to go back to her family. But the Gelet would never understand, even if she could make herself heard.
She kept going down and down. Alyssa tried to tell herself this was just like being inside the Resourceful Couriers’ sleep nook next to Mouth, except that she was alone, and she couldn’t just pop out if she wanted to pee or stretch or anything. She held herself rigid as long as she could, and then she snapped—she thrashed and screamed, twisting her body until her spine wrenched.
A random memory popped up in Alyssa’s head: huddling with the other Chancers in the hot gloom of a low-ceilinged basement on the day side of Argelo, after the Widehome job had gone flipside. (Because they’d burned down the wrong part of the building.) Lucas had squatted next to Alyssa, listing chemical formulas in a low voice, his usual anxiety strategy, and Wendy had fidgeted without making any sound. Every bump and croak above their heads instantly became, in Alyssa’s mind, the Jamersons coming to murder them for what they’d done. This was the most terrified Alyssa had ever been, or probably ever would be, but also the closest she’d ever felt to anybody. These people were her indivisible comrades, any of them would die for the others, they were safe together in horrible danger.
Alyssa would always look back on that time in her life as the ideal, the best, the moment when she had a hope-to-die crew by her side, even though she could see all the flaws and the tiny betrayals. Honestly, she’d had way better friend groups since then, including the Resourceful Couriers, but that didn’t change how she felt.
Alyssa did not do well with helplessness, or chains, or trusting random strangers. But wasn’t that the whole point of this leap into darkness? Alyssa would get this mostly untested surgery, and then she would be able to share unfalsifiable information, and have massively expanded threat awareness thanks to the alien sensory organs. Sometimes you have to be more vulnerable in the short term, so that you can become more formidable later.
They must’ve reached the foot of the Old Mother without Alyssa noticing, what with all the turbulence. She had a sensation of moving forward, rather than downward, and her position in the web of tentacles shifted somewhat as well, and then at last they came to a stop and the Gelet unwrapped her tenderly. She landed on her feet inside a dark tunnel that sloped downward. This was almost scarier than the aftermath of the Widehome job, or at least it was scary in a different way.
They led her down the tunnel, patient with all her stumbles. She couldn’t see shit, but at least she was moving under her own power.
Alyssa kept reminding herself of what Sophie had said: she was the first human ever to visit the Gelet city, knowing what awaited her there. She was a pioneer.
The air grew warm enough for Alyssa to remove some of the layers of moss, and there were faint glimmers of light up ahead, so she must be entering the Gelet city proper. They needed to find a better name for it than “the midnight city.” Something catchy and alluring, something to make this place a destination.
“I’m the first human to come down here with my eyes open, knowing what awaits,” Alyssa said, loud enough to echo through the tunnel.
“Actually,” a voice replied from the darkness ahead of her. “You’re not. You’re the second, which is almost as good. Right?”
* * *
His name was Jeremy, and he had worked with Sophie at that