The Famoux

Chapter 7

"Good day, Zoya," says Norax.

"Well, good day to you as well." The woman sets down a creamy white pencil. Its noise echoes in the otherwise empty space around us. "Haven't seen you here for quite a long while, Norax. What brings you to the reformation headquarters in the middle of a Darkening?"

Norax gestures to me. "Zoya, meet Em."

Zoya scans the bit of my face she can see from her seat and nods. "Em. Hmm. Em." She repeats my name a couple times, as if to test it out, then nods again. "Em. And she's the successor, I presume?"

"You presume correctly."

"Lovely." Turning her head to me, she asks, "How do you feel about all this?"

I shrug, but it comes out more as a tremble. "Okay, I guess."

"Excited? This is a huge opportunity."

"Well, I'm mostly . . ." What am I mostly? My hesitation rings through the air in a way similar to that of Zoya's pencil.

"Nervous," Norax says, answering for me. "She's nervous. And for good reason, of course. This is a serious decision."

Zoya whistles. "I'll say. Even if I was a fanatic for the Famoux, I don't think I'd be waiting in line to take the place of a girl who got shot in front of everyone."

I gulp, looking to Norax a bit helplessly. She gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and I'm able to exhale.

"Our security centers under immensely revamping, as you are well aware, Zoya," she points out. "Em is not going to be in the same kind of danger Bree was."

"Good idea," Zoya says. "Anyway, what can I do for you today?"

"You can start by telling me if there is any possible way to start the reformation process for Em right now. Must we really have to wait for the Darkening to conclude?"

"I'm afraid the Fissarex needs power to work, and there's quite a lack of that here at the moment."

Norax clicks her tongue, disappointed. "I see." She glances over at me. "What do you think we should do about this, Em?"

"I-I don't know," I stammer. "I'm okay with waiting."

She nods, but it quickly turns into a head shake, brow creasing with anxiety. "No, no, we can't wait, Zoya. The moment the light comes back we're going to have dozens of reporters and fans watching our every move to see what happens next. If they notice Em here tagging along before we get her reformed--we'd be in trouble. We need to get this done during the Darkening."

"And how do you think we'll get that done, boss," asks Zoya, "seeing that it's virtually unattainable?"

Norax pauses to think about this, curling a fist under her chin, resting her elbow on the desk in front of us. It takes all of eight seconds for her eyes to light up.

"Oh! Say I had the authority to take some of the electrical power from our little glass house and convert its path to your outlets. Then do you think we could start the reformation process?"

"You can actually do that?" I blurt out.

She smiles down at me. "I run the Famoux, my darling. I can make anything happen if I say it will happen."

"Well, if that's really possible, and you're not just hoping it is, we could definitely start reformation today," Zoya says.

"Then it's settled."

Norax sends our driver out to go to the Famoux's technician center with the orders to temporarily take away some of the Fishbowl's power so that the Fissarex, whatever that is, can function for as long as reformation may take.