CLOUD NINE

Chapter 12

"Lean, get up. I got your favourite soup," Alizeh hummed, scurrying about the room in her night pyjamas.

Aileana yawned, pulling her quilts over her head. "Mumma lemme sleeeeeep a bit lonngggg," she whined.

"Get up girl. You haven't eaten anything since yesterday," Alizeh lifted the quilt in one long pull. Aileana turned to her other side and curled up into a ball.

"Nina called. She has reached safely," Alizeh informed.

"Good!" Aileana groaned, rubbing her temples and winced.

"Does your head hurt?" Alizeh poured out a bowl of soup and reached out for the bread. Aileana sat up straight on the bed.

"Not much. I need to go back to weaving school today. I can't just sit at home and sulk, " she mumbled, tearing a large piece of bread and dipping it into the soup. "Damn! You cook well."

"Lean, do you know how to cook?" Alizeh interjected, "I mean thank you and all," she amended, not wanting to seem rude.

"I'm sorry. Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm going to take up a job in another cloud. The money I brought here won't be able to sustain us, neither will my current job, " Alizeh announced, blowing over the soup to cool it. Her glasses fogged up as usual.

"Oh!" Aileana looked deflated. "So you have gotten a job. For how long do you stay there?"

"Yeah! I got a job," Alizeh averted her eyes. A plan was already beginning to form in her mind. It was a desperate situation. "I'll come back on weekends."

"So I stay alone?'

"Look, Aileana, I didn't mean for it to happen in this way but I could talk to Ash and find two new roommates for you. You shouldn't have to live all alone."

"No!" Aileana sat up straighter, "anyway I'll have a job in a few months' time and then we'll all perhaps go out to work. I didn't know any other person. It'll be a hell lotta adjustment. Besides we can always do the cam-call right?"

"Ah right!" Alizeh wasn't convinced though. She'd have to talk to Ash and Nina about it. Aileana didn't say anything and dived back into her food. Alizeh picked up her phone, moving to the other room, out of earshot. A shrill female voice picked up at the third ring.

"Ma'am I'm taking up the job of the maid. I desperately need it," her voice quivered even as she said it. Perhaps it was the destiny, she thought and besides she had a promise to keep.

"Video call at my office. Sharp at 10," Mrs Maxton answered crisply and cut the call.

Alizeh hastily dressed and headed for the Job Exchange office.

"Ahh! Here's Miss Writer back for the real job," Mrs Maxton mocked, before proceeding to type out the details at top speed. "You're lucky nobody else took the job. I'll give you a practical piece of advice around here lady," she winked.

Alizeh was too baffled to stare away.

"See, around here, you have to fight your way to the top. No one will want you to stay happy at other clouds but if you can stick to a job there for three months, you can get a Violet card. That'll allow you for two years."

"And beyond that?"

"Seduce a boy in those clouds. If he marries you, you're automatically in the elite," she gave a satisfied laugh at her own joke. Alizeh was stunned. She had never really weighed her options. Did she want out of the cloud? It could change her life. Her career was just beginning and Cloud Nine didn't seem like a place she'd belong to. She had always stayed in aristocracy.

"You have obligations?" Mrs Maxton asked

"Haan?" she slipped up and asked in her mother tongue.

"Family here?"

"No."

"Boyfriend?"

"Nah!"

"Then why do you stay at this place?"

"Aren't we supposed to?" she asked confused.

"Just don't let anybody in the other clouds know you came from here. Just pretend you were a governess or something and show your talents in other fields. You're young and efficient. You'll find something you love, surely," she mused tossing up the virtual phone in the air and punching in a number. The keypad glowed a dark green, giving a villainous gleam to her glasses.

"And about my writing?" Alizeh mumbled.

Something dark shifted in Mrs Maxton's eyes and her ash eyes seemed to turn icy steel. "Forget that you were a writer ever. At least not in public. The government is afraid of our ability to manipulate people and tilt opinions in our favour with our skills and so they stole away our freedom of speech to show us where we belong. Orators, artists, writers...we are powerful. We're the mirrors of society. We're dangerous."

Alizeh shifted in her seat. Something about those words seemed too raw, too personal like she had intruded into a very private moment of Mrs Maxton.

"Are you a writer too?" she asked.

"Oh no, hun!" Mrs Maxton laughed, "Merlin Maxton isn't a writer. But Margaret Maxton was."

"You mean I should change my identity and..."

"I don't dictate what you do honey. I don't even know you. It's completely your choice if you want the job or not," she said out loud.

"And if you're a smart girl," her voice changed to low and gravelly. "You'll know what to do once you leave the cloud. You'll know where to find us."

Us? Were there more like her? More like Mrs Maxton that have changed their names and established a new life in other Clouds. And did they still write? So many questions were crowding in her head that she felt she might burst from curiosity.

Maybe everything wasn't lost. Maybe there was a way to restore the status quo for them as a citizen of the new Republic of Audra.