"Who else would it be?"
I stood puzzled in the darkness, my heart beating fast. The voice was feminine and youthful and I tried to recall who it could be. A dozen names popped up in my head but I managed to narrow it down to one.
"...Imara?"
"Great job, detective," the voice replied monotonically. "I've waited for you to get here for the whole day."
"I'm...sorry?" I didn't know how to respond. "Do you want to get out from under the bed or something?"
It must have been extremely uncomfortable being cramped under there all day if what she claimed was true. I somehow felt bad and responsible that I kept her waiting even though by no means was it my fault since I didn't even know she was here.
"Wait. Is it past two yet?" she whispered.
"I think so."
"You sure?"
"Yeah," I thought back to what Max had said about the dimming lights. "I'm sure."
"Cool. Close your door; a guard is going to start patrolling this hallway soon."
I closed the door. A hand and arm appeared from beneath the bed, pulling the rest of its body out. A shadow was cast on the wall as she got up: a real life monster from under the bed. Except she wasn't a monster but instead a petite girl who looked annoyed but otherwise very pleased with herself. The light from outside softly illuminated her features. She had tanned skin with shining hazel eyes, and frizzy dark hair tied back into a messy ponytail. She was also wearing my suit which was a bit over-sized for her small frame.
"Why do you have my suit? Why were you under my bed? Where -"
She interrupted me.
"I know you have a lot of questions but fortunately, I have a lot of answers. I'm here to help but before I start, you're going to have to be honest with me," she took my x-disk out of the suit pocket and placed it on the bed. "How did you get this?"
I pursed my lips, guilty. "I took it from the hospital. Sally - you know Sally right? - told me to take a look at it and I decided to take it with me. Yeah. I took it but you can't blame for being a little freaked out, waking up in a hospital on some random planet."
She looked at me and glared, like she was trying to detect if I was lying. After a few seconds, her expression loosened up and she sighed. "Okay. It doesn't seem like you're lying."
Why would I be? I thought to myself. I had nothing to hide unless she was some undercover guard who wanted to arrest me for stealing an x-disk from a goddamn hospital. Oh wait...arrest? This place was basically a prison already so I guess I had nothing to lose.
"Alright, newbie. Come sit on the bed. This is going to be a hell of a bed-time story."
"It's Hayden, by the way."
She ignored me and plopped herself down onto my bed. I followed. We sat facing each other, with only the stars listening in on our conversation.
"My name is Imara but you knew that already. I woke up one day and found myself on this planet about two weeks ago. I don't remember anything much about travelling here but I do remember a bright light the night before I came," her voice was soft, just barely audible.
I noted the similarities between my experience and hers but I let her continue talking without interruption.
"When I came to my senses, I was in the hospital and Sally came to take care of me. Afterwards, a little later in the night, three men with blue hair escorted me out of the hospital and one of them brought me to this place. I presume the same happened to you."
Aeolus. I nodded and agreed for the most part.
"He told me how bad people who have committed crimes were brought to the hub redemption. It was absolutely absurd to me because I had never committed a crime in my life. I'm a straight A student, by the way. I was also head of my school's science club, debate team and also vice president of student council. Why in the world would they take me? It was like the cherry on top for a terrible, terrible week."
I mentally rolled my eyes as she gave the unnecessary details. She appeared intelligent for sure, like Kenji had stated, but she also had a certain arrogance in her demeanor. Hold on. Did she say terrible week? Was it possible that the streak of bad luck I had the week prior to coming to Fortuna was not simply luck at all? Was there some sort of correlation between my situation and Imara's?
"What do you mean terrible week?"
"Just a string of bad luck...and it was so sudden too," she seemed surprised at my question and even a bit offended by my interruption. "All started with a new teacher I had at school - Mr. Greg. It's not a big deal, I don't think."
I couldn't believe what I just heard. Greg? It was too much to be a coincidence.
"So are you innocent too?" she changed the topic back. "You don't look like any of the guys out there at all."
"Yeah," I replied, noting the fact that she too, thought that I looked - as Max put it - fragile. "I'm innocent as well. I didn't commit any crimes either. Like you, I had a -"
"I'm glad I'm not the only one," she seemed to sigh in relief, tuning out the rest of what I had to say and then continuing on her story. "So even though I argued with that blue haired man, I was still brought here. It was strange but for the entirety of my two weeks here, it felt surprisingly decent."
"Do-"
"Just let me finish first. I'll take your questions later."
I breathed deeply out of my nose and resisted the urge to roll my eyes physically. What a brat.
"Now you're wondering why I'm here, right?"
I nodded. Get to the damn point!
"You're going to have to trust me on this because let's just say that it's sort-of a gut feeling. Think about it. These people here, besides you and me, were essentially criminals back on Earth. Why the hell would they be brought up to this foreign place where they're accommodated and treated relatively well?"
"I've been thinking the same thing," it was slightly comforting to know that Imara shared the same perspective as me. "But I can't think of why they would want to bring all of us up here."
"You know what I think this is? Some sort of prison experiment run by the government. I know it sounds like some crazy conspiracy theory but it just makes the most logical sense. There has to be something sinister happening because I really don't trust what comes next after this adjustment period we're supposedly in."
"But then again, none of this has been very logical, has it?" I asked, doubting her theory. "I mean, the sky is freaking purple, hail is the size of my fist and doors appear out of nowhere like magic. Are you sure the government would spend all this money for bad people?"
She pondered in silence for a while; there were probably a dozen theories spinning around in her mind. I knew I was right.
"So...you still haven't told me why you're here," I brought her back to Earth to continue her story.
She snapped out of her thinking and resumed her story. "Yeah. Right. So because I'm not a criminal, I wasn't about to let these people control me or my fate. I knew I had to hide and run before my two weeks were up, before they would come for me to bring me to who-knows-where. And so after the first week, I observed, looking for a way to escape. I stayed up late every night in the library trying to read something that would help me in any way. Max - I know you've met him - was always there too but he never understood why I was so bent on leaving."
I imagined Max and Imara sitting together in the library late at night. Max would have probably played a prank on her and Imara, being such a stick in the mud, would have been extremely annoyed. Now that would have been a better bedtime story.
"The books never did help though. They were all lame encyclopedias and stories that seemed to be endless propaganda of how great this planet was. What helped me was not the books but instead, my luck. It appeared that when I stayed up past two in the morning, the lights in the hallway would dim and a guard would arrive, patrolling the hallway until the sky became bright again. The first time I noticed this, I didn't think much about it but once I realized that this was a regular occurrence, I knew I found an opportunity."
Opportunity? What was she onto?
"I realized the oddity of the necessity of having a guard during these hours. There were security cameras already. Why would they need a guard?"
Something clicked in my brain. "Unless the security cameras didn't work."
"Glad to know that you're not so dense after all, Hayden," she grinned, her hazel eyes lighting up with excitement. "Now knowing that, I observed for two nights that the guard would always come in about three minutes past two. That meant that for a three minute window, I was free to roam around in the hallway undetected by the cameras. But knowing this planet's crazy technology, I deduced that in case any of the prisoners attempted to hide or escape, there would be ways to track them. I'm 99% positive that the green suits have some sort of tracking device on them."
"What made you so sure?" I challenged, impressed by her deduction skills.
"A woman who came to the hub a day after me refused to change into the green garments we were given. The next morning, she was surprised to find out that overnight, someone had changed her out of her old clothes and into the green ones. Now why go through the trouble with changing the clothes if they weren't in some way important?"
"Good point but it could have been just a lucky guess."
"I didn't have many other options, did I?" Imara shrugged. "I had to trust my instincts and so the night before my two week anniversary here, I stayed up till two. When the lights began to dim, I left my room and went to the bathroom to remove my clothes."
"You were naked?"
"A naked girl? How scandalous!" she mocked my appalled expression. "Yes, Hayden. I sneaked back into the hall, naked, and went to the nearest empty room. There, I easily picked the lock and got in, hiding under the bed until you arrived. You would think the doors would be more secure here. Thank you for the suit, by the way. I'm glad I don't have to appear naked in front of you."
She was incredible - at least that was the impression I got from her story, providing it was true. I had to sit there for a while so I could fully comprehend everything I was just told.
"What's our next step then?"I asked, hoping that she had some miraculous escape plan.
"I don't have one," she confessed. "But I'm guessing that your x-disk may be able to help us."
A part of me wanted to believe that whatever potential the x-disk had would provide some sort of escape for us, especially after what Aeolus told me. "I think so too."
"Your x-disk is special and different from the ones in the library; it has some form of user security built in it. After you left the suit in here, I tried many times to activate it but I couldn't. I think only you can."
I reached out to grab it from the end of the bed when suddenly, I froze. Soft footsteps could be heard outside in the hallway, its echoes resonating through the door. It came closer and closer until it finally stopped right in front of my room. There was a heavy knocking.
"Is everything all right in there? Rules state that only one person is allowed per room. Whoever is in there needs to leave."
Imara and I looked at each other in terror. Had he heard us talk? We knew that if he found out that Imara was in the room, she would be taken for sure. What were we going to do?
The door began to unlock.
Imara pushed the disk over to me, reassuring me with a nod. She slipped back down under the bed just as the door opened. All the guard could see was a skinny teenage boy, sitting alone on the bed with an x-disk in his hands.
"Is something wrong?" I asked innocently.
"I heard two voices as I was patrolling the hallway. You're not allowed to have more than one person in each room at this time." He began to look around the room.
Would I have to tackle him? He came closer to the bed now. I studied the guard and realized he must have been about a foot taller than me. He also had a gun-like weapon tucked onto his belt. I didn't know what the gun shot but I didn't want to find out. He was almost at the bed now and I knew I had to make a quick decision or else Imara would be found. It was thankfully too dark in the room to be able to see Imara at his distance. If it was during the daytime, she would have been seen for sure.
"Uh..." I looked around and fixed my eyes at the x-disk in my hand, finally understanding why Imara handed it over to me. "I - I think you must have overheard my x-disk. It was really interesting."
I walked up to him, subtly blocking his view of the rest of the room. I held the disk out in front of me. "Are we not allowed to bring these back into our rooms? I'm so sorry."
The guard shook his head suspiciously, still eyeing the room. "No. You're not. I'm confiscating it and bringing it back to the library."
He took one last glance around the room and then left, the disk tucked under his elbow. We would have to find the disk tomorrow. That was a close one.
I took a deep breath and collapsed down onto my bed, tired and exhausted. Lying was ten times harder talking to someone who had a weapon that could kill you. I turned over to my side and whispered. "Imara, you still awake?"
"Let's talk tomorrow, Hayden. Good night."
"Good night, Imara."