Danica #1687 in Elysium: Part 4

This is Chaper D, then Chapter 4 of my WIP novel. It's 4093 words.

Chapter D

Journaling Exercise

          The world is not black and white. It is important to remember that it is composed of shades of gray. It is completely normal, even for a person in Elysium, to have mixed feelings about a person or situation.
          Think carefully about a moment in your life when you had mixed feelings. What were your thoughts at the time versus what you think now? Write about it!


          Hmm... This is a tricky one since the only people I've ever had mixed feelings about are my parents.
          Don't get me wrong; I love my mother. I really, really do. It's just... it's just I don't think she was very good at mothering.
          As for my father, well... Maybe I did have a very mixed reaction to his death. Especially his funeral. Allow me to explain:
          My mother was patient with the decision to euthanize my father after he had gone catatonic. She waited a week and had diligently gone to the Hospital Pod to talk to him, hoping to "wake" him up from his condition. I could tell she was getting very little sleep over the course of that week and the adults decided that I'd live with Jayne and her parents in their pod until my mother gave up.
          The day after the adults euthanized my father, we had a funeral that everyone in our family attended to pay their respects. We held the ceremony in a rarely visited place called the Farewell Pod. The adults laid my father's corpse on a metal bed and draped him in a long, white sheet. This bed would then be slid into an oven to swiftly burn the corpse beyond any recognition.
          I... had a mixed reaction. For starters, I was angry that all of the adults that chose to talk about my father only said the good things about him. If they'd known just how violent he was to me at times, I'd think they'd have been a little more sensitive towards me on that matter.
          I don't know, maybe I was just being immature to have such a reaction. After all, they had either grown up with him or had watched him grow up. Perhaps my father had good qualities that made him a positive presence in their lives?
          This possibility is supported by my mother's reaction. She wept the entire time and wasn't able to give any speech about my father. It felt odd to me that she was so desperately in love with someone that may very well have been a psychopath.
          The most mixed reaction I had, however, was one that filled me with an intense amount of joy. Gavin attended and as the adults gave their speeches, he held my hand. When he did it, I was flabbergasted. I had no idea why he'd offer me this kind of support or intimacy, but it pretty much confirmed to me that he (at least at the time, perhaps?) felt the same way about me that I feel about him.
          Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. Gavin has never initiated any kind of intimacy or sexual affection with me since that day. At this point, I'm desperate. I want a relationship with him. I just wish he felt the same way...

Chapter 4

          As Lucy #666 walked through the doorway into the Lounge Pod, the eight siblings got out of their seats to greet her. Because the Social Pod was the only means by which a person would socially interact with someone outside of their family, it meant that this was the first time ever for most of them to meet a stranger.
          When Danica and everyone other than Gavin met her, they had a shockingly large amount of questions about her appearance.
          First, there was Lucy's face. She was white with a light skin tone like all of them, but her face had a seemingly indeterminable age attached to it. She was pretty, but her cheeks were sunken in. She also had very faint lines around her eyes, which seemed to imply that Lucy was most certainly older than all of them. Danica wanted to ask Lucy her age because, if she had to guess, she'd hazard that Lucy was part of the previous generation, which would make her thirty-one.
          There was nothing bizarre about Lucy's hair, which was brown with blondish highlights; but her hair did have multiple split ends and could use being washed with the hair care products All-Wise provided.
          Still, the most exceptional thing about Lucy was her clothes and accessories. Though her pants and shirt were clearly the same material as everyone's, hers were red. Where and how Lucy was able to make them red (or if they were provided that way by All-Wise) was another question for Lucy. As for accessories, Lucy was the only person Danica had ever seen to have earrings, which were apparently golden hoops and a matching bracelet on her left wrist.
          Gavin was the first to reach Lucy by the door and he said, "Thanks for coming, Lucy." He gave her a peck, then turned to the others and said, "Everyone, this is Lucy."
          Aliza was the first to address the most obvious question. "Where did you get those clothes?!"
          Jayne added, "And that jewelry!"
          Lucy gave a smug look and responded by saying, "Because I'm special."
          Lucy's voice shocked Danica, too. It sounded far different than anyone else's since it was very husky and hoarse. Danica questioned if this was because of her age, yet still, she had never heard a voice like that.
          Mary then asked, "How are you special?"
          Lucy said, "Well, to be honest, I'm All-Wise's second favorite creation."
          This was obviously a very bizarre statement that caused Danica to ask, "I don't understand? Who's the first?"
          Lucy then gave a throaty, husky laugh and said, "Oh, wouldn't you like to know!"
          Ronald then remarked, "You were right, Gavin; she is weird."
          "Anyway," Gavin said to Lucy, "let me introduce you to everyone." He then gestured to Mary and said, "This is Mary."
          Mary moved in to greet Lucy with a hug, but Lucy rose her left palm to halt her approach. "No. No hugs. I'm not your friend."
          A look of confusion on Mary's face suggested to Danica that Mary felt slighted at this. Mary said, "I don't understand, you don't want to be my friend?"
          Lucy then gave a cruel-sounding laugh in response.
          Gavin was seemingly confused as well, but he continued the introductions just the same. Interestingly enough, Lucy was willing to shake hands and give a seemingly seductive smile to Gavin's three brothers, but she did not particularly care to be pleasant to his sisters. When Gavin introduced Danica, she briefly looked her up and down as if she were sizing up her competition.
          After the introductions, almost everyone sat back down, but Lucy ordered Gavin to bring her a cooler once she had taken a seat within arm's length of Danica.
          Being close to Lucy now, Danica noticed something else mysterious about her: her odor. It wasn't because of poor hygiene; rather, it was something indeterminable about Lucy's clothes and hair that made her even stranger than every person Danica had ever met.
          Once Gavin sat down next to Lucy in between her and Danica, Lucy took the profferred cooler, thanked Gavin, and began to drink.
          "So," began Arc, "Gavin said you write as well?"
          Lucy smiled and said, "Yes; I have actually written thousands of books."
          Danica frowned as if she had just been insulted. It appeared that some of her siblings took this claim at face value, because there was genuine astonishment in some of their reactions.
          "Really?" asked Jayne.
          "No way!" said Aliza.
          "Huh?" said Arc.
          Danica briefly considered challenging Lucy on this, but she didn't have to say anything because Mary did it for her.
          "You're lying. The only person that can write a thousand books over the course of a lifetime is All-Wise, and I know from experience that He considers that cheating and doesn't do any of the writing for us."
          Lucy said, "I don't know what to tell you; I really have written thousands of books."
          "I'll settle this right now," Mary said. "All-Wise!"
          "Yes, Mary?"
          "Lucy just made the incredulous claim that she's written thousands of books. Is that true?"
          "I am sorry, Mary, but I am not really allowed to elaborate on the things Lucy says."
          "What is that supposed to mean?!"
          "I am sorry, but I cannot say."
          "Oh, poo," muttered Aliza, "That would have made things a lot simpler."
          Garret then said, "I don't understand; why wouldn't All-Wise be allowed to say something? He can say or do anything He wants."
          Nobody, not even Lucy, gave a response to that.
          Danica then asked, "So, Lucy, I was wondering why your number is 666. That doesn't make any sense to me."
          Lucy smiled and said, "I already told you; I'm special."
          "That's the second time you've said that. What makes you so special?"
          "That's for me to know and you to find out."
          Lucy then gave another smile and drank more from her cooler.
          Ronald then asked, "So you met Gavin in the Social Pod? I've never been there. I kinda understand why Gavin goes, but what about you?"
          Once again, Lucy gave a sultry grin and answered, "Well, I go because I don't like being tied down to one man all the time."
          Danica was filled with mixed feelings hearing that. Throughout her entire childhood, All-Wise Himself promoted monogamy. The fact that Lucy was admitting that she was, by Elysium's standards, a sexual deviant, caused her to look down on Lucy. Still, this statement filled her with hope. Did Gavin know this about Lucy already? If he did, why would he want to have a relationship with Lucy over someone that loved him and only him?
          Next, Arc asked, "Gavin said something about a secret weapon? Was he talking about you? Did you help him edit, or something?"
          Gavin answered with building excitement, "No, actually, it's-"
          "No," Lucy said to cut him off. "Not yet."
          "Not yet?"
          "No."
          Arc was visibly disappointed and said, "Well now I'm really curious."
          "Yeah, me too," added Ronald.
          There was an awkward silence which was broken when Aliza said, "Hey! Why don't we play a game?"
          Almost everyone perked up and agreed that playing a game was a good idea, but Lucy scowled and her eyes narrowed fiercely at Aliza.
          "You want to play a game? How old are you?"
          Mary broke the reflective quiet Lucy's remark left and said, "We're all nineteen. How old are you?"
          Lucy fired back, "It's inappropriate to ask a lady her age."
          Mary refrained from chuckling, but she contemptuously muttered, "Some lady you are..."
          Lucy glowered at Mary and Arc broke the tension by asking, "Well, Lucy, what do you like to do for fun?"
          Surprisingly enough, Lucy gave him a flirtatious smile and once again said, "Oh, wouldn't you like to know!"
          Jayne didn't appreciate this because she said, "Considering how Gavin's the only one here that had met you before tonight, yeah, we'd really like to know."
          Lucy only drank from her cooler without response.
          "So should we play a game or not?" asked Aliza.
          Gavin said to Lucy, "If you don't want to play, you can just sit and watch. I won't twist your arm over it."
          Lucy rolled her eyes and said, "Whatever. What stupid game are we going to play?"
          The group decided they would play "Taboo" with the house rules the siblings preferred to play with. They would first divide into two teams, then the two teams would take turns as the guessing team. One member of the guessing team, the clue giver, would pick a card that had a vocabulary word on it and several "taboo" words that couldn't be said by the clue giver. The clue giver of the guessing team would then say one word (and only one word) to their team to hint the word that had to be guessed. Then each member of the clue giver's team would guess one (and only one) word without a time limit. If someone on the guessing team picked the word on the card, then they would receive a point. If everyone on the guessing team had made a guess without finding the right word, then the other team could attempt to steal the point, but they could guess one (and only one) word.
          As for the teams, they chose that Gavin, Danica, Lucy, Ronald, and Aliza would form one team while Mary, Garret, Arc, and Jayne formed the other. Since Gavin's team had one extra person, they decided that for each round, someone (if preferred, Lucy) could sit out and not participate for that round.
          Mary's team went first and they succeeded at winning the point. From here, Gavin's team picked Gavin to be the clue giver and Ronald chose to sit out for the round.
          Gavin stood in front of his team looking at the card and gave his one word clue: "Canine."
          Aliza guessed first. Because she assumed that "dog" would be too easy to be the actual word to find, Aliza picked, "Hound."
          Gavin said, "No."
          They decided Lucy would guess next, but she looked exasperated and said, "Person."
          Everyone stared at Lucy in disbelief and Jayne disparagingly said, "Hey! Are you even trying?"
          Lucy shrugged and answered, "What? It was a legitimate guess."
          Mary fired back. "No it wasn't. The clue was 'canine' and you said 'person' of all things."
          Lucy then said, while staring directly at Mary, "Fine, I'll make a serious guess... Is the word 'bitch?'"
          Danica and the others didn't particularly like the use of a swear word, but there was the more egregious fact that it appeared that Lucy had just called Mary a bitch.
          Gavin said, "It isn't 'bitch.' Danica?"
          It was up to Danica to guess and she said, "Mongrel?"
          Gavin smiled. "That's right!"
          Mary's team was about to take their second turn, but All-Wise's voice came out over the speakers.
          "Everyone, Roland #1279 and Harriet #1279 are at the door."
          Gavin said, "Oh, let them in!"
          Roland and Harriet entered and were pleasantly greeted by everyone other than Danica and Lucy. Danica felt a pit in her stomach with Roland's presence because she wasn't sure if he or Gavin might say something that would embarrass her. Lucy didn't greet them because she had never met them before. That changed because Roland took it upon himself to bring about an introduction.
          "Gavin," he said, "is this the woman you told me about earlier? Lucy?"
          "That's right. Lucy, these are my parents: Roland and Harriet."
          Lucy, without making eye contact or even bothering to put up a sociable facade, muttered, "It's nice to meet you,"
          Harriet addressed the obvious question that had been asked earlier in the night. "Oh, my! Why are you dressed in red and wearing jewelry? Do all of your family members dress like that?"
          Lucy responded by saying, "The reason I dress like this is because I am special. And I don't have a family."
          "Come again?"
          "I don't have a family."
          "But you must have been raised by someone?"
          Lucy rolled her eyes.
          Roland then said softly, "Harriet, hush."
          "What?" Harriet said in response to being chastised. "Aren't you curious?"
          "I am, but I figured it would be better to just question All-Wise instead of interrogating Lucy."
          Mary piped in and said, "I already tried that; He won't answer any questions about the things she says."
          "Oh, does He? Typical of All-Wise to not be forthright."
          Aliza shook her head hearing that. "It's not good to say that about All-Wise, Uncle Roland."
          Roland ignored Aliza and said, "Anyway, congratulations on the new novel, Gavin. I'm proud of you and Mary for accomplishing so much with your writing."
          Danica wasn't sure if that could be a slight against her or not. Her father, Otto, had very seldomly been proud of her for anything (then again, he died when she was six), and her mother, Diane, simply didn't care enough to encourage her.
          This led to the shameful thought that, in Danica's eyes, nobody believed in her. She realized that no one had ever attempted to "raise" her to her fullest potential. While Roland had made an attempt to help her, he was also the one that called her writing trash. Her writing might be trash now, but who's to say it couldn't improve? Earlier in the night, her siblings had all said her writing was good, but there was the possibility that they were just humoring her since they knew she hadn't much to live for without a mate nor child. It was a very depressing set of thoughts to have.
          After their brief appearance, Roland and Harriet left. Since playing Taboo had gone so poorly because of Lucy not trying, the nine of them resumed drinking coolers and talking.
          This continued for quite some time. At one point, All-Wise's voice came on from the speaker system.
          "I have a message for Jayne #1687 from Lacey #1279."
          "What is it?" Jayne asked.
          "She said your two children, Brian #3236 and Kelly #3236, are fighting and she cannot get them under control."
          "Ah, heck!" Jayne fumed. She then turned to Arc and asked, "Can you go handle it?"
          Arc briefly glanced at Lucy before turning to Jayne and answered, "But your mother asked for you."
          "So?"
          "She's your mother."
          Jayne got up in a huff and said, "Sorry, everyone; sorry, Gavin; I guess it's up to me to deal with the kids." She stared contemptuously at Arc before leaving. Arc nonchalantly drank from his cooler and sprawled out in his seat.
          After more drinking, Mary had gotten fairly drunk (Mary almost always was the first to get drunk), so she and Garret parted together after congratulating Gavin one last time. From here, Aliza had become inebriated and was obviously not paying much attention to the others. At this time, Danica could have sworn Ronald was staring intently at Lucy. A short while later, Aliza said she wanted to leave. Ronald was about to get up to leave with her, but Lucy shook her head at him when Aliza wasn't looking, which prompted him to make an excuse to stay longer.
          Now that it was only the five of them (Danica, Lucy, Gavin, Arc, and Ronald) Arc asked, "So Lucy, earlier you said 'not yet' about this whole 'secret weapon' thing. Is now a good time?"
          Lucy briefly stared at Danica, seemingly in indecision, before she said, "I suppose so, yes."
          Lucy reached into the left pocket of her pants and pulled out three inexplicably bizarre objects that she set on the table in front of her.
          Danica made sense out of only one of the three objects. It appeared to be a pipe for smoking. She knew from reading fantasy novels and from the digital art in the Library that pipes made from the mythical substance "wood" could be used to smoke the mythical substance "tobacco." This pipe was clearly not made of wood, though. If Danica were forced to guess, she'd hazard that this pipe was made out of plastic, but the bowl was metal. To see this, a real pipe used for smoking, filled her with astonishment.
          Dumbfounded, Danica was at a loss to describe the other two items or even guess what they were. One was a very small thing that could easily fit in one hand; it was made out of plastic or metal with a button on one end of it. And the other object...
          Well, it appeared to be some kind of transparent bag that was tied at one end tightly. What was in the bag was these small white rocks. Were they some kind of pearls? Maybe chunks of snow and ice that couldn't melt? The fact of the matter was, though, that this transparent bag, rocks, pearls, snow, and ice were all mythical and only existed in the Library of digital art.
          "Whoa!" marveled Arc.
          "What is that?!" Ronald asked.
          Gavin gloated. "That's my secret weapon! Lucy gave me some and it helped me power through the final round of edits on the novel I just published."
          Danica perked up and asked, "So, the secret weapon helped you with writing?"
          "Yes."
          Danica started to feel excitement, but then remembered that she had given up with writing. So what if these mysterious substances could help her? It was pointless to try and make her trashy writing better when she should just choose to socialize with her family. But still, that wasn't enough.
          Arc then said, "So, I'm guessing the white things go into that bowl on the pipe, is it a pipe? And then the little thing does something?"
          Ronald, in a tone of voice that seemed to belittle Arc, said, "I bet the little thing makes fire. But, I thought the only time fire happens at all is in the Farewell Pod?"
          Gavin smiled. "I'll show you guys how to do it. It's easy."
          "Wait," Danica interjected, "you still haven't even said what all of these things are."
          "Lucy, do you want to explain or should I?"
          Lucy smiled and said, "Fine, I'll explain. As you guys have guessed, that's a pipe for smoking." Then, Lucy picked up the small object with the button and said, "This thing is a lighter." She then held down the button and a small flame shot out. Danica, Arc, and Ronald were transfixed to see real fire for once in their lives. Lucy put the lighter down and picked up the bag and said, "And these little white rocks are known as 'devil's drug.'"
          Ronald then asked, "Who gets to go first?"
          After a brief pause, Danica said, "Well, this is Gavin's night to celebrate, so he should go first to show us what to do."
          It was agreed amongst everyone that Gavin should go first. He unwound the transparent bag and loaded some of the 'devil's drug' into the bowl of the pipe. Once ready, he used the lighter to burn the rocks and inhaled from the mouthpiece. Moments later, he stopped and started to cough.
          "How do you feel?" Danica asked out of concern over his minor coughing fit.
          He grinned and said, "Invincible."
          From the scent in the air, Danica finally figured out what Lucy's odor was. It was obviously from smoking this devil's drug before showing up to the Lounge Pod. The smoke smelled acrid, but seeing just how happy Gavin was at that moment motivated her to try smoking as well.
          "Who next?" asked Ronald.
          "Ladies first?" suggested Arc.
          Lucy addressed Danica and said, "Watch what I do."
          Lucy smoked out of the pipe just like Gavin had. Despite taking a much bigger hit than him, she didn't cough afterwards.
          She then passed the pipe and lighter to Danica, who couldn't remember the last time she had been so excited.
          "Remember," Lucy said, "breathe the smoke deep into your lungs as you inhale from the mouthpiece."
          Danica followed instructions and tried smoking but she immediately started to cough and gag from the small hit she just took.
          "You ok?" Ronald asked.
          Lucy said, "Try again."
          Once Danica had stopped coughing, she tried yet again and got a much bigger hit into her lungs. The intense euphoria she experienced was unprecedented. Yes, the smoke tasted nasty. But she felt... she felt like she was in Heaven!
          The night continued on with the five of them smoking and drinking. At some point, Danica blacked out.