Loop Two - Chapter Four

Amber grinned as she stepped into the hotel lobby next to Cassy, their shoulders bumping in the entrance, bags tangling together a bit before coming apart. “You should have gotten that jacket,” Cassy said.

“It was too much,” Amber shot back. “I’m not going to spend a quarter of my budget on one thing.”

“It wasn’t a quarter.”

“With taxes, it’d be more than that,” Amber said. Their argument, if she could really call it an argument, had been going on for half an hour already, broken up by tangents and questions and jokes.

Maybe all those sweet drinks were too much. Stopping by first a coffee shop for some abomination with more sugar than caffeine in it had been fun. She figured that Cassy had gotten a few calories from the thing she ordered.

Grabbing smoothies a block over, then slushies on the next block had been a bit much. Amber was certain that she could handle it calorie-wise. Magical girl or no, she could manage to pig out every once in a while—if she didn’t mind working it off later—but the amount of sugar she’d taken in was going to her head.

“Whoa,” Cassy said.

Amber looked ahead, then agreed with Cassy. The lobby was split apart, with men and women in fatigues and big bulky vests forming a line down the centre. Behind them, boys and girls of around Amber’s own age were milling around, some chatting together, others sitting on benches and looking at their phones. A number of them had suitcases with them.

Someone with a clipboard saw Amber and Cassy watching, then jogged over. “Hello, may I have your names, please?” they asked.

“Amber Green,” Amber said as she pulled out her hotel’s keycard. “Uh, I’m allowed to be here?”

“Hmm? Oh, you wouldn’t have an escort if you weren’t,” they replied with a gesture behind Amber.

She glanced back to the agent who had been following her and Cassy all morning. They looked rather silly carrying a dozen bags in both hands, the colourful items not matching with their black-on-black suit all that well.

“Okay,” Amber said.

“We preparing to leave?” Cassy asked.

The clipboard person nodded. “We are. Still an hour to go, if you want to pack things. Please be here early.”

Amber nodded. Don’t have much to bring anyway. “Sure thing. Do you think I can get a bag for my stuff? Like a luggage bag? I don’t really have one.”

The clipboard person looked exasperated, “I can try.”

“Hey, don’t bother,” Cassy said. “I’ve got room in mine. We’ll be in the same place, right?”

“Yeah, our rooms are kinda linked. It’s nice,”Amber said. “I’d appreciate it. It’d suck to lose all the stuff we bought.”

Cassy patted Amber on the back and walked right past, moving with the easy confidence of someone who either didn’t care, or didn’t know they were the centre of a lot of attention. Amber jogged to catch up, then slid into the same elevator as Cassy.

Cassy’s room wasn’t far from Amber’s, so it wasn’t a chore to put her things away after grabbing a bag that Cassy quickly emptied. Amber couldn’t remember Cassy having too much stuff in Agartha, and from the few bags she did have, it seemed as if the blonde had packed light.

“Thanks,” Amber said as both of them exited her room, bag stuffed with new clothes in tow.

“Hey, no problem,” Cassy said. “So, what’s next?”

“Next?” Amber asked.

Cassy waved her hand around in a vague ‘go on’ gesture. “You know, future stuff.”

Amber laughed. “It doesn’t work like that. I can’t predict the future. I just, uh, send myself back to the past? Or something? I haven’t actually figured it all out yet.”

“Yeah, but you know the stuff you’ve already done, right? Oh, crap, what if you have, like, a really shitty day and you need to do it all over again?”

“There might be a few downsides,” Amber admitted. “And... yeah, there are a few things I think I should tell you, but I think the others should know too. So, maybe once we’re in our dorms tomorrow?”

“Ah-hah! You know that we’ll be in our dorms tomorrow,” Cassy said, a finger pointing at Amber.

Amber snorted. “Isn’t that part of whatever schedule we have going on anyway?”

“Maybe! I wasn’t paying attention,” Cassy said.

They returned to the elevator, and dropped back down to the lobby where even more magicals were milling around. Another clipboard person gave each of them a lanyard after checking their names off of a list that had their pictures. “We’ll be loading into the busses in a few minutes. Please be patient.”

“No problem,” Amber said. “Why all the army people?”

The clipboard person looked up, then glanced at the line of soldiers. “Ah, they’re here to prevent issues. We have had people harrass magicals before. Leave your bags here, please. We’ll take care of them.”

“And having a bunch of big dudes with big guns scares off the paparazzi,” Cassy said as she pushed her bags next to a stack of similar luggage. Yet another clipboard person was tagging them all as they came in.

The two of them moved past the elevator and deeper into the lobby. They chatted for a moment while Amber looked for a place to sit down, but before anything could really come of it, someone called out for them to join up and get ready to embark. Busses were pulling up outside, the sort of armoured vehicles that Amber had only seen in movies about prisons.

“This feels like the world’s strangest field trip,” Amber said.

“I know, right?” But instead of some boring museum, we’re going to another world,” Cassy said.

“One filled with people-eating monsters for us to fight.”

“Sounds like fun!”

Amber shook her head, and when they were asked to load onto the bus, she stayed close by Cassy’s side. The seats within weren’t the benches with the terrible mid-nineties patterns she was used to, but instead proper bucket-seats with armrests. Cassy took a window seat near the back, and Amber slid in next to her.

“I can’t wait to get going,” Cassy said.

“Really?” Amber asked.

“Yeah. Leaving Earth, it’s... something, you know?”

“I guess. I do want to see how the portal works.”

“Didn’t you go to Agartha before?” Cassy asked.

“I went there the hard way,” Amber said. “Used too much magic, and the next thing I knew, I was in a forest.”

“Yikes,” Cassy said.

Amber nodded, then looked around. The bus wasn’t exactly filling up. There was room for sixty or so people, but there were only a quarter as many magicals waiting to load on. She recognized one of them, Margaret, from team Helskor.

The girl noticed Amber staring and froze in the middle of the alley, her eyes locking with Amber’s for a moment before her cheeks reddened. She didn’t move, not until someone cleared their throat behind her and she stumbled into the nearest empty seat.

Weird.

A few more people found their seats, then Amber saw someone familiar and she couldn’t help but jump to her feet to wave her arm out. “Jade!”

The smaller girl looked up and met Amber’s eyes, confusion plain on her features.

Cassy stood up next to Amber and squinted ahead. “The little asian chick?” she asked.

Amber rolled her eyes. “Yes. That’s Jade. She’s in our team.” Louder, she called out again, gesturing to a seat in the row next to theirs. “Jade, come, there’s room.”

Jade did come over, but it was only reluctantly. “Uh, hi?”

“Hey,” Amber said. She extended a hand for a shake. I don’t know Jade well enough to know how to make her comfortable. This is a bit awkward. “I’m Amber Green, this is Cassie Bleriot. The three of us are on the same team. At least, I think.”

“Oh,” Jade said. She shook Amber’s hand, her grip soft and uncertain. “It’s nice to meet you both. Is our fourth member here?”

Amber shook her head as she sat back down. “Morgan’s already at the academy. We’re going to have to catch up with her tomorrow, I think.”

Jade took her seat across from Amber. “Thanks. How did you know who I was? I didn’t get a package or anything.”

“Time travel,” Cassy said.

Amber shifted. “That’s not wrong, but it’s... uh, complicated? I can explain a bit more once we’re in a more private place.”

There are way too many people here, and all of them are magicals. One of them could be that girl with the green eyes.

“O… kay?” Jade said.

“Sorry? So, uh, are you excited?” Amber asked.

Teasing a conversation out of Jade was tricky at first; they didn’t have the common ground that they had as magical girls on the same team, not yet. Cassy soon dominated the conversation, complaining in great detail about the speed of their bus and the usefulness of the guard driving around them. At least her snide remarks were amusing.

I’ll just need to give Jade some time, I guess.

The bus turned into a gated courtyard maybe half an hour after they left the hotel, and Amber found herself craning her neck to peek at all of the armoured cars and tanks parked around what looked like a miniature military base. The buildings were taller, more like normal office buildings.

A few trucks were idling nearby, the people behind the wheel all wearing fatigues, and there were teams with sniffer dogs going around and inspecting things.

“Tight security here,” Cassy said.

“This is the portal, right?” Amber asked.

“I guess so.”

The bus’s door opened and someone stepped in, a girl who didn’t look any older than Amber, with the kind of colourful dress that could only be a magical girl’s outfit. “Hey everyone!” she said, voice at maximum perkiness. “We’re about to drive through to Agartha. Keep your hands, feet, heads, and any other extremities inside the bus! If you have magical sensing abilities, you might feel more comfortable turning them off. If you don’t want to do that, you’ll find barf-bags just under your seats. Take one. Please. The stink always sets others off.”

Amber shared a glance with Cassy then listened as the girl went on.

“We’ll be heading over first, because we’re special like that. Once we arrive and the bus stops, we should all get out. There will be some paper-pusher there to tell you where to go. Don’t run off! You’ll be in Norumbega, so there might be creepy crawlies around to catch you if you run.” She smiled, big and happy and pleased. “Any questions?”

A few hands rose up.

“No? Awesome! Let’s go!”

***