After sleeping away the rest of the afternoon, Nina woke to find herself in darkness. Thinking about how it had been light when she had dozed off, she hopped from her bed and padded across the floor to the light switch by the door.

Not very bright, she thought after she flicked the switch. The light above her emitted a dull yellowish glow that gently illuminated the few bags of shopping as she pulled out a pair of pants and a loose grey sweater that she had bought earlier. Slipping into them before realizing that the shoes she had bought were nowhere to be seen, she put on a cheap pair of sandals that she had also picked up before pocketing her armband and leaving the room.

Like her bedroom, the hall was dark. Thankfully there was enough light for her to see as she ran her hand along the wall just in case. Crossing the empty living area, she made her way to the steps before heading downstairs.

“Oh, you’re up.” With her face lit up by the glow from her computer, Svanda smiled in the otherwise dark office.

“Yeah,” Nina replied as she walked over. “What are you up to?”

“Not much,” Svanda sighed as her gaze flicked between Nina and her screen. “I might go to sleep, it’s pretty late.”

“Is it?”

“It’s past midnight.” Svanda rose before stretching her arms above her head. “You slept all afternoon, so you're going to be up all night.”

“I’ll manage,” Nina smiled before pausing in thought. “Is there somewhere I can be outside?”

“Just go out the door.”

“I mean outside of JE-22.”

“Why do you ask?” Svanda frowned as she looked at Nina with a hint of suspicion.

“I just feel… stifled. It’s like the air here is stagnant or something.”

Svanda mused over Nina’s statement before shrugging. “It’s possible, but you would need help. It’s chaotic once you get further away from the main streets, and you have to travel through some confusing areas before you reach the edges of the building. I can show you sometime later.”

“OK.” Hiding her disappointment, she decided that she would just have to settle for the next best thing. “Can I use the airlock?”

“You want to go out the front?” When Nina nodded in reply, Svanda didn’t see why not. “Follow the switches to get out. To get back inside, the code for the steel door is 6521. To open the second door, set the dishwasher to run a heavy cycle and then press cancel twice.”

Nina ignored Svanda’s amused expression as she took a pen from the desk and wrote the instructions on her hand. While she could always go back the long way, she didn’t want to walk so far if she didn't have to. After thanking her, she moved off down the hall before flicking a switch at the end of the hall that opened the way to the empty office.

Closing the door behind her, curiosity got the better of Nina as she decided to have a look around the dark and empty office while she was alone. After peeking inside the drawers on the desks and checking the kitchenette cupboards, however, she realised that there wasn’t anything of interest. Unfazed, she pressed a button on the wall and waited as the mechanism in the door slowly clicked open before pulling it open. Still in the darkness, Nina made her way down the stairs and walked up the hallway to see something that surprised her.

Not far from the rusted bell she had used earlier was a lamp, the weak light highlighting the dust that drifted through the room. Looking around the rest of space to see if someone was there, she found that it seemed to be the same as how it was before. After debating whether or not to switch it off, she decided to leave it as it was and headed for the courtyard beyond the front door, which had been her target all along. If she couldn’t find the edge of the building, the front courtyard of The Cloud Orchestra was the next best thing. She wanted to leave from the front and not the back because unlike the small corridors behind the building, the airy road at the front felt somewhat like it was outside.

Surprised that the door was unlocked, she pushed it open and stepped out into the slightly cooler air. Looking for somewhere to sit, she instead found that in the corner of the courtyard was the reason why the lamp had been on and the front door was unlocked in the first place.

Sitting against the wall was a small figure. With small feet exposed under a pair of ripped jeans, the person’s knees were squeezed together in front of them. The glow of a cigarette poked out from the black hood that obscured the person’s face as Nina’s gaze flicked from the steadily ascending trail of smoke to the empty cans that were neatly lined up against the wall. About to kindly tell the person that they shouldn’t be here, she was surprised when the figure turned to her.

“What now?” Saela asked without bothering to hide the scowl on her face. Removing the cigarette from her lips so that she could take a sip from the can that had been sitting beside her, she resumed her earlier posture.

“Sorry, I didn’t know that you were here,” Nina stammered. Not only was Saela in a foul mood again, her plan of spending some time here had also just been squashed. Deciding that she was going to have to find somewhere else, she crossed the courtyard and headed from the street.

“If you know what’s good for you, you won’t tell Reina about this.” Flicking the ash from the cigarette into one of the empty cans, Saela shot her a cold gaze. “Or anyone else for that matter.”

“Of course,” Nina nodded before exiting the courtyard and turning behind the wall, her calm expression turning into a look of fright as soon as she rounded the corner. Hurrying her steps, she walked towards the main road without any goal in mind besides putting some distance between them.

And she has a gun! Nina thought as she turned onto the main street, the pedestrian traffic still flowing despite the hour. She didn’t know what she had done to get on the wrong side of Saela, but it certainly wasn’t somewhere that she wanted to be. Thinking that she would need to ask someone else if she had done anything wrong, Saela’s earlier threat reminded her that she would need to be delicate when the time came.

Nina had always liked having dirt on people because it had added to how she could control others. Having dirt on someone who seemed to hold a grudge against her, operated somewhat outside the law, and owned a gun, however, was not something that she found particularly appealing.

Finding that the number of curious gazes that were shot in her direction seemed to have reduced, she inwardly smiled at the effect that her new clothing had. She thought about how the air at the wide open main road felt cleaner than the dusty air of the smaller passages as her hair fluttered in the breeze. She then wondered where the breeze came from in the first place.

Unlike her wish for cleaner air, her desire for peace and quiet to accompany it seemed like it would remain unfulfilled. With her eyes drifting up the building façades that towered over each side of the street, she studied the assortment of different styles mixed together. Wooden balconies from different bars and pubs were full of people, while only floors above them were smooth marble arches of the next business. Walls of sheet metal studded with pipes would sit below wide tinted windows that ran for dozens of meters, neon signs hanging from other business to the side. She even spotted a large iron cage jutting out from a medieval-looking stone place, hanging some ten or so storeys above the street.

Her thoughts crossed to how people got around on this plate. Getting up and down seemed easy enough with the amount of elevators around, and there was also the fact that they had simply jumped down the stairwell when they had first arrived. Getting from one building to another, however, was something that she had yet to come to any conclusions on. She hadn’t seen any cars since she had been here, and she hadn’t seen any public transport either. Was there a train station somewhere, and if there was, was it even a train in the first place? The technology in this place seemed to be such a mishmash of old and new, so on which side of that spectrum would such a thing fall?

Dropping into a small store which seemed to sell food and drink, she found what she was looking for on the far wall. Like she would have expected from a corner store on Caecus, the fridge was filled with an assortment of cans and bottles, except these were all brands that she had never seen before. Quickly realizing that finding a label containing something generic like ‘water’ or ‘cola’ was not going to happen, she paused when she saw a can that matched what she had seen Saela drinking from earlier. Besides the stylized ‘vrirt’ in green that ran down the side of the red can, there were no other markings that gave her any idea of what was actually inside.

Must at least be drinkable, she thought as she took the can from the fridge before taking it to the counter. For all she knew, some of the cans here could contain cooking oil or something. After waving her card over the small reader in front of a dejected looking cashier, she exited the shop and decided to head back to The Cloud Orchestra. Taking the back route, that was. Opening the can as she walked, she peered inside at the dark liquid within before sniffing the contents. Noting that it didn’t smell so bad, she took a tentative sip as she turned the corner.

“….”

With a sigh, she dropped the can in a bin as she walked past, deciding to wait until she could drink from the tap when she returned. The drink in the can was something that she was familiar with, but even for her somewhat unrefined palette, the quality of the drink was horrible.

Who puts red wine in a can anyway?